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Text:
Marcus J. Borg and N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus (Harper Collins, 1999)
Schedule:
Oct. 16 - Introduction
Part I. How Do We Know About Jesus?
Oct. 23 - Chapter 1, Seeing Jesus: Sources Lenses, and Method (Borg)
Oct. 30 - No Class; Pancake Breakfast
Nov. 6 - Chapter 2, Knowing Jesus: Faith and History (Wright)
Part II. What Did Jesus Do and Teach?
Nov. 13 - Chapter 3, The Mission and Message of Jesus (Wright)
Nov. 20 - (guest lecture by Stu Irvine) Chapter 4, Jesus Before and After Easter: Jewish
Mystic and Christian Messiah (Borg)
Part III. The Death of Jesus
Nov. 27 - Chapter 5, Why Was Jesus Killed? (Borg)
Dec. 4 - Chapter 6, The Crux of Faith (Wright)
Part IV. “God Raised Jesus from the Dead”
Dec. 11 - Chapter 7, The Transforming Reality of the Bodily Resurrection (Wright)
Dec. 18 - Chapter 8, The Truth of Easter (Borg)
Dec. 25 - No Class; The Reason for the Season
Part VI. The Birth of Jesus
Jan. 1 - No Class
Jan. 8 - Chapter 11, Born of a Virgin? (Wright)
Jan. 15 - Chapter 12, The Meaning of the Birth Stories (Borg)
Part V. Was Jesus God?
Jan. 22 - Chapter 9, Jesus and God (Borg)
Jan. 29 - Chapter 10, The Divinity of Jesus (Wright)
Part VII. He Will Come Again in Glory
Feb. 5 - Chapter 13, The Second Coming Then and Now (Borg)
Feb. 12 - Chapter 14, The Future of Jesus (Wright)
Part VIII. Jesus and Christian Life
Feb. 19 - Chapter 15, The Truth of the Gospel and Christian Living (Wright)
Feb. 26 - Chapter 16, A Vision of the Christian Life (Borg)
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(1) Does God personally intervene in the world?
Yes___9___
No____0___
Don’t Know__3___
(2) Was Jesus’ body resurrected?
Yes__8____
No____1___
Don’t Know__4___
(3) Could one have videotaped the resurrection?
Yes___2___
No____9___
Don’t Know__2___
(4) Did Jesus actually proclaim that he was the messiah prior to the resurrection?
Yes___7___
No____2___
Don’t Know__3___
(5) Did Jesus actually predict his second coming?
Yes___6___
No____4___
Don’t Know__3___
(6) Did Jesus actually predict the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem?
Yes___7___
No____3___
Don’t Know__2___
(7) Jesus’ resurrection is most important because4 (a) It gives us eternal life,
3 (b) It represents the defeat of evil,
7 (c) It makes possible our own transformation into new beings,
(8) Can historical research challenge matters of faith?
Yes__7____
No____3___
Don’t Know___1__
(9) Faith is primarily
8 (a) believing in things for which there is little empirical evidence,
7 (b) being receptive to grace,
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1 (c) being able to overcome innate depravity and transform oneself more closely into a being
in Christ’s image.
Things to discuss: (1) Wright’s three legged stool: Reason, scripture, tradition, (2) reason as a
three legged stool: revelation, philosophy, and empirical science. (3) relation to previous
classes (How do We Read this Thing, and C.S. Lewis).
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Chapter 1, Seeing Jesus: Sources Lenses, and Method (Borg)
This way of seeing the gospels [as unproblematic historical narratives] led to a common
Christian image of who Jesus was and why he mattered. Who was he? The only Son of
God, born of the virgin Mary. His purpose? To die for the sins of the world. His message?
About many things, but most centrally about the importance of believing in him, for what
was at stake was eternal life (p. 3)
THE NATURE OF THE GOSPELS (pp. 4-6)
Two statements about the nature of the gospels are crucial for grasping the historical task:
(1) They are a devloping tradition. (2) They are a mixture of history remembered and
history metaphorized (p. 4)
The Gospels as a Developing Tradition (pp. 4-5)
Borg dates written gospels to experiences of Jesus groups from 70-100 AD who dealt with
two realities: (a) new settings and issues, and (b) the experience of the living Christ. When we
read the gospels we need to try to differentiate the material that plausibly goes back to Jesus
and the material that does not. To do this we analyze the texts themselves and compare them
with other sources of historical knowledge of the era (including Acts, various epistles, noncanonical gospels, and non-Christian sources). An astonishing amount has been discovered
about the gospels following this method, the consensus being that Mark was written first with
Matthew and Luke being arrived at by combining and adding to the Mark community’s
account of Jesus’ ministry while working in the material from the lost sayings gospel Q as
well as information relevant to their own communities. John is dated much later and much
more reflective of the John community (it contradicts the three synoptic gospels radically, for
example presenting Jesus ministry as taking four years, as opposed to one).
As we study what Jesus looks like with this understanding of the composition of the gospels,
then the above picture changes quite a bit.
History Remembered and History Metaphorized (pp. 5-6)
Metaphor involves seeing something as something else. Sometimes this is clear. Jesus isn’t
literally “the light of the world.” Sometimes this is less clear. According to Borg, Jesus
probably did restore sight to people. So this act is both literal history and a powerful
metaphor. Borg thinks that turning water into wine, the circumstances concerning the delivery
of the Sermon on the Mount, and the feeding of the multitudes are almost certainly literally
false yet metaphorically true. The latter was inserted later to get the reader to see Jesus as
Moses, delivering us from captivity and also as “the bread of life.” Again, not literally bread,
but metaphorically so.
A CRUCIAL DISTINCTION (pp. 6-8)
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Here Borg makes his strangest claim, that there is in a sense two Jesuses, the pre-Easter Jesus
and the post-Easter Jesus, which is what Jesus became after he died and who we continue to
experience. For Borg the biggest claim here is that the pre-Easter Jesus did not realize that he
was “Son of God, Word of God, Wisdom of God, messiah; very God of very God, begotten
before all worlds, of one substance with God, the second person of the Trinity” (p. 7) etc.
The way he defends this (and we will study this in detail) is the way these properties accrete
in the material written after Mark and the lost Q gospel. In addition Borg does not consider
the traditional view of Jesus as a credible human being. For Borg, traditional Christianity
recognizes the divinity of Jesus at the expense of his humanity.
MY LENSES FOR SEEING JESUS (pp. 8-9)
(1) Historical research into gospels as developing tradition, (2) historical study of ancient
Judaism, (3) historical research into the culture of Jesus’ time, and (4) cross cultural study of
religion. (examples- monks versus theologians, recent neurological work)
THE IMPORTANCE OF WORLDVIEW (pp. 9-11)
Fifth lens. Extent to which we can we bring our own religious perspective to the study versus
positivistic secularism. (examples- Kant on suppressing reason to make room for faith.
Danger of this. But also Davidson on principle of charity to argue this is unavoidable,
and confidence that reason and faith are mutually supporting, consider apologetics such
as C.S. Lewis’).
Weirdly, Borg does not address how our worldview must be different (i.e. Jesus didn’t have
computers). Consider biblical literalists and constitutional originalists.
METHOD: EARLY LAYERS PLUS CONTEXT (pp. 11-14)
Really fine discussion here of how we discern the order of the writings, and then how
historical context matters. Some of the most important evidence on ordering involves how the
Matthew and Luke communities take material from Mark or proto-Mark and then add stuff to
it. Here’s Robert Price with just a few examples of Matthew adding to or changing Mark.
He [the author of Matthew] amends Jesus’ teaching about divorce (Matthew 5:32;
19:9) as he read it in Mark 10:11-12. He lifts the blame from James and John (Mark
10:35) for jockeying for the chief thrones in the kingdom by having their pushy
stage-mother ask Jesus instead (Matthew 20:20)
Where Mark had Jesus rebuke the disciples for failing to understand the parables
(4:13), Matthew has him congratulate them for understanding them (13:51-52).
Where Mark had Jesus unable to cure those who lacked faith (6:5), Matthew says he
merely withheld the healing to punish them (13:58). Mark had Jesus exorcize a
single demoniac (5:1 ff), where Matthew makes it a matched pair (8:28). Where
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Mark (11:2-7) has Jesus ride a single beast into Jerusalem, Matthew puts him on two,
rodeo-style (21:2, 7). Mark had Jesus deflect the praise of the seeker who called him
“good master” (10:17-18), whereas Matthew, apparently from Christological anxiety,
rewords both the question and the answer so that the seeker no longer addresses
Jesus as ‘good,’ and Jesus no longer comments on it, but on the Torah instead
(19:16-17). Mark has the women flatly disobey the young man’s command to tell the
disciples to meet the risen Jesus in Galilee (16:8), but Matthew has them relay the
message after all (28:8). Jesus appeared to the women in Matthew 28:9-10, but he
hadn’t in Mark. Matthew had Roman troops guarding the tomb (27:65-66; 28:4, 1115); Mark didn’t. Mark had Jesus declare all food henceforth kosher (7:19), a point
Matthew conspicuously omits (15:1-20).
As for Matthew gratefully yielding to the superior inside information from Peter via
Mark, we only have to look at the only three places Mark says Peter (with James and
John) saw things the others did not-and we find Matthew ‘corrects’ them, too! The
private revelation on the Mount of Olives in Mark 13 grows to twice its length in
Matthew 24-25. The Transfiguration in Mark 9 has Jesus’ clothing glow eerily (9:3),
but Matthew makes Jesus’ face (17:2) to shine like the sun as well, in order to make
him like Moses in Exodus 34:29-35. Mark has Jairus ask Jesus to heal his daughter
while she yet lingers this side of the grave (5:23), only to be subsequently told she
has died in the meantime (5:35) while the old woman healed of her menstrual flood
has been detailing her whole, long story (5:33). But Matthew has Jairus approach
Jesus only once the girl has died (9:18). (Robert Price, The Case Against the Case for
Christ, pp.35-36)
An awful lot of Borg’s interpretation rest on taking Mark and the Q sayings gospel to be more
authoritative than the material in Matthew, Luke, and John that are inconsistent with Mark
and Q. The rest hinges on his comparative study of religions and broader ethical and
metaphysical views. Wright is actually more frustrating to read because he is less explicit than
Borg about how his broader ethical and metaphysical presuppositions influence his
understanding of Jesus.
Food for thought. Did the original Jesus communities believe in the bodily resurrection?
Here is the penultimate paragraph of Robert Price’s critique of Wright.
Wright insists that the gospel writers must have believed in a literal resurrection. But
can we be so sure of that, given certain elements of their narratives? Luke’s Emmaus
scene is transparently symbolic of the invisible presence of Christ among his
followers every Sunday at the breaking of the bread. (Wright finally admits this, but
he insists that it also really happened, more of his both/and-ism.) Matthew ends not
with an ascension to get Jesus off the stage of history (as in Acts), but with Jesus
assuring the readers (at whom the Great Commission must be aimed) that he will
continue with them until the end of the age. Does this not imply that the resurrection
was after all the inauguration of the metaphorical/spiritual sense in which Matthew’s
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readers, like modern Christians, sense Jesus intangibly with them? John’s story of
Doubting Thomas concludes with Jesus making an overt aside to the reader:
“Blessed are those who have not seen yet have believed.” Can this writer have
seriously intended his readers to think they were reading history? Such asides to the
audience are a blatant and overt sign of the fictive character of the whole enterprise.
As Barr pointed out long ago (Fundamentalism, 1977), the fact that Luke has the
ascension occur on Easter evening in Luke 24 but forty days later in Acts chapter 1
(something Wright thinks utterly insignificant!) shows about as clearly as one could
ask that Luke was not even trying to relate “the facts” and didn’t expect the reader to
think so. ( http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/rev_ntwrong.htm )
As we dig into the debate between Wright and Borg we’ll have a chance to explore these
passages.
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Nov. 6 - Chapter 2, Knowing Jesus: Faith and History (N.T. Wright)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
[Opening apology: The other chapters by Wright in this book specifically concern his
wonderful view of the meaning of Jesus. This chapter is just his philosophical musings prior
to that. But as such it is much more open to philosophical criticism/hairsplitting.]
Though Wright does not formally divide this short chapter, there are three main sections,
containing: (1) some meditations on the connection between history and faith that suggest that
all empirical knowledge must be grounded in non-empirical assumptions (pp. 15-19), (2) a
discussion of what we can historically know about Jesus (pp. 19-24), (3) a very brief
discussion of how faith can help the historian (pp. 24-27).
Though his discussion is nuanced, it is not nuanced enough (full disclosure: this is the kind of
thing a philosophy professor is probably always bound to think), and this lack of nuance is the
source of one of his main disagreements with Wright. Importantly, the way Wright presents
the dichotomy between faith and history leads him to leave out the contributions that a priori
apologetics and anthropological study of religion make to our quest for the historical Jesus.
The absence of apologetics is extremely problematic. If Wright took into account the
excellent a priori apologetics of his very own Simply Christian and C.S. Lewis’ Mere
Christianity he would (like Borg) be less likely to restrain Jesus’ political message to being
about Rome and Israel. If Wright took seriously the broader anthropological study of religion
he would better thematize the manner in which the historical Jesus was a “spirit person” in
Borg’s sense. But instead he opens himself up to the charge that he is overselling Jesus’
uniqueness.
1 Faith, History, and the Post-Modern Predicament (pp. 15-19)
Wright mentions “postmodernism” here as he inveighs against modernism and the
enlightenment, but he never really explains what any of these come to.
In his classic book, The Postmodern Condition Jean Francois Lyotard explicitly characterized
postmodernism as a distrust of meta-narratives, where meta-narratives are supposed to be
overarching explanatory stories such as the communist’s historical materialism, or the
capitalist’s combination of social contract theory with the pretense that “the invisible hand” of
the market is connected to a brain. Unfortunately, in describing postmodernism, Lyotard of
course constructed his very own meta-narrative. In this manner, philosophy always buries its
own undertakers.
In most texts, “postmodernism” is something less innocent than Lyotard’s skepticism. It
almost always combines (1) a healthy appreciation for the ubiquity of normative
presuppositions (cf. Wright’s claim that “All historians have theological presuppositions” (p.
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15-16), (2) with an unhealthy inability to take norms seriously (cf. “Faith prevents history
from becoming mere antiquarianism” (p. 27)). Strangely, this very inability to make sense of
objective norms is one of the founding moments of modernism, first diagnosed by Max
Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in terms of Weber’s account of
how instrumental rationality concerning means and ends was crowding out all other forms of
rationality, for example those concerning the desirability of the ends in question.
There are two ways this argument usually goes, the first as a critique of the objective
pretensions of any kind of science, and the second as a critique of “human sciences” such as
history.
First postmodern argument, against objective pretensions of science(1) Science is primarily concerned with describing the world in a way that
maximizes our ability to predict (determining how systems will evolve) and retrodict
(determining how systems did evolve).
(2) But in practicing science, scientists must compare theories on a wide variety of
normative components, such as simplicity, fit with other theories, and elegance.
(3) In practicing science, scientists must be able to assess each other’s evidence
normatively, as being more or less reasonable.
(4) Anyone who takes science to be a guide to what the world is really like is
metaphysically privileging prediction and retrodiction.
(5) Theory comparison, rational assessment, and privileging prediction and
retrodiction are all normative phenomena, concerning how people ought to behave.
(6) But then the ideal of a science which merely describes the world the way it is
chimerical, and the pretense that there are “facts of the matter” that the scientist can
describe are false. For communities with different norms will arrive at completely
different scientific theories, and there will be no fact of the matter about which
theory is better or worse than another.
(7) So science itself has no special authority, since scientists adopt their own sets of
norms on faith. Therefore there is no problem if the norms we adopt on faith lead us
to views that contradict science.
[Example: Rorty on Cardinal Bellarmine and Galileo.] Here Kant’s act of limiting reason to
make room for faith has been recreated with a vengeance. Interestingly, in the 60’s through
the 80’s this kind of argument was almost always associated with left-wing politics, but now
it is almost entirely associated with right-wing causes, such as teaching evolution in school
and global warming skepticism. In this respect, it is no accident that Wright now gestures at it.
But it’s only a good argument if you think there are no facts of the matter about normative
frameworks being more or less correct! Only then can premise (6) of the above argument be
correct. But it is not correct. Moreover, it is something that all Christians, conservative or
liberal, ought to reject (cf. C.S. Lewis on relativism in Mere Christianity). We criticize our
own society to the extent that it does not measure up to a transcendent morality. And both
Lewis and Wright (in Simply Christian) think that one of the key facts in motivating
Christianity is the realization that there is a higher moral realm that we systematically fail.
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Second postmodern argument(1) Human practices cannot be understood unless the understander represents them
as largely rational by the understander’s own normative lights.
(2) But then there is no fact of the matter about how human practices can be
understood, since people with different normative lights will represent human
practices differently.
The arguments for the first premise are some of the most difficult in the history of thought,
going back to the very beginning of the modern German university. The American
philosopher Donald Davidson is now globally associated with recent versions.
We can consider Daniel Dennett’s thought experiment concerning a Martian anthropologist to
help us make sense of it. Suppose the Martian could predict and retrodict games of chess
perfectly, just from an understanding of the distribution and evolution of the relevant
elementary particles. But also suppose that this Martian had no understanding of winning.
Does the Martian really understand chess?
No. If the Martian didn’t get the point of playing it, didn’t understand winning, then the
Martian would not get it.
So minimally, to understand much human phenomena of the sort historians concern
themselves, you just have to understand the point of those phenomena, which is normative,
involving how those humans should do certain things. Davidson and others then argue that
there is no way to understand the point of other humans’ activities unless you understand
people largely in terms of how you think things ought to be done.
Consider that attributing a false belief to someone requires attributing a massive amount of
other true beliefs that provide a background necessary for the person to have the enough of
the relevant concepts to even have the false belief. But then, to even represent others as
mistaken, we must represent them as largely correct by our own lights. But correctness is
normative. Different interpreters with radically different world views would attribute different
true beliefs to people they are trying to understand. [Example: Lance and Hawthorne on
Salem witches.]
However, once again, even if this is true, the conclusion that there is no fact of the matter
about how to interpret humans only follows if you think that norms cannot be objective. But if
anything is in common even from the most liberal to the most conservative Christian is that
certain norms (e.g. “love thy neighbor”) are objective, not merely the contingent projections
of powerful groups of people in human societies.
So the Christian can accept the first post-modern point, that all description presupposes robust
norms, without accepting that this in any way impugns our abilities to, in the words of
Einstein, understand the mind of God.
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2 What history alone teaches us about Jesus (pp. 19-24)
I think that, put as baldly as I have above, Wright would try to demur.
But this is exactly why he undersells the amount of historical knowledge that we now have
about the Bible. If you can’t really know from research following standard historical methods
and norms, then it’s less irrational to import other norms. Even though my non-Christian
colleagues who work on Gospel sources would take strong exception to some of Wright’s
claims here (Borg’s chapter much better represents scholarly consensus), Wright’s key
inference about the need for extra-historical knowledge isn’t obviously crazy, but there are
still two problems: (1) Wright’s conservative dismissal of Jesus’ political message is tied to
the concrete way he dismisses some mainstream scholarship, and (2) as with the kind of
conservative postmodernists who champion the teaching of evolution in school, he undersells
the extent to which extra-historical norms can also be rational guides to truth.
First pointAs we will see, Wright is best on attempting to reconstruct Jesus’ complicated relation to both
Roman imperialists and zealots opposing Roman imperialism. But he’s not nearly as good at
thinking about what this complicated relation might have to say about forms of imperialism
and cruelty that continue to exist in the millennia since the fall of Rome (in other texts, he’s
actually atrocious on heterosexism, simply making a kind of Aristotlean proper function
argument that no philosopher would).
Most mainstream scholars think that we can be much less confident of what the historical
Jesus might have thought about this stuff than on what he thought about other things. The fact
that the Gospels were written at the earliest after the first Judean war, and probably at least
edited significantly after the Bar Kochba rebellion just makes it impossible to have any
confidence in what Jesus thought about Jewish revolt. It’s just too plausible that the
precarious political situation of Jews in Rome during that period would influence New
Testament writing. Likewise, early Christian communities did not agree with each other about
Christianity’s relation to Judaism, and this disagreement is pervasive in the New Testament.
But again, as a historical point it becomes very difficult to know what the historical Jesus
thought about these issues (if anything).
When you add to these problems the historical priority of proto-Mark and the Q source,
Wright’s central focus on the historical Jesus as a particular kind of Jewish prophet becomes
problematic (and I should be clear that Wright’s picture is important and illuminating; the
worry is that it makes less central other aspects of Jesus about which we have more reason to
be historically confident).
So what is Wright to do? He subtly denigrates mainstream scholarship about the priority of
proto-Mark and Q, and in this manner the way that history probably shaped the writing of the
later sources. This is a very common theme among conservative historians of the Bible,
greatly exacerbated by (1) the fact that so many of them teach at universities where they have
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to sign faith statements confirming (among other things) the literal truth of scripture, and (2) a
willful misunderstanding of the role that skeptics play in the modern academia.
For universities to work the way they do, you have to have people around with implausible
views. This is for two reasons: (1) from Descartes we know that being able to show exactly
why clearly false views are false greatly improves our understanding of true views, (2) the
central theoretical virtue of science and philosophy is supposed to be humility, realizing that
one could always be wrong, and (3) for scholars to do good creative work, a thousand weirdos
must be able to bloom, and there is no way to separate the kind of weirdness that leads to
genius from the kind of genius that sometimes leads to really implausible views.
The ecosystem of science thus requires that smart people with radical, implausible views be
given space to develop these. At the very worst, responding to their challenges helps other
people clarify and develop their own views. And it is always remotely possible that any
scientific hypothesis is wrong.
So you can find five or six credentialed people out of thousands of climate scientists who
deny global warming. You can find five or six credentialed people believing anything. And
those five or six might be right! But that does not mean that they are right, or that their beliefs
are reasonable things to hold, given the current state of evidence. And it certainly does not
mean that policies concerning pollution should bet on their being correct.
So Wright is correct that there is scholarly disagreement, it is misleading when he says things
like, “Despite frequent claims, a century of research has failed to reach anything like a
consensus on a single one of the stages [of the composition of the gospels] in question, let
only on the hypothetical developments in between” (pp. 20-21). In particular he vastly
overstates the likelihood that proto-Mark and Q were not both used by the Luke and Matthew
communities. Just because a few responsible scholars defend alternative hypotheses, that does
not follow that there is “no agreement” in any kind of relevant way.
3 What faith contributes to our historical understanding of Jesus (pp. 24-27).
This brief discussion is most sophisticated when Wright talks about the distinction between
having knowledge of something and having knowledge that something is the case (what
Bertrand Russell famously called “knowledge by acquaintance” and “knowledge by
description”).
But there is a serious problem here too. The postmodern condition makes us realize that if we
think of history as scientific (concerned with helping us predict and retrodict), then the study
of history will presuppose extrahistorical norms (as noted earlier both because science
generally must, and because history involves interpretation of normative creatures like
ourselves).
This is fine. However, it illuminates nothing to call these extrahistorical norms “faith.” In the
first place, it is hardly clear what faith amounts to in this context. All Wright mentions is the
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experience that we have of a living Christ (p. 24). In the second place, if we go along with
understanding “history” in such a narrow positivistic manner (prediction and retrodiction),
then it is just clear that the relevant extra-historical norms go far, far beyond what anyone
would label faith.
And this becomes truly bizarre if we look at Wright’s own wonderful work in apologetics,
Simply Christian. Wright’s own book begins with a few realities, such as the universal
longing for justice and our experience of grace, and then reasons to important Christian truths
from these experiences (Lewis’ method in Mere Christianity is similar). This is not mere
faith, but reason, broadly construed.
But if the longing for justice provides some of the extra-historical norms relevant to reading
the gospels, one is going to work extra hard to interpret Jesus as critiquing social injustice
everywhere, not just in the Roman Empire.
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Nov. 13 - Chapter 3, The Mission and Message of Jesus (Wright)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
This is a lovely chapter; Wright presents the historical Jesus in terms of the following six
properties:
1. A first century Palestinian Jew who:
2. announced “God’s kingdom” (p. 33),
3. “believed that the kingdom was breaking in to Israel’s history in and through his own
presence and work” (p. 37),
4. summoned “other Jews to abandon alternative kingdom visions and join him in his” (p. 40),
5. warned of “dire consequences for the nation, for Jerusalem, and for the temple, if his
summons was ignored” (p. 42), and
6. had an agenda which “led him into a symbolic clash with those who embraced other ones, and
this, together with the positive symbols of his own kingdom agenda, point to the way in which
he say his inaugurated kingdom moving toward accomplishment (p. 47).
A couple of things are distinctive here. Wright really sees Jesus in terms of his interpretation
of the kinds of political debates that lead to the Judean War and the later Bar Kochba
rebellion. This is not an implausible view of what motivated the state to murder Jesus. But
what is interesting about Wright’s view is that the apocalyptic and eschatological words
attributed to Jesus are interpreted by Wright as true prophecies about what would happen if
zealots continued to oppose Rome in the way that they were. This is in part why (as we’ll see)
Wright is actually so far out of the conservative mainstream on eschatological issues.
This being said, there is still a transcendent message that can be gleaned from Wright’s
account, one not at odds with Borg’s on all points. It’s just that we have to do more work to
abstract it from what Wright takes Jesus to be saying about political issues of his time. This
contrasts with Borg, who directly theorizes about the kind of society (domination systems)
that Jesus is attacking.
JESUS THE PALESTINIAN JEW (pp. 31-35)
This is a wonderful brief description of what Palestinian Jews were likely to believe in the
first century:
1. A couple of centuries after Babylonian exile, which was still central to narratives
used to frame all manner of things,
2. Not abstract monotheism (which existed in Greece and Rome), but rather belief that
the God is our God, the God of Israel,
3. Belief that Jewish people are elect, at the center of history unfolding,
4. Belief in eschatology, that history is going somewhere,
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5. Belief that exile was not yet over in some sense, promise of forgiveness articulated
by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel not fulfilled! God’s presence does not fill the
second temple, as it had when Solomon dedicated the first one (1 Kings 8.10-11.2; 2
Chronicles 5.13; 7.2; cf. Isaiah 6.4),
6. Lots of prophets around articulating what is necessary for this promise to be fulfilled
in terms of political rebellion against Rome (consider Josephus’ description of the
Judean War and the later Bar Kochba rebellion); after the failure of Bar Kochba’s
rebellion rabbinical Judaism changed radically, focusing on inward study as opposed
to revolutionary change.
7. “Kingdom of God” denotes not a place where God rules, but the fact that He will.
Wright sees Jesus as fundamentally different from the kind of zealots who preached rebellion
against Rome, and thinks that Jesus drew from a deeper reservoir of Judaism where prophets
announce “good news.” This lends itself to something anti-eschatological. Jesus is first and
foremost announcing that the kingdom of God is here, even and especially under Rome’s
boot. And this realization will allow Israel to be morally pure, and hence a light unto the
world.
How lovely upon the mountains are the feet of the one
who brings good news, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion
“Your God reigns!”
Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices and shout for joy,
because in plain sight they see YHWH returning to Zion.
YHWH has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all
the ends of the world shall see the salvation of our god.
Depart, depart, go out thence, touch no unclean thing. . . for YHWH
will go before you and the god of Israel will be your rearguard.
Isaiah 52.7-12 (sums up theology in Isaiah 40-55)
Questions: (1) What does “The Kingdom of God is at hand” mean to you? (2) Do you see a
tension between this radical announcement and the Christian eschatological tradition, which
holds that things will be set right at some point in the future?
ANNOUNCING THE KINGDOM (pp. 35-37)
The zealots of Christ’s time thought that they were bringing about the kingdom, but that this
required defeating Rome. In the second rebellion, Bar Kochba intended to rebuild the temple
after defeating Rome. Jesus had a different vision.
Jesus’ announcement was thus revolutionary indeed--doubly revolutionary, in fact. Not
only did the kingdom challenge the power and policies of Herod, of Caiaphas, and of
Rome itself, as the revolutionaries would have insisted, it also challenged the militant
aspirations of the revolutionaries themselves. And it challenged, within all of that, the
injustice and oppression that Jesus saw as endemic within his own society. These things
hung together: a society that insisted angrily on its own purity toward outsiders would also
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maintain sharp social distinctions, and perpetuate economic and other injustices, within
itself. At the purely political level one could have predicted that someone who put his
finger on all this would end up being attacked form all sides and even misunderstood by
his own followers (p. 36).
Questions: How might our own eschatological views be radically mistaken? Can you
remember a compelling voice warning you that your own vision of “the kingdom of God” (or,
less poetically, the way things ought to be) is radically mistaken? Is there any better argument
for the depravity of man than the fact that we always seem to be in need of precisely this
correction from Christ, from the saints among us?
GATHERING SUPPORT (37-40)
There’s a neat analysis here in terms of four moves: invitation, welcome, challenge, and
summons.
Invitation- Give up crazy dream of revolution. Give up xenophobic nationalism. The real
revolution is, “turning the other cheek and going the second mile, the way of losing your life
to gain it, the way of a new community in which debts and sins were to be forgiven” (p. 38).
Welcome- Radically, radically open for the time. Not dependent upon the temple! “Jesus was
offering forgiveness to all and sundry, out there on the street without requiring that they go
through the normal channels. This was his real offense” (p. 39).
Challenge- Wright says it is not merely to live up to a timeless ethic, but rather tied more
particularly to “his firm belief that he was charged by Israel’s God with inaugurating the
kingdom” (p. 39). In this respect, the Sermon on the Mount should be seen as “the summons
to Israel to be Israel indeed at the critical juncture of her history, the moment when, in the
kingdom announcement of Jesus, the living God is at work to reconstitute his people and so
fulfill his long-cherished intentions for them and for the whole world” (p. 39). But Israel
being Israel means living up to a transcendent moral code: forgiveness, prayer, against
xenophobia and oppression.
Note that previous Jewish prophets did think that the salvation of Israel would spill over,
either through the destruction of other nations, or (with Isaiah) salvation spreading to the
world. This is Jesus’ view. Consider.
Matt 8.11-12 – ‘I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while heirs of the kingdom
will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.’
WARNING OF IMPENDING JUDGMENT (40-42)
The key passage is here.
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Jesus was warning his contemporaries that if they did not follow his way, the way of
peace and forgiveness, the way of the cross, the way of being the light of the world,
and if they persisted in their determination to fight a desperate holy war against
Rome, then Rome would destroy them, city, temple, and all, and that this would be,
not an unhappy accident showing that YHWH had simply forgotten to defend them,
but the sign and the means of YHWH’s judgment against his rebellious people. This
was not simply the present and local aspect of Jesus’ opposition to a more general
phenomenon called “the domination system”; it was the unique and decisive
challenge to the people of God at the crucial point in their history (p. 41).
So here is the big claim that Jesus was prophesying truly about the fall of the temple, and a
criticism of Borg’s interpretation. Note that Borg’s analysis of domination systems is present
on page 71-72. We will discuss this next week.
In addition to localizing Jesus in the first century Jewish Palestenian context, Wright’s key
argument in this section rests on the fact that the “little apocalypse” of Mark 13 borrows
language from Isaiah 13, Daniel 7, and other places, and that these earlier texts clearly refer to
the downfall of pagan empires. Thus, Jesus is talking about the downfall of the Jewish
kingdom.
But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will
not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the
heavens will be shaken.
"And then they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
And then he will send out the angel, and gather his elect from the four winds, from
the ends of the earth to the ends of Heaven. (Mark 13.24-27)
Interestingly, Wright’s interpretation of this is against the standard conservative reading that
Jesus is here predicting his second coming. Wright argues that Jesus is really just talking
about the coming of God and His people, and that this is how contemporary readers would
have understood Mark.
Questions- What might hang on this disagreement between Wright and Borg? Do we live in a
domination system? If so, what is Jesus calling us to do in reaction to it?
THE CLASH OF SYMBOLS (42-47)
Wright’s strongest exegetical claim is in this section, that Jesus’ biggest controversies with his
contemporaries have to do with eschatology, not ethics or religion.
According to Wright, Jesus saw that the Jews’ time had come but that they were in danger of
missing it, and this is part of the Jewish prophetic tradition of critique from within.
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Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees is interpreted by Wright as undermining the revolutionary
agenda of some Pharisees. If his fellow Jews took up the vocation of being lights to a world
they invited in, then they would not take up revolution.
But with the Pharisees (who also believed in life after death, in contrast to the more powerful
Sadducees) , Jesus moved against the temple hierarchy, which was a symbol of a corrupt and
hierarchical power structure. Wright interprets Jesus’ actions at the temple as saying that
when YHWH returned to Zion, He would not take up residence there.
This is a big thing. During the Judean war the second temple became the focus of much
dissent. And Bar Kochba based his rebellion on building a third temple.
As Josephus realized in a similar context, the cessation of sacrifice meant that
Israel’s God would use Roman troops to execute upon the temple the fate that its
own impurity, its legitimization of oppression, and its sanctioning of nationalist
resistance, had brought upon it. Israel’s God was in the process of judging and
redeeming his people, not just as one such incident among many but as the climax of
Israel’s history. Jesus saw the present grievous distortion of Israel’s vocation,
outward toward foreigners, inward toward the poor, symbolized catastrophically in
the present attitudes toward the temple: a symbol that had gone so horribly wrong
could only be destroyed (p. 45).
It’s interesting to note that “realized” is a success verb.
Perhaps the key bit of Mark concerning Jesus’ rejection of the temple’s role in mediating
God’s forgiveness is in Mark
And the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is
one, and there is no other but he; 33 and to love him with all the heart, and with all
the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is
much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." 34 And when Jesus saw
that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
And after that no one dared to ask him any question (Mark 12.32-4).
On page 46 Wright presents a reading of certain parables (e.g. the bridegrooms) as being
about eschatology, and argues that the replacement of feasting over fasting is a veiled
statement that the temple is already rebuilt in Jesus.
Questions- If Wright is correct that Jesus truly prophesied the destruction of the temple, how
important is this? Why or why not?
JESUS’ IDENTITY (47-51)
Here, Wright registers disagreement with Borg over the claim that Jesus took himself to be
the messiah. Unfortunately, he doesn’t engage with Borg’s arguments here.
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KINGDOM THEN - KINGDOM NOW? (51-52)
Fun question at the end.
Why would anyone take seriously the subversive wisdom of a strange teacher,
however fascinating, who believed that Israel’s God was going to act through him to
save Israel and the world, but who managed not only not to save himself from death
but not to deliver Israel and Jerusalem from crushing disasters of 70 and 135 CE (p.
51)?
This leads to the other essays.
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Nov. 20 - (guest lecture by Stu Irvine) Chapter 4, Jesus Before and After Easter: Jewish Mystic
and Christian Messiah (Borg)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
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Nov. 27 - Chapter 5, Why Was Jesus Killed? (Borg)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
Recap: Stu said that there was a lot of worry about Borg’s claim that Jesus did not realize that
his death was going to be salvific. Today we’ll have a chance to examine some of this
evidence better. However, we won’t really be able to assess Borg until we read Chapter 8,
where Borg adumbrates the different senses in which he takes Jesus’ death and resurrection to
provide salvation. Only with respect to these senses will it make sense to say that the
historical Jesus did or didn’t view his death in a certain way.
Let me first recap something though. The biggest worry about Wright and Borg is that they
are letting background commitments color their reading of the history in bad ways. In our
discussion of Chapter 2, it was clear that there is nothing wrong per se with using one’s
background commitments in doing history. Indeed, it’s unavoidable. The question concerns
whether the commitments help one get closer to the truth.
I have to say that I find Wright unreliable in one key way. His commitment to a traditional
Jesus of the evangelicals seems to lead him to read Jesus primarily through the lens of events
that occurred over forty years (the Judean War) and then ninety-five years (the Bar Kochba
rebellion) after Jesus died. This just seems crazy to me.
It is impossible to overstate the level of trauma brought about by the Judean War and the Bar
Kochba rebellion. These resulted in the death of over one million Jews; nobody knows how
many others were reduced to slavery. Vespasian’s great public works projects, the coliseum
and baths were indicative of a New Deal for Romans and allies, with emperors returning to
the original populist roots of Julius Caesar and Augustus- expanded citizenship, less rapacious
foreign policy, and shared wealth. The irony is that had Vespasian and Titus’ policies been in
effect, the Jewish War might not have happened. But both monumental structures, symbolic
of the return to Julius Caesar’s economic populism, were built and then run by Jewish slaves
seized during that very war, a war caused by four emperors moving further and further away
from this populism (peaking with Nero seizing land destroyed in the Roman fire for his own
palace, the grounds of which Vespasian turned into the public baths).
Early Christian communities had to define themselves in terms of these traumas, and this
clearly affected the later Gospels as well as Paul’s letters. But then it is just irresponsible to
read this reaction back into the historical Jesus, as Wright does. Especially as a criticism of
the malign role of zealots who spent more energy killing fellow Jews (even burning the entire
food supply of Jerusalem during the seige!) than fighting Romans. Early Christians had to
distance themselves from these zealots, and there is strong independent evidence that they did
with some success (Josephus notes that, like anti-zealot Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai,
Christian communities had managed to escape Jerasulem during the seige).
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Clearly Jesus’ message helped Christian communities not be zealots. But this is quite different
from Wright’s claim that Jesus’ ministry was primarily about warning Jews not to follow
zealots.
It is possible that Jesus was primarily concerned with prophesying the disaster and attacking
the zealots, but the strongest evidence Wright can muster comes from the texts we know to be
written after the revolt. And the emphasis is just not there in the texts that plausibly date
earlier. This is why Wright tries to cast doubt on over a hundred years of scholarship about
the dating of the New Testament sources.
Not only does Wright displace the historical Jesus in time, making events that occurred forty
and ninety five years after his death central to his ministry. But he displaces him in space too.
Jesus was Galilean, not Judean. Galilee was separated from Judea by Samaria. It was highly
Hellenized, with over twenty Greek communities and one of the world centers of Cynic
Philosophy within walking distance of Jesus’ home. It is not clear if Galilean Jews even paid
the temple tax. Scholars like Burton Mack have provided good evidence that the parables of
these wandering Greek philosophers were the archetype of many of Jesus’ own parables.
Again, this goes against Wright’s evangelical beliefs. Wright takes the Roman Catholic
Church to have perverted early Christianity by importing too much Greek philosophy. But
this leads him to again undersell the cosmopolitan and ethical Hellenistic influences on the
historical Jesus. Yes, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew under the Roman boot. But he was also a
Galilean Jew of the same time, one whose sympathies are clearly with Galilean Hellenistic
cosmopolitanism as well as some key tenants of Greek Cynic philosophy.
Borg on the other hand takes it as almost a priori that God does not intervene in history. He
does this out of an admirably Christian recognition of the problem of evil, and a Christian
desire to not be ethnocentric. But it does constrain his reading of the history quite a bit.
With Borg it might be fairer to say that this is the historical Jesus we get if we don’t think
God interferes with history and if we think other humans have been divine in the same way
that Jesus was.
But this is somewhat unfortunate, because many of Borg’s key claims about the historical
Jesus can still be defended if you do think Jesus was unique in history and part of a God
intervening in history. But it’s extra work to tease them out.
Likewise, many of Wright’s claims can be defended if you take them to be about the vision of
Jesus in early Christian communities who were traumatized by the Judean revolt, the Bar
Kochba rebellion, and then later oppression.
Quick Reminder. When two intellectuals disagree about something so wide ranging and deep,
it’s almost certain that they are both wrong to some extent and almost certain that they are
both right to some extent. I think that when philosopher Leibniz said that he never read
falsehoods he meant to be gesturing at precisely this.
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PROLOGUE: JESUS’ DEATH AND HIS OWN PURPOSE (79-82)
Borg is admirably forthright about how much scriptural evidence there is against his position.
Consider:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3.16).
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, (and) for our sake he was
crucified under Pontius Pilate (Nicene Creed).
Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great
suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be
killed, and after three days rise again (Mark 8.31; see also 9.31 and 10.33-34).
Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into
his glory?
‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of hear all that the prophets have declared!’
Then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things
about himself in all the scriptures (Luke 24.25-27).
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ
died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15.3).-[Note: this
was probably written in 54 C.E. and recounts an experience that happened three
years after Jesus’ death!]
In Chapter 8 (perhaps the theologically richest in the book) Borg will present five
interpretations of the significance of Jesus’ death, each grounded in interpretations of the New
Testament. His absolute insistence is that these reflect a post Easter understanding of Jesus,
not an understanding that Jesus himself had pre Easter. He gives five reasons.
(1) Most scholars see the passion predictions in Mark as being added later. This is for two
reasons, the first circular- the predictions fit the narrative of what actually happens very well.
The second is not circular. If Jesus really predicted his own death this clearly then there would
not be traces of his followers having shattered hopes after the crucifixion (Luke 24.21 as well
as Mark during the whole time from arrest through execution).
(2) Borg will provide independent arguments that the predictions are “prophecy historicized
rather than prediction fulfilled” (81). Much of his argument for this concerns the fact that
when these things are attributed to Jesus they are in narrative settings that preclude any
disciples from having heard what is being said, and in narrative settings that are historically
implausible. So we already have reason to believe that the author is adding stuff (one must
note that these practices were not uncommon in histories of the period).
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(3) Borg thinks the entirety of the historical sources do not support the claim that that what
really mattered to Jesus was what would be accomplished by his death. This is in part because
Borg doesn’t see the fate of the temple as being central to Jesus’ ministry in the way that
Wright does.
(4) Borg finds the Wright’s Jesus unattractive. Though he doesn’t expand on this, just
consider how much Wright’s God has in common vis a vis the destruction of the temple (an
event where one million Jews died!) with the God of those who blamed New Orleans for
Hurricane Katrina. And to Wright, this warning was the main point of Jesus’ ministry!
(5) Positively, for Borg the weight of historical evidence point to a different direction.
There is the body of Jesus’ wisdom teaching, his passion for justice as a social
prophet, his healings and inclusive meal practice, all of which are difficult to
reconcile with the claim that his atoning death was what was most central to his
messianic vocation. Was he doing all of these other things “on the side,” as it were?
Or were they what was central (83)?
Note that Borg is not saying that Jesus could not have foreseen his death. He is saying that
Jesus did not foresee his death as having the salvific function that it did indeed have. Again,
we can’t fully adjudicate this claim until we read Chapter 8, Borg on this very function.
Questions: How compelling is Borg here? Is this a difference that makes a difference? If so,
what differences? Why might it be important that Borg or Wright are correct about whether
the pre-Easter Jesus saw his own death as being salvific?
THE FINAL WEEK: MARK’S ACCOUNT (83-84)
This is a wonderful, concise account of Mark’s account of the final week of Jesus’ life. Borg
finds it all historically plausible.
(1) Riding into Jerusalem from the east on the back of a donkey as Pilate enters from the west
(Mark 11.1-10; Matthew adds a reference to Zechariah 9.9)
(2) Three controversy stories: “Pharisees ask him a trap question: is it lawful to pay taxes to
Caesar? Sadducees sought to stump him by telling a tale of a woman who was married to
seven brothers: in the afterlife, whose wife will she be? A scribe asked him what the greatest
commandment is (Mark 11-12).
(3) Overturning the tables in the temple (Mark 11. 15-17)
(4) Parables about the temple authorities (authorities are wicked vineyard tenants who keep
everything for themselves, scribes eat widows houses!) and the temple itself (not a stone left
standing) (Mark 12-13).
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(5) Temple activities the cause of arrest (Mark 11.18 and 12.12).
Note that (3)-(5) all involve critique of temple’s role in economic domination system. This is
interestingly different from other zealots.
Questions: Here I’m even less sure that Borg and Wright’s views on this very thing are
differences that make a difference. For Wright, Jesus’ call for Israel to be Israel is a call for it
to not be part of the domination system. Any thoughts? Maybe if we can think of analogous
criticisms of our own age? The call for “America to be America” versus a call for America
just to be moral? The first seems to me to be more of a rhetorical strategy. . .
THE FINAL TWENTY-FOUR HOURS: THE PASSION STORIES (84-91)
In the introductory part, Borg differentiates the following: history remembered, prophecy
historicized, imaginative elaboration, and purposive interpretation.
The biggest claim concerns historicizing prophecy, and the New Testament writers are
constantly making interesting references back. Consider that Mark 15.34 echoes Psalm 22.1,
Mark 15.29 echoes Psalm 22.7, and Mark 15.24 echoes Psalm 22.18. See the discussion on
page 85 of this example.
On imaginative elaboration. Consider that Jesus’ prayer at Gethsame (Matthew 14.36) had no
witnesses!
Purposive interpretation is when the post Easter Christian communities re-read the pre-Easter
Jesus in terms of what happened the crucifixion.
How Much Is Historical? (86-87)
Mark is the most authoritative. Matthew and Luke elaborated from this, and John is unreliable
both because it is so much later and because it contradicts Mark in so many ways.
From Last Supper to Arrest (87)
Borg takes the Mark account to be historically plausible in all essentials, a last supper, a
betrayal, and arrest in Gethsemane. He is less certain about the actual words of the last supper,
but admits that double attestation (1 Corinthians 11: 23-25 and Mark 14:22-24) provides some
evidence for them being Jesus’ actual words.
From Arrest to Crucifixion (87-88)
The problem with this material is that none of the disciples witnessed it. So the reporting of
actual words is problematic. Though Pilate’s weird “What is truth?” response is a gift that
keeps on giving to the philosopher.
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More problematic- The historical Pilate was a butcher, actually recalled because of the
brutality with regards to Jews and a Samaritan uprising in particular, and it’s probable that the
Gospel sources are whitewashing him. Consider this from wikipedia:
In all four gospel accounts, Pilate appears in association with the responsibility for
the death of Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew, Pilate washes his hands to show that he
was not responsible for the execution of Jesus and reluctantly sends him to his
death.[3] The Gospel of Mark, depicting Jesus as innocent of plotting against the
Roman Empire, portrays Pilate as reluctant to execute Jesus.[3] In the Gospel of
Luke, Pilate not only agrees that Jesus did not conspire against Rome, but Herod
Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee, also finds nothing treasonable in Jesus' actions.[3]
Most scholars think this stuff is in the gospels because of the precarious political situation
after the Jewish revolt.
Moreover, it seems implausible that Jesus would even go before Pilate or that there was a
Jewish trial. The details are implausible, that a trial would be at night or that the Sanhedrin
would convene during Passover. Moreover, the charges look suspect from a historical
perspective.
On the other hand, the description of what crucified prisoners had to undergo all rings true.
Crucifixion (88-91)
Crucifixion tells us he was killed under Roman authority, and that he was almost certainly
seen as a rebel (chronically defiant slaves were the other category of people crucified).
Matthew (“His blood be upon us and our children” Matthew 27.24-25 and also Pilate’s wife’s
dream in 27.19) and John are the most anti-Semitic sources, making the people as a whole
responsible for Jesus’ death.
At the bottom of page 89, Borg shows why this is utterly implausible, and how understanding
of the political situation after the fall of the temple leads us to understand why the sources had
to be written the way they are.
Finally, the discussion between Caiaphas and Jesus in Mark seems utterly unreliable to Borg,
because none of the disciples were witnesses, it is not likely that the trial took place, and
because it seems to be a projection of the post-Easter Christ into the supposed meeting.
Borg accepts that Roman and Jewish authorities probably collaborated in killing Jesus, but
thinks that the reason was because of Jesus’ challenge to the domination system. The actual
public actions attributed to Jesus in Mark support this. The other stuff has Jesus doubting in a
way that actually supports Borg’s idea that Jesus and disciples had epistemic limits, or seems
to be a projection of post Easter understanding of Christ. It is remarkable that this stuff is in
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Mark limited to scenes that none of the disciples could have witnessed and scenes that are
historically implausible.
Questions: Again. Suppose that Borg is right. What does this change? Anything?
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Dec. 4 - Chapter 6, The Crux of Faith (Wright)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
Intro (93-95)
Wright first discusses four starting points.
(1) That Jesus believed that through him prophecy is being fulfilled.
(2) That first-century Jews thought of suffering and martyrdom in very particular ways.
Exodus (retold every Passover and invoked in other festivals), “was all about the long night of
slavery getting darker and darker and then God braking through with freedom and hope” (94).
There was also intense memory of Babylonian exile and the promise of redemption after
intense suffering.
One of the most interesting things here is that Wright considers the way Jewish people wrote
about the Maccabean revolt and interpreted the manner in which suffering and death of the
“teacher of righteousness” could be redemptive.
It would be interesting to know if there is any evidence about other resurrection stories having
cultural currency in Galilee at the time, e.g.
The third factor contributing to the crucifixion story is again pagan mythology. The
theme of a divine or semi-divine being sacrificed against a tree, pole or cross, and
then being resurrected, is very common in pagan mythology. It was found in the
mythologies of all western civilizations stretching from as far west as Ireland and as
far east as India. In particular it is found in the mythologies of Osiris and Attis, both
of whom were often identified with Tammuz. Osiris landed up with his arms
stretched out on a tree like Jesus on the cross. This tree was sometimes shown as a
pole with outstretched arms - the same shape as the Christian cross. In the worship of
Serapis (a composite of Osiris and Apis) the cross was a religious symbol. Indeed,
the Christian "Latin cross" symbol seems to be based directly on the cross symbol of
Osiris and Serapis. The Romans never used this traditional Christian cross for
crucifixions, they used crosses shaped either like an X or a T. The hieroglyph of a
cross on a hill was associated with Osiris. This heiroglyph stood for the "Good One,"
in Greek "Chrestos," a name applied to Osiris and other pagan gods. The confusion
of this name with "Christos" (Messiah, Christ) strengthened the confusion between
Jesus and the pagan gods.
At the Vernal Equinox, pagans in northern Israel would celebrate the death and
resurrection of the virgin-born Tammuz-Osiris. In Asia Minor (where the earliest
Christian churches were established) a similar celebration was held for the virginborn Attis. Attis was shown as dying against a tree, being buried in a cave and then
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being resurrected on the third day. We thus see where the Christian story of Jesus's
resurrection comes from. In the worship of Baal, it was believed that Baal cheated
Mavet (the god of death) at the time of the Vernal Equinox. He pretended to be dead
but later appeared alive. He accomplished this ruse by giving his only son as a
sacrifice ( http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html ).
I don’t think one should make too much of this kind of thing.
However, if stories like these were also part of the cultural currency of first century Galilee,
then that might strengthen Wright’s claim that Jesus was likely to think of his martyrdom as
redemptive.
(3) That the “bush telegraph” functioned well in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ murder. This
is a very good point against Borg’s claim that since none of the disciples witnessed Jesus’
trial, we should have much less confidence in the veracity of it.
(4) The opening claim seems nuts to me. Here it is, “Once a story has taken hold of people’s
minds and imaginations, it is told again and again with minimal alteration” (95).
However, Wright makes another claim here, that the stories of Jesus’ death have a
“remarkable convergence” (95). If that is true, then it provides evidence for the truth of the
core parts of the narrative.
The Messianic Task of Jesus (96-100)
This section rehashes the discussion from Chapter 3. In summary:
He seems to have construed his vocation in terms familiar in the stories of the
martyrs. He would go ahead of the nation to take upon himself the judgment of
which he had warned, the wrath of Rome against rebel subjects. That was what his
royal vocation demanded. That, I believe, lies at the heart of the New Testament’s
insistence that Jesus died the death that awaited others, in order that they might not
die it (98).
The most remarkable thing about this interpretation is that if it is correct, then Jesus was a
deluded failure. His death did not allow “Israel to be Israel.” Forty years and then again one
hundred years later, there were revolts of exactly the kind Jesus supposedly died to prevent.
For just this reason, I find Wright’s claims here almost inestimably weird, far weirder than
Borg’s claim that the pre-Easter Jesus did not see his own death as salvific. It will be very
interesting to see how Wright ties this view of Jesus as a “kingdom prophet” with his view of
the resurrection.
The Political Reasons (100-102)
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Most of this is a brief statement of Wright’s view of the trial scene in Mark (which is largely
unchanged in Luke and Matthew).
55 Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for testimony against
Jesus to put him to death; but they found none. 56 For many gave false testimony
against him, and their testimony did not agree. 57 Some stood up and gave false
testimony against him, saying, 58 "We heard him say, "I will destroy this temple that
is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.' " 59
But even on this point their testimony did not agree. 60 Then the high priest stood up
before them and asked Jesus, "Have you no answer? What is it that they testify
against you?" 61 But he was silent and did not answer. Again the high priest asked
him, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?" 62 Jesus said, "I am; and
"you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,' and "coming
with the clouds of heaven.' " 63 Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "Why
do we still need witnesses? 64 You have heard his blasphemy! What is your
decision?" All of them condemned him as deserving death (Mark 14: 55-64)
Wright’s view about this is distinctive. With the conservatives, he wants to argue that we have
no reason to doubt the historical veracity of this, and that Pilate is not being whitewashed.
But note that if one is just reading the texts (and accords John a historical veracity that few
scholars do), then one is likely to read them in the following way:
We know from the gospel accounts that Pilate made no less than four attempts to
avoid condemning Jesus. He told the Jewish leaders to take Jesus and settle the
matter themselves (John 19:6-7). He tried to refer the case to Herod. He tried to get
the Jewish leaders to receive Jesus as a prisoner who was granted release at Passover
time (Mark 15:6). And then he tried to compromise by offering to scourge Jesus and
then release him. The Romans were noted for their impartial justice. (
http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/mark15v1.htm ).
One very strange thing is that Wright does not mention Luke 13:1 here, which (as is of a piece
with the political courage of the Luke community, as evidenced in the text) certainly does not
whitewash Pilate.
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose
blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2He asked them, “Do you think that
because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other
Galileans? 3No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4Or
those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think
that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell
you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did” (Luke 13:1).
On the other hand, if you look at all the other historical sources, you do see a pattern of
whitewashing by the church, culminating in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and his
canonization (!) in the Ethiopian church.
31
First note that Josephus and Philo describe someone unrecognizable in the canonical and noncanonical Christian texts (below from http://carrington-arts.com/cliff/JOEGOS3.htm ).
Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 299-305, c. 39-40 CE.
One of his [Tiberias’] lieutenants was Pilate, who was appointed to govern Judea.
He, not so much to honour Tiberias as to annoy the multitude,... When he, naturally
inflexible, a blend of self-will and relentlessness, stubbornly refused... he feared that
if they actually sent an embassy they would also expose the rest of his conduct as
governor by stating in full the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and
wanton injuries, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the ceaseless and
supremely grievous cruelty. So with all his vindictiveness and furious temper, he was
in a difficult position.
War 2.9.4. p. 479
At this the multitude had great indignation; and when Pilate was come to Jerusalem,
they came about his tribunal, and made a clamour at it. Now when he was apprised
beforehand of this disturbance; he mixed his own soldiers in their armour with the
multitude, and ordered them to conceal themselves under the habits of private men,
and not indeed to use their swords, but with staves to beat those who made the
clamour. He then gave them the signal from his tribunal (to do as he had bidden
them). Now the Jews were sadly beaten, that many of them perished by the stripes
they received, and many of them perished as trodden to death, by which means the
multitude was astonished at the calamity of those who were slain, and held their
peace.
One has absolutely no trouble imagining this Pilate sending Jesus to his death without
bothering to wash his own hands.
And, in addition to comparing this with the canonical sources, we see further whitewashing in
the Gospel of Peter (which very pointedly absolves Pilate of all wrongdoing in a stronger
manner than the canonical gospels),
Apart from its docetic tendency, the most striking feature of the narrative is its
complete exoneration of Pilate from all responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus.
Pilate is here well on the way to the goal of canonization which he was to attain in
the Coptic Church. He withdraws from the trial after washing his hands, and Herod
Antipas takes over from him, assuming the responsibility which, in Luke's passion
narrative, he declined to accept. Roman soldiers play no part until they are sent by
Pilate, at the request of the Jewish authorities, to provide the guard at the tomb of
Jesus. The villains of the piece throughout are 'the Jews' - more particularly, the chief
priests and the scribes. It is they who condemn Jesus to death and abuse him; it is
they who crucify him and share out his clothes among themselves (F. F. Bruce, op.
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cit. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospelpeter.html ; you can go to the page
to read the extant fragment).
Note that this gospel was probably rejected because of its doceticism, the view that Jesus’
physical body was an illusion. This view is manifest to some extent in a lot of non-canonical
sources, including the Gospel of Phillip, the Gospel of Judas, Peter, and the Acts of John.
People who followed this heresy did not take communion, and it was cause for a lot of
division, finally being destroyed in the Albigensian Crusade of the early thirteenth century.
There is no scholarly consensus on whether Peter was influenced by the other scholars or
when it was written, though most scholars accept that it might reflect a very early tradition,
but that there is no reason to be confident one way or the other.
The whitewashing reaches absurd heights with the Acts of Pilate, a supposed official Roman
report concerning the crucifixion. This text completely exonerates Pilate as well as supports
anti-semitism. Note that these Acts were cited and taken as authentic by both Justin Martyr
and Tertullian. Tertullian actually writes that Tiberius was so moved by Pilate’s report of
Jesus that he wanted to have Jesus recognized as a God, but was prevented from doing so by
the Senate. This is absolutely absurd. But in any case, the Acts of Pilate make for fascinating
reading. They are on-line at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelnicodemusroberts.html.
This is clearly part of a pattern of whitewashing Pilate as a way for early Christians to try to
distance themselves from rebels to avoid persecution and slavery. Contra Wright, the Gospels
have to be read in light of the other sources.
I’ve gone to some length here to show that Wright’s cavalier dismissal is wrong. I think his
equally cavalier dismissal (elsewhere in this Chapter) of the claim that there are anti-Semitic
elements in the New Testament deserves an equal amount of discussion, though that would
more properly be placed in a course on Christian anti-Semitism. However, we must be aware
that key elements of Wright’s reading are in common with traditional Christian anti-Semitism.
Jesus came to warn the obstreperous Jews to get their house in order. They didn’t do it, so
God crushed them, killing a million or so in the process. And they deserved it. It’s a very
small step from this interpretation to the view that Jews who still don’t accept Christ remain
an affront to God, deserving pogroms and worse.
Against the conservatives, Wright wants to argue that Jesus is not prophesying his own
second coming here. I think later in the book he will defend this claim.
The Beginnings of Christian Reflection about Jesus’ Death (102-104)
This section has three very nice points. First, Wright is very good at evoking just how weird
it is that the Jesus movement survived, contrasting it with the movements of John the Baptist,
Simon bar Giora (71 C.E.), and Simeon ben Kosiba (136 C.E.).
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Second, he notes how early it was that Christians started affirming that Jesus died for our sins
according to scriptures (1 Corinthians 15.3). This is the best argument to the conclusion that
the pre-Christian Jesus himself thought this would be the case.
I wish Wright would engage with Borg’s strongest argument on this point, which is that traces
of disciple’s surprise and disappointment, as well as Jesus’ own pleas to God (at Gethsemane
and on the cross), don’t make sense if Jesus was preaching that his death was a necessary part
of our salvation.
Finally, Wright begins to explain his specific interpretation of the crucifixion.
To say that the messiah had died for sins in fulfillment of the scriptures was to make
a claim, not so much about an abstract atonement theology into which individuals
could tap to salve their guilty consciences, as about where Israel and the world now
were within God’s eschatological timetable. The sins that caused Israel’s exile had
now been dealt with, and the time of forgiveness had arrived (103).
We’ll get a lot more of this when we contrast Wright and Borg on the resurrection, which
includes the philosophically richest discussion in the book. Wright notes here that the task for
him is to describe how Jesus’ conception of himself as Jewish prophet then becomes the good
news for the whole world. In this respect Wright’s historical work on Saint Paul is really
important (e.g. Galatians 4.1-11).
Jesus’ Death Then and Now (105-107)
This is the nicest section of this chapter. Wright begins by agreeing with the idea that Jesus’
death is involved in the remission of guilt, forgiveness from God, and life after death. But he
thinks that these things are just part of the project. Here is a quite remarkable paragraph,
where Wright’s manifest strengths as a theologian are on full display.
The larger story concerns the victory over evil as a whole that was won, according to
the New Testament, on the cross. . . It quickly becomes clear, of course, why this
theme is regularly ignored: there is an obvious credibility gap between such a claim
and the realities of the world. The now-traditional scheme avoids this problem by
projecting the victory on the one hand inward, into the heart and conscience of the
believer, and on the other hand forward, into the state of affairs after death or at the
end of the world. In neither case is there way outward change in the world, except in
that the forgiven sinner will now live in a different manner, out of gratitude for
forgiveness and in the power of the Spirit working in his or her life (105).
Wright does not want to disparage this, except to note that it is not the whole story. Wright
sees a “larger and stranger” (ibid.) story at work. He focuses on how “suffering, prayer,
martyrdom, church unity, the eucharist” all involve Jesus’ death and all involve defeat of evil
beyond the mere psychological help for the believer.
34
It is not enough to analyze the causes of oppression and suffering in the world and to
encourage people to stand up to them. Darker powers, unseen forces, are involved in
these struggles, as Walter Wink and others have eloquently argued; and only the
belief that the principalities and powers have in fact been led as a bedraggled and
defeated rabble in Christ’s triumphant procession will provide the right foundation
for a true Christian political activity. Without being rooted in the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus, such activity all to quickly becomes a “religious” version of
one or another contemporary ideology (106).
Wow!
This is impressive in many ways. Most notably, it gives the reality of evil the seriousness it
deserves and takes seriously and the role of Jesus’ death and resurrection in defeating the
ground of such evil. It will be fascinating to see where Wright goes with this.
Question: How do suffering, prayer, martyrdom, church unity, and the eucharist, as well as
Jesus’ martyrdom help in the defeat of evil?
35
Dec. 11 - Chapter 7, The Transforming Reality of the Bodily Resurrection (Wright)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
This is quite a wonderful chapter, one of Wright’s best argued thus far.
Resurrection in First-Century Judaism (pp. 111-115)
The Sadducees, who were the ruling elite, did not believe in any sort of resurrection. Many
Jews believed in life after death as a sort of strange disembodied state. Philo of Alexandria
believed this and possibly the Qumran sectarians did as well. At the other end of the spectrum
were the Pharisees, who believed in bodily resurrection, which was part of a narrative of the
ultimate triumph of God.
Wright’s main claim is that “resurrection” refers specifically to the understanding of the
Pharisees.
His brief discussion of the evolution of life after death in the Old Testament tradition is
fascinating. Two of earliest mentions seem to Wright to be metaphorical, concerning with the
revived fortunes of Israel.
Isaiah 26.19 Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust,
awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth
to those long dead.
Ezekiel 37.1-14 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the
spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2
He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were
very dry. 3 He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord
GOD, you know." 4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them:
O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones:
I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and
will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you,
and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD." 7 So I prophesied as I
had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling,
and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on
them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no
breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and
say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." 10 I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast
multitude. 11 Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.'
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12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to
open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring
you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I
open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my
spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you
shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act," says the LORD.
But with later sources, the context and wording make it very difficult to see these as
metaphorical. In 2 Maccabees 7 the revolutionaries taunt their torturers with the fact that their
bodies will be revived whole. The earlier model for this picture seems to be Daniel.
Daniel 11.32-35 32 He shall seduce with intrigue those who violate the covenant; but
the people who are loyal to their God shall stand firm and take action. 33 The wise
among the people shall give understanding to many; for some days, however, they
shall fall by sword and flame, and suffer captivity and plunder. 34 When they fall
victim, they shall receive a little help, and many shall join them insincerely. 35 Some
of the wise shall fall, so that they may be refined, purified, and cleansed, until the
time of the end, for there is still an interval until the time appointed.
Daniel 12:2-3 2 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are
wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to
righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
There are two points here: (1) prior to the resurrection death is like sleeping, and (2) after the
resurrection life will be great. Consider:
Wisdom 3.7-8
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them for ever.
Interestingly, Wright considers a later rabbinical debate concerning exactly how resurrection
would work, and notes that both sides of the debate accepted that resurrection was bodily,
with Shammaites thinking that it worked in the manner of Ezekial (God starting with our
bones and adding to it) and Hillelites thinking God created a new body from scratch.
[Interesting sidenote: the Shammaites were anti-divorce and the Hillelites were pro-divorce;
Jesus seemed to be on the Shammaites side in that regard.]
Philosophical Question: Without a soul, how is the new body you and not just someone else
with your memory? Consider various ways the transporter on Star Trek might have worked.
Wright also cautions us not to confuse the resurrection, which would be a great event in the
future, with prophetic claims that this or that prophet might come back, such as when the
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crowds think maybe Jesus is Elijiah or Jeremiah or John the Baptist (e.g. Mark 6.16 ‘But
when Herod heard of it, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised"’). If the
resurrection was initially a metaphor for the moment of Israel’s renewal, and then became
treated as something concrete, we can see why it would be expected to all happen at one
moment.
But to return to our philosophical question, what happens to people during the meantime,
before their bodies are resurrected. This is where souls or spirits are invoked.
Wisdom 3.1-7
But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt-offering he accepted them.
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
And when these disembodied spirits visit us, they are referred to as “angels” or “ghosts” such
as when Peter’s voice is heard. The author of Acts and Luke clearly distinguishes these from a
bodily resurrection.
Acts 23.8
8 (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the
Pharisees acknowledge all three.)
Luke 24.37-39
37 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 He
said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39
Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost
does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."
Early Christianity Within its Jewish Context (pp. 115-119)
This section contains arguments to the conclusion that early Christians really did believe that
Jesus had been bodily resurrected.
38
Wright’s key argument form is that alternative hypotheses signally fail to explain what was
distinctive about the early Christian communities. According to Wright, if Jesus had merely
continued as a spiritual presence with them: (1) the language would have been far different
(angel, spirit, ghost, and so on), (2) no sense could be made of the claim that his appearances
stopped, with the last being to Paul (since Jesus is still spiritually with us), and (3) no sense
could be made of the new age dawning. Wright isn’t very explicit on this last point, but I
think he will clarify it in future chapters.
The Evidence: Paul (119-121)
Here Wright focuses on 1 Corinthians 15. Wright makes five points.
First, Paul is announcing something decisive that happened.
Second, Paul announces that he was the last to see Jesus and that it was quite dramatic.
1 Corinthians 15.8
Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of
the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
Third, Paul announces a new eschatology, with Jesus’ resurrection the beginning of the end,
and the end of the end being the universal resurrection. Now we are in the end days, with
Jesus ruling as Messiah and Lord.
1 Corinthians 15.12-28
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say
there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then
Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our
proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found
to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ--whom
he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not
raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is
futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died in Christ have
perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to
be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those
who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of
the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will
be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at
his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over
the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority
and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26
The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For "God has put all things in subjection
under his feet." But when it says, "All things are put in subjection," it is plain that
this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all
39
things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one
who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.
Note that death itself is destroyed at the end.
Fourth, the resurrected body will be transformed into a different kind of body. That’s how
Wright interprets the following.
1 Corinthians 15.35-49
35 But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they
come?" 36 Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And as for
what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of
wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to
each kind of seed its own body. 39 Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for
human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There
are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one
thing, and that of the earthly is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another
glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in
glory. 42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what
is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in
weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual
body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written,
"The first man, Adam, became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving
spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.
47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of
heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the
man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50 What I am
saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Wright argues that “spiritual body” does not mean “non-physical body,” but rather a physical
body animated by God’s spirit as opposed to one animated by mortal souls (which animals
have too).
Fifth, the resurrection should give hope to the present.
1 Corinthians 15.29-34, 50-58
29 Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead?
If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? 30 And why
are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? 31 I die every day! That is as certain,
brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you--a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our
Lord. 32 If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what
would I have gained by it? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for
tomorrow we die." 33 Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals." 34
40
Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more; for some people have no
knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will
tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the
dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable
body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54
When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on
immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been
swallowed up in victory." 55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is
your sting?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But
thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the
Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Question: Is Paul giving away too much here? Compare with what Jesus said or with the
Buddha’s arrow sermon.
The Evidence: Gospels (121-123)
None of Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20 are consistent with any of the others.
Wright argues that this is what you would expect if eyewitness testimony were being
recorded, and if the witnesses were not colluding. This is actually a big topic though, since
scholars think that the Matthew and Luke communities had access to Mark, or to a text known
as proto-Mark. If it was proto-Mark, then all three could have been changed further during
copying. Or the communities could have been self-consciously correcting.
In any case, what is remarkable (according to Wright) is that for all their other differences, all
four gospels agree that Jesus was transformed into a new mode of physicality in a way
consistent with Paul’s earlier account in 1 Corinthians 15.
In addition, this aspect of the story is without precedent in previous Jewish literature (Ezekiel
37, Daniel, 12, 2 Maccabees 7, etc.)
Borg will discuss the Gospel sources more closely as he disputes Wright on these very points.
Historical Conclusion (123-125)
Some weird statements about “the Enlightenment” here.
Wright essentially thinks that any reading of the history will be hopelessly circular, but that he
has no doubt that at least the empty tomb could have been photographed.
The Meaning of Easter (125-127)
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Wright is insistent that Jesus’ resurrection is not just the promise of personal immortality and
not just the promise that Jesus will be with us, but also the dawning of a new age, with the
renewal of all creation.
The personal hope for resurrection is located within the larger hope for the renewal
of all creation, for God’s new heavens and new earth. Take away the bodily
resurrection, however, and what are you left with? The development of private
spirituality, leading to a disembodied life after death: the denial of the goodness of
creation, your own body included. If Jesus’ resurrection involved the abandoning of
his body it would make exactly the wrong metaphorical point (126).
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Dec. 18 - Chapter 8, The Truth of Easter (Borg)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
Brief note. One weird thing about both Chapters 7 and 8 is that neither mentions the Didache,
which contains no mention of Jesus’ resurrection, though it does contain mention of a general
resurrection to come prior to God’s return. Given that recent scholarship on the relations
between the Didache and Matthew is leading people to date the Didache earlier and earlier,
this is evidence that some early Christian communities did not see Easter as central to the
faith.
THE CENTRALITY OF EASTER (p. 129)
Borg agrees with Wright that Jesus lives, Jesus is Lord, and that Jesus was experienced after
his death.
THE HISTORICAL GROUND OF EASTER (p. 130)
Here’s where it starts to get tricky:
I see the empty tomb and whatever happened to the corpse of Jesus to be ultimately
irrelevant to the truth of Easter. Tom sees the gospel stories of Easter (empty tomb and
appearance stories alike) as ultimately going back to multiple eyewitnesses. If I understand
him correctly, one could have videotaped what the gospel eyewitnesses saw if one had
been there. I see them as the product of a developing tradition and as powerfully true
metaphorical narratives (130).
THE IRRELEVANCE OF THE EMPTY TOMB (pp. 130-135)
Borg makes three points here.
First, he differentiates resuscitation and resurrection, with the latter being a new kind of
existence.
Second, he makes three points about 1 Corinthians 15. A. Paul does not make claim that there
was an empty tomb. B. Paul not only uses the word “appeared” which is often used to refer to
a kind of vision in the Bible, but equates his own vision of Jesus with those chronicled in the
Gospels. But from Acts 9, 22, and 26 we do know that this was a vision, because the other
people with Paul didn’t see Jesus.
Acts 9.1-7
Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so
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that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them
bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus,
suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a
voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" 5 He asked, "Who are
you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But get up
and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." 7 The men who were
traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one.
Visions and apparitions don’t involve physical bodies. C. Given all of Paul’s language in 1
Corinthians 15 (which we read last week) about how different a body animated by a soul is
from a spiritual one (the former is perishable, made of flesh and blood, and of the earth and
dust), it’s really indeterminate whether this is a new mode of physicality or something nonspiritual.
Third, Borg thinks the resurrection stories in the Gospels are metaphorical. Consider
Luke 24.13-35
13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about
seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things
that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came
near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And
he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?"
They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas,
answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the
things that have taken place there in these days?" 19 He asked them, "What things?"
They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in
deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and
leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had
hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the
third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group
astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not
find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of
angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the
tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him." 25 Then he
said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these
things and then enter into his glory?" 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the
prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. 28 As
they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were
going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost
evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. 30 When
he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to
them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished
from their sight. 32 They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us
while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"
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33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven
and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, "The Lord has risen
indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" 35 Then they told what had happened on the
road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Borg asks us how much of this could have been videotaped. Remember that Acts explicitly
tells us that Paul’s experience could not have been videotaped.
Borg thinks it’s a metaphor for the deeper truth that Jesus is with us often when we don’t
realize it and that sometimes we do powerfully realize it.
Question-A problem with this interpretation is that Paul seems to tell us that Jesus’
appearance to him is the last such appearance.
1 Corinthians 15.3-8
3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried,
and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that
he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five
hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some
have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to
one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
To be fair, it’s not totally clear that Paul is saying that Jesus won’t appear again. Maybe Paul
isn’t saying that Jesus appeared last chronologically, but rather is saying that he, Paul, is the
least of those appeared to. This makes complete sense, given verse 9.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted
the church of God.
THE TWO CENTRAL MEANINGS OF EASTER (pp. 135-137)
Jesus lives, and he is Lord.
None of us would draw the conclusion from seeing again a deceased loved one that that person is
God.
But the followers of Jesus did. I think the affirmation is grounded in part in their
experience of Jesus before his death. I think they experienced him as quite
extraordinary even during his lifetime. The other ingredient was their experience of
him after his death as having the qualities of God: like God, he was a spiritual
reality; like God, he could be experienced anywhere. Hence, “Jesus is Lord” (136).
This affirmation also ties to Jesus’ critique of the domination system.
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Jesus is Lord. Rome is not. The domination system is not. The lord of conventional
wisdom is not. If Jesus is Lord, then all the would-be lords of our lives are not (136).
THE COMPETED PATTERN OF GOOD FRIDAY AND EASTER (pp. 137-142)
Rejection/Vindication (pp. 137-138)
The domination system killed Jesus, but they are not the real lords.
Acts 2.23-24, 2.36, and 4.10-11
23 This man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of
God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. 24 But God
raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be
held in its power.
36 Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made
him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified."
10 Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is
standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom
you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. 11 This Jesus is 'the stone that was
rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.'
Defeat of the Powers (138-139)
Disincarnate spiritual powers that hold us in bondage. Weirdly the NRSV version differs in
translation on just this. While Borg has Paul saying that God in Christ, “disarmed the
principalities and powers” (138) NRSV gives us.
20 Colossians 2.15
15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them,
triumphing over them in it. 16 Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters
of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths.
Revelation of the Way (p. 139)
Death and resurrection as a metaphor for our own internal spiritual process. Paul is clear about
this and it is in Mark.
21 Galatians 2.20
20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now
live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me.
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(Romans 6) What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace
may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized
into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so
that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too
might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like
his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that
our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and
we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8
But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We
know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer
has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life
he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and
alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your
mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members
to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have
been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of
righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under
law but under grace. 15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but
under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to
anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin,
which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks
be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the
heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you, having
been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in
human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your
members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present
your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. 20 When you were slaves
of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 So what advantage did you then
get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.
22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage
you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but
the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
22 Mark 8.34
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become
my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Consider. C.S. Lewis’ metaphysical version of how this works given the paradox of
repentance, that anyone truly capable of repenting would not need to, and how Jesus’ death
and resurrection makes that possible.
Revelation of the Love of God (139-140)
God giving up that which is most precious to him. John 3:16.
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Isaiah 43.4
4 Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in
return for you, nations in exchange for your life.
Sacrifice for Sin (140-142)
There is a very nice discussion here. The negative sense of sacrifice is that the temple no
longer has a monopoly on forgiveness. And the positive sense is the fact that God loves us
unconditionally, “Christ is the end of the law.”
Borg here critiques a common understanding of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice:
Among some Christians, it is seen as an essential doctrinal element in the Christian
belief system. Seen this way, it becomes a doctrinal requirement: we are made right
with God by believing that Jesus is the sacrifice. The system of requirements
remains,, and believing in Jesus is the new requirement. Seeing it as a metaphorical
proclamation of the radical grace of God leads to a very different understanding.
“Jesus died for our sins” means the abolition of the system of requirements, not the
establishment of a new system of requirements (141).
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Jan. 8 - Chapter 9, Jesus and God (Borg)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
Borg believes the following:
“Yes, the post-Easter Jesus is a divine reality-is indeed one with God.” And about
the pre-Easter Jesus, I would say, “He is the embodiment or incarnation of God”
(146).
This is actually quite radical: the pre-Easter Jesus did not think of himself divine or having a
divine mind in addition to his human mind (e.g. could Jesus have solved Fermat’s last
theorem? or unraveled the Higgs Bosom?) Contra, this kind of thing,
Matthew 26.53 53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at
once send me more than twelve legions of angels?
for Borg, the pre-Easter Jesus did not have the power of God.
Finaly, for Borg, though post and pre Easter Jesus are absolutely extraordinary, he does not
claim to be at all sure that Jesus is the only embodiment or incarnation of God.
And yet Borg affirms the Nicene Creed! How is this possible? In this remarkable chapter we
find out.
THE PRE-EASTER JESUS AND GOD (pp. 146-148)
Borg reiterates the claim from Chapter 4 that at the very most the pre-Easter Jesus may have
thought of himself as messiah in the sense of being anointed by God (remember that this case
rested upon the Markan priority, recognized by almost all responsible scholars, and the way
stronger messianic language is in Matthew sometimes added to the very passages in Mark
where Jesus pointedly refuses to say the things Matthew has him say!)
But there is also the provocative claim that a necessary condition for being the light of the
world is not thinking that you are. This is certainly true today! Consider Jerusalem Syndrome,
recognized by the DSM. Borg’s study of Spirit People across history and cultures reveals that
while Spirit People are often very eccentric, they don’t go around proclaiming their own
specialness, but rather share the good news about a spiritual reality open to all.
Unfortunately, when Wright criticizes Borg here, he focuses only on the psychological
reasoning that Borg gives, and not on the clear ways that the Matthew community is
redaciting Mark, nor on the context in which the John community were writing (Syrian
Stoicism).
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So,
What I am confident about is that Jesus as a Jewish mystic knew God. Moreover, as
a Spirit person and healer he would have experienced himself as one “anointed by
the Spirit,” whether he used this particular phrase or not (147).
Neat parallels on being anointed.
Luke 4.18 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to
bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of
the Lord's favor."
Isaiah 61.1 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed
me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2 to
proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to
comfort all who mourn; 3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion-- to give them a
garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise
instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the
LORD, to display his glory.
As Incarnation of God (pp. 147-148)
First, incarnational language usually is taken in terms of seeing God as “out there” quite literally.
God is normally someplace else (“away on business” in the memorable phrase by Tom Waits),
but he visited us for a while in the form of Jesus Christ. Borg doesn’t like this! Borg contrasts
this with the panentheistic view, defined well by wikipedia thusly:
Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "allin-God") is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of
nature and timelessly extends beyond it. Panentheism is differentiated from
pantheism, which holds that God is not a distinct being but is synonymous with the
universe.[1]
Simply put, in pantheism, God is the whole; however, in panentheism, the whole is
in God. This means that the universe in the first formulation is practically the whole
itself. In the second formulation, the universe and God are not ontologically
equivalent. In panentheism, God is viewed as the eternal animating force behind the
universe. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest
part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in
turn "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that God and the
universe are coextensive, panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe.
In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God.[2] Much
Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism.[3]
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Borg’s Christian panentheism, leads him to the following kind of formulation.
God is not “out there” but “right here” as well as more than right here, both
transcendent and immanent (p. 147).
This actually makes a lot of sense of a great deal of New Testament writings including the
good news that seem at first contradictory. The kingdom of God is both at hand (absolutely
immanent) and something to come, through a veil which we can only now see dimly
(temporally and perhaps more profoundly transcendent). It also is part of the answer to the
problem of evil for some theologians and philosophers. Would be fun to do a course on
panentheism some day.
Borg continues.
God is the encompassing Spirit in whom we live and move and have our being.
Within this view, Jesus as a Spirit person was open to the presence of God. Writers
on spirituality sometimes speak of “emptiness” as a condition of the psyche that
makes possible being filled by God. For whatever combination of reasons (genetic
inheritance, socialization, spiritual practice, and so forth), we may imagine that Jesus
was so “empty” in this sense that he could be filled with the Spirit. But he is not a
visitor from elsewhere, sent to the world by a god “out there.” He is not different in
kind from us but as completely human as we are. In the fully human life of this
utterly remarkable Spirit person, we see the incarnation of God (pp. 147-148).
Question: How do you experience this emptiness/openness today in being filled by God. Is
this tied to your vocation? What other relationships and roles make you receptive to being
filled with God?
THE POST-EASTER CHRISTOLOGICAL IMAGES (pp. 148-153)
As a historian, Borg feels confident that the christological metaphors occurred after Jesus’
death and are what accounts for the changes to the Mark material, differences with Paul’s
letters, as well as the strangeness of the much later John.
One should note that doubters of the historical Jesus (Earl Doherty and Robert Price) actually
tell Borg’s story backwards, arguing (I think unpersuasively) that Paul did not take Jesus to be
historically real, that Christ was thought of in Christological terms from the get-go, and then
that the historical material was projected back to a fictitious Jesus on later. I don’t think this
accounts for the priority of Mark and the Q material appropriately. Nor does it account well
for the Q material’s literary parallels with the Cynic philosophy of Galilee at the time of
Jesus’ life.
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But it is ironic to note that Wright’s dismissal of Markan priority (combined with the priority
of the authentic letters that Paul wrote), actually provides a huge amount of ammunition for
those who deny the existence of a historical Jesus at all!
As a Christian, Borg feels confident that the reason the christological metaphors occurred
after Jesus’ death is because of the remarkable Easter experience, after which language used
to describe the post-Easter Jesus was sometimes projected back onto the historical Jesus, in
Matthew and John especially in ways that are at variance with the historical Jesus as presented
in Mark and from character we get from reading Q closely.
Again though, as we will see with the discussion of the nativity stories, the Matthew/Luke
additions still do entail central truths about Jesus (e.g. light of the world, our true lord-as
opposed to religious leaders, the wealthy, or the political elite, etc.). Here Borg will say more
about how the John additions, as history even further removed from people who might have
known Jesus and from Mark, do reflect an experience of the post Easter Christ.
The Origin of the Images (pp. 148-149)
One, the Easter experience, an experience that continues to this day.
Two, the remarkable experience of the historical pre-Easter Jesus, which inspired the most
exalted language.
Again, some of this was later projected into the pre-Easter Jesus’ self understanding, a process
that began with Matthew’s redaction of Mark and culminated in John and the sayings of the
gnostic Gospel of Thomas (on parallels and how the John community was also on the
periphery of the early church- http://users.misericordia.edu//davies/thomas/johnthom.htm ).
It’s very interesting to note the commonalities between Thomas and John here.
1. The image of the living God as an unknown Father (GTh 3, GJn 6:57; GTh 18,
GJn 8:44; GTh 40, GJn 15:1). Of particular interest is the phrase the living Father ov
path,r zw/n which occurs in both gospels and never in the Synoptics, or anywhere
else in the New Testament.
2. The world is a carcass (GTh 56, GJn 15:19 & 17:14). It belongs to the devil (GTh
18, GJn 8:44). It is marked by the contrast between flesh and spirit (GTh 29, GJn
3:6, 6:63).
3. The beginning and the end of the world are one and the same with the present
(GTh 18, GJn 8:44, GTh 19, GJn 17:5). Both gospel engage in speculations about the
beginning, but on a scale nothing like the developed cosmogony of the second
century Gnosticism.
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4. The Redeemer received everything from the Father (GTh 61, GJn 3:35 & 13:3).
Who keeps his words will not taste death (GTh 1 & 111, GJn 8:51).
5. The Redeemer has come into this world of poverty (GTh 28, GJn 1:10-12)
6. The Redeemer is light (GTh 77, GJn 8:12).
7. The Redeemer is the teacher GTh 13, While for the most part in John teacher has a
negative connotation of a Jewish leader in GJn 13:13-14, the Washing of the Feet
episode, Jesus reveals what it means to be a dida,skaloj. To be a true teacher, means
to be different from the socially accepted teachers.
8. The Redeemer speaks with remarkable assurance. He needs no proof for his
testimony (GTh 3, GJn 4:42 & 8:13). He is the light (GTh 77, GJn 8:12). He is the
living water (GTh 13, GJn 4:13). This particular idea, that is, that the redeemer needs
no proof for his words, parallels the Stoic idea of cataleptic impressions.
9. The discipleship is about becoming like the Redeemer (GTh 108, GJn 7:38),
renouncing the world (GTh 110, GJn 7:35), being like a little child (GTh 4, GJn 3:4),
and worshipping the Father (GTh 15, GJn 4:21-23).
10. The most important prerequisite of the discipleship is listening to the words of
Jesus (GTh 19, GJn 15:7, see also: GTh 1 & 111, GJn 8:51) and keeping them (GTh
78, 79, GJn 8:32).
11. The disciples will never see death (GTh 1, 111, GJn 8:51, GJn 21:23 a tradition
that the beloved disciple will not die: The saying spread abroad among the brethren
that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die,
but, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?"
12. The Redeemer has departed which makes his words even more important (GTh
38, GJn 7:34). One has to seek him, and will not always find him.
Note that 8 and 10 are the most theologically problematic for someone of Borg’s
temperament, in that they too often lead to the kind of contemporary gnosticism that bedevils
Christianity, the view that faith is the acceptance of a historical story involving Jesus and that
the great commission is primarily about getting others to believe this story (and usually threat
of hell, for that matter).
Alexander Mirkovic presents further evidence that 8 and 10 makes the most sense if you see
both communities as coming out of Syrian Christianity (an expression of cataleptic Stoicism’s
promise that the sage can directly intuit these things, and used against the Pharisees in both
Gospels) and if much of the rest also makes sense you see both communities as being rejected
by other Syrian religious communities of the time.
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One very important difference is that in John 6 Jesus says that if we eat of his flesh we will
become like him, Thomas, on the other hand, promises that we will become Jesus.
GTh 108 Jesus said, "Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself
shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to that one.
John 6- The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give
us his flesh to eat?" 53 So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those
who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on
the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who
eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living
Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live
because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which
your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."
Both are gnostic to the core, but Thomas 108 goes over the line into heresy.
The Christological Images as the Voice of the Community (pp. 149-150)
These reached an apex with the John community, involving the following kinds of assertions:
I am the light of the world.
I am the bread of life.
I am the way, truth, and life.
I am the true vine.
I am the resurrection and the life.
I am the door.
I am the good shepherd.
Before Abraham was, I am.
I and the Father are one.
Whoever has seen me has seen God.
See John 6 for much of this. Again, Borg sets himself up for criticism by Wright by placing so
much of his case on the psychology of actual people who say such things. His argument is
weakened by not considering the role of such utterances in Syran cataleptic stoics, and not
reiterating the fact that Jesus explicitly distances himself from such self-glorification in the
earlier sources (Mark and Q) and that Matthew changes Mark on these very points. This (in
addition to the scholarship about Thomas and John) is the really strong evidence that Jesus did
not utter these things about himself pre-Easter.
But Borg takes them to be true affirmations about how people experienced Jesus both pre (i.e.
“there was one among us as Jesus of Nazareth is also the Word of God, the Son of God, and
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the Wisdom of God” and post Easter (Jesus is the Christ who is a light in the darkness,
spiritual food, and whom leads from death to life).
The Christological Images as Metaphors (pp. 150-52)
There are many different philosophical accounts of metaphors. According to mine, metaphors
work because we often conclude important truths from falsehoods. Consider, “The man in the
corner with the martini is a spy,” said of someone drinking water out of a martini glass. This
falsehood implies (and so from it we can infer) the true sentence that the man in the corner is
a spy.
If I say a style of jazz is cool, I am saying literally something false, but the assertion allows us
to infer a lot of truths about the style of jazz, truths also inferable from the literal assertion that
something is cool. Note that these inferences often involve homologies where differences
between, for example, hot and cold jazz map onto differences associated with heat and cold.
It is important to keep all of this in mind when Borg asserts that some bit of scripture is
metaphorical, or that it is metaphor presented as literal (as he does with the nativity stories).
So clearly, Jesus is not literally a vine, bread, light, or a door. What truths can we infer from
the metaphorically true, but literally false assertions that he is? What does this “seeing as”
something literally false teach us?
Is Jesus literally God’s biological offspring? What did “Son of God” meant in ancient
Judaism.
Son of God as IsraelExodus 4.22 22Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD: Israel is my
firstborn son.
Hosea 11.1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
Son of God as King of Israel2 Samuel 7.14 14 I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he
commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows
inflicted by human beings.
(from coronation ceremony) Psalm 2.7 I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said
to me, "You are my son; today I have begotten you.
Son of God as angelJob 1.6 6 One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD,
and Satan also came among them.
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For other spirit people called sons of God in other texts, see footnote 12. Seeing Jesus as all of
these things allows one to infer much involving “special intimacy and agency” vis a vis God.
Notedly, sons could speak for their Fathers in courts at the time!
Interestingly, in the synpotics and in Paul and John Jesus is spoken in feminine terms as
Sophia.
On Sophia
Proverbs 8.22-31 (wisdom and creation) 22 The LORD created me at the beginning
of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. 23 Ages ago I was set up, at the first,
before the beginning of the earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains had been
shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth-- 26 when he had not yet made earth and
fields, or the world's first bits of soil. 27 When he established the heavens, I was
there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28 when he made firm the skies
above, when he established the fountains of the deep, 29 when he assigned to the sea
its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out
the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I
was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited
world and delighting in the human race.
Proverbs 1.20-33 (speaking through prophets) 20 Wisdom cries out in the street; in
the squares she raises her voice. 21 At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance
of the city gates she speaks: 22 "How long, O simple ones, will you love being
simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
23 Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out my thoughts to you; I will make my
words known to you. 24 Because I have called and you refused, have stretched out
my hand and no one heeded, 25 and because you have ignored all my counsel and
would have none of my reproof, 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock
when panic strikes you, 27 when panic strikes you like a storm, and your calamity
comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. 28 Then they
will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but will not
find me. 29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD,
30 would have none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof,
9.1-6 (as banquet) Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars. 2 She
has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table. 3 She
has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, 4 "You
that are simple, turn in here!" To those without sense she says, 5 "Come, eat of my
bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. 6 Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk
in the way of insight."
See also Sirach 24 and Wisdom of Solomon 7.22-8.1
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Some scholars claim that the Sophia language in New Testament (books on this in footnote
15) shows that incarnation of divine Sophia is the earliest understanding of Jesus.
Again, to see Jesus as Son or as the divine Sophia is not to literally take him to be either, but
to attribute properties associated with Sophia to Jesus and to make a homologous projection
God/Jesus to Fathers/Sons.
Weird that people take the Son talk literally, but the Sophia talk metaphorical. Maybe had
Jesus been female it would have been the opposite?
The Christological Images as Confessional Language (pp. 152-153)
More on the Thomas/John christological language as being metaphorically true.
THE CREED AND THE TRINITY (pp. 153-155)
Nice story about changing the creed given cultural understandings in South Africa, where
being an “only son” is not a good thing, but being an oldest brother is.
For Borg, the creed: (1) affirms the experience living Christ, (2) reconciles this experience
with monotheism (which is panentheistic for Borg), and (3) affirms what happened to Jesus
was of God. But it does these things in a culture which was also trying to reconcile Greek
philosophy with early Christianity. Even though our own culture is different in many ways
saying it (or the South African version with Jesus being our oldest brother) allows us to
participate with the community of saints while affirming these things.
Question: This participation is vitally important, and explains I think much of the discomfort
many of us have with Charismatic forms of worship. Is this rational?
THE CUMULATIVE CHRISTOLOGICAL CLAIM (pp. 155-156)
Jesus is the decisive revelation of God! Sometimes expressed quite strongly.
John 14.6 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me.”
Acts 4.12 12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under
heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved."
See footnote 16 for understanding in context, which Borg thinks to be specific admonitions to
converts not to return to old ways. Borg thinks we should see them as expressing joy at
having found salvation, not as attacking other routes to God.
So, for us Christians, Jesus is the decisive revelation of God. In him we see most clearly what
God is like.
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Colossians 1.15 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been
created through him and for him.
He is the image of God and he mediates the sacred.
But also cf. Pope John Paul on this, where Jesus is metaphysically necessary, mediating
the sacred for all of this, but other traditions that don’t realize this may in fact still get
people to God. Jesus died and rose again for them too!
Cf. Martin Luther King’s radical statement about how divine favor may fall on nations
who don’t know about Jesus, because those of us who do fall so disastrously and
hypocritically short when we have less of an excuse, even using Jesus to justify things
Jesus hated.
Question: What about the great directive to evangelize? See point above.
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Jan. 15 - Chapter 10, The Divinity of Jesus (Wright)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
This chapter is unsatisfying because nearly everything he says is a kind of veiled criticism of
Borg, and as a result he does not develop much of a positive view. There are very interesting
questions lingering around Wright’s discussion though
Wright starts with a startling story about his annual individual meetings with new students at
Worcester College, Oxford, setting up the chapter as providing an account of God in
“mainstream Christianity” that means something different from the meaning of God in
contemporary culture.
He contrasts secularism with new age postmodernism which leads to paganism according to
Wright.
Danger is that we all become Hamlet. As Adam Curtis says, “someone who can see through
the superficiality of the present age, but is unable to have any beliefs or even feelings about
anything.” An improper understanding of the explanatory scope of science, combined with the
delegitimazation of political narratives (communism, neo-liberalism), seems to produce this.
But, against Wright, the problem is that new age paganism is not the most likely response.
Fundamentalist versions of mono-theism and virulent forms of nationalism are far more likely
to combine (though in Northern Europe some of the smaller and very frightening nationalist
political parties are explicitly pagan).
As far as the scope of science, the error can go both ways. The postmodernist tends to
systematically mislead in a way that makes us doubt the rationality of believing the results of
science (global warming deniers, defenders of Biblical inerrancy, opponents of Darwin). On
the other hand, the hyper-modernist accepts the role of science, but tends to think that if
anything can be explained it can be explained by science.
Either strain of these can be dangerous when put together with the wrong kind of politics (e.g.
communism was hyper-scientistic, even though much of the actual science was junk). What
produces fundamentalism and neo-paganism is postmodernism about science combined with
complete lack of faith in narratives that legitimate social orders. The fundamentalist (about
anything, including politics) does not admit to rational constraints on belief, so is free to take
a leap of faith into believing whatever the snake charmers, pied pipers, and merchants of
resentment convince him to.
Though Wright misunderstands the cause (and he could not but, since he commits too many
postmodern vices while critiquing mainstream biblical scholarship, and since he uses this to
buttress fundamentalist beliefs), I think that he does have an appreciation of the solution.
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We do not, and perhaps cannot, really understand evil and suffering, except to know that we
must fight against it, against evil in our own souls and the suffering in the world. This being
said (non-fideist, non-gnostic) Christians, we do still see the results of science as reflecting
the mind of God, a rationally organized universe. This avoids both postmodernism and hypermodernism. As Christians we do not recognize the lordship of anyone but Jesus, and hence
should have no temptation or need to make idols of all encompassing political stories such as
communism or neo-liberalism.
[Note that in After Finitude the philosopher Quentin Meillassoux is the greatest contemporary
philosopher that postmodernism is much more likely to lead to fundamentalism, as I have
noted multiple times in these notes, a danger I see in Wright’s own writings to the extent that
his anti-Enlightenment denigration of two hundred years of biblical scholarship part of the
justification for his views about, for example, homosexuality.]
GOD IN FIRST-CENTURY JUDAISM (pp. 158-160)
Wright contrasts creational and covental monotheism of first-century Jewish Christianity with
ancient Epicureanism, Stoicism, and modern Deism.
Epicurean metaphysics combined hedonism (though which sensibly identified true pleasure
not with the excesses of the Roman orgy or warfare, but rather with living moderately and
trying to understand the world) with a materialist metaphysics in which the world was made
of atoms. The latter metaphysics was incorporated into attacks on what the Epicureans viewed
as superstition, such as the existence of divinities that might have any of the powers typically
associated with them. Wright is I think correct that Epicureanism is something like the default
philosophy of many enlightenment secularists.
Deism is the belief not only that in the words of Tom Waits, “God’s away on business.” But
that ever since creating the cosmos God has always, and will always, be away on business. To
the extent that most of the “founding fathers” were theists, the most significant of them were
deists, as this was a default mode for many Enlightement thinkers (Thomas Jefferson actually
penned a version of the New Testament with the miracles removed!).
Stoicism, on the other hand, disagreed not just with the Epicureans about the pursuit of
pleasure (for Stoics the goal was to learn indifference to pleasure and pain), but also with
respect to views of divinity. While Epicureans tended to see God(s) as non-existent or
completely removed from us (though it was consistent with their belief that Zeus was just a
really strong creature composed of atoms and subject to the same laws as the rest of us), Stoic
metaphysics tended to see the whole world as God. This is pantheism.
[Note that the Gospel of John is taken by some to reflect many aspects of Stoic philosophers
in Syria of the second century C.E., while the Q sayings gospel (preserved in Luke and
Matthew) is generally taken to reflect many aspects of Cynic philosophy as taught in Galilee
in Jesus’ lifetime. Cynics were very much like hippies would have been had they retained
more of the beatnik cleverness and sarcasm. Wright finds any such comparison anathema, as
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with many Protestant fundamentalists he is adamantly opposed to thinking that Hellenistic
influences form the foundation of early Christianity, and to the extent that he sees any such
influences, he (like Protestant fundamentalists) blames the (to him) pernicious influence of the
early Roman Catholic Church. There is no question that this influence did happen, since many
Christians of that era read the neo-Platonist Plotinus, which influenced Roman Catholic
Dogma. It is not clear that it was pernicious or that it is any different than what happened with
the John community with respect to Stoicism, or the early Jesus community with respect to
Cynicism. And to me at least, it is not clear why any of this should trouble one’s faith.
Question: Might not God have given some revelations to Cynic, Stoic, and neo-Platonist
philosophers? Might it not be the case, as Roman Catholicism upholds, that correct exercise
of reason leads one to Christian truths, and that Greek philosophers were just doing this? If
parts of the pagan philosophers’ views were deep and fundamental, why wouldn’t they be
reflected in the early Christian tradition?
[Strangely, as far as I understand him so far, Meillassoux holds that God does not currently
exist, but that it is not irrational to hope that a non-deist God will in the future. So
Meillassoux is both more and less theistic than the deist.]]
In any case (159), Wright makes two interesting claims. (1) Paganism leads to so many Gods
that people stop really caring about them. In this context note that the Romans actually had a
god of feces, Sterquilinus! Pretty important on the farm when time to fertilize the crops, but
not so important in a city of millions of people. But once you have a God for everything, the
notion of the divine can kind of slip away. Likewise with Stoic pantheism, if God just is the
universe, then not much else can be said about him. (2) Deism and theistic versions of
Epicureanism, on the other hand, constitute “practical atheism” since the God in question gets
so far away that he is removed. In the 19th century, through thinkers like Marx and
Feuerbach, this is precisely what happened. 18th century deism morphed into atheism.
In light of these comparisons, Jewish monotheism, the root of both Christianity and Islam, is
all the more remarkable. God created heaven and earth and also calls upon us to be his people
Being God’s people brings with it responsibilities as well as the promise of liberation. Wright
stresses the special role of Israel in this set of beliefs, while Borg I think would agree with
Wright, he does not stress the special role of Israel in this set of beliefs- as with the issue of
homosexuality, we might be seeing political differences be expressed theologically, but I’m
not sure. Here is Wright:
This twin belief, tested to the limit and beyond through Israel’s checkered career,
was characteristically expressed through a particular narrative; the chosen people
were also the rescued people, liberated from slavery in Egypt, marked out by the gift
of Tora, established in their land, exiled because of disobedience, but promised a
glorious return and final settlement. Jewish-style monotheism meant living in this
story, trusting in this one true God, the God of creation and covenant, of exodus and
return (159).
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This God is not ultra-transcendent or far away, but acting in the world.
Psalm 147.9 He gives to the animals their food, and to the young ravens when they
cry.
In the rest of this section Wright continues to read Jesus primarily in context of the zealot’s
rebellion against Rome.
Wright claims that in common Jewish discourses there were four ways that God’s activity was
made manifest:
[1] God’s Spirit broods over the water, [2] God’s Word goes forth to produce new
life, [3] God’s Law guides his people, [4] God’s Presence or Glory dwells with them
in fiery cloud, in tabernacle and temple. . . .Best of all is perhaps a fifth [5] God’s
Wisdom is his handmaid in creation, the firstborn of his works, his chief of staff, his
delight. Through the Lady Wisdom of Proverbs 1-8, the creator has fashioned
everything, especially the human race. To embrace Wisdom is therefore to discover
the secret of being truly human, of reflecting God’s image (160).
All of these allow us to speak simultaneously of God’s presence and absence. It would be
remiss not to remember this wonderful part of Proverbs 1.
20 Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. 21 At the
busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: 22 "How
long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in
their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? 23 Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out
my thoughts to you; I will make my words known to you.
Last week Borg thematized this more, showing that in New Testament writing Christ has both
a masculine (Son of God) and a feminine (Wisdom of God) aspect. Note that Jesus is also
God’s love!
MONOTHEISM AND EARLY CHRISTOLOGY (pp. 160-163)
The major apologetic claim here is that the Trinity and certain beliefs about Incarnation were not
later additions informed by Greek philosophy and Egyptian religion (and Athanasius, [b. ca.
(296-298) – d. 2 May 373], the person who articulated and defended the view of the incarnation
at the council of Nicea that later led to the Trinity was an Egyptian Christian), but were in some
sense already in the Bible.
This is an odd view, because the Nicene Creed came out of huge struggles over whether or not
Christ was a distinct substance with the father (the Arian view), and these very debates could not
have been articulated without the background of Greek philosophy. The first articulation was the
council of Nicea in 325 C.E. (with Athanasius playing a large role), but the Nicene Creed deals
with the divinity of Christ, and is consistent with a wide variety of positions at odds with
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trinitarian views. In fact the trinity wasn’t affirmed until the Council of Constantinople in 360
C.E. The Creed of Constantinople even more explicitly states the relation between God, the Holy
Spirit, and Jesus in terms of Greek metaphysical categories.
The earliest found writings concerning a divine three are late in the second century BCE, and
more in the third century. Not only are these well over one hundred years later than Paul’s
writings, but none of these are trinitarian in the current sense.
As for the Egyptian connection (and Egypt was a Christian country for 400 years), and the preChristian religions contain threes that are strongly homologous to the Christian trinity. As far as I
know, most scholars think it quite probable that proto-trinitarian thinking came from these pagan
sources, which Athanasius (Bishop of Alexandria) then used in political fights against opponents
(scholars don’t really agree if there was an organized groups of “Arians” or if Athanasius sort of
created them as part of documented political struggles in which he engaged).
Wright claims that the combination of God’s properties can be seen to in some proto-trinitarian
way be found in John.
John 1.1-18 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being
through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into
being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from
God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all
might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to
the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did
not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept
him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to
become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or
of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes
after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") 16 From his fullness we
have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God
the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
John 1.14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his
glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
This is not a good argument. For one thing, the above is consistent with rejection of trinitarian
thinking. For another thing, even to the extent that it supports trinitarianism, one must realize that
John was the latest gospel written, and (with the exception of Cynic influence on the Q
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document) perhaps the one that shows the greatest influence of pagan philosophy (again, with
some probability from Syrian Stoic philosophers).
Wright is on much stronger ground when citing earlier Pauline strands.
1 Corinthians 8.6 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things
and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and
through whom we exist.
Philippians 2.5-11 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who,
though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to
be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human
likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became
obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God also highly
exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Colossians 1.15-20 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all
creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been
created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all
things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God
was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by
making peace through the blood of his cross.
Galatians 4.8-11 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to
beings that by nature are not gods. 9 Now, however, that you have come to know
God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and
beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? 10 You
are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. 11 I am afraid that
my work for you may have been wasted.
Romans 8.3-4 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not
do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he
condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be
fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
But there are problems here too. First, Paul was the great proselytizer to the pagans, and he is
clearly informed by pagan philosophy, even mentioning (to be fair, either with a hilarious lack
of understanding or, I think far more likely, as a joke that his readership would understand,
i.e. “even one of their own prophets has said, 'Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy
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gluttons.' This testimony is true.” Titus 1:12-14) the version of the truth paradox that was in
vogue in classical philosophical discussions.
Second, these passages are all compatible both with a rejection of trinitarianism and with a
rejection of Athanasius’ view of the incarnation.
Here is Wright on the above:
In1 Corinthians 8.6, within a specifically Jewish-style monotheistic argument, he
adapts the Shema itself, placing Jesus within it: “For us there is one God-the Father,
from whom are all things and we to him; and one Lord, jesus Christ, throuh whom
are all things and we through him.” In Philippians 2.5-11, he draws on the fiercely
monotheistic theology of Isaiah 40-55 to celebrate Christi’s universal lordship.. .
.Colossians 1/15-20, with its clear poetic structure, is a Wisdom poem, exploring the
classic Jewish theme that the world’s creator is also its redeemer, and vice versa
162).
So Jesus is Wisdom, God’s son, and exalted to a position with the Father. One can affirm all
of this, (as one assumes Athanasius’ opponents did about the nature of the incarnation, and
later groups who accepted the Nicene Creed yet still held positions inconsistent with what was
affirmed in 160 CE in Constantinople concerning the trinity) while rejecting the doctrine of
the trinity.
The rest of this section Wright does much the same, with equal implausibility. Since much of
the bits of the Bible he quotes towards this purpose are less central than the glorious passages
from Saint Paul above, I’ll not quote them here.
THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTOLOGY (pp. 163-167)
I’m sorry, I find quotes like the following unbelievably strange and offensive, “In Jesus, God
had rescued Israel from its suffering and exile.”
The Judean War?
The Bar Kochba Rebellion?
Centuries of pograms?
The Inquisition?
The Holocaust?
The madness in geographical Judea, Galilee, and Samaria today?
Wright’s view about the first of these two is that they come from Jews not accepting Jesus.
Jews not accepting Jesus was an explicit reason in the minds of the perpetrators of the third
through fifth. The sixth is, arguably, is greatly exacerbated by conservative American
Christians who (though philo-semite) also with the anti-semites of the past share Wright’s
narrative and who use this to justify intervening in Israeli and Palestinian politics (this would
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not be possible were Israel not a parliamentary system, and the way that always allows
minority parties to get oversized power by splitting ties).
Wright then quotes Paul
Romans 1.4 and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of
holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
Wright rehashes earlier arguments we’ve already gone over, and then ends by arguing against
Borg concerning whether Jesus knew he was the messiah pre Easter. Though he is not clear
about it, the fact that he quotes Mark, is because he knows that Borg’s strongest case concerns
the way Matthew and Luke redacted the passages in Mark in a way that most scholars take to
actually contradict what Jesus is saying in Mark.
So Wright addresses Borg’s other argument, that only crazy people think that they are the
messiah, and by quoting Mark!
Mark 3.21 21 When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people
were saying, "He has gone out of his mind."
Note the possible tension (which is actually much stronger in Luke) with the nativity stories in
the later written Luke and Matthew where those same family members had visitations from
angels of the lord telling them Jesus is the literal son of God. But this is irrelevant; the people
in Jesus’ hometown in Mark do not think he’s crazy because he’s declared himself messiah,
but because he appointed apostles and said that they had authority to cast out demons, powers
in Mark he never claims to come from him. In fact, Mark 3 ends with “Whoever does the will
of God is my brother and sister and mother,” as with much of Mark, actually in tension with
the idea that Jesus would have thought of himself in Christological terms.
JESUS AND CHRISTOLOGY TODAY (pp. 167-168)
Again a plea to see Jesus entirely in terms of Wright’s interpretation of how he reads ancient
Jews understanding of the relationship between God and Israel, with the implicit rejection that
pagan sources were relevant either to Jesus or to Gospel writers, or to later doctrines such as
the trinity.
In the concluding paragraph Wright does not explain what he means by “self involving
language” or its relevance, so it’s impossible to know what he takes himself to be saying here.
Whatever it is, it’s supposed to show that Borg is wrong.
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Jan. 22 - Chapter 11, Born of a Virgin? (Wright)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
This is probably the least satisfying chapter in the book. Wright claims that nothing of
theological significance hinges on whether the virgin birth happens, but then still goes out of
his way to justify his belief in it.
Before we get to the meat of the discussion it is worth starting with a recent meditation by
Walter Mead.
Jesus spoke in simple ways about realities that farmers and illiterates around the
world can grasp. Bread, wine, sheep, goats, planting seeds, catching fish: not
everybody around the world is directly familiar with all of these reference points but
the message of the gospels is, demonstrably, clear enough so that people in every
world culture at all kinds of levels of development can find meaning and coherence
in it.
If the gospels came out of a culture that was closer to western modernity, and the
gospels had therefore been written in ways that satisfied contemporary academic
historiographic models (complete with photos and footnotes), the resulting 900 page
biographies of Christ might be more satisfying to us, but perhaps much less
accessible to poor farmers in Africa or simple fishermen in Indonesia.
Shockingly, that matters a great deal to God (http://blogs.the-americaninterest.com/wrm/2012/01/03/yule-blog-2011-12-how-real-is-the-meaning/).
Neither Mark nor John contains an account of Jesus’ birth, and Saint Paul never mentions it.
The principle sources are Matthew and Luke.
(Matthew 1) An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the
son of Abraham. 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and
Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, 4
and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and
Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz
the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of
King David. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and
Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah
the father of Asaph, 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the
father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham,
and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah
the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of
Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the
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deportation to Babylon. 12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the
father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the
father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14
and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father
of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and
Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary,
of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. 17 So all the generations from
Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to
Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah,
fourteen generations. 18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.
When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together,
she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a
righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her
quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as
your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a
son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22
All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him
Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he
did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no
marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
(Matthew 2) In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, "Where is the child who has
been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to
pay him homage." 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all
Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the
people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, "In
Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 6 'And you,
Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for
from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'" 7 Then Herod
secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star
had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently
for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and
pay him homage." 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of
them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place
where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were
overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his
mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure
chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been
warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another
road. 13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream
and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there
until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." 14 Then
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Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and
remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by
the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." 16 When Herod
saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and
killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under,
according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled
what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 18 "A voice was heard in
Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused
to be consoled, because they are no more." 19 When Herod died, an angel of the
Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 "Get up, take the
child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the
child's life are dead." 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went
to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in
place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a
dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town
called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be
fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."
(Luke 1) Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events
that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed on to us by those who
from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 3 I too decided,
after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly
account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the truth
concerning the things about which you have been instructed. 5 In the days of King
Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly
order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6
Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the
commandments and regulations of the Lord. 7 But they had no children, because
Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. 8 Once when he was serving
as priest before God and his section was on duty, 9 he was chosen by lot, according
to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense.
10 Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was
praying outside. 11 Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the
right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and
fear overwhelmed him. 13 But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah,
for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you
will name him John. 14 You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his
birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or
strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. 16 He will
turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 With the spirit and power
of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the
disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the
Lord." 18 Zechariah said to the angel, "How will I know that this is so? For I am an
old man, and my wife is getting on in years." 19 The angel replied, "I am Gabriel. I
stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you
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this good news. 20 But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be
fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these
things occur." 21 Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah, and wondered at
his delay in the sanctuary. 22 When he did come out, he could not speak to them, and
they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them
and remained unable to speak. 23 When his time of service was ended, he went to his
home. 24 After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she
remained in seclusion. She said, 25 "This is what the Lord has done for me when he
looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my
people." 26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in
Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of
the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said,
"Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." 29 But she was much perplexed by
his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will
conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He 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. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end." 34 Mary said to the angel, "How can this
be, since I am a virgin?" 35 The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon
you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be
born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth
in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was
said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God." 38 Then Mary said,
"Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then
the angel departed from her. 39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a
Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and
greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her
womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud
cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And
why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as
soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was
spoken to her by the Lord." 46 And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness
of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for the
Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50 His mercy is for
those who fear him from generation to generation. 51 He has shown strength with his
arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52 He has brought
down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53 he has filled the
hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant
Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55 according to the promise he made to our
ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." 56 And Mary remained with
her about three months and then returned to her home. 57 Now the time came for
Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that
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the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 On the
eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him
Zechariah after his father. 60 But his mother said, "No; he is to be called John." 61
They said to her, "None of your relatives has this name." 62 Then they began
motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. 63 He asked for
a writing tablet and wrote, "His name is John." And all of them were amazed. 64
Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak,
praising God. 65 Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked
about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. 66 All who heard them pondered
them and said, "What then will this child become?" For, indeed, the hand of the Lord
was with him. 67 Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke
this prophecy: 68 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on
his people and redeemed them. 69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the
house of his servant David, 70 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets
from of old, 71 that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all
who hate us. 72 Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has
remembered his holy covenant, 73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us 74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him
without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you,
child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to
prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness
of their sins. 78 By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break
upon us, 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to
guide our feet into the way of peace." 80 The child grew and became strong in spirit,
and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.
(Luke 2) In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world
should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius
was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also
went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called
Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He
went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a
child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she
gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a
manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8 In that region there were
shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an
angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see--I
am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for
you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13 And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and
saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those
whom he favors!" 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the
shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that
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has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16 So they went with haste
and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw
this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who
heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all
these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying
and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. 21 After
eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus,
the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. 22 When the
time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up
to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord,
"Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), 24 and they offered a
sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or
two young pigeons." 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was
Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of
Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy
Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 27 Guided
by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the
child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in
his arms and praised God, saying, 29 "Master, now you are dismissing your servant
in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which
you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the
Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." 33 And the child's father and mother
were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and
said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many
in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many
will be revealed--and a sword will pierce your own soul too." 36 There was also a
prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age,
having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to
the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and
prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to
speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 39
When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to
Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled
with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. 41 Now every year his parents
went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years
old, they went up as usual for the festival. 43 When the festival was ended and they
started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not
know it. 44 Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day's
journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. 45
When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. 46 After
three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them
and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his
understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him they were astonished;
and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your
father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." 49 He said to them, "Why
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were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with
them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these
things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and
human favor.
One thing to notice about this is just how different each account is. In Matthew 2 we have
Herod killing all the children around Bethlehem and a trip to Egypt. We also have wise men.
There is no census and Joseph just makes his home in Nazareth only after returning from
Egypt. In Luke there is no massacre of innocents and no flight to Egypt. In Luke 1, John the
Baptist also has supernaturally sanctioned birth. Luke starts with Jesus in Nazareth and then in
Luke 2 gets him born in Bethlehem with a census. In Luke, but not Matthew, we get Jesus
laying in the manger and the shepherds. Luke also has the wonderful hymns that Elizabeth
and Mary sing (1.41-1.55). These are probably the earliest Christian songs of which we have a
record.
Also note that their genealogies (Luke’s is in 3) are inconsistent with one another.
But both accounts do seem to agree that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus.
Contrast this with the two times Saint Paul (writing before the Luke and Matthew
communities) mentions the circumstances of Jesus’ production.
Romans 1-7 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the
gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy
scriptures, 3 the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David
according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be Son of God with power according to
the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through
whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith
among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, 6 including yourselves who are
called to belong to Jesus Christ, 7 To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to
be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Galatians 4.1-9 (Galatians 4) My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are
no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; 2 but they
remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. 3 So with us;
while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. 4 But
when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under
the law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive
adoption as children. 6 And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his
Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 7 So you are no longer a slave but a
child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. 8 Formerly, when you did not
know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. 9 Now,
however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can
you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want
to be enslaved to them again?
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All Paul says is that Jesus is in the Davidic line and that he was born of a woman.
Wright does not think that that the virgin birth is theologically significant and one of the
nicest parts of the chapter when he shows how belief in the virgin birth works as a test case
for so many things (belief in miracles, belief in inerrancy, sexuality, and the nature of the
incarnation).
Once again, we see Wright mocking the enlightenment with its “closed continuum” of cause
and effect. This is actually painfully ignorant, since the philosopher who presented the
canonical argument against the rationality of belief in miracles also presented canonical
skeptical arguments against belief in causal necessity. Wright needs to read David Hume
before going on like this.
THE BIRTH NARRATIVES (pp. 173-175)
Wright notes that ancient literature, including the Old Testament, is full of these kinds of birth
stories. Consider Samson.
Judges 13 The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the
LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. 2 There was a certain
man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was
barren, having borne no children. 3 And the angel of the LORD appeared to the
woman and said to her, "Although you are barren, having borne no children, you
shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Now be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, or
to eat anything unclean, 5 for you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor is to come
on his head, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth. It is he who shall begin
to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines." 6 Then the woman came and told
her husband, "A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an
angel of God, most awe-inspiring; I did not ask him where he came from, and he did
not tell me his name; 7 but he said to me, 'You shall conceive and bear a son. So then
drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a nazirite
to God from birth to the day of his death.'" 8 Then Manoah entreated the LORD, and
said, "O, LORD, I pray, let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and
teach us what we are to do concerning the boy who will be born." 9 God listened to
Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but
her husband Manoah was not with her. 10 So the woman ran quickly and told her
husband, "The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me." 11 Manoah
got up and followed his wife, and came to the man and said to him, "Are you the
man who spoke to this woman?" And he said, "I am." 12 Then Manoah said, "Now
when your words come true, what is to be the boy's rule of life; what is he to do?" 13
The angel of the LORD said to Manoah, "Let the woman give heed to all that I said
to her. 14 She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine. She is not to drink
wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. She is to observe everything that I
commanded her." 15 Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, "Allow us to detain
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you, and prepare a kid for you." 16 The angel of the LORD said to Manoah, "If you
detain me, I will not eat your food; but if you want to prepare a burnt offering, then
offer it to the LORD." (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the
LORD.) 17 Then Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, "What is your name, so
that we may honor you when your words come true?" 18 But the angel of the LORD
said to him, "Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful." 19 So Manoah took the
kid with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD, to him who
works wonders. 20 When the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel
of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar while Manoah and his wife looked
on; and they fell on their faces to the ground. 21 The angel of the LORD did not
appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the angel of
the LORD. 22 And Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, for we have seen
God." 23 But his wife said to him, "If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not
have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all
these things, or now announced to us such things as these." 24 The woman bore a
son, and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the LORD blessed him. 25 The
spirit of the LORD began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Note that Samson is born under the nose of a wicked king, just like Matthew’s version.
Matthew is clearly having the story fulfill prophecy.
Isaiah 7.14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman
is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
Matthew 1.23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name
him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."
Micah 5.1-3 Now you are walled around with a wall; siege is laid against us; with a
rod they strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek. 2 But you, O Bethlehem of
Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. 3
Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought
forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel.
Matthew 2.5 5 They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by
the prophet:
The trip to Egypt.
(Hosea 11.1) When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
Wright (174) holds that since Luke also does these things without quoting the scripture that
Matthew isn’t just inventing the facts in order to make Jesus’ birth fulfill prophecy. I find this
argument baffling.
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Wright reads Luke’s passages in terms of the challenge to Caesar. Since the real census in
Galilee produced a revolt, Luke’s mentioning it (even though the timeline doesn’t work out,
and it makes no sense for people to travel to ancestral homes, where they wouldn’t be paying
taxes, for a Roman census) frames his Jesus narrative as more political, challenging worldly
authority, from the get-go.
Acts 5.37 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got
people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered.
Luke 2.2 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was
governor of Syria.
THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION (pp. 175-178)
Wright gives the three stages of his argument on pp. 176-177. First, he argues that antecedent
belief in other miracles involving Jesus should raise the subjective probability that the virginal
conception happened. This is a good argument.
Second, he argues that since the parallels are with pagan myths, there would be a strong
incentive not to treat Jesus like a demigod by inventing something like this. This is not a good
argument.
Third, he tries to argue that the skeptic’s position is less plausible, again because Wright can’t
conceive of how paganism would enter such characteristically Jewish texts. Again, this is a
terrible argument. The texts were written after Saint Paul had been converting pagans to
Christianity, and there is evidence of the struggles over this very issue in the synoptic gospels.
Wright concludes by belittling Enlightenment viewing of the world as causally closed again.
It’s embarrassing, because Hume’s classic argument against the rationality of believing in
miracles is in no way inconsistent with his skepticism about causality.
Wright’s first argument is a good one. However, it works against him. Just as with truth, if we
have antecedent reason to believe that other elements of these narratives are false, then we
have some reason not to believe the claim about virginal birth.
And we do.
The way Luke gets Jesus to Bethlehem makes no sense. Why would you enroll for the census,
taken as part of imposing a tax, in an area where you are not paying taxes? You wouldn’t, and
Roman subjects didn’t.
There is no archeological evidence that Nazareth existed at the time of Jesus’ birth. On the
other hand scholars (see the discussion in Price’s The Case Against the Case for Christ) have
concluded that present day Iraqi communities who follow John the Baptist but consider Jesus
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heretical probably do go back to the real John the Baptist, and the name of followers of John
the Baptist sounds like “Nazorean.” This strongly suggests that the Matthew and Luke
communities knew that people called Jesus a Nazorean but mistakenly thought this meant he
was from Nazareth, a town that did exist in their time.
Consider all of the inconsistencies between both accounts, e.g.
Matthew has 28 generations between David and Jesus, while Luke has 41 for the
same period of about 1,000 years. In Matthew's gospel, Joseph's father (i.e. Jesus'
grandfather) is said to be Jacob, while in Luke it is claimed that he is Heli. They
cannot both be right. (http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_lib.htm)
In each case (and the timelines are inconsistent, Luke has Jesus in Jerusalem at the same time
Matthew has him in Egypt, who the angel appears to is inconsistent) at least one of Matthew
or Luke contains a falsehood.
Luke is internally inconsistent both about whether John the Baptist knew Jesus earlier on, and
about Mary’s reaction to Jesus’ divinity. Some scholars think as a result of this that the birth
narrative is a later addition to an earlier text. In the earlier text, John did not know Jesus
earlier on and Mary doesn’t know what to make of Jesus. But the birth narrative contradicts
both of these claims, which weren’t fully redacted in the text we have today.
Mark and Paul are earlier sources and they make no mention of a virgin birth.
Quirinius was not governor during Herod’s kingship. Herod died in 4BCE and Quirinius was
appointed in 6 CE. Luke just gets it totally wrong.
Also note that if Jesus was born during the census, then Matthew’s Herod could not have
ordered massacre, because he’d been dead for ten years.
So Wright’s argument actually works against him. The tissue of falsity surrounding the claim
of virginal conception should lower the subjective probability.
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Jan. 29 - Chapter 12, The Meaning of the Birth Stories (Borg)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
Borg takes the stories to be literary creations that are factually false, but true in a more profound
way.
WHY NOT HISTORICAL (pp.178-182)
Borg gives a number of reasons for their literal falsity: (1) The sources we know to be earliest
(Mark, Paul’s letters, Q) don’t mention any of the details from either Matthew or Luke. This
could either be that it wasn’t important to the Mark community or Paul, or they didn’t know
about it, or (as Borg thinks) the central beliefs are late additions. The next two reasons make
this seem more likely. (2) Matthew and Luke are strikingly different: (a) Luke’s genealogy
goes back to Adam, and Matthew’s just to King David, but they are both inconsistent in how
they get from David to Matthew. “From David forward, Solomon and the kings of Judah are
the ancestors of Jesus in Matthew; in Luke, the lineage goes through the prophet Nathan, not
Kin Solomon” (p. 180), (b) Mary and Joseph’s home. In Luke there’s a census that gets them
from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Then they go back to Nazareth. Matthew has them start in
Bethlehem (and no manger), then go to Egypt to escape Herod, and then settle in Nazareth. (c)
The visitors. Matthew has the wise men and the star, while Luke has angels singing to the
shepherds. (d) Herod’s plot, nor the trip to Egypt, are in Luke. (e) Use of the Bible. Matthew
uses prediction-fulfillment formulas five times. Luke uses Old Testament language but does
not treat it as fulfillment of prophecy, especially in Mary (Manificat) and Zechariah’s
(Benedictus) hymns.
Prediction-Fullfilment in Matthew
Matthew 1.23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name
him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."
Isaiah 7.14 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young
woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
Matthew 2.6 6 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least
among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my
people Israel.'"
Micah 5.2 2 But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of
Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is
from of old, from ancient days.
Matthew 2.15 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill
what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called
my son."
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Hosea 11.1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
Matthew 2.18 18 "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no
more."
Jeremiah 31.14 will give the priests their fill of fatness, and my people shall be
satisfied with my bounty, says the LORD.
Matthew 2.23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had
been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."
The Magnificat
Luke 1:46-55
46 And Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."
The Benedictus
Luke 1:68-79
68“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and
redeemed them. 69He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant
David, 70as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71that we
would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. 72Thus he
has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy
covenant, 73the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us 74that we,
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being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75in
holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76And you, child, will be called
the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. 78By
the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, 79to give
light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into
the way of peace.”
(3) In both cases, the stories look like they are overtures completed after the fact. With his
prediction fulfillment trope and the genealogy, Matthew establishes that Jesus is the king of
the Jews. The flight to Egypt and Herod’s plot verifies Matthew’s contention that Jesus is
“one unto like Moses.” Luke’s Jesus is much more a “Spirit-annointed social prophet,” and
giving him an ancestry of prophets. Luke’s Jesus (especially in Acts) is spreading the good
news to the Gentiles, and thus Jesus’ ancestry is traced back to Adam, the biological father of
Gentile and Jew alike.
Borg leaves out four other important pieces of evidence. (1) The other reason these look like
overtures is that they don’t fit very well with the rest of the text in various ways. For example,
if the overture is true, then John the Baptist would already have known Jesus when he meets
him later in the text, and Mary would not have been confused about his vocation. (2) All of
the independent historical evidence (contemporary archeology as well as a study of first
century lists of towns) points to the fact that Nazareth did not exist during Jesus’ lifetime, but
was rather built in the second century. If it is thus true that Jesus’ home town of Nazareth
comes from a later misunderstanding, and some form of proto-Luke and proto-Matthew
predates the second century C.E., this is even further evidence that the birth stories were
added as later overtures, reflecting a tradition that didn’t exist at the time of Paul or the Mark
community. (3) First century Roman census’ just didn’t work the way Luke community
portray them, and they could not have, since the point was to establish a taxing district for
where you (not your ancestors) lived. (4) The dates don’t line up in Luke, the Census under
Quirinius took place ten years after Herod the Great had died!
One more note on this Nazareth business though. Burton Mack does think that one of the
things revealed by an analysis of the Q source for Matthew in Luke is strong evidence that
Jesus was Galilean. Not only did the census Luke mentions provoke a rebellion in Galilee, but
Galilee was also a hotbed of Cynic philosophers, whose literary forms are the closest thing
one gets style wise to the sayings in the Q Gospel.
So what are the similarities? (1) Name of Jesus’ parents, (2) birth while Herod the Great was
King, (2) Conception by the spirit, and (3) growing up in Nazareth, and (4) birth in
Bethlehem.
The thing in Nazareth is not plausible. How plausible is the claim about Bethlehem? One
problem is that birth in Bethlehem is just as convenient for each communities’ respective
genealogy, assuming this piece of Micah was well known.
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Micah 5.2 2 But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of
Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is
from of old, from ancient days.
Borg says the Micah tradition was well known, precisely because King David was widely
held to have come from Bethelehem.
Borg’s biggest points are that something as amazing as conception by Spirit would have made
it into Mark and Paul and (further) that the inconsistencies (and we should had historical
fabrication about Nazareth) should inspire even less confidence in the purported miracle.
Note that, contra Wright’s assertion, as argued, this verdict has nothing to do with antecedent
likelihood or not of miraculous things (Borg himself takes very seriously the reports of Jesus
healing powers).
THE TRUTH OF THE BIRTH STORIES (pp. 182-186)
Borg is fascinated about what convictions are being expressed via the birth stories.
Possible philosophical hair to split-Kripke versus Donellon on proper names?
Light in the Darkness (pp. 182-183)
Both stories use light shining in the darkness as a central image, in Matthew from the sky leading
the wise men, in Luke the glory of the lord is shining over the shepherds at night and then a
heavenly multitude singing Glory to God. Borg is nice on the metaphorical resonances:
The symbolism of light and darkness is ancient, archetypal, and cross-cultural. It has many
rich resonances of meaning. Darkness is associated with blindness, night, sleep, cold,
loom, despair, lostness, chaos, death, danger, and yearning for the dawn. It is a striking
image of the human condition. Light is seen as the antidote to the above and is thus an
image of salvation. In the light, one is awake, able to see and find one’s way; light is
associated with relief and rejoicing that the night is over; in the light one is safe and warm.
In the light there is life (183)
The metaphor is all over the Old and New Testaments.
Psalms 119.105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Isaiah 9.2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who
lived in a land of deep darkness-- on them light has shined.
Isaiah 60.1-3 Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has
risen upon you. 2 For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples;
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but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. 3 Nations
shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
John 1.9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
did not overcome it.
John 8.12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever
follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life."
John 9.5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
These are clearly metaphorical usages to express or imply literal truths. Borg thinks the role
of literal light in the birth narrative is a key example of metaphor historicized.
A Tale of Two Lordships (pp. 183-185)
In Matthew the contrast is between Jesus and Herod, while in Luke it is Jesus and Caesar. This is
easier for the Matthew community, writing so long after Herod’s death. So they can put Herod in
Pharoah’s mold. With Luke it is a little more subtle.
Luke 2.10-11 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing
you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of
David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
Luke 2.14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those
whom he favors!" 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the
shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that
has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us."
Borg claims that this is the same kind of language as well as divine claims used by Roman
propaganda to describe Casesar. He cites an inscription from 9 C.E. in Asia Minor.
In any case, both Gospels start with a challenge to the domination system, Matthew
characteristically doing this from a more Jewish perspective and Luke from a more Gentile
one.
Question- To what extent, and in what manners, do we characteristically fail to head this
good news today? What lords besides Herod and Caesar compete with our allegiances?
Virginal Conception (pp. 185-186)
Borg takes the non-metaphorical point of all of these miraculous birth stories to be simple. First,
Things that are impossible without God are possible with God, and people of God come into
being through God. By playing to this theme, the Mark and Luke communities also place the
Christian story more firmly in Israel’s story. Second, it confirms that Jesus was a Spirit person.
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God’s spirit animating him is projected backwards. John is interesting in this, because virgin
conception type language is used for all Christians.
John 1.13 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power
to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh
or of the will of man, but of God.
Borg likens this to the following, though I don’t get the comparison.
Mark 9.7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice,
"This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"
The crux of Borg’s view is the following:
The truly important questions about the birth stories are not whether Jesus was born
of a virgin or whether there was an empire-wide consensus that took Mary and
Joseph t Bethlehemor whether there was a special star leading wise men from te
East. The important questions are, “Is Jesus the light of the world? Is he the rue
Lord? Is what happened in him ‘of God’?” Answering these questions affirmatively
lays claim to our whole lives (186).
Borg concludes with a nice note from Meister Eckhart.
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Feb. 5 - Chapter 13, The Second Coming Then and Now (Borg)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
Last week while we talked about Isaiah, God loving us, and the metaphor of light, I couldn’t
quite remember a poem by Charles Bukowski. Here it is.
The Laughing Heart
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
Great stuff!
Today’s topic is in part interesting because some see a deep tension in Christianity from the
beginning between claims of eschatology (“he will come again in glory”) and immanence
(“the kingdom of God is at hand”).
Eschatology is problematic. According to some surveys, one third of American Christians
think that the apocalypse will be soon (do they really believe this? or just say that they do?
or hope that it will be the case?). This kind of thinking seems to come in waves throughout
history, with cults getting ready for the coming apocalypse.
If one looks closely at how the little apocalypse of Mark (Chapter 13) is redacted first in
Matthew (Chapter 24) and then in Luke (Chapter 21), it is clear both that the Mark
community interpreted the destruction of the temple in eschatological terms and that the
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Matthew and then Luke communities were dealing with the fact that Jesus had not come back
according to the time-table expected by the Mark community (see http://serenemusings.blogspot.com/2009/12/little-apocalypse.html for a nice discussion). Paul also seems
to have expected Christ to come soon as well.
THE SECOND COMING IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY (pp. 190-192)
Consider Paul, in what most scholars take to be the earliest document in the New Testament.
1 Thessalonians 4.14-17 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even
so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. 15 For this we
declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the
coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. 16 For the Lord
himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of
God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with
them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.
The thought that Christ will descend soon is not uncommon in Paul.
1 Corinthians 15.51-52 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but
we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and
we will be changed.
Philippians 1.21-24 21 For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. 22 If I am to live
in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. 23 I
am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that
is far better; 24 but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.
The little apocalypse’s first occurrence peaks at verses 24-27, but here is the whole thing.
Mark 13 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look,
Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" 2 Then Jesus asked him, "Do
you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will
be thrown down." 3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the
temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 "Tell us, when will
this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"
5 Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. 6 Many
will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray. 7 When
you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the
end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is
but the beginning of the birth pangs. 9 "As for yourselves, beware; for they will hand
you over to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand
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before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them. 10 And the good
news must first be proclaimed to all nations. 11 When they bring you to trial and
hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever
is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 12 Brother
will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against
parents and have them put to death; 13 and you will be hated by all because of my
name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 "But when you see the
desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then
those in Judea must flee to the mountains; 15 the one on the housetop must not go
down or enter the house to take anything away; 16 the one in the field must not turn
back to get a coat. 17 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing
infants in those days! 18 Pray that it may not be in winter. 19 For in those days there
will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God
created until now, no, and never will be. 20 And if the Lord had not cut short those
days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut
short those days. 21 And if anyone says to you at that time, 'Look! Here is the
Messiah!' or 'Look! There he is!'--do not believe it. 22 False messiahs and false
prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the
elect. 23 But be alert; I have already told you everything. 24 "But in those days, after
that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and
the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
26 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory.
27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from
the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. 28 "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as
soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is
near. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at
the very gates. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these
things have taken place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not
pass away. 32 "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in
heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know
when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves
home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the
doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake--for you do not know
when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at
cockcrow, or at dawn, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.
37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."
One thing to notice is that this is much more out of place in Mark than in Matthew or Luke.
The Q document that was shared by the Luke and Matthew communities contains some
apocalyptic sayings too. For example,
Matthew 10:23 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I
tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of
Man comes.
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Form critics like Burton Mack think that the apocalyptic Q sayings were actually later
additions (the discussion of persecution suggests a more developed Jesus movement); though
not implausible, the evidence is not overwhelming for his hypothesis.
Matthew Chapter 24 is the Matthew community’s redaction of Mark 13. What the Matthew
community put after that is really nice, the parables of the bridegroom and man going on the
journey. When Jesus brings home the message of these parables he explicitly says that what is
analogous to the unready in the parables are those who do not help the less fortunate.
(Matthew 25) "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took
their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five
were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the
wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of
them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is
the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' 7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and
trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for
our lamps are going out.' 9 But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for
you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' 10
And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went
with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11 Later the other
bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' 12 But he replied, 'Truly I tell
you, I do not know you.' 13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor
the hour. 14 "For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and
entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to
another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 The one who
had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five
more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more
talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the
ground and hid his master's money. 19 After a long time the master of those slaves
came and settled accounts with them. 20 Then the one who had received the five
talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, 'Master, you handed over to
me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.' 21 His master said to him, 'Well
done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will
put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' 22 And the one
with the two talents also came forward, saying, 'Master, you handed over to me two
talents; see, I have made two more talents.' 23 His master said to him, 'Well done,
good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you
in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' 24 Then the one who had
received the one talent also came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew that you were a
harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter
seed; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have
what is yours.' 26 But his master replied, 'You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did
you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you
ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have
received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it
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to the one with the ten talents. 29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and
they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have
will be taken away. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness,
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 31 "When the Son of Man comes
in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32
All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the
sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at
his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave
me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you
welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took
care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' 37 Then the righteous will answer
him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and
gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and
welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw
you sick or in prison and visited you?' 40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell
you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you
did it to me.' 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed,
depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was
hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me
clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 44 Then they also will answer,
'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or
in prison, and did not take care of you?' 45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell
you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 46
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
Note the important contrast here. People who expect the end of the world in our time make
a lot of fuss about getting right with the Lord, which usually has to do with believing the right
things. I suspect something similar was going on around the Matthew community. For the
Jesus of Matthew, what it is to wait for Jesus is to take care of others. This is a remarkable,
remarkable way to end the main bit of eschatology, so countercultural that it still challenges
us.
Question. Does it matter? Compare Matthew 24 and Buddha’s arrow sermon.
John, the latest Gospel, also has strong eschatological themes. But, as with Matthew and
Luke’s redactions of the little apocalypse, John is increasingly careful not to have Jesus say
that his contemporaries would live to see the end times.
John 5.25-29 25 "Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when
the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For
just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in
himself; 27 and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the
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Son of Man. 28 Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are
in their graves will hear his voice 29 and will come out--those who have done good,
to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of
condemnation.
John 21.21-23 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about him?" 22
Jesus said to him, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?
Follow me!" 23 So the rumor spread in the community that this disciple would not
die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, "If it is my will that he
remain until I come, what is that to you?"
If Mark gives us the little apocalypse, Revelation gives us the big one.
Revelation 1.1,3 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his
servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his
servant John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ,
even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the
prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the
time is near.
Revelation 22.12 "See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according
to everyone's work.
Revelation 22.10 10 And he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of
this book, for the time is near.
By the time of 2 Peter, it is clear that early Christian communities were dealing with the fact
that the apocalypse had not happened in an expected time frame.
2 Peter 3.4,8 4 and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our
ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!" . . .8
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand
years, and a thousand years are like one day.
THE ORIGIN OF BELIEF (192-194)
So belief in immanent apocalypse seems to have been widespread by first century Christians.
Where did it come from? Borg canvasses two options, that Jesus himself really did make
these proclamations, or that they come from early believers.
One argument that Jesus did not predict his second coming. According to the narratives,
Jesus’ followers did not really understand that he was going to be crucified and resurrected.
This does not sit well with Jesus having told them that he would return in the way he does
above.
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But maybe Jesus was predicting some kind of apocalypse (the ones in Q predicting the
coming son of man might not have referred to himself), and after the experience of Easter,
communities interpreted the earlier predictions in this manner. Likewise, John the Baptizer
had an apocalyptic eschatology, so it makes more sense to think that Jesus did.
The view that eschatological teaching formed the core of Jesus’ thought used to be the
standard one, but it is being challenged by recent scholarship.
Borg says that at the time Jewish thinkers associated resurrection with end time events, so
experiencing Easter would make early Christians more likely to interpret Jesus this way.
Likewise the conviction that Jesus was the real Lord (not the powers in Church nor those from
State) would convince early Christians that part of this general resurrection would involve
him coming back to rule in some manner analogous to the way religious and secular power
was wielded at the time. Finally, the destruction of the Judean War and later Bar Kochba
rebellion really was apocalyptic, and surely led many more people suffering through that to
think the end of the world was near.
So there are three options: (1) Jesus did speak of his own return, (2) Jesus spoke of a coming
son of man, and this was later interpreted so as to be about him, and (3) Jesus spoke of neither
but Easter and political upheaval led many early Christians to expect his imminent return.
Borg subscribes to the third view.
THE SECOND COMING TODAY (194-196)
The early Christians got the date wrong, but is the basic belief still true?
According to Borg, given that it’s clear that the early Christians got the date wrong, and
projected this back into Jesus’ mouth, we should not have confidence that they got the basic
message correct either. Moreover, Borg finds it incomprehensible that Christ could return in
one place (unfortunately, I don’t quite get why he does).
Borg thinks there is an important truth underlying Revelations and the little apocalypse. Jesus
is Lord. Rome (insert your own country here) is not. The contrast between the lord of Empire
and the lord of Christ is certainly one still with us.
And again, Matthew 25 is absolutely central. Compare the behavior Jesus commands with
behavior that typically comes out of the belief that the end is near.
Borg concludes with an anti-eschatological rallying cry, saying that the second coming of
Christ is “about the coming of the Christ who is already here.”
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Feb. 12 - Chapter 14, The Future of Jesus (Wright)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
Last week we had a chance to meditate on the remarkable passage in Matthew 25 where Jesus
interprets a couple of parables, making clear that waiting for him consisted in how we treat those
in need, even going so far as to imply that he is still with us in the sense that treating one another
well is treating Jesus well.
This reminded some of us of a couple of Patti’s sermons during the fellowship campaign, which
did not concern the place we were building, but all of the great things we have done and what we
would be able to do with the new place.
When this discussion was combined with Borg’s relentless drive to render so much of the Bible
metaphorical I could not help but be reminded me of one of my favorite poems, this one by
Philip Larkin, concerning a church where not very much is going on.
Church Going
Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.
Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don’t.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
‘Here endeth’ much more loudly than I’d meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
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A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?
Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,
A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,
Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built
This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;
A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.
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A wonderful poem, but of course it raises the question whether this is the best we can do? Are
our buildings and rituals just an expression of an inchoate hunger and sometimes feeling of
grace best expressed in poetry?
Sometimes I wonder whether Borg’s relentless drive to render much of the Bible metaphorical
ends with all of us being Larkin’s narrator.
But why should we hope for anything more? We know that Christ is with us now in the
children, the ill, the destitute, the imprisoned. . . and he is with us when we love one another.
Borg accepts this, but is it enough?
The French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux (increasingly recognized as the most important
French philosopher of my generation) thinks absolutely not. In his essay “Spectral Dilemma”
he argues that we must imagine and hope for a transformed world with the resurrection of the
dead.
Essential spectres are those of terrible deaths: premature deaths, odious deaths, the
death of a child, the death of parents knowing their children are destined to the same
end – and yet others. Natural or violent deaths, deaths which cannot be come to
terms with either by those whom they befall, or by those who survive them. Essential
spectres are the dead who will always refuse to ‘pass over’, who obstinately cast off
their shroud to declare to the living, in spite of all evidence, that they still belong
amongst them. Their end attests to no meaning, brings with it no completion. These
are not necessarily shadows who declare their revenge, but shadows who cry out
beyond all vengeance. Whoever commits the imprudence of lending an ear to their
call risks passing the rest of his life hearing their complaint.
We will call essential mourning the completion of mourning for essential spectres:
that is to say the accomplishment of a living, rather than morbid, relation of the
survivors to these terrible deaths. Essential mourning assumes the possibility of
forming a vigilant bond with these departed which does not plunge us into the
hopeless fear – itself mortifying – that we feel when faced with their end, but which,
on the contrary, actively inserts their memory into the fabric of our existence. To
accomplish essential mourning would mean: to live with essential spectres, thereby
no longer to die with them. To make these spectres live rather than becoming, in
hearing their voices, the mere shadow of a living being. The question which poses
itself to us is thus the following: is essential mourning possible – and if so, under
what conditions?
Is it possible, after a twentieth century whose history was dominated by odious
deaths, to live a non-morbid relation with the departed, for the most part unknown to
us, and yet still too close for our lives not to be secretly gnawed away at by them?
In Meillassoux’s forthcoming book The Divine Inexistence he argues (1) that this essential
mourning is only possible if something very much like traditional eschatological thinking
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comes to pass, that where the dead arise and things are somehow set right, and (2) that it is not
irrational to hope for this future radical transformation.
The argumentation is quite complicated, but one takeaway is that Meillassoux divides the
universes temporal span into Advents, with the previous three Advents being that of matter,
that of life, and that of thought. What would make essential mourning possible is the advent
of justice, which requires the resurrection of the dead.
What is interesting is that for Meillassoux the advent of justice would be no more miraculous
than the previous three. Meillassoux is not anti-science, but science does not explain why
anything at all exists, nor can it explain why it is that feelings and emotions go along with
certain electrical activities in our brain. Even were it to explain how these evolved, it can’t
explain why we are in a universe with all the same atomic behavior, but where nothing feels
anything.
So if someone were to say that the advent of justice and resurrection is too miraculous to be
hoped for, then one should reply in Paul Simon’s words that “this is the age of miracles and
wonders” and moreover, that it always has been!
As much as I love Borg’s history and theology, on this issue I can’t help but find myself
standing with Meillassoux here.
One of the weirdest things about Wright is that while he usually bends over backwards (going
so far as to cast doubt on Markan priority) to make the history fit traditional conservative
theology, his views on the second coming are anything but traditional.
THE FUTURE OF THE GOOD CREATION (pp. 197-198)
Very nice beginning discussion of dualists (who want to abandon fallen matter) and
materialists (who want to perfect it with technology).
Wright believes in a bodily resurrection in a world perfected, but does not believe that this
involves Christ’s return in anything like the traditional sense (strangely, Meillassoux, who
professes to be an atheist has views that are much more Christological than Wright’s in just
this sense).
THE FUTURE OF A REBELLIOUS WORLD (pp. 198-199)
Wright brings what is most admirable about his theology here, understanding Jesus’ death,
resurrection, and future eschatology in terms of defeat of evil.
Like C.S. Lewis, he takes very seriously the idea that death as we currently know it is not a
part of God’s plan for the world.
THE FUTURE FOR HUMANS (pp. 199-201)
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This repeats Wright’s earlier chapter on the nature of resurrection, quoting the same material.
Paul on a new mode of physicality (1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5).
Wright is emphatic that heaven type talk in the Bible is always of a place where one might be
prior to creation’s being perfected.
Luke 23.43 43 He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the
afternoon,
Wisdom 3.1-8 But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt-offering he accepted them.
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them for ever.
Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
and he watches over his elect.
The “heavenly country” of Hebrews is not going to be someplace else, but here “on earth” as
it is now in heaven.
Hebrews 11.16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city
for them.
Wright has to read Revelations a little bit creatively to make this all work out. But it’s such a
weird book that it’s hard not to read it creatively anyhow.
THE FUTURE OF JESUS (pp. 201-202)
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I don’t quite get exactly what Wright is affirming here. I think he is saying that the early
church was mistaken in thinking that Jesus would come back. He mentions three steps, and
suggests the third was an error.
The first is God’s promise of a new heaven and earth, which has already happened in the
person of Jesus. The second is that Jesus is the true lord of the world.
The third was how these two things mapped onto the Jewish belief that God would return to
Zion, this time in the form of Jesus returning.
But then he wants to claim that this third belief isn’t really in the New Testament. How can he
claim to know that early Christians believed this then?
THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE FUTURE (pp. 202-204)
But even though Wright thinks this third step is a mistake, it’s not one he’s willing to admit
that Paul made, so he uncharacteristically starts reading huge chunks of the epistles (those we
discussed last week) as metaphor.
Then he quickly dismisses the evidence that Borg presented that showed how the original
statement in Mark concerning imminent return had been redacted by Matthew and Luke, and
how Peter 2 is clearly dealing with people’s crushed expectations.
It’s all very weird. Everywhere else in this book Wright piles on Borg for reading parts of the
Bible as being history metaphorized, but with regards to eschatology their roles are
completely reversed. The only thing not strange, for Wright, is that once again we see him not
taking into account Markan priority properly.
Unfortunately, Wright never really tells the reader exactly what his view about eschatology is.
Are we already in this perfected realm because of Jesus’ resurrection? Or, as with
Meillassoux, must we hope for more?
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Feb. 19 - Chapter 15, The Truth of the Gospel and Christian Living (Wright)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
This is the last essay by Wright, and contains his characteristic mixture of the good, the bad,
and the ugly. Much of it repeats earlier motiffs and arguments against Borg, which we can
assess next week in conclusion. Here I’m going to try to keep to the sunny side, focusing
mostly on the good.
THE CONTEXT: WORSHIP AND MISSION (pp.207-208)
There is a weird passage at the beginning of this chapter.
worship without mission becomes self-indulgence (and might even imply worship of
a god other than the one revealed in Jesus); mission without worship degenerates into
various kinds of do-goodery, following agendas that may be deeply felt but are by no
means necessarily connected with Jesus (207).
This is odd. If one really is doing good, then isn’t the act connected with Jesus necessarily?
Isn’t that the point of Mark 25?
If mission is the main thing, then why worship?
This is a deep issue involving both metaphysics and our status as social animals.
Wright thinks that the combination of worship and mission are necessary for Christian
versions of the following four things: spirituality, theology, politics, and healing.
SPIRITUALITY (pp. 208-213)
In a way reminiscent of C.S. Lewis, Wright argues that what is distinctive of Christian
spirituality is that it rejects both pantheism and dualism. Pantheism, the belief that the
universe is God, cannot account for the fallen nature of the world. In the history of
philosophy, the two most important pantheistic philosophers are Spinoza and Hegel. Hegel
tried to argue that things that we take to be evil are actually necessary for the rational march
of history as the universe becomes self conscious. This is a philosophically fascinating view,
but of course something very much like it is a standard justification for great evil throughout
history, from genocide against the American Indians to the Holocaust.
In the Western tradition, Dualism primarily comes from Plato and Descartes. I think I can
illustrate these best with a couple of poems by Delmore Schwartz.
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In the first, we get a wonderful evocation of what it is like to seriously think of the world as a
Cartesian Dualist, who thinks that we are essentially disembodied souls that somehow have
bodies.
he heavy bear who goes with me,
A manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
The central ton of every place,
The hungry beating brutish one
In love with candy, anger, and sleep,
Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,
Climbs the building, kicks the football,
Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.
Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,
That heavy bear who sleeps with me,
Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,
A sweetness intimate as the water's clasp,
Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope
Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.
--The strutting show-off is terrified,
Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,
Trembles to think that his quivering meat
Must finally wince to nothing at all.
That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held,
Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,
A caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid clown of the spirit's motive,
Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,
The secret life of belly and bone,
Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,
Stretches to embrace the very dear
With whom I would walk without him near,
Touches her grossly, although a word
Would bare my heart and make me clear,
Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed
Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,
Amid the hundred million of his kind,
the scrimmage of appetite everywhere.
[If time permits, give Descartes’ argument concerning his metaphysical physics.] I
actually tend to think most like a dualist when I go to the doctor, with my own body my
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enemy and my doctor an ally against the obstreperous beast. The whole experience is much
less humiliating that way.
But, unless you are a Buddhist, seeking obliteration through meditation and union with
everything, it is not an optimal view! Schwartz himself drank himself to death.
If the previous poem concerned Cartesian dualism then the next concerns the original Platonic
variety. Here Schwartz compares his bedroom to the cave from Plato’s dualist allegory. But
the ending shows that in the day he has not really emerged from Plato’s cave.
In the Naked Bed, in Plato’s cave
In the naked bed, in Plato’s cave,
Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall,
Carpenters hammered under the shaded window,
Wind troubled the window curtains all night long,
A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding,
Their freights covered, as usual.
The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram
Slid slowly forth.
Hearing the milkman’s chop,
His striving up the stair, the bottle’s chink,
I rose from bed, lit a cigarette,
And walked to the window. The stony street
Displayed the stillness in which buildings stand,
The street-lamp’s vigil and the horse’s patience.
The winter sky’s pure capital
Turned me back to bed with exhausted eyes.
Strangeness grew in the motionless air. The loose
Film grayed. Shaking wagons, hooves’ waterfalls,
Sounded far off, increasing, louder and nearer.
A car coughed, starting. Morning, softly
Melting the air, lifted the half-covered chair
From underseas, kindled the looking-glass,
Distinguished the dresser and the white wall.
The bird called tentatively, whistled, called,
Bubbled and whistled, so! Perplexed, still wet
With sleep, affectionate, hungry and cold. So, so,
O son of man, the ignorant night, the travail
Of early morning, the mystery of beginning
Again and again,
while History is unforgiven.
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[If time permits explain Plato’s argument in the Phaedo concerning knowledge of
perfect things.] It’s interesting that he states the ending in a christological way. He’s
yearning for something more, but not what Plato can give him, which is just abstract
communion with eternal unchanging forms. He wants perfection in History.
If pantheism cannot account for the fallen nature of reality, then religious dualism, the belief
that the material world is intrinsically fallen, contrasted with a radically different spiritual one,
cannot account for the blessed nature of the material world.
This ties to another distinction concerning the point of spirituality. One point might be to lose
oneself in God. Another point might be to make sure one’s non-physical soul gets to a better
place. The manner in which Wright rejects pantheism and dualism leads him to reject both of
these pictures.
Instead, the metaphysical picture is of one where reality is fallen, but where in states of grace
we experience something like what the Celts called “thin places,” where we have a transient
experience of this world and our relation to it as they should be. This is deeply paradoxical,
but no less paradoxical than a God who eternally delights in us even though we too are fallen.
Paradoxical but true, for part of what is constitutive of love is that it calls us to the deepest
possible joy and to the deepest possible grief.
It is interesting to note that Borg’s panentheism, the view that the universe is part of God, is
motivated by exactly this concern as well.
Any thoughts?
THEOLOGY (pp. 213-218)
Not much worth discussing here. Negative stuff about the Enlightenment and rehashing
previous debates with Borg.
I do think Wright again misinteprets Borg here. When Borg writes that certain Gospel stories
are “history metaphorized” this does not commit him to thinking that the original
communities that used, copied, and redacted these texts took them as anything else than literal
truth. Borg’s claim is not about the original intention of the writers, but rather that we should
not take them as literal truths, but need to see the proper metaphorical truth underlying it.
POLITICS (pp. 218-222)
Overall a nice discussion. Jesus is lord. Mammon is not. We should not be afraid of making
these claims in the public sphere (though we must always keep in mind Matthew chapter 6,
verses 5-6,
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When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of
men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall
reward thee openly.
Could anything be truer of politicians who use their supposed faith to get votes and power?
Wright does not seem to understand this very well.)
This being said Wright’s pushback on the standard liberal critique of Constantine’s
conversion is I think important and insightful.
He goes too far though. His closing part about how African Christians are doing a better job
than everybody else at not separating church and state so much is pretty shocking.
American conservative Christians have been so deeply implicated in trying to criminalize
homosexuality in Uganda, and the horrendous abuse that gay people are subject to in that part
of the world, that it is fair to say that many conservative Christians have blood on their hands.
Who would Jesus have wanted us to help, those who persecute and murder African
homosexuals, or the persecuted?
HEALING (pp. 222-225)
Wright thinks that spiritual and physical healing are tied together, and his humility about not
knowing what to say when prayer does not work is moving.
JESUS AND INTEGRATION (pp. 225-228)
This is too much just having the last word against Borg, so instead of telling us about his own
views we mostly get a rehash of ways that he thinks Borg is wrong.
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Feb. 26 - Chapter 16, A Vision of the Christian Life (Borg)
[Note: Syllabi and lecture notes are on-line at:
http://projectbraintrust.com/cogburn/sundayschool/themeaningofjesus.doc]
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OUR VISIONS OF JESUS (pp. 229-238)
Since this is the last class day, I’d like to speed through some of the material and then have us
discuss the survey with which we started the class.
Last week I mentioned “the good, the bad, and the ugly” in reference to Wright. Reading Borg
conclusions shed bright light on the claim. I’ll discuss that a little before the survey, because
my greatest disappointment with this book is that the “conservative” side of the debates so
often required what struck me as rampant sophistry. I can’t believe that Wright is the best that
conservative christians can do. For most purely political and philosophical issues, you can
(and should!) find informed people of good will who do not argue sophistically on both sides
of the debate. I don’t think we got this here. Luckily, the content of Wright’s a priori
apologetics was interesting and plausible enough to some extent make up for this.
Anyhow, in what follows I’ll just amplify Borg’s discussion of where Wright goes wrong, and
explicate a few new things from this chapter. This will give us time to discuss the survey.
Our Foundational Categories (pp. 230-232)
Borg- spirit person, healer, wisdom teacher, social prophet, and movement initiator.
Wright- messiah and prophet of the kind of God, the need for the real return from exile,
Israel’s vocation to be the light to the nations, etc.
Borg notes that while he disagrees with Wright on much of this, it is possible that they are
both correct. The reason Borg uses cross cultural categories is that thinks it is required as part
of the reforming movement against a “literalistic, doctrinal, moralistic, exclusivistic, and
afterlife oriented” Christianity. Likewise, noting how similar is the experience of the sacred
across cultures allows us to provide a powerful counterargument against skeptics.
Epistemology and Faith (pp. 232-234)
Key point, “whether or not I believe something to have happened has nothing to do with
whether it did” (234). Wright’s talk about “self involving” postmodern epistemic norms puts
him perilously close to violating this basic principle of sanity.
How Much is Historical (pp. 234-235)
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Sources and Method (pp. 235-238)
Back to the good, the bad, and the ugly of Wright.
The good comes when we get a glimpse of Wright’s a priori apologetics and practical
wisdom concerning things like the role of worship and liturgy. Many of his insights into the
essence of Christianity are deep and valuable.
The bad comes with the blinders he wears that no respectable historian would.
1. Most of Wright’s historical claims are inconsistent with the scholarly consensus that
Mark is the earliest Gospel and that Matthew and Luke incorporated and changed
material in Mark (along with the Q sayings, which are much less altered, and other
sources).
2. Wright acts as if the gap of over thirty years between the earliest gospel source and the
death of Jesus (with the destruction of Palestine taking place in the meantime) would
not significantly change the oral stories told about Jesus; he even tries to argue for this
in a completely unconvincing way, unconvincing both because it is inconsistent with
Markan priority, because it is inconsistent with common sense, and because there is no
evidence that oral religious traditions work this way.
3. Wright does not taking into account Hellenistic influences on sources that were
written in Greek (!), following well known Greek literary conventions (esp. John and
Acts), primarily about one figure from a highly Hellenized area (Galilee) and mostly
by another figure whose ministry was to the Hellenistic world.
4. Wright does not take seriously the scholarly consensus on the dating of the Gospels.
These books were all written at the very earliest after a war where up to a million
Jews were killed. Our earliest extant versions of any fragments of any of them are
from the 200s.
Wright continually writes as he has great historical knowledge about what life was like for
normal Palestinian Jews in the first century C.E. and tries to interpret the Gospels as if they
faithfully record accounts of people living in that milieu. Independent of the weirdness of
making such a claim about the Gospel authors, I have absolutely zero confidence that he is
correctly characterizing life in first century Palestine. He is just way too postmodernly
cavalier with historical research concerning the Bible.
The ugly comes with what he does with the bad. Borg is too polite to point any of this out, but
we must.
1. Wright’s vision of Jesus as primarily a “Jewish prophet” leads him to articulate views
shockingly close (if not identical) to traditional Christian anti-semitism, where Jewish
people deserve what they get because they haven’t accepted Jesus (Wright says as
much about the Roman-Jewish war and the destruction of the temple).
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2. Wright’s doesn’t seem to be aware of the extent to which the denigration of
Hellenistic sources as well as his closeness to inerrancy is also part and parcel of a
very ugly strain of know-nothing anti-Roman Catholicism, one that cripples us by
preventing us from learning both from the collective wisdom of the Magisterium and
from conclusions by groups such as the Jesus Seminar.
3. Wright’s poor historical standards lead to overall bad argumentative standards,
committing the strawman fallacy multiple times in his disagreements with Borg. For
example, Borg’s serious argument about whether the pre-Easter Jesus knew that he
was the messiah concerns how Matthew and Luke edit the original meaning of
passages in Mark. But Wright just continually latches onto Borg’s claim about the
psychology of people who claim to be messiahs (disingenuously calling it “the
standard objection” on page 210).
4. When Wright goes on about “the Enlightenment” and “post-modernism” he really is
working above his pay grade, and his conclusions are dangerously anti-science in a
way that no Christian needs to be. It is no accident that such fideist denigration of
reason is both again of a piece with anti-Roman Catholicism and such to justify simply
ignoring centuries of research into the historical basis of the Bible.
Again, I think that much of Wright’s theology, especially when he is doing apologetics,
survives this. And we have been lucky to get enough glimpses into that while wading through
the dreck. It might have been better to read his wonderful book Simply Christian alongside
Borg’s chapters.
A VISION OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (pp.238-250)
A Relational Understanding (pp. 238-242)
A remarkable claim from one of his students. “You’re saying the Bible is like a lens through
which we see God, and they’re saying that it’s important to believe in the lens” (239).
JESUS AS LENS (pp. 241-241)
Jesus himself gives us a vision of what God is like.
WHAT GOD IS LIKE (pp. 241-242)
It’s worth just reading this section.
A Life Full of God (pp. 242-246)
The Gospels as Lens (pp. 246-249)
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Living Within the Tradition (pp. 249-250)
Now I’d like to discuss the survey that I handed out on the first day of the course. The thing that
interests me as I look at this survey is that while these mark the differences between Borg and
Wright, they don’t really mark the most valuable things I’ve learned from this book, which are
not Borg and Wright’s respective histories, but rather the theologies they articulate in grappling
with these histories. Again, go back to pp. 241-242 which is in some way the punchline of the
whole book.
If I could go back in time, the survey would involve questions about what God is like more than
questions about the historical Jesus.
Ludwig Wittgenstein ends his first masterpiece with the injunction that the book must be used
like a ladder that is thrown away once one has climbed it and seen things correctly. I think that
investigations into the historical Jesus are probably similar.
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(1) Does God personally intervene in the world?
Yes______
No_______
Don’t Know_____
(2) Was Jesus’ body resurrected?
Yes______
No_______
Don’t Know_____
(3) Could one have videotaped the resurrection?
Yes______
No_______
Don’t Know_____
(4) Did Jesus actually proclaim that he was the messiah prior to the resurrection?
Yes______
No_______
Don’t Know_____
(5) Did Jesus actually predict his second coming?
Yes______
No_______
Don’t Know_____
(6) Did Jesus actually predict the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem?
Yes______
No_______
Don’t Know_____
(7) Jesus’ resurrection is most important because(a) It gives us eternal life,
(b) It represents the defeat of evil,
(c) It makes possible our own transformation into new beings,
(8) Can historical research challenge matters of faith?
Yes______
No_______
Don’t Know_____
(9) Faith is primarily
(a) believing in things for which there is little empirical evidence,
(b) being receptive to grace,
(c) being able to overcome innate depravity and transform oneself more closely into a being in
Christ’s image.
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