I've just realized that we are rapidly approaching the end of what I had already typed up. So it will take quite a bit more effor to get these old bits out to you, and I imagine I'll be a lot more selective : ) Only the truly interesting bits will get in. But for now, here is the end of January 2007 and a little more processing of the Tao te Ching.
January 26
Five more days till payday, which is also meaningless, since it is all gone, always. Things are what they are. They would be easier to accept if Jim had something [workwise]. . . I am not blaming Jim for my lack of spiritual progress, toward accepting things as they are. At least, I hope I’m not. I am suggesting that I’m having more difficulty in this context, the context of someone close to me in pain. Am I really supposed to tell him his problems are what they are so leave it alone? Or am I supposed to feel that inside me? Maybe it is that my focus should be tighter in; no matter that my husband is unhappy, as that is one of the conditions of life I need to accept. Ugh. Can Lao-tzu really mean we shouldn’t care if people are in pain? Shouldn’t want to relieve that suffering?
6
The Tao is called the Great Mother;
Empty yet inexhaustible
It gives birth to multiple worlds.
It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.
Wow. When I opened the book and began reading those words, I felt an immediate calm. Why not allow myself to be comforted by a Great Mother? At times the Tao seems indifferent; like God, how can anything that vast have personal feelings for me? But I’ve already concluded that is possible, believable to me, I mean. So, if it helps, I ought to let myself think of the Tao as She-who-gave-birth-to-me. Of course she must be there for me to lean on, to bathe in, and be comforted by. One’s mother is always present inside one.
And lastly, a reminder that this isn’t about rules. It is not a matter of performing prescribed actins and avoiding those off limits. The Tao is a great river that runs inside of me – it can fill me up, and I can have it be a crashing flood that destroys all in its path (which could be good sometimes) or a gently meandering stream. The choice is mine. And here’s the amazing part: It really doesn’t matter which I choose, because in the end, the Great Mother, the River, will turn things into what she desires – or no. Will make all things good as they turn into herself.
The Tao is – and we are all part of it, along with the whole universe, and all of it is one great design. If there were no bad guys, there’d be no heroes, so in that way, it doesn’t matter. To switch metaphors, all strands will have their place in the great Tapestry. So I find that freeing. If I make mistakes, it will be okay. I am so used to being afraid. Afraid of doing the wrong thing, not doing the right one, of being judged. So I feel better, I feel lighter, and freer, and more powerful, just thinking it is okay to make mistakes. That even my mistakes will eventually add to the beauty of the whole. That is a far different think even than the Christian notion of forgiveness.
Forgiveness means you made an ugly spot and God is erasing it. Taoism is saying there is no such thing as ugly. Nothing will be erased, as every action makes part of the beauty of what is.
I want to try to hold on to this feeling of wholeness, of being full of a river – a powerful river that can rage or meander, as I choose. Of a Great Mother, who gave birth to me and let me flow, who is the Source and to whom I will return. The pain that was spiking earlier has calmed back down. Probably what I should do, before I go to the shower, is meditate on this image for 10-15 minutes. See if I can. Combine it with the “Inner smile” the doc gave me.
January 28
7
The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
Thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desire for itself;
Thus it is present in all things.
Is he saying the same thing as the Buddha? That individual desire, self-centered desire, the desire to think of oneself as separate and individual, is the source not only of unhappiness and suffering, but also death? I guess, in a purely logical way, that is true. If I think of myself as individual, I will surely die. If I think of myself as part of all things, I will never die.
“It has no desire for itself; thus it is present in all things.” This seems remarkably like what Buddha said. The goal is to recognize, deep – that we are all the same thing. If I am you, how can I feel sad when you win the lottery? The rest of the “chapter” supports this interpretation:
The Master stays behind;
That is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things,
That is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
She is perfectly fulfilled.
These are the same, seemingly paradoxical statements the Buddha made. And I get it, at one level. It makes intellectual sense to me. But how do I come to feel it? To really get that my students and I, for example, even the problematic ones – are the same. Are One? That what Jim needs is what I need, etc. Sometimes it feels easy, but it can be close to impossible, too, when students are sneering, or whatever.
Jim and I just had a long discussion about the meditation Dr. Kasper gave me, and how it won’t work for every day [because it was too long and involved - about 4 hours]. In the middle, Jim came up with a good suggestion about how I could do a chakra meditation focused on getting energy moving smoothly and freely up and down my spine [where I am most damaged] . . . I am a rank novice when it comes to meditation. I’ve never been good at it, and I’ve never devoted the time to getting better at it.
January 29
8
The supreme good is like water,
Which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.
In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
Let’s stop there. So much good advice, I need to process and think about how to apply it to my life. First, that the supreme good is like water makes more sense to me than a person-like god who is trying to do good things. Good is like water in that it isn’t trying to do anything. It is “indifferent” in that way. It just is, and things are nourished by its presence. Like my analogy of the sun – flowers grown and turn their faces toward the sun, whether the sun cares about them individually or not. And good is like water in the sense I was feeling last week, as the Great Mother river flowed through me and at the same time carried me with it.
The next line reminds us that it is not something way out above us, but it is content in the low places others disdain. As I was writing yesterday, it needs to be okay with me to be behind.
The next section – simple, clear directions. Stay grounded. Keep your feet on the earth. Literally and figuratively. I do try to keep my theory grounded in my work, and I also try to keep it simple for students. Not in a dumbing-down way, which I don’t think Lao-tzu means, but in a way that shows theory isn’t pie-in-the-sky stuff for geniuses only, but we can all get it.
But how about in my personal life? Maybe I need to work less hard on coming up with theories to explain my own or Jim’s or even M’s [a student] behavior. In taking care of Jim, it would be more helpful if I kept it simple. Provide a backrub, in other words, instead of a dissertation on how much [school that didn't hire him] sucks, or theorizing with him about why he wasn’t hired.
The next two seem straightforward. And I can learn to be more generous to Jim in conflict. I’m learning how to govern my students without trying to control them. And with them, the key seems to be engagement. So with others, the same basic idea should apply: When governing, find out what is of interest to the governed and enlist their aid in understanding and dealing with it. It should work.
I am fortunate to do work I enjoy. That last one, though, I really need to work on. Be fully present in my family life. I only seem to be able to manage that for short bits of time. I come home really tired, and can be present for an hour or so, as we talk about our days. But then I often at least half-way disappear into the computer. And I think that has to be a little bit okay. At least, I’m pretty sure Lao-tzu isn’t suggesting we have to have heart-to-heart talks 24-7 with our families.
What I need to do is work harder, well, that’s a bad expression. I need to open myself further, be more flexible and attentive and appreciative in the times I am talking to Jim or any other member of my family. As I was saying yesterday, I need to listen more deeply to him. Just absorb what he is saying and be fully present. That means don’t be thinking about work, or how I’d like to be working or doing something else. And don’t be thinking about how to fix any one's problems. Just listen, and be there. And this shouldn’t be work. I need to get away from the Protestant way of thinking about things. It should be more like a blooming, a flower opening its petals to receive light. Is that work? No. So, okay, open my petals, be more fully present. It ends:
When you are content to be simply yourself
And don’t compare or compete
Everybody will respect you.
Common sense. I am content to be myself with Jim, but my best self? Am I that self I was as a child, utterly open, taking all people I met into my heart, loving them – seeing their warts not even as warts. It was all good to me. How can I be that self with Jim, and with everyone? I think the answer may be what Lao-tzu is saying – “content to be simply yourself.” Be yourself, but don’t think about yourself. You are there, but your vision is so full of others that you don’t appear, even on the periphery of your vision. It was only with puberty that I began to be self-conscious, and that so easily turns into self-centeredness. That is the process I need to reverse.
January 30
9
Fill your bowl to the brim
And it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
And it will blunt
Chase after money and security
And your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
And you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
Maybe related to my thought yesterday that I need to not think of things as work so much. I don’t believe I am or have been chasing after money, though I might be more guilty of seeking security.
Caring about others’ approval has always been a problem for me. I can’t stand it when people don’t like me. And its hard to completely let go of that, because it does matter. I have to get good student evaluations. My colleagues have to approve of me to give me tenure.
But I guess there is a difference. Focus on the work, on doing it well, and then step back and see what happens. That is different from, for example, handing out easy As or going around copying or flattering my colleagues. So I think I’m okay with this stuff.
I could stand to care less what students think – not take it so hard when they don’t like me. But I am not ruled by that. I do what I believe is right, in the classroom and out. I still hope for approval, but it is not going to change how I teach or conduct myself.
January 31
Long one today.
10
Can you coax your mind from its wandering
And keep it to the original oneness?
That’s easy to answer – No! My mind is very undisciplined. I’ve been having a hard time keeping it on the sentence I’m writing. I could use a lot of practice and must find or make the time to do this.
Can you let your body become
Supple as a newborn child?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
Until you see nothing but light?
No, no, and no. my body is more tense than ever as it fights the pain. It is hard to even make my neck let my head rest on the pillow at night. These two are also things I do not do well and should be, would like to be, working on.
Can you love people and lead them
Without imposing your will?
I used to think so, but I’ve grown in my understanding of my own desire, my own will for people. I am better with everyone but Jim. I love him, but I still want to impose my will on him. I want him not to be so cynical. I want him to be happy and fulfilled. I want him to be filled with energy and excitement and a new wind about something in the future that he has planned for himself. How can I let that go? And just love him as he is today with no desire to change him?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
By letting events take their course?
Ugh. These are really tough questions! No, I can’t! I worry things to death. I’m better than I used to be, but I always have to fight the urge to micro-manage. I so wish I could take control of Jim’s situation and make a job for him. I’m better at the little stuff, which I guess is a good place to start. And I’m trying to let go, to let things happen as they will. And you know, I handled the drug thing yesterday better than I would have 6 months ago. I was in terrible pain, but I did some deep breathing and reminded myself I wasn’t going to die no matter how much it felt like I would. And I reminded myself it was out of my hands, beyond my control and I’d just have to wait. So, its progress. I’ll just keep trying to let go and allow events to take their course.
Can you step back from your own mind
And thus understand all things?
Obviously, no. I’m so far from achieving this I can’t even know what it means. For me, I guess it means I’ve got to spend more time in meditation so I can get a glimmer of what this might be like.
Giving birth and nourishing
Having without possessing
Acting without expectations
Leading and not trying to control
This is the supreme virtue.
Okay. Will just try to take that all in.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
2007 - Introduction to the Tao
A new year, although for me, years really run on the academic cycle. But this calendar year also marked a shift in my thinking, and contained some remarkable spiritual breakthroughs which began with the reading of the Tao te Ching that I had gotten out for Jim to read.
January 22, 2007
Here’s a thought – I’ve been reading the Tao te Ching on smoke breaks, but why don’t I begin using it as a journal entry prompt? It isn’t meditation, but its something. So, what are they called in Chinese? Not sutras or suras, but I can’t remember. I’ll just call them chapters.
The first one seems a reminder that just calling something “the Tao,” or “God” doesn’t mean you understand it.
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The Truth cannot be taught in words. It’s a good way to start; all of the words that are to come are just pointers, and no amount of writing and thinking in words is going to get me living in the Tao.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
In the West, we put a lot of faith in the naming of things. Create a category, put stuff in it, and there it stays. Mastered, taken care of. Maybe that is a human thing. I can name my father's sin: betrayal. I can name Jim’s problem: unemployment. Does that help me understand those issues? Or is it a way to stop thinking about them?
And when applied to god – how angry I have been (and will be again) when people claim to know the mind of God, or when they picture someone I disagree with. But how often do I myself revert to an image of a grandfatherly patriarch, denying me something I desire, or issuing judgments, or even loving me? Every time I do so, put God in a box, I am acting out of desire, and seeing only the manifestations. When I am able to look past my own will and remember that God is not in a box I’ve made out of words, I get a glimpse of the mystery.
Yet mystery and manifestations
Arise from the same source
This source is called darkness
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
So it isn’t that looking at the manifestations is wrong, its just simple-minded. Its missing the larger point. It is the darkness I need to enter. When I realize that I don’t know why Jim can’t find work, or why I am in such pain, I move closer to where I need to be.
Let go of the words, the names, for things. Don’t cling to them as explanations, don’t believe phenomena can be bounded by such tactics. Let all of it blend together in the darkness and just let it be there. So hard for me to do. My impulse is to pull things out and analyze them to death. Okay. Aside from my work, the job for today is to not believe in naming things. Let them all be, in the darkness where I cannot understand them.
January 23
It’s 7 am and I need to get my head in a good place for the day, so here is the Tao te Ching’s offering, chapter 1. Oh, it is one of my favorites, and a good reminder every day.
When people see some things as beautiful,
Other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
Other things become bad.
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
Before and after follow each other.
I teach this all the time. In linguistics, in identity formation, etc. But it is so incredibly difficult to behave as if it is true, even when I know it is. How hard to accept things as they are without labeling them, without sorting them into what I like and what I don’t like. It is all about desire and attachment, isn’t’ it? We are attracted to Jim having a job, we desire to pay off our bills. What if I were able to not label his state as desirable or un? What if I could respond to each student fully, without one answer being ugly and another beautiful? Well – I am concerned with their answers, but I shouldn’t be with their persons. Here is the Book’s description of doing it right:
Therefore the Master
Acts without doing anything
And teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come.
Things disappear and she lets them go.
She has, but does not possess,
Acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.
Oh, to be like this! I want so much to be this person. Can you imagine if I could let the pain come, and not react? Not hate it, not fight it, not call it ugly? And whether Jim has a job? And whether my students like me? I’m going to really try. Try to be mindful and conscious of my responses. Try to begin to let them be. And do it without letting Jim’s despair stop me and drag me down, but also not be smug if I pull any of it off.
Okay, a huge challenge. But a long journey beings with a single step. And already my pain is less insistent than when I was describing it as unjust.
January 24
It’s getting late, so I need to switch to the Book. Hmm. This is a little more difficult to apply to my life. Maybe to the state of our nation, though, and my part in that. Here goes:
If you over-esteem great men,
People become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
People begin to steal.
This seems straightforward enough. What to do, though, when one’s society has done these things? How do we step back from it?
The Master leads
By emptying people’s minds
And filling their cores.
This is so what I’m going for as a teacher! Not that their heads should be utterly empty, but empty of misconception, false theories, and the diet of junk they are fed each day by the media. Empty the heads of all that, and fill the core with interest, passion, hope, willingness, generosity, etc. And it goes for me, too. Why do I let my head get filled up with worry over all the small things? I need to empty my head and fill my core, too.
By weakening their ambition,
And toughening their resolve.
Let go of my ambition to be full professor, chair of anthropology, wealthy; and toughen my resolve to do a good job of teaching, research, mentoring, etc.
She helps people lose everything
They know, everything they desire,
And creates confusion
In those who think that they know.
Well, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing in my classes so far.
Practice not-doing
And everything will fall into place.
Okay, I’ll try. I guess I’m not sure exactly how, but I have a general sort of idea. Do the work well and forget it. Empty the mind, fill the core. Act out of the core, not the silly mind.
January 25
The Tao te Ching has a short message for me today, and not as helpful at first glance as the next one promises to be. The first:
The Tao is like a well;
Used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
Filled with infinite possibilities.
It is hidden but always present.
I don’t know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.
I guess it is helpful to have a reminder that we aren’t talking about God. This is more in line with my belief, expressed and explained elsewhere, that the gods of man exist, if they do, in an already-present matrix. There was a “place” for them (or Him) to arise in, and that space/place is governed by the Tao. The Tao is just the “way things are,” and maybe, the “material of life” – the stuff gods and men and universes, etc. are made of.
I’m thinking of my heretical idea (shared with some Gnostics) that the god of the Jews and the gods of India are so human, and particular that they sometimes appear to be petty and selfish and whimsical and unjust. Contrast that with the Tao.
Five
The Tao doesn’t take sides;
It gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn’t take sides;
She welcomes saints and sinners.
The Tao is like a bellows;
It is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
The more you talk of it, the less you understand.
Hold on to the center.
As I wrote out this past summer, it is impossible for me to believe in a God that is wholly good, who could somehow create evil. Either God has to be both, or there is something bigger than God that contains both. Might as well call that something Tao.
Point, of course, is not to initiate theological squabbles, but to practice accepting both saints and sinners. Very difficult not to take sides in the polarized world I live in. I’ll have to keep working at a different level – not on issues, but people. All people should be welcome in my life. Like love, like “life force,” the more you use it, the more there is. No need to worry about running out.
January 22, 2007
Here’s a thought – I’ve been reading the Tao te Ching on smoke breaks, but why don’t I begin using it as a journal entry prompt? It isn’t meditation, but its something. So, what are they called in Chinese? Not sutras or suras, but I can’t remember. I’ll just call them chapters.
The first one seems a reminder that just calling something “the Tao,” or “God” doesn’t mean you understand it.
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The Truth cannot be taught in words. It’s a good way to start; all of the words that are to come are just pointers, and no amount of writing and thinking in words is going to get me living in the Tao.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
In the West, we put a lot of faith in the naming of things. Create a category, put stuff in it, and there it stays. Mastered, taken care of. Maybe that is a human thing. I can name my father's sin: betrayal. I can name Jim’s problem: unemployment. Does that help me understand those issues? Or is it a way to stop thinking about them?
And when applied to god – how angry I have been (and will be again) when people claim to know the mind of God, or when they picture someone I disagree with. But how often do I myself revert to an image of a grandfatherly patriarch, denying me something I desire, or issuing judgments, or even loving me? Every time I do so, put God in a box, I am acting out of desire, and seeing only the manifestations. When I am able to look past my own will and remember that God is not in a box I’ve made out of words, I get a glimpse of the mystery.
Yet mystery and manifestations
Arise from the same source
This source is called darkness
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
So it isn’t that looking at the manifestations is wrong, its just simple-minded. Its missing the larger point. It is the darkness I need to enter. When I realize that I don’t know why Jim can’t find work, or why I am in such pain, I move closer to where I need to be.
Let go of the words, the names, for things. Don’t cling to them as explanations, don’t believe phenomena can be bounded by such tactics. Let all of it blend together in the darkness and just let it be there. So hard for me to do. My impulse is to pull things out and analyze them to death. Okay. Aside from my work, the job for today is to not believe in naming things. Let them all be, in the darkness where I cannot understand them.
January 23
It’s 7 am and I need to get my head in a good place for the day, so here is the Tao te Ching’s offering, chapter 1. Oh, it is one of my favorites, and a good reminder every day.
When people see some things as beautiful,
Other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
Other things become bad.
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
Before and after follow each other.
I teach this all the time. In linguistics, in identity formation, etc. But it is so incredibly difficult to behave as if it is true, even when I know it is. How hard to accept things as they are without labeling them, without sorting them into what I like and what I don’t like. It is all about desire and attachment, isn’t’ it? We are attracted to Jim having a job, we desire to pay off our bills. What if I were able to not label his state as desirable or un? What if I could respond to each student fully, without one answer being ugly and another beautiful? Well – I am concerned with their answers, but I shouldn’t be with their persons. Here is the Book’s description of doing it right:
Therefore the Master
Acts without doing anything
And teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come.
Things disappear and she lets them go.
She has, but does not possess,
Acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.
Oh, to be like this! I want so much to be this person. Can you imagine if I could let the pain come, and not react? Not hate it, not fight it, not call it ugly? And whether Jim has a job? And whether my students like me? I’m going to really try. Try to be mindful and conscious of my responses. Try to begin to let them be. And do it without letting Jim’s despair stop me and drag me down, but also not be smug if I pull any of it off.
Okay, a huge challenge. But a long journey beings with a single step. And already my pain is less insistent than when I was describing it as unjust.
January 24
It’s getting late, so I need to switch to the Book. Hmm. This is a little more difficult to apply to my life. Maybe to the state of our nation, though, and my part in that. Here goes:
If you over-esteem great men,
People become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
People begin to steal.
This seems straightforward enough. What to do, though, when one’s society has done these things? How do we step back from it?
The Master leads
By emptying people’s minds
And filling their cores.
This is so what I’m going for as a teacher! Not that their heads should be utterly empty, but empty of misconception, false theories, and the diet of junk they are fed each day by the media. Empty the heads of all that, and fill the core with interest, passion, hope, willingness, generosity, etc. And it goes for me, too. Why do I let my head get filled up with worry over all the small things? I need to empty my head and fill my core, too.
By weakening their ambition,
And toughening their resolve.
Let go of my ambition to be full professor, chair of anthropology, wealthy; and toughen my resolve to do a good job of teaching, research, mentoring, etc.
She helps people lose everything
They know, everything they desire,
And creates confusion
In those who think that they know.
Well, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing in my classes so far.
Practice not-doing
And everything will fall into place.
Okay, I’ll try. I guess I’m not sure exactly how, but I have a general sort of idea. Do the work well and forget it. Empty the mind, fill the core. Act out of the core, not the silly mind.
January 25
The Tao te Ching has a short message for me today, and not as helpful at first glance as the next one promises to be. The first:
The Tao is like a well;
Used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
Filled with infinite possibilities.
It is hidden but always present.
I don’t know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.
I guess it is helpful to have a reminder that we aren’t talking about God. This is more in line with my belief, expressed and explained elsewhere, that the gods of man exist, if they do, in an already-present matrix. There was a “place” for them (or Him) to arise in, and that space/place is governed by the Tao. The Tao is just the “way things are,” and maybe, the “material of life” – the stuff gods and men and universes, etc. are made of.
I’m thinking of my heretical idea (shared with some Gnostics) that the god of the Jews and the gods of India are so human, and particular that they sometimes appear to be petty and selfish and whimsical and unjust. Contrast that with the Tao.
Five
The Tao doesn’t take sides;
It gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn’t take sides;
She welcomes saints and sinners.
The Tao is like a bellows;
It is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
The more you talk of it, the less you understand.
Hold on to the center.
As I wrote out this past summer, it is impossible for me to believe in a God that is wholly good, who could somehow create evil. Either God has to be both, or there is something bigger than God that contains both. Might as well call that something Tao.
Point, of course, is not to initiate theological squabbles, but to practice accepting both saints and sinners. Very difficult not to take sides in the polarized world I live in. I’ll have to keep working at a different level – not on issues, but people. All people should be welcome in my life. Like love, like “life force,” the more you use it, the more there is. No need to worry about running out.
Friday, March 28, 2008
2006 - Nature of Evil
With the end of August in 2006 came the end of free time for a loooooooooong time. It was my first semester in my first academic job, and I could not believe how busy I was. I had thought graduate school kept me busy! Yet I found time (usually in those few minutes before sleep, to help my mind wind down) to read a few pages of fiction or something non-work related. And finally, in November, I had something of relevance to this blog to say.
November 12
What is on my mind today? Mostly my book (A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry), and India in general. Here’s the puzzle – how can the most ancient, most enlightened, most cosmic and yet most sensible religion the world has ever produced, spawn such evil? There are times when I wonder if there isn’t something inherently wrong with Christianity, since it so regularly leads to exclusion, discrimination, intolerance, hatred and injustice. But one only has to look at India to see the same things, and for Buddhism look at Cambodia and Sri Lanka and China. For Islam there is Egypt and Sudan and Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Jews also have bloody history and the current state of Israel could hardly be more evil. You know what they did this week? After the Palestinians had managed to hold to a cease fire for 7 months – a remarkable feat considering the heterogeneity of political/military groups in their midst – the damned Israeli army sent a succession – 6, not 1 – missiles to destroy a civilian apartment building in Gaza. 14 children were killed, 6 or 7 all from the same family. And what do the Israelis say? “We’re sorry, it was an accident.” Animals!
It is easy to see why some would come to the conclusion that religion is the root of all evil. I don’t believe that, but I do wonder why religion is so weak. Pundits talk about the power of religion to motivate people, etc., but really isn’t it that religion is powerless in the face of human greed and hatred? It certainly seems to me, looking back at all of history, that it is much more often the case that evil people turn religion into a tool, than that religion transforms and uses evil men.
I presented this to Jim just now over a cigarette and it spurred an hour long debate/discussion that began philosophically but ended with application. He first tried to make it about creating a stronger religion, one that could stand up to human evil, but we didn’t get far with that. It did lead me to say that I think humans are so fallen, so evil, that we can’t base a religion on human nature. He said I sounded like I was talking about Original Sin. I said not necessarily, the original “sin” could simply be a factor of how we evolved. Competition, he said, is the root of all evil. We are hard-wired to compete. Yes, and we discussed that awhile.
But, as I’ve said before, we are also hard-wired to cooperate. Our species would have died out had we not cooperated with one another. Jim made/used a clever metaphor of the Strong and Weak forces in physics – it looks like the strong force is stronger, it is when measured immediately. But it is the weak force that holds the universe together. So we both agree that what needs to happen is an increase in our awareness and practice of cooperation, rather than competition. We argued awhile about how to do that, and the extent to which it is already occurring.
November 13
Oh my. This book I’m reading . . . It is just one heartbreaking tragedy after another. Nearly unbearable to read. I keep looking at the table of contents, scanning the chapter titles for some sign of brightness, some hint of a happy ending. It doesn’t provide much optimism. How can people be so terrible to one another? Modern psychology, with its almost complete lack of attention to issues of power, provides no help in understanding it.
I, from my relatively safe, secure, loving childhood and privileged white middle class status, have no capacity for understanding what makes people hate so globally. I get being angry at someone you know, hating individuals for hurting or thwarting you. But how does that translate, or mutate, into a rage and hatred so general that one can be cruel to perfect strangers? And the contempt! How is it that people can sort others into categories and the despise and reject their humanity based on that category and their membership in it?
I have certainly felt contempt for individuals, and have bordered on hatred because of it. And I admit I’m more prepared to despise people who fall into certain categories – Neo-con Republicans, Bible thumping bigots, bigots in general. But I at least give individuals a chance. Its only when they open their mouths and utter opinions I find despicable that I feel contempt. And I don’t believe I have the capacity to deny food, water, or shelter to even those I despise the most, like Bush. I don’t believe I’m capable of beating or raping or setting their houses on fire, either. Or even shipping them off to be beaten and exploited and worked into the ground.
So how do so many humans find it so easy, so casual, to do all of the above and worse, to people they don’t even know? Just because they are poor, or black, or Mexican, or Buddhist, or Jewish or French, or female or working class or a stranger? I don’t even know how to begin to understand it. And it is so common! Much more common than simple kindness.
We talk about Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot as if they were rare aberrations. But really, aren’t their feelings and theories and callousness closer to the norm? There have been so many evil, despotic rulers, but for each one of them there are millions of soldiers, prison guards, gang members, lawyers, business men, shopkeepers, farmers and even religious leaders (high and low), who feel and behave in exactly the same ways. They just don’t have the power to do it on a grand scale. Although the inhuman decisions of CEOs and bankers destroy lives in vast, uncounted numbers.
How can one not despair? Why do we have it so good in the U.S.? Because we wrote laws and voted on them in an attempt to curb the worst abuses, to try to protect ourselves from the monstrous people in our midst. But now people, in their fear of unpredictable and largely fabricated threats of terrorists, are ready – no, eager – to suspend all those laws that protect us, just to have the illusion of security. Please tell me how removing all of our civil rights and liberties will prevent the spread of anthrax, or stop a nuclear missile, or prevent explosives from exploding? It’s a myth, but frightened people eat it up.
Maybe what they really need is a reminder of what happens in places without these protections. And someone to connect the dots for them, so they see why we must have freedom of speech, law of habeas corpus, and the right to face one’s accuser. Maybe they are so uneducated, taught all the wrong things in all the wrong ways, so that they don’t know.
December 21
Jim shared some of his struggle for meaning. By the end of that conversation I was convinced more than ever that he would benefit from Taoism. So I brought him down the Tao te Ching before I went to bed.
November 12
What is on my mind today? Mostly my book (A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry), and India in general. Here’s the puzzle – how can the most ancient, most enlightened, most cosmic and yet most sensible religion the world has ever produced, spawn such evil? There are times when I wonder if there isn’t something inherently wrong with Christianity, since it so regularly leads to exclusion, discrimination, intolerance, hatred and injustice. But one only has to look at India to see the same things, and for Buddhism look at Cambodia and Sri Lanka and China. For Islam there is Egypt and Sudan and Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Jews also have bloody history and the current state of Israel could hardly be more evil. You know what they did this week? After the Palestinians had managed to hold to a cease fire for 7 months – a remarkable feat considering the heterogeneity of political/military groups in their midst – the damned Israeli army sent a succession – 6, not 1 – missiles to destroy a civilian apartment building in Gaza. 14 children were killed, 6 or 7 all from the same family. And what do the Israelis say? “We’re sorry, it was an accident.” Animals!
It is easy to see why some would come to the conclusion that religion is the root of all evil. I don’t believe that, but I do wonder why religion is so weak. Pundits talk about the power of religion to motivate people, etc., but really isn’t it that religion is powerless in the face of human greed and hatred? It certainly seems to me, looking back at all of history, that it is much more often the case that evil people turn religion into a tool, than that religion transforms and uses evil men.
I presented this to Jim just now over a cigarette and it spurred an hour long debate/discussion that began philosophically but ended with application. He first tried to make it about creating a stronger religion, one that could stand up to human evil, but we didn’t get far with that. It did lead me to say that I think humans are so fallen, so evil, that we can’t base a religion on human nature. He said I sounded like I was talking about Original Sin. I said not necessarily, the original “sin” could simply be a factor of how we evolved. Competition, he said, is the root of all evil. We are hard-wired to compete. Yes, and we discussed that awhile.
But, as I’ve said before, we are also hard-wired to cooperate. Our species would have died out had we not cooperated with one another. Jim made/used a clever metaphor of the Strong and Weak forces in physics – it looks like the strong force is stronger, it is when measured immediately. But it is the weak force that holds the universe together. So we both agree that what needs to happen is an increase in our awareness and practice of cooperation, rather than competition. We argued awhile about how to do that, and the extent to which it is already occurring.
November 13
Oh my. This book I’m reading . . . It is just one heartbreaking tragedy after another. Nearly unbearable to read. I keep looking at the table of contents, scanning the chapter titles for some sign of brightness, some hint of a happy ending. It doesn’t provide much optimism. How can people be so terrible to one another? Modern psychology, with its almost complete lack of attention to issues of power, provides no help in understanding it.
I, from my relatively safe, secure, loving childhood and privileged white middle class status, have no capacity for understanding what makes people hate so globally. I get being angry at someone you know, hating individuals for hurting or thwarting you. But how does that translate, or mutate, into a rage and hatred so general that one can be cruel to perfect strangers? And the contempt! How is it that people can sort others into categories and the despise and reject their humanity based on that category and their membership in it?
I have certainly felt contempt for individuals, and have bordered on hatred because of it. And I admit I’m more prepared to despise people who fall into certain categories – Neo-con Republicans, Bible thumping bigots, bigots in general. But I at least give individuals a chance. Its only when they open their mouths and utter opinions I find despicable that I feel contempt. And I don’t believe I have the capacity to deny food, water, or shelter to even those I despise the most, like Bush. I don’t believe I’m capable of beating or raping or setting their houses on fire, either. Or even shipping them off to be beaten and exploited and worked into the ground.
So how do so many humans find it so easy, so casual, to do all of the above and worse, to people they don’t even know? Just because they are poor, or black, or Mexican, or Buddhist, or Jewish or French, or female or working class or a stranger? I don’t even know how to begin to understand it. And it is so common! Much more common than simple kindness.
We talk about Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot as if they were rare aberrations. But really, aren’t their feelings and theories and callousness closer to the norm? There have been so many evil, despotic rulers, but for each one of them there are millions of soldiers, prison guards, gang members, lawyers, business men, shopkeepers, farmers and even religious leaders (high and low), who feel and behave in exactly the same ways. They just don’t have the power to do it on a grand scale. Although the inhuman decisions of CEOs and bankers destroy lives in vast, uncounted numbers.
How can one not despair? Why do we have it so good in the U.S.? Because we wrote laws and voted on them in an attempt to curb the worst abuses, to try to protect ourselves from the monstrous people in our midst. But now people, in their fear of unpredictable and largely fabricated threats of terrorists, are ready – no, eager – to suspend all those laws that protect us, just to have the illusion of security. Please tell me how removing all of our civil rights and liberties will prevent the spread of anthrax, or stop a nuclear missile, or prevent explosives from exploding? It’s a myth, but frightened people eat it up.
Maybe what they really need is a reminder of what happens in places without these protections. And someone to connect the dots for them, so they see why we must have freedom of speech, law of habeas corpus, and the right to face one’s accuser. Maybe they are so uneducated, taught all the wrong things in all the wrong ways, so that they don’t know.
December 21
Jim shared some of his struggle for meaning. By the end of that conversation I was convinced more than ever that he would benefit from Taoism. So I brought him down the Tao te Ching before I went to bed.
Monday, March 24, 2008
2006 - The Rest of August
August 12
Has it really only been 3 days since I began Romans and then put it all aside? I really am going to try to limit my comments.
Romans, written by Paul from Corinth about 58. Note he claims in v.1 to have been called as an apostle, putting himself equal with the Jerusalem Apostles. Is Paul the replacement for Judas? Such that Jesus remarks in Matthew, I think, about the 12 apostles governing the 12 tribes of Israel would come true? In v.2 he says Jesus was “declared the Son of God because of the resurrection of the dead.”
1:16 he says salvation thru the gospel is for the Jew first, but also the Greek. One assumes he is glossing all gentiles as Greek, since he is speaking to Romans.
1:18-32 is a tirade against all men who know (by virtue of being created) the nature of God but refuse to worship him, and therefore fall into all kinds of sin including degrading passions. “ . . . for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.” What does that mean? Anal sex? Vaginal sex for pleasure? Or sex with other women? For the next verse is, “and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” 1:27 To what could he be referring? He is speaking of the past, not the future, so forget AIDS. Maybe Sodom and Gomorrah? Note that in 2 of the 4 letters I’ve read, Paul brings up sexual sin in the first chapter.
He does list other sins, and in chapter 2 tells them to stop judging one another. Every one who accuses another is guilty himself. His main point seems to be in 2;11-15, where he says the law applies equally to Jews and Gentiles (the new Law). God is impartial.
Gentiles who do the right thing are “The Law unto themselves,” as they have the Law written on their hearts, whether they’ve heard the Law or Gospel or not 2:14. This is important for me – it is saying that all those attempts to baptize Indians, etc., were unnecessary. Jews, on the other hand, know the law and have no excuse. Just being a Jew isn’t enough. If you break the law, your “circumcision becomes uncircumcision” 2:25. Circumcision is inward, in the heart. It is a beautiful passage, and in chapter 3 he points out there are still benefits to being a Jew – one entrusted with the oracles of God. But, of course, Jews are not better than anyone else.
3:21-31 is important. Let’s see if I can decipher it. He’s been talking about the Law, and seems to say that no one was saved by it, “for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” 3:20, and he’s just argued that, while non-Jews may know God in their hearts, they didn’t know the Law – and thus couldn’t sin? But now he says righteousness has manifested apart from the Law (in the person of Jesus) 3:21, and tho the words don’t actually say it, he means that all now can have righteousness by faith in Jesus. Bleh. I don’t feel like parsing out every word. He’s making the argument, (for the first time?) that Jesus marks the forgiveness by God of all past sins.
I am fortunate enough to have a brilliant young niece in seminary. In 2006, she was just graduated from college, and was passing through my city for a couple of nights. So I took the opportunity to ask a few questions.
August 23
I’m hoping to be able to talk to V about Bible stuff tonight. I’ll explain to her where I’m coming from, tell her I’m still trying to find a Christianity I can believe in, but that I’m finding it difficult, and tell her why. Aside from the smaller questions and quibbles, I have trouble with the very foundation – that of Original Sin. I just can’t really believe that we need saving in the way Christianity has formulated it. Yes, anyone can see that humans are separate from God, that we feel a kind of disconnection and incompleteness. So I can buy Jesus as Savior in the same way Buddha or Muhammad is Savior – People who have pointed us to how we can be closer to God, become more complete. But the notion that it is our fault, that the separation is our punishment for being sinful – that I just can’t wrap my head around. Not while maintaining the notion of God as good and all powerful.
So another question for her is: what is the purpose of the creation? Because I know a lot of modern American Christians don’t believe in the devil, don’t believe in a literal reading of the Garden of Eden. But if you don’t believe that, then why was Jesus’ suffering necessary? Why did any price have to be paid?
August 24
Now I’ll tell you about our theological discussion. We began by my asking her general approach to the gospels and she said she believed the writers were honest, reliable, and . . . well-intentioned wasn’t the word she used, but something like that. She doesn’t believe every word was dictated or even protected by God, and sees that each was speaking from a particular cultural, political, etc., stance. However, she gives them more weight than I currently do; she believes they are true.
My interpretation of what V said was that she believes Jesus said he was God. If he said it, she believes it. And if he was/is God, then all one really needs to know is that God loves us so much that he was willing to become human to love us better, and he died for it. And that’s it. That is all one needs to know.
I’ll try to keep that in mind and see if it changes how I view things. But questions pop up already, like then where does the forgiveness of sin figure into things? Not to mention the fact that Yahweh does not always seem particularly loving. I guess for now I’m just going to leave it at that. Let it sit. It feels very unsatisfactory, but I guess that’s where I need to be right now.
Has it really only been 3 days since I began Romans and then put it all aside? I really am going to try to limit my comments.
Romans, written by Paul from Corinth about 58. Note he claims in v.1 to have been called as an apostle, putting himself equal with the Jerusalem Apostles. Is Paul the replacement for Judas? Such that Jesus remarks in Matthew, I think, about the 12 apostles governing the 12 tribes of Israel would come true? In v.2 he says Jesus was “declared the Son of God because of the resurrection of the dead.”
1:16 he says salvation thru the gospel is for the Jew first, but also the Greek. One assumes he is glossing all gentiles as Greek, since he is speaking to Romans.
1:18-32 is a tirade against all men who know (by virtue of being created) the nature of God but refuse to worship him, and therefore fall into all kinds of sin including degrading passions. “ . . . for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.” What does that mean? Anal sex? Vaginal sex for pleasure? Or sex with other women? For the next verse is, “and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” 1:27 To what could he be referring? He is speaking of the past, not the future, so forget AIDS. Maybe Sodom and Gomorrah? Note that in 2 of the 4 letters I’ve read, Paul brings up sexual sin in the first chapter.
He does list other sins, and in chapter 2 tells them to stop judging one another. Every one who accuses another is guilty himself. His main point seems to be in 2;11-15, where he says the law applies equally to Jews and Gentiles (the new Law). God is impartial.
Gentiles who do the right thing are “The Law unto themselves,” as they have the Law written on their hearts, whether they’ve heard the Law or Gospel or not 2:14. This is important for me – it is saying that all those attempts to baptize Indians, etc., were unnecessary. Jews, on the other hand, know the law and have no excuse. Just being a Jew isn’t enough. If you break the law, your “circumcision becomes uncircumcision” 2:25. Circumcision is inward, in the heart. It is a beautiful passage, and in chapter 3 he points out there are still benefits to being a Jew – one entrusted with the oracles of God. But, of course, Jews are not better than anyone else.
3:21-31 is important. Let’s see if I can decipher it. He’s been talking about the Law, and seems to say that no one was saved by it, “for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” 3:20, and he’s just argued that, while non-Jews may know God in their hearts, they didn’t know the Law – and thus couldn’t sin? But now he says righteousness has manifested apart from the Law (in the person of Jesus) 3:21, and tho the words don’t actually say it, he means that all now can have righteousness by faith in Jesus. Bleh. I don’t feel like parsing out every word. He’s making the argument, (for the first time?) that Jesus marks the forgiveness by God of all past sins.
I am fortunate enough to have a brilliant young niece in seminary. In 2006, she was just graduated from college, and was passing through my city for a couple of nights. So I took the opportunity to ask a few questions.
August 23
I’m hoping to be able to talk to V about Bible stuff tonight. I’ll explain to her where I’m coming from, tell her I’m still trying to find a Christianity I can believe in, but that I’m finding it difficult, and tell her why. Aside from the smaller questions and quibbles, I have trouble with the very foundation – that of Original Sin. I just can’t really believe that we need saving in the way Christianity has formulated it. Yes, anyone can see that humans are separate from God, that we feel a kind of disconnection and incompleteness. So I can buy Jesus as Savior in the same way Buddha or Muhammad is Savior – People who have pointed us to how we can be closer to God, become more complete. But the notion that it is our fault, that the separation is our punishment for being sinful – that I just can’t wrap my head around. Not while maintaining the notion of God as good and all powerful.
So another question for her is: what is the purpose of the creation? Because I know a lot of modern American Christians don’t believe in the devil, don’t believe in a literal reading of the Garden of Eden. But if you don’t believe that, then why was Jesus’ suffering necessary? Why did any price have to be paid?
August 24
Now I’ll tell you about our theological discussion. We began by my asking her general approach to the gospels and she said she believed the writers were honest, reliable, and . . . well-intentioned wasn’t the word she used, but something like that. She doesn’t believe every word was dictated or even protected by God, and sees that each was speaking from a particular cultural, political, etc., stance. However, she gives them more weight than I currently do; she believes they are true.
I asked about some particular questions, and we had a thoughtful, enjoyable discussion. At the end, I felt that I had received more of the kind of answers that I realize serve others perfectly well but that I find personally frustrating, such as that something is a mystery, or that we don't really understand an aspect completely, so it isn't possible for us to know why Jesus or God did something.
Jesus’ death she sees as the perfect sacrifice, and important for what it says of God’s love for us. For her it isn’t so much about paying a debt – more a simple and powerful declaration of love. That is beautiful, but doesn’t make a lot of rational sense. Yes, I realize rationality doesn’t really matter, but it would be less confusing.
I guess really I’m in the same place I was before. If you don’t accept a lot of the church doctrine, the sense they have made of all this, then where are you? It encourages me that V finds all the doctrine irrelevant and is still a Christian, but for me I don’t think it will work. If the meanings the Church has attached are incorrect, then what are the correct meanings?
My interpretation of what V said was that she believes Jesus said he was God. If he said it, she believes it. And if he was/is God, then all one really needs to know is that God loves us so much that he was willing to become human to love us better, and he died for it. And that’s it. That is all one needs to know.
I’ll try to keep that in mind and see if it changes how I view things. But questions pop up already, like then where does the forgiveness of sin figure into things? Not to mention the fact that Yahweh does not always seem particularly loving. I guess for now I’m just going to leave it at that. Let it sit. It feels very unsatisfactory, but I guess that’s where I need to be right now.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
2006 - August 5-9, Jesus and Paul
After consulting other sources about the Gospels, I continued my study of the New Testament. These were long days of reading and writing, and I am going to try to cut the comments by about half . . .
August 5
I’ve decided I’m just going to read Freeman, and not try to capture every interesting thing he says. A lot of it is stuff I already know, but there are some interesting tidbits. I like his attitude, which is that of attempting to find a historical Jesus who would have made sense to first century Jews. To understand the cultural context so that his actions make sense – but more, that the individual motives/positions of the gospel writers makes sense. He doesn’t at all say, “there are contradictions, so it must not be true.” He instead says, “There are contradictions, so there must be reasons why different people saw him in different ways.” This is the same attitude I have, the same motivation.
After building the argument that Jesus was most comfortable and successful with the “little’ people of rural, provincial Galilee, and had little success in the towns, Foster is able to make the strong point that Jesus was an outsider in Jerusalem. Barabas was, or might have been, an insider with a lot of support for his insurrection. It goes a long way to explain why the people (and Caiaphus) would use Jesus as a way to save one of their own.
He points out how difficult it was to make a charge that would stick, why Pilate would have acquicsed (fear of revolt, or being called disloyal to Caesar), and how odd it is that they didn’t go after his followers. They can’t have been considered a threat, and it supports the idea that Jesus’ actions in the temple were the catalyst.
He talks about the devastation the disciples must have felt, says Christians avoided depictions of the crucifixion for 400 years. A footnote says the 1st was an anti-Christian Roman graffito of a donkey, hanging from a cross. Their Santa Sabina in Rome had Jesus with outstretched arms and nail holes, but no cross, in the 5th century (p.359).
Paul spent 15 days with Peter in Rome, so he would have heard about the resurrection first hand. He writes about it in the 50s, at least 20 years before the Gospels. He says Peter, then 12 disciples, then 500 people, then James and the Apostles, and finally Paul. What about Mary? Is that a later fabrication, or did Peter supplant her, given the tension some (Gnostics) report between them? Haven’t yet dissected Acts, or Corinthians, but Freeman says Paul clearly thought Jesus wasn’t corporeal, but a spirit; the gospels are unclear and confused as to what sort of being he was.
The apostles are still focused on the immanent return of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. I’ll be reading Acts next, but Freeman says Peter says that Jesus ‘was a man commended to you by God” – the idea that he might have been divine was completely alien to Jewish thought, and just would not have occurred to them (p.104). Since Jesus died, the apostles cannot use the scriptures that refer to the Messiah coming in triumph and establishing the kingdom – not without serious re-interpretation. So they must turn to other scriptures which refer to one being “torn from the land . . . for our faults struck down.” Isaiah 53:8-10. From here they develop the notion of a Messiah who gives his life for our sins. That’s not as attractive as one who conquers, but it is enough for them to be able to call him Christ, even though he apparently failed. A footnote says Jews reject this and point out that in the original context, the person described is not a messianic figure. So they were really reaching, as I think is clear in Matthew’s attempts to bend and torture scripture and the life of Jesus to fit. First use of the term “Christians” comes from Antioch.
That’s all of Freeman I want to read right now. May read parts of Armstrong and Pagels that deal with the gospels.
Armstrong p.8: “The Psalms sometimes refer to David as the ‘Son of God,’ but that was simply a way of expressing his intimacy with Yahweh. Nobody since the return from Babylon had imagined that Yahweh actually had a son, like the abominable deities of the goyim.”
Armstrong suggests Jesus' arguments with the Pharisees may really be with the even more stringent school of Shammai (pg. 81). “there was nothing particularly unusual” in a voice from heaven identifying someone as “son of God” or “Beloved Son” pg.81, and she cites examples.
Jesus stressed that all could do the same miracles, if they were like him, I.e. surrendered themselves wholly to God’s will. She talks about Paul’s break from the early disciples over whether gentiles could be followers p.83, and says, “Paul never called Jesus God.” He calls him Son of God in the Jewish sense, but “he certainly did not believe Jesus was the incarnation of God himself.” (p.83).
Armstrong places the urge to deify Jesus in global context. She points out that all of the Axial Age religions, which around 500 BCE made the move from local, partial deities to universal beings/processes, all begin around 10o BCE-100CE to develop personal devotion. The Mahayana Buddhists invent the concept of bodhisattva in the first century BCE, the first statues of the Buddha are put up at Gandhara and Mathira (p.84). [Bodhisattvas are those who sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the world]. And in Hinduism, bhakti yoga develops.
People who cannot relate to the austerity of the Upanishads personalize Brahman into the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. And Vishnu incarnates himself in avatars, particularly the beloved Krishna, who is both loved as a very human human – a child, a lover of cowgirls, a devoted husband – but also reveals himself to Arjuna as The God, terrifying in his vastness, his incorporation of all things, the source and completion of all things.
Isn’t this helpful? There is again a global trend. One can easily see how Buddhism and Hinduism influenced one another. Was there something about the stage of social/political/ economic development? Or something about the stage in the cyclical/spiral development of philosophical/religious thinking?
It is a good reminder that, while it is important to understand Jesus in the local context, it is also important to pull back and see the global trends. The development of Mahayana, bhakti and Christianity “all answer the need of the masses of humanity for a personal relationship with the ultimate” p.86. In the Eastern traditions, though, the Ultimate is seen as multiple and diverse; no one depiction can contain its greatness/vastness. Why is Christianity different?
Armstrong says Paul referred to Greek rationalism as mere “foolishness” I Corinth 1:24. Later, its important to remember that the early Christians were not philosophically sophisticated and weren’t interested in creating a theology, even. Religion was not a matter of carefully considered intellectual positions, but rather a set of attitudes – a “cultivated attitude of commitment” p.93. when they said their “creeds,” they were “assenting to” an emotional, not a logical or intellectual proposition. “Credo” meant to “give one’s heart” not “I think.”
Justin of Caesarea (100-165) was one of the first Greek Christians to try to explain Christianity to the rational Greeks. Armstrong describes him as not very bright, having studied under 3 different philosophers and understanding none of them. He said Christians were simply following Plato. Argued Jesus was the Logos, the Divine Reason – but he couldn’t explain this very well.
Basilides and Valentinus in Alexandria were Gnostics, who taught that first there was the Godhead, the ineffable One, Source, Simplicity, No-thing. It wasn’t content to be alone, so It generated “emanations” similar to the pagan mythologies. Gets complicated, but one of the main points is that one of the aeons, in a fit of pique, created the earth (as a result of his fall). Thus the Logos, another one of the aeons, had to come to the rescue by incarnating as Jesus (p.96). They never meant these to be literal – they were ‘symbolic expressions of an inner truth.” A quote from one of them sounds an awful lot like Buddhism.
Marcion, 100-165, a Roman who founded his own church, makes a good point. If a sound tree produces only good fruit, as Jesus said, then how could the world have been created by a good God? I asked my Dad the same question as an early teen. Dad’s answer was the devil, which didn’t satisfy, because why does a good God allow the devil to exist?
Marcion’s answer was that Yahweh was an entirely different God than the one Jesus talked about. The Hebrew scriptures don’t mention, even hide, the existence of this good God. He counseled throwing out the Old Testament and just concentrate on the teachings of Jesus, and he attracted a huge following. Armstrong points out that he’d put his finger on something important in the Christian experience – we don’t know what to make of the Hebrew God (p.97).
Tertullian (160-220), a North African theologian, pointed out Marcion’s god was more Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover than Jesus’ god.
August 6
The Sunday-school trained girl in me is worried that the God of the Hebrews is not happy with me for all the questions I’m posing. But the Hindu-influenced speculative me thinks perhaps this is precisely what the One, the God-Who-Was-Alone, wants; that this is what he/it created us for. To ask and ask and figure out what it is. Possibly because it doesn’t know, Itself.
It is gratifying that greater minds than mine have asked the same questions, been disturbed by the same things. Makes me feel less alone. People today take it so for granted that Jesus was the incarnation of God, as if it were something obvious. But it wasn’t obvious. In fact, the thought was not only foreign, but repellent, to Jews, Greeks and Romans alike.
Clement of Alexandria (c.150-215) thought the God of the Jews and of Plato were the same. He called Plato the Attic Moses p.98. “His god was characterized by his ‘apotheia’; he was utterly impassible, unable to suffer or change.” This doesn’t sound much like Jesus’ or the Hebrew God to me! But Clement figured the way to be close to this god was by mimicking him. Be calm and quiet, and one would discover the Quietness within. Seems a little Buddhist influenced, without really understanding it. He did think Jesus was God, but he thought we also could become divine. If we followed his program we would be deified and participate in divine life.
However, he didn’t think Jesus did it that way. Jesus was the logos, by which Clement meant ‘divine wisdom,’ who had “become man so that you might learn from a man how to become God” p.98. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (130-200), was teaching the same thing. But how do they square this with the God of the Torah? He is anything but calm and impassive. As Armstrong points out, Clements’s theology left a lot of unanswered questions. How does the logos become human? How can Jesus be god, and there only be one god? Armstrong says that Christians, as the notion of Jesus’ divinity developed, became anxious over that last question, as well they should.
Sabellius, first century Roman in Rome, suggested the biblical names “Father, Son, Spirit” were like the masks of actors. Most Christians, Armstrong says, were distressed at the idea, because it suggested that the Father, supposed to be impassible and omnipotent, had suffered with the Son on the cross, and this they didn’t accept. But Paul of Somosota, Bishop of Antioch from 260-272 almost lost his see when he said Jesus was just a man in whom the word of God dwelt, p.99. So, they aren’t happy either way. None of these formulations fit their experience, I guess, which is now 100-200 years after Jesus lived.
And then there was Origen. I’ve summarized him elsewhere, but his general idea was that we all, at one time, were in the presence of God, got bored contemplating his face, fell, were arrested by our bodies, and were now forever searching to get back. Jesus isn’t/wasn’t God, but his was the one soul that didn’t fall. He came to earth to show us how we could once again ascend the chain of being and be back in God’s presence. Belief in “Jesus’ divinity was only a phase; it would help us on our way, but would eventually be transcended when we would see God face to face” p.100. Origen was later declared heretical, in part because he didn’t believe God created the world ex nihilo, but also because he didn’t believe Jesus “saved” us; we save ourselves by following his path.
Plotinus (205-270), who studied in Alexandria, joined the Roman Army in hopes of going to India and eventually founded a prestigious school in Rome. I really like him – he seems to be attempting to merge Eastern and Greek philosophy. I’ve summarized him before. Armstrong covers his philosophy p.101-105.
After Plotinus, Armstrong discusses Montanus, a guy in Phygia, now Turkey, who lived after and around 170. He claimed to be an avatar of God (Hebrew?). “I am Father, Son and Paraclite” he claimed, as did his companions, Priscilla and Maximilla. He sounds pretty weird and crazy. Preached the immanent return of Christ, urged followers to extreme asceticism and celibacy and martyrdom. Death for the faith would “hasten the coming of Christ” p.105. Engaged in battle with evil forces. It spread all over Turkey, Syria, Gaul and North Africa! Even attracted Tertullian (p.105), the leading theologian of the Latin Church!
Armstrong points out that in the East, a Christianity was developing that preached “a peaceful, joyous return to God,” but in the West, a “more frightening God demanded hideous death as a condition of salvation.” P.105.
12:30 am. Since I’m up, I think I’ll go ahead and read Acts. I’d like to avoid commenting on every little thing, so I’m going to focus on: the view of Jesus, the early church, and the politics of that church. There’ll likely be other things I can’t resist.
Acts is thought to have been written by Luke, a companion of Paul, after his gospel. So circa 90-100 AD.
Anyway, in Acts 2:22-23, Peter refers to Jesus as “a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders . . . this man, delivered up by the predetermined plan.” No hint there of Jesus being God. In v. 24 he says it was impossible for Jesus to be held by death’s power and quotes David as saying “I was always beholding the Lord in my presence; For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. . . Because Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow They Holy One to decay. . . “ Then Peter argues that since David in fact did decay, he must have been prophesying about Jesus.
Acts 2:33 “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God . . .” Seems to say Jesus was a man, who through his goodness was rewarded by a special place/relationship with God.
2:36 “Let all Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” From the context of another quote from David (that Jesus also quoted to stump the priests in one or two of the gospels), “The Lord said to my Lord,” one could argue that Peter is saying Jesus was made divine, made equal with God. All in how one interprets “Lord.”
Right away they gain 3000 converts, and begin to live communally – sell their property, share with all as anyone had need, “continuing with one mind the temple” and eating from house to house “taking their meals together” praising God, and “having favor with all the people” 2:44-47. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
In chapter 3, Peter and John heal a man, and in Peter’s second sermon which follows, he refers to Jesus as a prophet “raised up his servant,” and “raise up” a prophet. Not incarnate.
4:32-36 More communalism, all selling and sharing their property with one another. Renounce private property. Ananias and his wife sold their property, but kept some money back, and Peter calls them on it. Not for keeping the cash, but for lying. And the guy falls down dead. So, some seeking personal glory. His wife also dies. Peter, in Luke’s account, doesn’t seem to be dealing with them harshly, it is God, or their own shame/guilt. Certainly would have scared everyone else!
The group is really making quite a scene, now. Hanging out in the Solomon portico, attracting more and more converts, and people are bringing their sick from all over for healing. They lay them in the street in hopes Peter’s shadow will fall on them and heal them. Unquestionably, he is the leader. 5:12-16. Again on trial with the Council, Peter says of Jesus, “He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and Savior” 5:31.
5:33-42 tells of Gamaliel, who was a student of Hillel’s and a highly respected teacher in his own right. He councils the priests to leave the disciples alone, and cites two other recent cases of men who claimed to be the Messiah and attracted followings – Theudas, and Judas of Galilee.
By chapter 6, they are getting big enough to have internal squabbling, and the need to organize/institutionalize daily life – they select 7 to oversee all of that – food, serving, etc. Stephen was one of them. Stephen, of course, gets stoned to death, having driven the priests over the edge. That seems to be the signal to open season against the church (yes, they are calling it that – probably ecclesia). And Saul is in the thick of the rounding up. 8:2 The followers scatter. What might have happened had the priests followed Gamaliel’s council?
Phillip is told by the Holy Spirit to go to the road to Gaza, where he meets and converts an Ethiopian Jew, and immediately after baptizing him, he is “snatched by the Holy Spirit” and deposited in another town, where he keeps preaching 8:39-40. Wow, don’t remember that.
August 7
. . . And God sends them out as missionaries. It isn’t clear how God is communicating His will. Sometimes people have visions, sometimes, like here, it just says, “the Holy Spirit said.” 13:2.
13:16-42. As to who Jesus was, he says that through David’s link, “God has brought to Israel a Savior” v.23. And cites Psalms, “Thou art my Son; Today I have begotten thee.” V.33, in reference to the resurrection, not the birth.
In chapter 15, a real bone of contention. Some men come to Antioch from Jerusalem and tell the gentile converts they must be circumcised. Barnabus and Paul had “great dissention and debate” with them. They realize they need to figure this out, so send B & P to Jerusalem, where a council occurs. Peter sides with Barnabus and Paul, saying if God made makes no distinction (I.e. the Holy Spirit entered uncircumcised men) then why should they? James also agrees, but with a few stipulations (don’t eat things sacrificed to idols, or blood, or things strangled and don’t fornicate). Everyone agrees, so they send Barbabbos and Silas with B & P back to Antioch with a letter, the tone of which speaks well for the early church 15:23-29. Also shows that B & P are “beloved” of that church, with no tension apparent.
Hmm – first sign of tension? When B & P are ready to set out again, Barnabus wants to include John (Mark) who went with them a little ways before. Paul doesn’t want to, as he feels John deserted them when it got tough “And there arose such a sharp disagreement that they separated” 15:39, Barnabus taking John and Paul taking Silas.
In 16:16, says they passed thru Phrygia and the Galatian region “having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.” Why? And the spirit of Jesus didn’t permit them to go to Bythnia. After 16:11, Luke is saying “we” though he never described joining them.
God calls them to Macedonia and the first European convert is Lydia. 16:4. Note how, when people convert, their “households” are baptized. Do slaves have no free will? Again in 16:31, the jailer, Paul tells him to believe in Jesus and his whole household will be saved. Chapter 17 – says it is Paul’s custom to spend 3 Sabbaths trying to convert the Jews in the temple before giving the message to gentiles. Keeps getting thrown out, and Paul goes to Athens, where all the idol worshipping really bugs him.
Ahhh – 7pm, much better. A little rest, a little food, a pill working, and I’m good to go. Go where? Back to Athens with Paul, I guess. It is kind of fun to see it through a Hebrew’s eyes, or even a Greek’s (Luke) who was not familiar with it. How strange it must have seemed – the spirit of philosophical inquiry so very foreign to the Jews.
The Athenians saw him preaching in the marketplace and invited him to the Areopagus: “Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.” 17:21. As if that is a bizarre thing to do! No wonder it took so long for Christianity to catch on in Greece. They must have seen Paul and his message as backward, unsophisticated, uneducated, provincial, etc.
In explaining his beliefs to them, he describes Jesus thus: “He (God) will judge the world in righteousness through a man he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead” 17:31. Claudius kicked all the Jews out of Rome (the city) 18:2. When? Why? Will look it up, but I'd guess he required them to worship him and they refused.
Big hullabaloo in Ephesus, home of Artemis and the “image that fell down from heaven” 19:35, which Luke attributes to the silversmiths, who were losing business in figurines of the goddess. Luke seems to have joined up with Paul again after that, in Macedonia. And Paul brings another back from the dead 20:9-10. Only fair, since he talked so long the lad fell asleep and out of a 3rd story window. But if Paul was really doing all Luke says, its no wonder people converted. He even blessed cloth, which healed people when carried home to them 19:11.
Passing Ephesus, Paul prophesies his death, or at least that he’ll never see them again. When he arrives in Jerusalem, the elders tell him the Jews will be after him due to stories they’ve heard that he’s counseling Jews to break the commandments. So they devise a plan for him to publicly demonstrate he’s kosher. 21:15-26. It doesn’t work; the Jews beat him up anyway, and he has to be rescued by a Roman soldier. He lets Paul address the mob, and Paul establishes his Jewishness, partly by saying he was a student of Gamaliel, the Pharisee, 22:3.
Its also fascinating to see the rights of Roman citizens. It gets Paul out of trouble several times. Again in 23:6 he says he is a Pharisee and son of one. That gets them on his side against the Sadducees.
If Acts is accurate, there were quite a number of Jews who were really angry at Paul, and maybe Christianity in general. In 23:12 it tells of a conspiracy to kill Paul that included 40 men who vowed not to eat or drink until he was dead, and got the chief priest and council involved in the plot. Why Paul particularly? The whole group of apostles live there, and don’t seem to provoke such ire – at least not at that time. It speaks to how threatened the Jews in Jerusalem must have felt. Or something. The Romans don’t really seem to care, so one can see how Medieval Christians came to blame Jews.
Jews point of view, thru Tertullus, the lawyer for the priests before Felix, governor (of Syria?): “For we have found this man a real pest and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world [inhabited earth] . . .”24:5. In jail under Felix 2 years! Because the Roman governors, Felix, the Festus, wish to do the Jews favors. So Paul appeals to Caesar, which I guess is any Roman citizen’s right. Great description of Festus’ loss at what to do with him 25:14-22.
What Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascus has grown longer and more specific 26:15-18.
I wish I had access to my Oxford Guide to the Bible. It is time to begin Paul’s letters, and I’d really like to have all we know about the context. From my Bible, looks like the Galatians might be the earliest.
August 8
How can Galatians be first, when it is part of Asia, and Asia was off limits to begin with? I’m tempted not to begin with Paul at all, but with James or Peter. No, I’ve found where my Bible says I Thessalonians was the first of Paul’s letters, written around 51 AD. The others either appear to have been written later or I don’t have a date right now. So First Thessalonians it is.
The church at Thessalonica was established on Paul’s 2nd missionary trip. He wrote the letter from Corinth, and in general is pleased with the church at Thess. (which appears to be in Macedonia – but may be part of Greece). Verse one includes greetings from Paul, Silvanus and Timothy. Yes, it is Macedonia. In 1:10, Paul says, “to wait for His Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead.”
Chapter 2 reminds them of how the missionaries behaved when with them, pointing out all the bad things they didn’t do. A warning against false messiah’s, or prophets? At the end he says he tried to get back there several times, but “Satan thwarted us” 2:18. he includes in 4:3-11 a reminder to be moral sexually, to abstain from sexual immorality and possess either themselves or their wives in sanctification and honor, not lustful passion. Guess the word for vessel he used can be interpreted several ways. It does make a difference; can a man not greet his wife with lustful passion? And that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter. What could that possibly mean?
Timothy had just returned from a visit there (3:16), so likely the whole letter is in reference to specific questions and situations, and they would have known exactly what he meant. Interesting that sex is mentioned right off the bat.
II Thessalonians was written a few months later, to clear up misunderstandings occasioned by the first letter. The Church is still being “afflicted,” persecuted (tho not with death, as later). He says it is only fair that on judgment day those afflicting them will be afflicted, and they’ll be rewarded. “ . . . Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution.” 1:7.
They must have received a fake letter, because Paul tells them not to be gullible, or disturbed “either by a spirit of a message as if from us” saying the day of the Lord has come. He says that day cannot come until after the “apostasy,” or “falling away” from the faith 2:3. Does it say that in the gospels? This must be a new message to Paul – he seems to be referring to the anti-Christ. Hmmm. Revelation wasn’t written until much later – 40-50 years later. Actually, none of the gospels were written yet, tho I’m sure those procrites were making the rounds. I can’t recall any time Jesus specifically referred to an anti-Christ, or one who “sets himself up in the Temple . . . displaying himself as being God” 2:4, tho he does mention false prophets.
He is teaching this all over, that there will be this false messiah. “For God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth” 2:12. So here is that tricky, trickster God of the Hebrews again, who seems to delight in devising new ways to make people fall, the punish them eternally. Is it just Paul’s Jewishness causing him to misinterpret? Is this a belief widely shared with those who lived with Jesus? Is it just rhetorical, use of extreme language to make a point? Hyperbole?
Paul issues a number of commandments. He now commands them to “keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us” 3:6. It is maybe about communal life, because he goes on to talk about how they worked and were not lazy when with them, as a model. And “if anyone will not work, neither let him eat” 3:10. Some folks are being lazy and “busybodies” and he commands and exhorts them to behave. He ends with a “distinguishing mark” so they’ll know which are truly letters from him.
Now to Galatians. Church established on his first trip, the letter written between 48-58, addressing a crisis there. Ah-ha! Forgot Freeman has an entire chapter on Paul, where he says what every scholar says about how his letters were written for specific purposes, not as a thought-out theology, and their contradictory statements. Points out that while the Jerusalem Christians were “suffused with their memories of Jesus as a human being,” Paul’s Christ has relevance only through his death and resurrection, p.107.
Speaks of his great love for the new churches, his frustrations and enthusiasms and “the demands he places on the recipient communities are heavy, and his own authority often under threat” p.107. He says the letters generally agreed to be Paul’s are Romans, Corinthians 1 & 2, Galatians, Philippians, and 1, maybe 2 Thessalonians. Many add Colossians, p.109.
Above that, he points out, citing others, that Paul has a lot in common with the Essenes and may have at least been influenced by them. He speaks of Paul’s personality – how abrasive, how conflict-ridden were his relationships, that there is not one Christian community with whom he is fully at his ease. No one could agree he wasn’t driven and committed, and mentally strong. But he was not charismatic – he pushed or repelled people, where Jesus had attracted them.
Freeman makes out that it was Paul’s inability to get along with Jews that led him to preach to gentiles, born out by Acts. And we’ll see in the letters that the Jews may have had good reason to be mad at him: he stirred up trouble wherever he went, and suggests at times that now God prefers gentiles and that the Jews are no longer his Chosen People. We saw his first journey was with Barnabus, but after that falling out he worked out a relationship in which he would be the apostle to the gentiles and go much his own way, the only sustainable relationship with the Jerusalem apostles, Freeman argues, given Paul’s temperament.
Let’s see what Galatians has to say. Whoa – begins defensively. “Paul, an apostle not sent by men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” 1:1.
1:6 – he’s amazed that people are already listening to someone else, who is “distorting” Christ’s message. Geez! 1:8 – “but even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” So Paul’s message supersedes that of angels? He again curses anyone besides him who preaches something different. And then makes it clear he isn’t interested in pleasing men – something he may have found impossible to do in any case.
In 1:11 he makes a claim to legitimacy because no man taught him the gospel, but it was revealed to him. Case for direct revelation – equal to the 12 apostles who knew Jesus, better than anyone who learned from them. Yes, in 1:17 says after the revelation he didn’t need the approval of those in Jerusalem, and didn’t seek it. He assures them he isn’t lying when he says 3 years later he went to Jerusalem and stayed with Peter (Cephas) 15 days, and met James, Jesus’ brother, but didn’t see any of the other apostles.
August 9
I guess for now I’ll go back to Galatians, where poor Paul is suffering so much because there have been other teachers visiting the church. In the second chapter he says that 14 years later, after his first visit to Jerusalem, he went back. This is when the question of whether converts must be circumcised came up, because he says he “submitted to them the gospel I preach among the gentiles” 2:12, but not even Titus, a Greek companion, was circumcised. “But it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage” 2:4. Sounds kind of paranoid, doesn’t he?
He refers to “those of high reputation” with whom he consulted even tho “what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality” But says they “contribute nothing to me.” Sounds like there is some real tension. Perhaps Luke smoothed it over when he wrote Acts, trying minimize the differences. Anyway, James (brother of Jesus), Peter and John gave him the “right hand of fellowship,” recognizing that he’d been entrusted with the gospel to the gentiles, as Peter was entrusted with the one for the Jews 2:7-9. But in the next breath he says, “But when Cephos came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned” 2:11. The reason is that, as Paul perceives it, Jesus broke the barrier between Jew and gentile, and taught that it is not thru observance of the Law that people will be saved, but only through faith in Him. Peter used to get that, but he’s fallen under the sway of the “party of circumcision” and swayed even Barnabus 2:21 “For if righteousness comes thru the Law, the Christ died needlessly.” There is the problem.
For Paul had dedicated himself to the practice of the Law, becoming a Pharisee of the strictest sort. Yet Jesus told him personally that wasn’t enough. He is utterly convinced that the Law is now irrelevant, that faith in Jesus is it. He also says in that passage, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” 2:20, which must have pissed off some of those who were there at the crucifixion.
He yells at the Galatians for having been duped, asking, “Did you get the Holy Spirit by following the Law? Or by having faith?” 3:5. He gives them a scripture lesson, and says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law” 3:13. So he’s saying it had become a curse for them in that it had them focused on their own actions, and the details of Law, and not on God. He’s also making the argument that they are all now one people, not many, and that even the believing gentiles can now claim kinship with Abraham. God made a covenant with Abraham, which was not nullified “430” years later with the coming of Moses’ law, 3:17. “For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise” 3:18. The Law was only given because “of transgressions” and “having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed had come to whom the promise had been made” 3:19. So the Jews are just space fillers? They were made to sin, in order that God could extend the promise to gentiles, or fulfill the promise that salvation would come to the whole world through the Jews.
3:23-27 he says the law was just the tutor, but now that faith has come, they no longer need the tutor. He says all are now one, “There is no Jew or Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female, for all are one in Jesus Christ” 3:28. And all are Abraham’s offspring. Sounds nice, but why then in later letters does Paul make distinctions and different rules for women? Why does he return a slave to his master? Seems contradictory.
In chapter 4 he presents a theology that must have angered the Jews still further. First he compares them, Jews, to children of a wealthy man, and the Gentiles to slaves. But when the heir comes, he frees the slaves and makes them equal to his children. Why then go back to being slaves? Equality is one thing, but then he uses the story of Abraham and Isaac as an allegory. Abraham had two sons, one through a bond-woman, one through a free-woman. One thru flesh, and one through spirit. He says Hagar is Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the “Jerusalem above” is free, and she is the Gentile Christians’ mother. For it is written: Rejoice barren woman who does not bear, Break faith and shout, you who are not in labor, for more are the children of the desolate than of those who has a husband” 3:27. So “you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.” But the child of the flesh persecuted the child of the spirit then and now. But:
Cast out the bondwoman and her son. For the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the sons of the free woman 3:30
Ouch!
Then he gives them instruction on how to live good Christian lives, including a description of the fruits of the spirit 5:22. After ranting at them for several chapters, he tells them to correct one another with gentleness! 6:1.
To be fair, he did catch himself earlier and said he wanted to change his tone. He encourages them not to be boastful or envious of one another – isn’t that what he himself has done? He really doesn’t see himself as boastful “But may it never be that I should boast” 6:14. Forgot to record that in 4:13 he refers to a “body illness” he had when with them, “and that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus himself.” That almost sounds like a disfigurement, or something repulsive/disgusting about him, that it should be a trial.
I remembered because he closes the letter with a reference to how he bears “on my body the brand marks of Jesus” 6:17. Could be real brands or other scars from prison, or another reference to some physical disfiguring.
I guess I’ll go to Philippians next. Philippi was the first “European” church, in Macedonia. My Bible has the date of the letter as c.62. Oops, no, should be Romans next, written from Corinth in AD 58. So just shortly after the letter to Galatia. Bible says Romans is the most important (now) of Paul’s letters, and maybe of the entire Bible. Again, its major theme is the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. It is a long letter, with 16 chapters.
August 5
I’ve decided I’m just going to read Freeman, and not try to capture every interesting thing he says. A lot of it is stuff I already know, but there are some interesting tidbits. I like his attitude, which is that of attempting to find a historical Jesus who would have made sense to first century Jews. To understand the cultural context so that his actions make sense – but more, that the individual motives/positions of the gospel writers makes sense. He doesn’t at all say, “there are contradictions, so it must not be true.” He instead says, “There are contradictions, so there must be reasons why different people saw him in different ways.” This is the same attitude I have, the same motivation.
After building the argument that Jesus was most comfortable and successful with the “little’ people of rural, provincial Galilee, and had little success in the towns, Foster is able to make the strong point that Jesus was an outsider in Jerusalem. Barabas was, or might have been, an insider with a lot of support for his insurrection. It goes a long way to explain why the people (and Caiaphus) would use Jesus as a way to save one of their own.
He points out how difficult it was to make a charge that would stick, why Pilate would have acquicsed (fear of revolt, or being called disloyal to Caesar), and how odd it is that they didn’t go after his followers. They can’t have been considered a threat, and it supports the idea that Jesus’ actions in the temple were the catalyst.
He talks about the devastation the disciples must have felt, says Christians avoided depictions of the crucifixion for 400 years. A footnote says the 1st was an anti-Christian Roman graffito of a donkey, hanging from a cross. Their Santa Sabina in Rome had Jesus with outstretched arms and nail holes, but no cross, in the 5th century (p.359).
Paul spent 15 days with Peter in Rome, so he would have heard about the resurrection first hand. He writes about it in the 50s, at least 20 years before the Gospels. He says Peter, then 12 disciples, then 500 people, then James and the Apostles, and finally Paul. What about Mary? Is that a later fabrication, or did Peter supplant her, given the tension some (Gnostics) report between them? Haven’t yet dissected Acts, or Corinthians, but Freeman says Paul clearly thought Jesus wasn’t corporeal, but a spirit; the gospels are unclear and confused as to what sort of being he was.
The apostles are still focused on the immanent return of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. I’ll be reading Acts next, but Freeman says Peter says that Jesus ‘was a man commended to you by God” – the idea that he might have been divine was completely alien to Jewish thought, and just would not have occurred to them (p.104). Since Jesus died, the apostles cannot use the scriptures that refer to the Messiah coming in triumph and establishing the kingdom – not without serious re-interpretation. So they must turn to other scriptures which refer to one being “torn from the land . . . for our faults struck down.” Isaiah 53:8-10. From here they develop the notion of a Messiah who gives his life for our sins. That’s not as attractive as one who conquers, but it is enough for them to be able to call him Christ, even though he apparently failed. A footnote says Jews reject this and point out that in the original context, the person described is not a messianic figure. So they were really reaching, as I think is clear in Matthew’s attempts to bend and torture scripture and the life of Jesus to fit. First use of the term “Christians” comes from Antioch.
That’s all of Freeman I want to read right now. May read parts of Armstrong and Pagels that deal with the gospels.
Armstrong p.8: “The Psalms sometimes refer to David as the ‘Son of God,’ but that was simply a way of expressing his intimacy with Yahweh. Nobody since the return from Babylon had imagined that Yahweh actually had a son, like the abominable deities of the goyim.”
Armstrong suggests Jesus' arguments with the Pharisees may really be with the even more stringent school of Shammai (pg. 81). “there was nothing particularly unusual” in a voice from heaven identifying someone as “son of God” or “Beloved Son” pg.81, and she cites examples.
Jesus stressed that all could do the same miracles, if they were like him, I.e. surrendered themselves wholly to God’s will. She talks about Paul’s break from the early disciples over whether gentiles could be followers p.83, and says, “Paul never called Jesus God.” He calls him Son of God in the Jewish sense, but “he certainly did not believe Jesus was the incarnation of God himself.” (p.83).
Armstrong places the urge to deify Jesus in global context. She points out that all of the Axial Age religions, which around 500 BCE made the move from local, partial deities to universal beings/processes, all begin around 10o BCE-100CE to develop personal devotion. The Mahayana Buddhists invent the concept of bodhisattva in the first century BCE, the first statues of the Buddha are put up at Gandhara and Mathira (p.84). [Bodhisattvas are those who sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the world]. And in Hinduism, bhakti yoga develops.
People who cannot relate to the austerity of the Upanishads personalize Brahman into the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. And Vishnu incarnates himself in avatars, particularly the beloved Krishna, who is both loved as a very human human – a child, a lover of cowgirls, a devoted husband – but also reveals himself to Arjuna as The God, terrifying in his vastness, his incorporation of all things, the source and completion of all things.
Isn’t this helpful? There is again a global trend. One can easily see how Buddhism and Hinduism influenced one another. Was there something about the stage of social/political/ economic development? Or something about the stage in the cyclical/spiral development of philosophical/religious thinking?
It is a good reminder that, while it is important to understand Jesus in the local context, it is also important to pull back and see the global trends. The development of Mahayana, bhakti and Christianity “all answer the need of the masses of humanity for a personal relationship with the ultimate” p.86. In the Eastern traditions, though, the Ultimate is seen as multiple and diverse; no one depiction can contain its greatness/vastness. Why is Christianity different?
Armstrong says Paul referred to Greek rationalism as mere “foolishness” I Corinth 1:24. Later, its important to remember that the early Christians were not philosophically sophisticated and weren’t interested in creating a theology, even. Religion was not a matter of carefully considered intellectual positions, but rather a set of attitudes – a “cultivated attitude of commitment” p.93. when they said their “creeds,” they were “assenting to” an emotional, not a logical or intellectual proposition. “Credo” meant to “give one’s heart” not “I think.”
Justin of Caesarea (100-165) was one of the first Greek Christians to try to explain Christianity to the rational Greeks. Armstrong describes him as not very bright, having studied under 3 different philosophers and understanding none of them. He said Christians were simply following Plato. Argued Jesus was the Logos, the Divine Reason – but he couldn’t explain this very well.
Basilides and Valentinus in Alexandria were Gnostics, who taught that first there was the Godhead, the ineffable One, Source, Simplicity, No-thing. It wasn’t content to be alone, so It generated “emanations” similar to the pagan mythologies. Gets complicated, but one of the main points is that one of the aeons, in a fit of pique, created the earth (as a result of his fall). Thus the Logos, another one of the aeons, had to come to the rescue by incarnating as Jesus (p.96). They never meant these to be literal – they were ‘symbolic expressions of an inner truth.” A quote from one of them sounds an awful lot like Buddhism.
Marcion, 100-165, a Roman who founded his own church, makes a good point. If a sound tree produces only good fruit, as Jesus said, then how could the world have been created by a good God? I asked my Dad the same question as an early teen. Dad’s answer was the devil, which didn’t satisfy, because why does a good God allow the devil to exist?
Marcion’s answer was that Yahweh was an entirely different God than the one Jesus talked about. The Hebrew scriptures don’t mention, even hide, the existence of this good God. He counseled throwing out the Old Testament and just concentrate on the teachings of Jesus, and he attracted a huge following. Armstrong points out that he’d put his finger on something important in the Christian experience – we don’t know what to make of the Hebrew God (p.97).
Tertullian (160-220), a North African theologian, pointed out Marcion’s god was more Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover than Jesus’ god.
August 6
The Sunday-school trained girl in me is worried that the God of the Hebrews is not happy with me for all the questions I’m posing. But the Hindu-influenced speculative me thinks perhaps this is precisely what the One, the God-Who-Was-Alone, wants; that this is what he/it created us for. To ask and ask and figure out what it is. Possibly because it doesn’t know, Itself.
It is gratifying that greater minds than mine have asked the same questions, been disturbed by the same things. Makes me feel less alone. People today take it so for granted that Jesus was the incarnation of God, as if it were something obvious. But it wasn’t obvious. In fact, the thought was not only foreign, but repellent, to Jews, Greeks and Romans alike.
Clement of Alexandria (c.150-215) thought the God of the Jews and of Plato were the same. He called Plato the Attic Moses p.98. “His god was characterized by his ‘apotheia’; he was utterly impassible, unable to suffer or change.” This doesn’t sound much like Jesus’ or the Hebrew God to me! But Clement figured the way to be close to this god was by mimicking him. Be calm and quiet, and one would discover the Quietness within. Seems a little Buddhist influenced, without really understanding it. He did think Jesus was God, but he thought we also could become divine. If we followed his program we would be deified and participate in divine life.
However, he didn’t think Jesus did it that way. Jesus was the logos, by which Clement meant ‘divine wisdom,’ who had “become man so that you might learn from a man how to become God” p.98. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (130-200), was teaching the same thing. But how do they square this with the God of the Torah? He is anything but calm and impassive. As Armstrong points out, Clements’s theology left a lot of unanswered questions. How does the logos become human? How can Jesus be god, and there only be one god? Armstrong says that Christians, as the notion of Jesus’ divinity developed, became anxious over that last question, as well they should.
Sabellius, first century Roman in Rome, suggested the biblical names “Father, Son, Spirit” were like the masks of actors. Most Christians, Armstrong says, were distressed at the idea, because it suggested that the Father, supposed to be impassible and omnipotent, had suffered with the Son on the cross, and this they didn’t accept. But Paul of Somosota, Bishop of Antioch from 260-272 almost lost his see when he said Jesus was just a man in whom the word of God dwelt, p.99. So, they aren’t happy either way. None of these formulations fit their experience, I guess, which is now 100-200 years after Jesus lived.
And then there was Origen. I’ve summarized him elsewhere, but his general idea was that we all, at one time, were in the presence of God, got bored contemplating his face, fell, were arrested by our bodies, and were now forever searching to get back. Jesus isn’t/wasn’t God, but his was the one soul that didn’t fall. He came to earth to show us how we could once again ascend the chain of being and be back in God’s presence. Belief in “Jesus’ divinity was only a phase; it would help us on our way, but would eventually be transcended when we would see God face to face” p.100. Origen was later declared heretical, in part because he didn’t believe God created the world ex nihilo, but also because he didn’t believe Jesus “saved” us; we save ourselves by following his path.
Plotinus (205-270), who studied in Alexandria, joined the Roman Army in hopes of going to India and eventually founded a prestigious school in Rome. I really like him – he seems to be attempting to merge Eastern and Greek philosophy. I’ve summarized him before. Armstrong covers his philosophy p.101-105.
After Plotinus, Armstrong discusses Montanus, a guy in Phygia, now Turkey, who lived after and around 170. He claimed to be an avatar of God (Hebrew?). “I am Father, Son and Paraclite” he claimed, as did his companions, Priscilla and Maximilla. He sounds pretty weird and crazy. Preached the immanent return of Christ, urged followers to extreme asceticism and celibacy and martyrdom. Death for the faith would “hasten the coming of Christ” p.105. Engaged in battle with evil forces. It spread all over Turkey, Syria, Gaul and North Africa! Even attracted Tertullian (p.105), the leading theologian of the Latin Church!
Armstrong points out that in the East, a Christianity was developing that preached “a peaceful, joyous return to God,” but in the West, a “more frightening God demanded hideous death as a condition of salvation.” P.105.
12:30 am. Since I’m up, I think I’ll go ahead and read Acts. I’d like to avoid commenting on every little thing, so I’m going to focus on: the view of Jesus, the early church, and the politics of that church. There’ll likely be other things I can’t resist.
Acts is thought to have been written by Luke, a companion of Paul, after his gospel. So circa 90-100 AD.
Anyway, in Acts 2:22-23, Peter refers to Jesus as “a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders . . . this man, delivered up by the predetermined plan.” No hint there of Jesus being God. In v. 24 he says it was impossible for Jesus to be held by death’s power and quotes David as saying “I was always beholding the Lord in my presence; For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. . . Because Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow They Holy One to decay. . . “ Then Peter argues that since David in fact did decay, he must have been prophesying about Jesus.
Acts 2:33 “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God . . .” Seems to say Jesus was a man, who through his goodness was rewarded by a special place/relationship with God.
2:36 “Let all Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” From the context of another quote from David (that Jesus also quoted to stump the priests in one or two of the gospels), “The Lord said to my Lord,” one could argue that Peter is saying Jesus was made divine, made equal with God. All in how one interprets “Lord.”
Right away they gain 3000 converts, and begin to live communally – sell their property, share with all as anyone had need, “continuing with one mind the temple” and eating from house to house “taking their meals together” praising God, and “having favor with all the people” 2:44-47. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
In chapter 3, Peter and John heal a man, and in Peter’s second sermon which follows, he refers to Jesus as a prophet “raised up his servant,” and “raise up” a prophet. Not incarnate.
4:32-36 More communalism, all selling and sharing their property with one another. Renounce private property. Ananias and his wife sold their property, but kept some money back, and Peter calls them on it. Not for keeping the cash, but for lying. And the guy falls down dead. So, some seeking personal glory. His wife also dies. Peter, in Luke’s account, doesn’t seem to be dealing with them harshly, it is God, or their own shame/guilt. Certainly would have scared everyone else!
The group is really making quite a scene, now. Hanging out in the Solomon portico, attracting more and more converts, and people are bringing their sick from all over for healing. They lay them in the street in hopes Peter’s shadow will fall on them and heal them. Unquestionably, he is the leader. 5:12-16. Again on trial with the Council, Peter says of Jesus, “He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and Savior” 5:31.
5:33-42 tells of Gamaliel, who was a student of Hillel’s and a highly respected teacher in his own right. He councils the priests to leave the disciples alone, and cites two other recent cases of men who claimed to be the Messiah and attracted followings – Theudas, and Judas of Galilee.
By chapter 6, they are getting big enough to have internal squabbling, and the need to organize/institutionalize daily life – they select 7 to oversee all of that – food, serving, etc. Stephen was one of them. Stephen, of course, gets stoned to death, having driven the priests over the edge. That seems to be the signal to open season against the church (yes, they are calling it that – probably ecclesia). And Saul is in the thick of the rounding up. 8:2 The followers scatter. What might have happened had the priests followed Gamaliel’s council?
Phillip is told by the Holy Spirit to go to the road to Gaza, where he meets and converts an Ethiopian Jew, and immediately after baptizing him, he is “snatched by the Holy Spirit” and deposited in another town, where he keeps preaching 8:39-40. Wow, don’t remember that.
August 7
. . . And God sends them out as missionaries. It isn’t clear how God is communicating His will. Sometimes people have visions, sometimes, like here, it just says, “the Holy Spirit said.” 13:2.
13:16-42. As to who Jesus was, he says that through David’s link, “God has brought to Israel a Savior” v.23. And cites Psalms, “Thou art my Son; Today I have begotten thee.” V.33, in reference to the resurrection, not the birth.
In chapter 15, a real bone of contention. Some men come to Antioch from Jerusalem and tell the gentile converts they must be circumcised. Barnabus and Paul had “great dissention and debate” with them. They realize they need to figure this out, so send B & P to Jerusalem, where a council occurs. Peter sides with Barnabus and Paul, saying if God made makes no distinction (I.e. the Holy Spirit entered uncircumcised men) then why should they? James also agrees, but with a few stipulations (don’t eat things sacrificed to idols, or blood, or things strangled and don’t fornicate). Everyone agrees, so they send Barbabbos and Silas with B & P back to Antioch with a letter, the tone of which speaks well for the early church 15:23-29. Also shows that B & P are “beloved” of that church, with no tension apparent.
Hmm – first sign of tension? When B & P are ready to set out again, Barnabus wants to include John (Mark) who went with them a little ways before. Paul doesn’t want to, as he feels John deserted them when it got tough “And there arose such a sharp disagreement that they separated” 15:39, Barnabus taking John and Paul taking Silas.
In 16:16, says they passed thru Phrygia and the Galatian region “having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.” Why? And the spirit of Jesus didn’t permit them to go to Bythnia. After 16:11, Luke is saying “we” though he never described joining them.
God calls them to Macedonia and the first European convert is Lydia. 16:4. Note how, when people convert, their “households” are baptized. Do slaves have no free will? Again in 16:31, the jailer, Paul tells him to believe in Jesus and his whole household will be saved. Chapter 17 – says it is Paul’s custom to spend 3 Sabbaths trying to convert the Jews in the temple before giving the message to gentiles. Keeps getting thrown out, and Paul goes to Athens, where all the idol worshipping really bugs him.
Ahhh – 7pm, much better. A little rest, a little food, a pill working, and I’m good to go. Go where? Back to Athens with Paul, I guess. It is kind of fun to see it through a Hebrew’s eyes, or even a Greek’s (Luke) who was not familiar with it. How strange it must have seemed – the spirit of philosophical inquiry so very foreign to the Jews.
The Athenians saw him preaching in the marketplace and invited him to the Areopagus: “Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.” 17:21. As if that is a bizarre thing to do! No wonder it took so long for Christianity to catch on in Greece. They must have seen Paul and his message as backward, unsophisticated, uneducated, provincial, etc.
In explaining his beliefs to them, he describes Jesus thus: “He (God) will judge the world in righteousness through a man he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead” 17:31. Claudius kicked all the Jews out of Rome (the city) 18:2. When? Why? Will look it up, but I'd guess he required them to worship him and they refused.
Big hullabaloo in Ephesus, home of Artemis and the “image that fell down from heaven” 19:35, which Luke attributes to the silversmiths, who were losing business in figurines of the goddess. Luke seems to have joined up with Paul again after that, in Macedonia. And Paul brings another back from the dead 20:9-10. Only fair, since he talked so long the lad fell asleep and out of a 3rd story window. But if Paul was really doing all Luke says, its no wonder people converted. He even blessed cloth, which healed people when carried home to them 19:11.
Passing Ephesus, Paul prophesies his death, or at least that he’ll never see them again. When he arrives in Jerusalem, the elders tell him the Jews will be after him due to stories they’ve heard that he’s counseling Jews to break the commandments. So they devise a plan for him to publicly demonstrate he’s kosher. 21:15-26. It doesn’t work; the Jews beat him up anyway, and he has to be rescued by a Roman soldier. He lets Paul address the mob, and Paul establishes his Jewishness, partly by saying he was a student of Gamaliel, the Pharisee, 22:3.
Its also fascinating to see the rights of Roman citizens. It gets Paul out of trouble several times. Again in 23:6 he says he is a Pharisee and son of one. That gets them on his side against the Sadducees.
If Acts is accurate, there were quite a number of Jews who were really angry at Paul, and maybe Christianity in general. In 23:12 it tells of a conspiracy to kill Paul that included 40 men who vowed not to eat or drink until he was dead, and got the chief priest and council involved in the plot. Why Paul particularly? The whole group of apostles live there, and don’t seem to provoke such ire – at least not at that time. It speaks to how threatened the Jews in Jerusalem must have felt. Or something. The Romans don’t really seem to care, so one can see how Medieval Christians came to blame Jews.
Jews point of view, thru Tertullus, the lawyer for the priests before Felix, governor (of Syria?): “For we have found this man a real pest and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world [inhabited earth] . . .”24:5. In jail under Felix 2 years! Because the Roman governors, Felix, the Festus, wish to do the Jews favors. So Paul appeals to Caesar, which I guess is any Roman citizen’s right. Great description of Festus’ loss at what to do with him 25:14-22.
What Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascus has grown longer and more specific 26:15-18.
I wish I had access to my Oxford Guide to the Bible. It is time to begin Paul’s letters, and I’d really like to have all we know about the context. From my Bible, looks like the Galatians might be the earliest.
August 8
How can Galatians be first, when it is part of Asia, and Asia was off limits to begin with? I’m tempted not to begin with Paul at all, but with James or Peter. No, I’ve found where my Bible says I Thessalonians was the first of Paul’s letters, written around 51 AD. The others either appear to have been written later or I don’t have a date right now. So First Thessalonians it is.
The church at Thessalonica was established on Paul’s 2nd missionary trip. He wrote the letter from Corinth, and in general is pleased with the church at Thess. (which appears to be in Macedonia – but may be part of Greece). Verse one includes greetings from Paul, Silvanus and Timothy. Yes, it is Macedonia. In 1:10, Paul says, “to wait for His Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead.”
Chapter 2 reminds them of how the missionaries behaved when with them, pointing out all the bad things they didn’t do. A warning against false messiah’s, or prophets? At the end he says he tried to get back there several times, but “Satan thwarted us” 2:18. he includes in 4:3-11 a reminder to be moral sexually, to abstain from sexual immorality and possess either themselves or their wives in sanctification and honor, not lustful passion. Guess the word for vessel he used can be interpreted several ways. It does make a difference; can a man not greet his wife with lustful passion? And that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter. What could that possibly mean?
Timothy had just returned from a visit there (3:16), so likely the whole letter is in reference to specific questions and situations, and they would have known exactly what he meant. Interesting that sex is mentioned right off the bat.
II Thessalonians was written a few months later, to clear up misunderstandings occasioned by the first letter. The Church is still being “afflicted,” persecuted (tho not with death, as later). He says it is only fair that on judgment day those afflicting them will be afflicted, and they’ll be rewarded. “ . . . Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution.” 1:7.
They must have received a fake letter, because Paul tells them not to be gullible, or disturbed “either by a spirit of a message as if from us” saying the day of the Lord has come. He says that day cannot come until after the “apostasy,” or “falling away” from the faith 2:3. Does it say that in the gospels? This must be a new message to Paul – he seems to be referring to the anti-Christ. Hmmm. Revelation wasn’t written until much later – 40-50 years later. Actually, none of the gospels were written yet, tho I’m sure those procrites were making the rounds. I can’t recall any time Jesus specifically referred to an anti-Christ, or one who “sets himself up in the Temple . . . displaying himself as being God” 2:4, tho he does mention false prophets.
He is teaching this all over, that there will be this false messiah. “For God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth” 2:12. So here is that tricky, trickster God of the Hebrews again, who seems to delight in devising new ways to make people fall, the punish them eternally. Is it just Paul’s Jewishness causing him to misinterpret? Is this a belief widely shared with those who lived with Jesus? Is it just rhetorical, use of extreme language to make a point? Hyperbole?
Paul issues a number of commandments. He now commands them to “keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us” 3:6. It is maybe about communal life, because he goes on to talk about how they worked and were not lazy when with them, as a model. And “if anyone will not work, neither let him eat” 3:10. Some folks are being lazy and “busybodies” and he commands and exhorts them to behave. He ends with a “distinguishing mark” so they’ll know which are truly letters from him.
Now to Galatians. Church established on his first trip, the letter written between 48-58, addressing a crisis there. Ah-ha! Forgot Freeman has an entire chapter on Paul, where he says what every scholar says about how his letters were written for specific purposes, not as a thought-out theology, and their contradictory statements. Points out that while the Jerusalem Christians were “suffused with their memories of Jesus as a human being,” Paul’s Christ has relevance only through his death and resurrection, p.107.
Speaks of his great love for the new churches, his frustrations and enthusiasms and “the demands he places on the recipient communities are heavy, and his own authority often under threat” p.107. He says the letters generally agreed to be Paul’s are Romans, Corinthians 1 & 2, Galatians, Philippians, and 1, maybe 2 Thessalonians. Many add Colossians, p.109.
Above that, he points out, citing others, that Paul has a lot in common with the Essenes and may have at least been influenced by them. He speaks of Paul’s personality – how abrasive, how conflict-ridden were his relationships, that there is not one Christian community with whom he is fully at his ease. No one could agree he wasn’t driven and committed, and mentally strong. But he was not charismatic – he pushed or repelled people, where Jesus had attracted them.
Freeman makes out that it was Paul’s inability to get along with Jews that led him to preach to gentiles, born out by Acts. And we’ll see in the letters that the Jews may have had good reason to be mad at him: he stirred up trouble wherever he went, and suggests at times that now God prefers gentiles and that the Jews are no longer his Chosen People. We saw his first journey was with Barnabus, but after that falling out he worked out a relationship in which he would be the apostle to the gentiles and go much his own way, the only sustainable relationship with the Jerusalem apostles, Freeman argues, given Paul’s temperament.
Let’s see what Galatians has to say. Whoa – begins defensively. “Paul, an apostle not sent by men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” 1:1.
1:6 – he’s amazed that people are already listening to someone else, who is “distorting” Christ’s message. Geez! 1:8 – “but even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” So Paul’s message supersedes that of angels? He again curses anyone besides him who preaches something different. And then makes it clear he isn’t interested in pleasing men – something he may have found impossible to do in any case.
In 1:11 he makes a claim to legitimacy because no man taught him the gospel, but it was revealed to him. Case for direct revelation – equal to the 12 apostles who knew Jesus, better than anyone who learned from them. Yes, in 1:17 says after the revelation he didn’t need the approval of those in Jerusalem, and didn’t seek it. He assures them he isn’t lying when he says 3 years later he went to Jerusalem and stayed with Peter (Cephas) 15 days, and met James, Jesus’ brother, but didn’t see any of the other apostles.
August 9
I guess for now I’ll go back to Galatians, where poor Paul is suffering so much because there have been other teachers visiting the church. In the second chapter he says that 14 years later, after his first visit to Jerusalem, he went back. This is when the question of whether converts must be circumcised came up, because he says he “submitted to them the gospel I preach among the gentiles” 2:12, but not even Titus, a Greek companion, was circumcised. “But it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage” 2:4. Sounds kind of paranoid, doesn’t he?
He refers to “those of high reputation” with whom he consulted even tho “what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality” But says they “contribute nothing to me.” Sounds like there is some real tension. Perhaps Luke smoothed it over when he wrote Acts, trying minimize the differences. Anyway, James (brother of Jesus), Peter and John gave him the “right hand of fellowship,” recognizing that he’d been entrusted with the gospel to the gentiles, as Peter was entrusted with the one for the Jews 2:7-9. But in the next breath he says, “But when Cephos came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned” 2:11. The reason is that, as Paul perceives it, Jesus broke the barrier between Jew and gentile, and taught that it is not thru observance of the Law that people will be saved, but only through faith in Him. Peter used to get that, but he’s fallen under the sway of the “party of circumcision” and swayed even Barnabus 2:21 “For if righteousness comes thru the Law, the Christ died needlessly.” There is the problem.
For Paul had dedicated himself to the practice of the Law, becoming a Pharisee of the strictest sort. Yet Jesus told him personally that wasn’t enough. He is utterly convinced that the Law is now irrelevant, that faith in Jesus is it. He also says in that passage, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” 2:20, which must have pissed off some of those who were there at the crucifixion.
He yells at the Galatians for having been duped, asking, “Did you get the Holy Spirit by following the Law? Or by having faith?” 3:5. He gives them a scripture lesson, and says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law” 3:13. So he’s saying it had become a curse for them in that it had them focused on their own actions, and the details of Law, and not on God. He’s also making the argument that they are all now one people, not many, and that even the believing gentiles can now claim kinship with Abraham. God made a covenant with Abraham, which was not nullified “430” years later with the coming of Moses’ law, 3:17. “For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise” 3:18. The Law was only given because “of transgressions” and “having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed had come to whom the promise had been made” 3:19. So the Jews are just space fillers? They were made to sin, in order that God could extend the promise to gentiles, or fulfill the promise that salvation would come to the whole world through the Jews.
3:23-27 he says the law was just the tutor, but now that faith has come, they no longer need the tutor. He says all are now one, “There is no Jew or Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female, for all are one in Jesus Christ” 3:28. And all are Abraham’s offspring. Sounds nice, but why then in later letters does Paul make distinctions and different rules for women? Why does he return a slave to his master? Seems contradictory.
In chapter 4 he presents a theology that must have angered the Jews still further. First he compares them, Jews, to children of a wealthy man, and the Gentiles to slaves. But when the heir comes, he frees the slaves and makes them equal to his children. Why then go back to being slaves? Equality is one thing, but then he uses the story of Abraham and Isaac as an allegory. Abraham had two sons, one through a bond-woman, one through a free-woman. One thru flesh, and one through spirit. He says Hagar is Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the “Jerusalem above” is free, and she is the Gentile Christians’ mother. For it is written: Rejoice barren woman who does not bear, Break faith and shout, you who are not in labor, for more are the children of the desolate than of those who has a husband” 3:27. So “you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.” But the child of the flesh persecuted the child of the spirit then and now. But:
Cast out the bondwoman and her son. For the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the sons of the free woman 3:30
Ouch!
Then he gives them instruction on how to live good Christian lives, including a description of the fruits of the spirit 5:22. After ranting at them for several chapters, he tells them to correct one another with gentleness! 6:1.
To be fair, he did catch himself earlier and said he wanted to change his tone. He encourages them not to be boastful or envious of one another – isn’t that what he himself has done? He really doesn’t see himself as boastful “But may it never be that I should boast” 6:14. Forgot to record that in 4:13 he refers to a “body illness” he had when with them, “and that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus himself.” That almost sounds like a disfigurement, or something repulsive/disgusting about him, that it should be a trial.
I remembered because he closes the letter with a reference to how he bears “on my body the brand marks of Jesus” 6:17. Could be real brands or other scars from prison, or another reference to some physical disfiguring.
I guess I’ll go to Philippians next. Philippi was the first “European” church, in Macedonia. My Bible has the date of the letter as c.62. Oops, no, should be Romans next, written from Corinth in AD 58. So just shortly after the letter to Galatia. Bible says Romans is the most important (now) of Paul’s letters, and maybe of the entire Bible. Again, its major theme is the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. It is a long letter, with 16 chapters.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
2006 - August 1- 4th Reading the Gospels
The next few weeks entries are sooooo long that I have done some cutting and I will still break them into smaller pieces. I feel compelled to remind everyone that these are my thoughts of nearly two years ago, and things have changed in those two years. But I had to go through this part in order to get where I am today, which is why I'm posting this all up here. Once these old entries are here, there will probably be many fewer posts, and much shorter : ) Anyone who reads them, though, will know where I am coming from in a way they could not have, without this history.
August 1
I’m feeling a little bad about how I’m treating Matthew. Not approaching it with an open heart. There are a lot of wonderful passages in it, but the truth is that I don’t trust its accuracy. It just feels like it is trying too hard to sway me to a particular interpretation. I wonder how people who become Christians as adults respond to it. I can see taking great comfort in the beatitudes, for example, but there are so many other places where Jesus seems angry and judgmental, divisive. Not the compassionate healer predominantly, though there is some of that, of course.
To me Matthew feels like someone who has been hurt and is angry. He’s preoccupied with wanting justice. He wants the Messiah to punish the wrongdoers who have hurt him. It reads to me as the author really focused on and made central everything Jesus said that could be construed that way. And certainly he seems to have been hurt by the Jewish establishment, and thus directs his ire their way.
Reminds me – yesterday Jim told me that Mel Gibson had been arrested for driving under the influence, and while being arrested ranted about how the Jews have started every war since time began, how they are in control of the world, and are running it, and accused the police of being Jews. Totally off the deep-end, which is no surprise considering his Passion portrays Jews in a very negative light, and all the hype about it eventually put his father on the air. Whoa! He’s a little Nazi. My point is that people like that have been using Matthew to justify their hatred and racism for a long time, and now I can see why.
When Jesus walked on water and stilled the storm, it certainly made them wonder. In Mark, it just says they were astonished. 6:52 “for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.” In Matthew, it says (14:33) “And those who were in the boat worshipped Him, saying ‘You are certainly God’s Son.’”
15:24 he refuses to help a Syropheonician woman because “I was sent only to the sheep of the house of Israel.” As in Mark, he calls her a dog to her face – you don’t take the children’s bread and feed it to dogs. But she convinces him and he relents and heals her daughter. Seems pretty clear that his message was, at least initially, meant only for Jews. Need to look for when he changes his mind, if he does.
Matthew’s version of Jesus asking the disciples who they think he is doesn’t seem as much as in Mark that he doesn’t know, himself. He seems instead to tell Peter he’s right that he is the Son of God, 16:13-20. But he again tells them not to tell anyone.
In 17:12-13 it is clear that Jesus meant John the Baptist was Elijah, whom the scriptures say must come again before the Messiah. And he did come, and was killed. So also will the Son of Man. And when the disciples are unable to cast out the demon, Mark has Jesus say, “This kind only comes with prayer and fasting., or at least, that is in some mss. In Matthew, some of the mss have that verse, but all have Jesus saying it is their own fault – they didn’t have enough faith. 17:20.
Divorce 19:9. He also seems to say that celibacy is best, but not everyone can do it. An acknowledgment of the power of the sex drive. In 19:16, with the young ruler, the way Matthew reads is different. He does not have Jesus say he isn’t God, as does Mark. And in 19:23, Jesus promises the disciples thrones of their own in heaven.
August 2
Here are my latest thoughts about Matthew.
Regarding the triumphal entry, Matt also has Jesus orchestrate it by telling the disciples to steal a colt. But he does so in order that a prophecy be fulfilled – 21:4. Jesus was certainly familiar with the scriptures, so was a human trying to fulfill the prophecies, trying to convince people? Sort of like those people trying to breed a red goat, or whatever, on a particular mountain in Israel in order to initiate Armageddon?
Then again with the poor fig tree, 21:18-22. It is in the parable of the landowner, 21:33-44, that Jesus first says clearly that his message, intended for Jews but rejected by them, will now be for others, who will be given “the fruit of it.”
His words about whether or not there is a resurrection of the body, or whose wife the woman married to 7 brothers will be, in 22:23-33. God is the God of the living, not the dead, he says, and the people were astonished. But what does it mean?
Then Matthew has the Pharisees ask him what the greatest commandments are, and has them be amazed when he says love God, and love your neighbor, 22:34-40. But why would they be amazed? That is their own teaching! Hillel and Gamaliel, anyway, were teaching that before and during Jesus’ life.
Then the passage about the Christ being the Son of David has a different meaning than in Mark. In Matt 22:41-45, Jesus seems to be saying the Christ is not the son of David, since David calls him Lord, and everyone is stumped. In chapter 23, Jesus gives a diatribe against the Pharisees, saying they are hypocrites. “woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” he says, SEVEN times.
It’s like Matthew gathered together all the times that Jesus dressed people down, and attributed them all to the Pharisees. But it seems very likely that Jesus had been trained as one, as Paul was too. So maybe he was fed up with some of the things he saw and didn’t like, but this incredible anger just doesn’t feel right. “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?” he asks, in 23:33, and prophesizes that he will send them more prophets, whom they will kill and persecute, and he makes all scribes and Pharisees accountable for every sin, really, of humanity thru time. Pretty broad strokes.
August 3
There is some pretty scary stuff in chap. 24 about the end times, and v. 37-51 suggest the Rapture. He does make it all sound imminent, like he expects the end very soon.
The statement about those having more will be given more makes more sense here, because it follows a parable of “the Talents,” in which a man gives his slaves 10, 5, and 1 talent; the first 2 invest and double their money for him, while the last one buries his to keep it safe, and makes no investment. He’s cast into the “outer darkness” for that. The moral seems to be that we shouldn’t be lazy or fearful, but should take risks in attempts to increase God’s wealth. It is still kind of inconsistent, because what would have happened to the slave if he had invested and lost the money? Wouldn’t he have been punished?
If God is the landowner – this one is pretty greedy. He is a man who is “hard, reaping where he doesn’t sow and gathering where he spread no seed.” V.24. How is that even possible for a creator god, since all seed is his seed? But the larger point – cast into outer darkness for doing what one was asked to do? I guess we are supposed to read God's mind.
25:31-46 is a beautiful passage about the Judgment, in which we are taught to feed the hungry, visit prisoners, clothe the naked, take in the stranger, etc., just as if each human is Jesus himself. Makes me want to e-mail it to all the self-righteous jerks who deny immigrants water in the desert because they are “breaking the law.” And these are the very same people who feel they are better than the Pharisees, (whom they equate with all Jews), and thus more deserving of God’s love.
Also the story of the night in Gethsemane is very moving. We see Jesus fearful, grieved, praying that he not have to be crucified. But willing, if that is what God wants. Like all Jewish heroes, he is utterly human. Again, though, it is “a great multitude . . . from the chief priests and elders of the people.” 26:47 who come to arrest Jesus. Jesus himself says hey, you saw me in the temple, so why didn’t you arrest me there? V.55. So why do they need Judas to identify him? Jesus answers in v.56 that it is only to fulfill the scriptures. So I read that as support for the Judas gospel.
Now, in 26:64, when Jesus is before Caraphas, not answering the charges, Caraphas asks him, “I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus answers, “You have said it yourself.” And Caraphas finds that such blasphemy that he sentences Jesus to death. There are a lot of issues here. Why does Matthew have C. equate “Christ” with “Son of God”? Unless I am very much mistaken, Jews did not equate the two at all. They expected a human Messiah, not a divine one. There was no concept of God having an actual son, just the notion that we are all his children and that those with whom God is pleased may be given that honorary title.
So is this a later interpretation creeping in? Or is C. outraged because Jesus has been preaching that God has a son, like the nasty Greek and Roman gods? But we don’t see any evidence of that previously in Matthew. Or is C. just mad because Jesus is saying he is the chosen one? That doesn’t fly – people don’t get accused of blasphemy for that – just ignored, usually.
Obviously, Jesus really made people angry. He keeps telling them they are wrong, and does it so well that they can’t answer back. He points out all the ways they aren’t following the scriptures. If Matt is to be believed, he’s also calling them names and insulting them regularly. He violates their code, breaks their laws. He’s stirring people up. None of that seems worthy of a death sentence, does it? But somehow it is. Will see what Armstrong says about it. Matthew wants us to believe it is because Jesus has claimed divinity, but I’m just not sure he actually did that.
In 7:1-10 we learn that Judas returned the silver to the high priests and hanged himself, and that the priests used the money to buy the “Potter’s Field” as a burial place for strangers. From all accounts it seems clear that Jesus accepted the title “King of the Jews,” if he didn’t propose it himself. Or is that just more of his patience with their lack of understanding what he really meant?
Barrabas is a “notorious person” 27:16 – not a crime suspect.
At the crucifixion, Matt has the people saying Jesus claimed to be the Son of God (27:43), and challenged him to save himself. He reports the women there as Mary M., Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of (James and John), the sons of Zebedee 27:56.
28:1, Mary M. and “the other Mary” went to the tomb first. Just realized that in neither Mark nor Matthew has Mary Magdalene’s presence been explained, except I think Mark says “she who had been exorcised of demons,” or something like that. No, now I can’t find that. But Jesus did not save a woman from being stoned in either of these gospels.
In Mark, there was a “man” in the tomb, who said Jesus was gone. Here, 28:2-8, an angel descends from heaven before the women, shows them the empty tomb, and sends them to report it. Then Jesus himself meets them and they touch his feet and worship him, 28:9.
In 28:11-15, Matt has the chief priests pay the soldiers to spread the story that the disciples stole the body themselves. No story of Thomas or 2 men on the road. Instead, the disciples do as Mary M said Jesus asked and go to Galilee, where Jesus met them on a mountain top, “but some were doubtful.” He commissions them to go out and baptize all nations and make them disciples, and promises to be with them to the end of the age. And that’s it.
Charles Freeman says that the original Mark ended with the empty tomb, and the passages about Jesus’ later appearances weren’t added until the 2nd century, 100+ years later, p.103.
I think I’ve done enough with Matthew for now. It’s pretty clear how I feel about this gospel. I just find so much of what it says suspect, because it so clearly has an agenda beyond familiarizing others with the life and teachings of Jesus.
Luke thinks more like we do. He wants to set things out in an orderly, chronological fashion. He even begins with an introduction. Then he begins his story with the parents of John the Baptists, and John’s birth is as miraculous, nearly, as Jesus. Gabriel appears to his priestly father and clearly says John will be the “spirit and power of Elijah.” 1:17
Then Gabriel appears to Mary, a virgin engaged and gives her the news, which troubles her. It is a compassionate view of Mary, makes her a real person. Mary and Elizabeth are related, and Mary visits her, and John, in the womb, recognizes her with a leap, which causes Elizabeth to prophesy. Then Mary is given a beautiful speech. The mythology has really grown by this time, hasn’t it? Luke feels like a good author, who (maybe) gives words to his characters to make them more real.
Chapter 2 tells of Jesus’ birth and childhood, with all the Christmas stories – of a census that seems unlikely – see Freeman. Not that they didn’t do censuses, but they didn’t ask people to go to their birthplace. Angels appear to the shepherds, and tell them the Messiah is born. Then Simeon, at the temple at Jesus’ circumcision, recognizes him, and that he’ll be “a light to the Gentiles.” Anna the Prophetess agrees.
There is nothing at all about Wise Men, or Herod killing children, or the family fleeing to Egypt. They do, though, go home to Nazareth where the child grows with “the grace of God upon him.” 2:40. They travel to Jerusalem for the Passover every year, and at age 12 Jesus hangs out in the temple amazing everyone, and rebukes his parents, calling the temple his “father’s house.” 2:49.
I wonder where Luke got all this stuff, since it isn’t in the earlier texts. Q? Another lost text? Or is it oral tradition by then? The prophecy of Isaiah that they all cite, about John being the voice in the wilderness; also says “every mountain and hill shall be made low, and every ravine filled up.” Isaiah 40:3-4. It doesn’t really seem like a prophecy. It’s a hymn, more like, praising God. It adds to my feeling that the gospel writers keep taking scripture out of context, and applying it where ever the verse makes sense, regardless of whether the surrounding verses do. A mistake – will cause one to stumble?
Luke includes a lot more the teachings of John the Baptist, which are quite similar to Jesus: In 3;23-38, Luke gives a different genealogy of Jesus, again through Joseph, who shouldn’t matter.
In the temptations, Luke has the devil (or Satan) say, “If you are truly the Son of God.” 4:9. After, he goes directly to Nazareth, unlike the other two gospels, and Luke gives us the content of his sermon. He read from Isaiah, a passage about being anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, release the captives, etc., and says, “Today the scripture has been fulfilled.” 4:18-21. Interesting, the people are pleased with that, they have no problem with until he creates one by saying prophets aren’t honored in their hometowns, and Elijah had to go to Sidon, not Jerusalem, for succor. Then they get pissed, and run him out of town. They almost threw him off a cliff, but he miraculously escaped.
In 6:20-26, Luke gives the beatitudes, and follows with the woes that Matthew had him saying only to the scribes and Pharisees. And previously Jesus is having civil discussions with them, none of which begins with name-calling. Luke’s Sermon on the Mount is altogether more generous, compassionate and kind. Stresses mercy, not judgment.
Matthew’s verse reads as if Jesus were saying no one is wiser than he (can’t find it now) but Luke’s says, “A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher” 6:40. Gives more the idea that we all can be like him.
I love the story of the woman, a sinner, who washes Jesus’ feet. He allows it, but one sees great compassion in him, and love, and forgiveness. Plus he teaches a good lesson to the Pharisee 7:40-49. By the way, he is eating and visiting with the Pharisee, not spitting insults at him.
8:1-3 Luke describes the women, “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom 7 demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.”
Again, calming the storm, it seems like to Jesus, it is so obvious that humans can do such things if they have faith. But the disciples keep missing that point, thinking Jesus must be something special. Wasn’t it for this reason the Buddha refused to do miracles?
In 8:26-39, it isn’t any more clear why Jesus lets the demons go into the swine. What about the owners of those pigs? Was he(they) in need of punishment? Were the pigs diseased? Why not tell us?
It is in Luke 9:18-22 that Jesus asks the disciples who they and the people say that he is. John: Elijah, a prophet from old. Peter: “The Christ of God”. Not the Son – there is no implication of divinity. Jesus answers, “The Son of Man must suffer many things,” and predicts his death and resurrection. But he also predicts that some of those there will see the Kingdom of God before they taste death. V. 27. What did he mean? Was he wrong? What was his definition of Kingdom?
Luke says that during the transformation, Moses and Elijah were talking to him about what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem 9:31. Sorry – what he was going to accomplish. He is the agent, not the victim.
I guess all three gospels are trying to imply that Peter, in offering to make 3 tabernacles, has offended God by placing Jesus on the same level with Moses and Elijah. That’s why God speaks, calling Jesus his “Beloved Son.” 9:35. No, Luke says, “this is my Son, my Chosen One.” That does not imply divinity, necessarily.
Jesus does lose his patience a little, with the disciples when they can’t cast out the one demon (which sounds a lot like epilepsy, btw). “How long shall I have to put up with you?” he says 9:41. Again, its because they don’t believe they can do it. He tells them to remember what he has said, for he is going to be delivered up to the “hands of men”. “But they do not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they might not perceive it.” 9:45.
Here it is again, this peculiar way of saying we aren’t totally responsible, for it will be “given” to us to understand, or “concealed” from us so we can’t.
I guess I don’t get what the purpose is of saying things to someone and then making it impossible for them to understand what you said. Maybe it is just the way people think in a culture in which prophecy is normal and an accepted part of daily life. People say things for posterity, not to be understood now, but later. Maybe its sort of like preventing paradoxes in time travel. If people understood, then they might change the future and thus nullify your prediction. But you, as the soothsayer, can point back and say, "See? Remember when I said such and such?"
Luke, like Mark, has it that “He who is not against you is for you.” 9:50. Only Matthew is vindictive. Go figure.
Whoa – totally new story. As the Passover was approaching, they begin heading for Jerusalem. And in a Samaritan village, the people won’t serve them, because they are Jews headed to the city. The disciples ask if they should rain down fire on the villages! So I guess they’d figured out their power! And Jesus says a moving thing, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” 9:35. Those are really interesting words. What kind of spirit you are of. Is he saying his essence is spirit, not flesh? Is he saying his spirit is physically in them; that they are in some way now a part of him? Is he suggesting that through their discipleship they have managed to find that Oneness? I highlighted that verse in my last attempt at Christianity, but I don’t remember it at all.
In the next bit, about exacting discipleship, Jesus’ words are pretty harsh. But maybe he said it in a compassionate tone, so that “You aren’t fit for the Kingdom of heaven” came across as “You are not ready to make the sacrifice of discipleship.”
One has to wonder about tone, about slight differences in nuance, in translation. Maybe some of what he said that sounds so brutal really wasn’t. Because if Matthew or the hardest bits of the others are accurate, it is hard to see how/why his followers would have spoken of him as loving and compassionate. I was going to say gentle, but I haven’t actually noticed anyone using that word to describe Jesus. I don’t get the feel of a gentle man. At times, yes, but not generally.
Huh, Luke has him send out another 70. And he’s like God here, cursing the cities that have not welcomed him. Hmm. In 10:18 he says, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven.” But the context is that of the 70 coming back exuberant because they have been casting out demons. So it doesn’t necessarily imply that it is literal, and definitely not that he was with God in the beginning, as I think I’ve seen it interpreted. He prays the same prayer, saying all things have been handed over to him, and that only the Father knows the Son, and the Son the Father.
In Luke’s version of “Ask, Seek, Knock” there is the implication that it might take persistence and repetition, because he precedes it with the story of a man waking a friend in the middle of the night, who first refuses him !!:
Satan, the devil, and Beelzabul are all equated by Luke’s time (11:18). Interesting, because I saw in 1 or 2 Kings references to the god Baal-zebul, the clear origin.
Now in 11:37-54, he gives a diatribe against the Pharisees. But he is eating with them in one of their houses, and he doesn’t keep calling them names. He lets the lawyers have it, too! None of them are too happy when he’s done.
He’s no clearer about what it means to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. 12:10. Slightly different context – in the middle of the sparrows and hairs speech. He gives a little more story to the “don’t lay up treasures on earth” speech, making it real for the people. The advice against worry is breathtaking in its simplicity and power. 12:22-34. What wonderful words: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom!” 12:32.
The “be in readiness” parables that follow are also great. It is most certainly not a message of fairness or equality he is preaching. More responsibility and justice. Though justice is not always “fair,” if that makes sense. For not only will more be given to those who already have, but “from everyone who has been given much, shall much be required, and to whom they have entrusted much, of him they will ask the more.” 12:48. Who are “they”?
Jesus is moved to anger at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees when they berate him for breaking the law by healing on the Sabbath, though they would move their oxen – un-tether them or a mule, but they won’t un-tether a poor woman who is bound by Satan 18 years? 12:10-17. he keeps reminding them not to put the law over compassion.
He says many will strive to enter but still not be able; God will close the door. Abraham and everyone else will be inside, but you will be cast out [if you aren’t careful] 13:22-29. Doesn’t this contradict the ask and you shall receive? If you strive to enter, why would you be unable?
Hey! In 13:31 some Pharisees come and warn him that Herod wants to kill him. They are trying to protect him. So much for Matthew’s belief that they are al the evil enemy of God! 14:1-6, he’s eating with the Pharisees and lawyers again, and having an amiable discussion about healing on the Sabbath.
Oops! I skipped a page when I moved outside - In the next section he tells people not to think they are better than some notorious cases where people got terrible punishments. “Are they greater sinners? No, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish!” But then he tells a parable about a fig tree that produced no fruit for 3 years. The landowner says to cut it down, but the steward says let me give it some fertilizer and care, and see if it produces next year. 13:6-9. Is he saying he is the steward, begging for one more chance before God strikes them all down? Then why does he himself curse the fig tree? Are the two things connected? Was he saying, “That’s it! I’m done with you!”?
It doesn’t look like Luke even includes that. Back to where I was. Jesus at dinner with the Pharisees and lawyers, and they have a lot of discussion. He says many wise things, and they appear to be receptive and learning from him. Later, he speaks to those following about the effort discipleship requires, and that they need to calculate if they are willing to pay the cost. Don’t start things you can’t finish, in other words 14:25-35.
There are so many instructions to be humble, to consider and declare yourself unworthy, that it is no mystery why I got the idea that it was a good thing to purge every good thought I had about myself. Because if you are outwardly humble, but inside you have even one thought of “I’m okay,” how are you any different from the hypocrites Jesus berates? See 18:9-14.
Luke also has Jesus say that “No one is good except God alone.” 18:18, differentiating himself from God.
In Luke, the story of the 10, 5, and 1 pieces of money is different. They are minas, not talents, and its about a king who puts the first two in charge of cities and berates the last who buried the coin. But its also about how the people didn’t want him to be king, and he put them all to death. I really don’t get what he’s trying to say. 19:11-27.
He does give more explication about the Sadducees’ question re. resurrection. Luke has him say clearly that there is a resurrection of the dead 20:37. It isn’t clear to me, though. He says, “but that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to Him” 20:37-38. Is that what Moses meant? That to God there is no time, and all live at once? I really doubt it. I think Luke is just trying to make sense of it, whereas the others didn’t try.
And Luke has him say, when they ask about the future, that there will be wars and rumors of wars, etc., but “the end does not follow immediately.” 21:9. My question – is he talking about 70 AD, when the Temple is destroyed and the Diaspora begins? Or a later date, which would be in my future, since there was no Israel in-between. Sure sounds like the Diaspora in 70. Course, all the geological and astronomical signs (21:25-28) didn’t occur then. Plus no Son of Man in a cloud. [that we know of]
Satan enters into Judas and causes him to betray him! 22:3.
Garden of Gethsemane was pretty bad for him. “He was in agony, his sweat became like drops of blood” 22:44. At the council he does say he is the Son of God 22:69. Luke is more specific about the charges the Council brings to Pilate (though he doesn’t mention Caraphas) “He was misleading our nation, forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and calling himself Christ, a King.” 23:2. Pilate asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?” “It is as you say,” he answers 23:3. This makes more sense – it is a political claim.
Oh – Luke has Pilate send Jesus to Herod, who was in Jerusalem for the holiday. But Jesus won’t answer Herod, so Herod’s soldiers dress him in purple, mock him, and Herod sends him back to Pilate. Pilate and Herod become friends through this 23:12.
Barrabas – insurrectionist and murderer 23:19.
First time Jesus says, “Forgive them” 23:33. Always bugged me – he tells the thief he’ll be with him today in Paradise – but he’s supposed to go to hell? When did that get added? Haven’t seen it yet.
What is my general impression of Luke? He’s a better writer. He too moves things around to make order and sense. He strikes me as having a real sense of both the wisdom and the compassion of Jesus. In Luke’s hands Jesus is a caring teacher. He doesn’t try to tie Jesus to old prophecy that much (except when using Mark?), but I do have a sense that he added his own words and interpretations when things weren’t clear. He feels truer to the spirit of what I imagine Jesus was like – would had to have been like to make such an impression. But he also has mythologized him and his story. In some ways the gospel feels far from the real man – but in others, in feel, he’s closer (I imagine – it is just my impression.)
He does make a case for Jesus as the Christ, and maybe as Divinity, but its gentle, not pushy. As a companion of Paul’s, his view of Jesus is Pauline. Currently scholars put the writing of this around 70, so 40 years had passed. That is enough time for things to begin to gel, various interpretations – and for things, words, to get lost.
The important test – if one followed Luke closely, based one’s life on its teachings, I don’t think one would go that wrong with God, either way, and one would have a peaceful, loving life that was of benefit to others. His gospel seems logical; it doesn’t contradict itself too much. I’ve benefited from reading it and would no doubt continue to grow if I read it more.
Well, I think I’m ready to leave the synoptic gospels and move on to John. Written last, maybe around 100-110 AD, it is quite different. Presents a theological argument, and argues definitively for the divinity of Jesus. I know this, and I know a lot more now about how that argument took shape, but like the others, I haven’t actually read John in ages. So let’s begin. For the record, it is now 7 pm and I’ve done nothing but this all day, and I’m in so much pain I can hardly stand it. Let John be a good distraction.
He begins with a bang – equating Jesus with the Logos. A philosophical argument - the true light, Logos, is like the breath, kind of, of God – giving life, or soul, or anima to man. Without it, man is not man. The true light came to its own – I.e. the humans it had caused to be, who were “like” it, and they did not receive it. But some did, and those he made his own.
1:14 The Word became flesh – Logos became man, God incarnated and dwelt among us. Boy, I wonder if this is clearer in the Greek. 1:16-18 “For the Law was given to Moses; grace and truth were realized thru Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God (some mss read Son), who is in the bosom of the Father. He has explained Him.”
Is he saying that God has 3 qualities, or has given 3 gifts to man? Law, grace, and truth? He is making a liar out of Abraham, Lot, and Isaac; not sure who else, but these all claimed to have seen God. Has explained Him – God explained Jesus through scripture? Jesus explained God through his life?
In the other gospels, Jesus implied John the Baptist was Elijah, but here John Baptist says he isn’t. Hmmm – no birth story here – as if John is stripping the myths back off. Freeman said that John used other, earlier texts than Mark and Q, now lost, and this may be the most historically accurate. However, John the Baptist is saying Jesus is the Son of God, and it really doesn’t seem likely that he said this, or at least, if he did he meant something different by it.
And there is no filling of boats with fish – Peter and Andrew were already disciples of John the Baptist, and switched when John told them Jesus was the Lamb of God 1:35-42. Oops, no. Andrew was John’s disciple, and as soon as he met Jesus he went and got his brother Simon, said, “We’ve found the Messiah!” and brought him. Jesus promptly renamed him Cephos. Do we have different apostles? Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, Nathaniel . . .
Wedding day at Cana – unique to John 2:1-13. And his mother knows full well he’s a miracle worker – has him doing household chores, essentially. And she and his brothers travel with him. John’s gospel has Jesus kick the money-changers out of the temple right off the bat, and he’s says he can destroy and rebuild it in three days. The other gospels all have people accusing him of saying that, but never show him saying it. Later his disciples realize (or decide) he meant the temple of his body 2:13-22.
So far - though it would anger many to hear me say it - he is coming off like a braggart.
Then there is Nicodemus, and being born again – all totally absent in the other gospels 3:1-20.
August 4
[long discussion of all the work that needs to be done] But I have long wanted to give serious attention to the gospels, and I’m glad I’m doing that.
Reading John last night, I just can’t believe I never noticed how different it is. I almost can’t believe it made it into the canon, it is so different and so contradicts the other three. But it is the only one to establish Jesus’ divinity, and it includes the only passages that really spell out what Christian doctrine came to be, so I guess they had to include it. What they do, like in my Bible, is say it was written to “supplement the others” so doesn’t have to cover what the synoptic ones do. My Bible attributes it to John, the youngest apostle, which stretches credulity, as it wasn’t written until at least 100 AD. Even if John was a teenager when Jesus lived, he would have been 70-80 years old. It’s possible, just not that likely.
We were up to chapter 3, which is a really beautiful passage about how God so loved the world, he sent his Son to save it. It has some mystical allusions to the nature of God – not flesh, but Spirit, which is like wind. We really get a different view of John the Baptist and his relationship with Jesus. In the other 3, its really a one-time thing, though Jesus continues to speak highly of John. Here, he spends time with him, takes some of his disciples, and in 3:22-25, preaches in the same area as John the Baptist. Rather than seeing him as a rival, John keeps saying, “That’s the guy I was talking about! He’s from God and baptizes in the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus had disciples baptizing more people than John – he himself wasn’t doing it 4:1-3. Then he heads into Samaria. In 4:7-38, we have the story of the Samaritan woman at the well (the one !Nai, the !Kung woman thinks is so scandalous), also unique to this gospel.
[This is a reference to an ethnographic film of a !Kung woman's life story. Part of it follows her to church, where the Afrikaans pastor preaches about this story. The !Kung are horrified by it. They listen to the scripture, shaking their heads throughout. When the minister tries to explain, he just makes it worse. The ethnographer later asks !Nai what she was thinking, and she says that first, a woman would never go to get water alone when there were strangers abou, and any man who approached a woman alone could not, by definition, be a good person. "He was just trying to have sex with her, that Jesus." That is the only sense they could make of the story at all. And it seemed especially terrible to them that someone would use water - the one thing all people must have and that San peoples NEVER deny to one another, even their enemies - as a tool to accomplish this seduction. Upon further questioning, !Nai says that the story helps to explain the white people's behavior - since even their gods behave so despicably.]
It isn’t really clear what he tells her. He says he has “living water,” which makes sense, has been interpreted as the Holy Spirit. He tells the woman her past, which impresses her. That part is all okay, but then she says, “you people,” meaning Jews, say only to worship in Jerusalem, and she says she worships on the mountain [a reference to Baal?]. He tells her a time is coming when people won’t worship the Father either on the mountain or in Jerusalem. Is he referring to the Diaspora and destruction of the Temple? He says she worships what she doesn’t know, he (Jews) worship what they do know “for salvation comes from the Jews” 4:22. But a time is coming, has come, when true worshippers shall worship the Father “in spirit and truth.” Have they not already been doing that? Is Judaism then not a true religion? “God is spirit,” he says, and people must worship in spirit. Maybe he’s alluding to the shift from temple worship with its material sacrifices, to the worship in small groups, filled with the Holy Spirit, leaving buildings and sacrifices behind.
The woman has heard of the Messiah, and seems to have heard that the Jewish Messiah will reach out to gentiles – she says, “He will speak to us.” And Jesus says, “I am he.” She tells her people and they all come, so John has Jesus teaching the Gentiles almost from the beginning of his career.
When the disciples bring him food, he says he doesn’t need it, that he subsists on a different substance. John is making him “otherworldly” right off the bat. Where is that very human Jesus of the first 3?
They accuse him of making himself equal with God, and he agrees. Reads very differently from the others. He makes himself distinct from the Father, but says they know all the same things, and that in fact the Father no longer sits in judgment – he’s give that all to the Son, plus the power of life and death, and says those who don’t honor the Son do not honor the Father who sent him 5;19-24. In 5:26, “Just as the Father has life in Himself (I.e. not given, nor able to be taken away), even so he gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” He says the dead will soon hear his voice, and will be resurrected to either eternal life or to judgment. But he also says that he can do nothing on his own initiative – so not a completely free agent, as he has no choice but to do as God the Father wills 5:30.
From 5:33-47, he spells out the many witnesses he has that he is indeed God – the witness of John the Baptist, of the works he, Jesus has done and will do, of God Himself and of the scriptures. Whereas in the other gospels, the disciples don’t really get what he’s doing with the loaves and fishes, here 6:1-14, all the people recognize he’s a prophet. Huh. And in 6:15 it says that Jesus knew they were going to take him by force, to make him King, so he went to the mountain alone. Then Jesus walks on water, and there is nothing about Peter doing it.
. . .
The people follow Him and want more bread, and want to know what to do to please God (Believe in me, says Jesus 6:29), and then ask for a sign. Jesus gives a beautiful speech about him being the bread of heaven, and the water of life, and promises eternal life to all who follow him. 6:32-40. The Jews grumble and argue, but Jesus extends his analogy, saying no one has seen God but him. He is the living bread, and they must eat of him and drink of him to be saved. Recall, this is written after 60 years of reliving the Lord’s Supper. They are beautiful words, but did Jesus really say them? 6:54: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day. The Jews have asked how they can eat him, and he really doesn’t say how, just that they must.
. . .
We have at least explanations of Judas’ betrayal now; he was possessed by Satan (Luke), or he never believed (John). Wow. In 6:66, it says, “As a result of this many of his disciples withdrew, and were not walking with him anymore.” Jesus sounds pretty depressed, asking his 12 if they want to go, too. Peter answers that he believes. People are leaving, the Jews want to kill him already, so he can’t go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths. He tells his brothers to go and preach for him 7:3-10. His brothers aren’t believing him, and tell him he needs to publicize himself if he wants to be known. Jesus does go, but in secret, and listens to what people are saying about him – some that he is a good man, some that he’s leading people astray.
He ends up speaking in the temple, saying he isn’t seeking his own glory, and defending his healing on the Sabbath. People figure out who he is, and accuse him, and he says he’ll only be with them a little while, then he’ll go where they cannot find him. 7:40 The people are really upset and divided over who and what he is. For the most part they reject his claims.
This all just is so different from the other gospels. Where is the humble servant, the compassionate healer and forgiver of sins, the wise story teller? We’ve had no parables, no advice, no real words of wisdom. Not a lot of healing, either. Mostly it is these strident claims of divinity, and threats, and “Why don’t you believe me?” His signs and miracles seem self-serving, rather than for the benefit of others.
Whereas the others stress Jesus’ humanity, here he is depicted as somewhat ethereal, speaking in esoteric riddles rather than down to earth examples. He can hardly be understood by the philosophers, let alone the masses. Yet he’s very human in negative ways. He seems kind of whiny and petulant. Superior and haughty, incredulous that people aren’t rushing to serve him. Surely this isn’t what John intended.
But I think his attempt to demonstrate Jesus’ divinity, and all the times he has Jesus claim it, produces almost the opposite effect from his intention. He sounds more like a fake Messiah, deluded, maybe, but in it for his own gratification. Whereas the humility and the insistence on his humanity in the first 3 makes you think to yourself, “this man is so good, maybe he really is God.” This one makes you want to say, as the people do say to him, “Prove it!”
Flipping through it again, I see that almost the only things Jesus says in this gospel are “Believe me, I really am God, and if you don’t believe me bad things are going to happen.” And he promises good things to those who do believe and follow. He does save the adulterous woman, again unique to John. 8:1-11. but that isn’t in the old mss.
. . .
Hey, a parable! That of the good shepherd 10:1-18. After first putting himself as shepherd, he says he is the “door of the sheep.” If any enter through him, they are saved. Then the good shepherd attain, who protects his sheep, knows them, lays down his life for them.
Before, I’ve always read the gospels by reading all of them at once, going chronologically through them, following guides that put it all together for you. Doing it that way one encounters these passages from John with the other gospels’ news of his good deeds, so they make sense and are beautiful. But you really need the context the other books provide. 10:16 says he has other sheep, to merge into the fold. Gentiles? He next says he has authority (from the Father) to lay down his life and pick it up again.
Some say he’s crazy or possessed again, others that demons don’t heal people. In 10:30 he says, “I and the Father are One,” and they pick up stones to kill him. But Jesus answers them and throws the whole thing into confusion by citing scripture that says, “I said, you are gods.’ If he called them gods, to whom the word came, do you say of him whom the father sanctified and sent into the world ‘You are blaspheming’ because I said I am the Son of God?” 10:33-36. So which is it? Is he a Son in a different way than we are, or what?
. . .
John gives a reason for Judas; the priests have posted a reward. Mary (sister of Martha) is the one who anoints him with costly oils and perfumes (12:3) and it is Judas who objects, because he’s a thief! He pilfers from the money box they carry for the poor (12:6). Poor Judas. John says the priests are thinking about executing Lazarus, too, for having been raised from the dead and thus drawing people toward Jesus.
. . .
Also, John always has Jesus “crying out” instead of just talking. However, he does have Jesus wash the disciples’ feet, which is lovely 13:5-20.
He gives the new commandment – to love one another – in 13:34. It is only in John that Jesus says clearly (over and over) that the only way to the Father is thru him 14:6. Goes over his oneness with the Father again 14:7-14: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” But then he says that those who believe in him will do the works he does and greater, and promises to do whatever they ask in his name.
He prays one part saying he “manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest me” 17:6. And since those men are His, he asks they be given His joy made fuller and guard them and keep them, safe from the evil one. Then about their future glory 17:22-26. Is this to justify the apostolic church? Legitimize it?
Judas does not kiss him, only shows the mob the meeting place. And it is Peter who cuts off a soldier’s ear – soldier named Malchus. Romans are there - not just the temple priests. The priests take him to Pilate because they have no the right to put him to death 18:31. And his discussion with Pilate is different, and Barabas is a “robber” 18:40. The women present are Jesus’ mother (not named) and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene, 19:25. Jesus asks for wine, to fulfill the scriptures. Side piercing – the only gospel with it, in 19:34.
Mary Magdalene comes alone to the tomb, and it is empty. Ran to Peter and “the other disciple Jesus loved” (I’ve see that one before), they go look, see it is empty, and go home. Mary stays, weeping, and 2 angels are sitting there. Jesus appears behind her, but she doesn’t know it is him. She doesn’t until he says, “Mary.” “Rabboni!” she cries. And he says, “Stop clinging to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brethren . . . 20:17. So she goes.
. . .
21:1-11, Jesus does the miracle with the fish. Asks Peter if he loves him 3 times, tells him to tend his sheep. Then a curious thing. Jesus says, “Follow me.” Peter turns around and sees “the disciple whom Jesus loved” following and the one “who had also leaned back on his breast at the supper, and said ‘Lord, who is the one who betrays you?” Peter says, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus says, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” What????? Because it goes on “This saying therefore went out among the brethren, that that disciple would not die.” But the disciple isn’t Judas. Is it John? Is John taken up to heaven? Or what?
And the gospel ends with a note from the author – “This is the disciple who bears witness of these things, and wrote these things, and we know that his witness is true.” Has to be John. Imagine, tho, calling yourself, “the one whom Jesus loved.”
August 1
I’m feeling a little bad about how I’m treating Matthew. Not approaching it with an open heart. There are a lot of wonderful passages in it, but the truth is that I don’t trust its accuracy. It just feels like it is trying too hard to sway me to a particular interpretation. I wonder how people who become Christians as adults respond to it. I can see taking great comfort in the beatitudes, for example, but there are so many other places where Jesus seems angry and judgmental, divisive. Not the compassionate healer predominantly, though there is some of that, of course.
To me Matthew feels like someone who has been hurt and is angry. He’s preoccupied with wanting justice. He wants the Messiah to punish the wrongdoers who have hurt him. It reads to me as the author really focused on and made central everything Jesus said that could be construed that way. And certainly he seems to have been hurt by the Jewish establishment, and thus directs his ire their way.
Reminds me – yesterday Jim told me that Mel Gibson had been arrested for driving under the influence, and while being arrested ranted about how the Jews have started every war since time began, how they are in control of the world, and are running it, and accused the police of being Jews. Totally off the deep-end, which is no surprise considering his Passion portrays Jews in a very negative light, and all the hype about it eventually put his father on the air. Whoa! He’s a little Nazi. My point is that people like that have been using Matthew to justify their hatred and racism for a long time, and now I can see why.
When Jesus walked on water and stilled the storm, it certainly made them wonder. In Mark, it just says they were astonished. 6:52 “for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.” In Matthew, it says (14:33) “And those who were in the boat worshipped Him, saying ‘You are certainly God’s Son.’”
15:24 he refuses to help a Syropheonician woman because “I was sent only to the sheep of the house of Israel.” As in Mark, he calls her a dog to her face – you don’t take the children’s bread and feed it to dogs. But she convinces him and he relents and heals her daughter. Seems pretty clear that his message was, at least initially, meant only for Jews. Need to look for when he changes his mind, if he does.
Matthew’s version of Jesus asking the disciples who they think he is doesn’t seem as much as in Mark that he doesn’t know, himself. He seems instead to tell Peter he’s right that he is the Son of God, 16:13-20. But he again tells them not to tell anyone.
In 17:12-13 it is clear that Jesus meant John the Baptist was Elijah, whom the scriptures say must come again before the Messiah. And he did come, and was killed. So also will the Son of Man. And when the disciples are unable to cast out the demon, Mark has Jesus say, “This kind only comes with prayer and fasting., or at least, that is in some mss. In Matthew, some of the mss have that verse, but all have Jesus saying it is their own fault – they didn’t have enough faith. 17:20.
Divorce 19:9. He also seems to say that celibacy is best, but not everyone can do it. An acknowledgment of the power of the sex drive. In 19:16, with the young ruler, the way Matthew reads is different. He does not have Jesus say he isn’t God, as does Mark. And in 19:23, Jesus promises the disciples thrones of their own in heaven.
August 2
Here are my latest thoughts about Matthew.
Regarding the triumphal entry, Matt also has Jesus orchestrate it by telling the disciples to steal a colt. But he does so in order that a prophecy be fulfilled – 21:4. Jesus was certainly familiar with the scriptures, so was a human trying to fulfill the prophecies, trying to convince people? Sort of like those people trying to breed a red goat, or whatever, on a particular mountain in Israel in order to initiate Armageddon?
Then again with the poor fig tree, 21:18-22. It is in the parable of the landowner, 21:33-44, that Jesus first says clearly that his message, intended for Jews but rejected by them, will now be for others, who will be given “the fruit of it.”
His words about whether or not there is a resurrection of the body, or whose wife the woman married to 7 brothers will be, in 22:23-33. God is the God of the living, not the dead, he says, and the people were astonished. But what does it mean?
Then Matthew has the Pharisees ask him what the greatest commandments are, and has them be amazed when he says love God, and love your neighbor, 22:34-40. But why would they be amazed? That is their own teaching! Hillel and Gamaliel, anyway, were teaching that before and during Jesus’ life.
Then the passage about the Christ being the Son of David has a different meaning than in Mark. In Matt 22:41-45, Jesus seems to be saying the Christ is not the son of David, since David calls him Lord, and everyone is stumped. In chapter 23, Jesus gives a diatribe against the Pharisees, saying they are hypocrites. “woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” he says, SEVEN times.
It’s like Matthew gathered together all the times that Jesus dressed people down, and attributed them all to the Pharisees. But it seems very likely that Jesus had been trained as one, as Paul was too. So maybe he was fed up with some of the things he saw and didn’t like, but this incredible anger just doesn’t feel right. “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?” he asks, in 23:33, and prophesizes that he will send them more prophets, whom they will kill and persecute, and he makes all scribes and Pharisees accountable for every sin, really, of humanity thru time. Pretty broad strokes.
August 3
There is some pretty scary stuff in chap. 24 about the end times, and v. 37-51 suggest the Rapture. He does make it all sound imminent, like he expects the end very soon.
The statement about those having more will be given more makes more sense here, because it follows a parable of “the Talents,” in which a man gives his slaves 10, 5, and 1 talent; the first 2 invest and double their money for him, while the last one buries his to keep it safe, and makes no investment. He’s cast into the “outer darkness” for that. The moral seems to be that we shouldn’t be lazy or fearful, but should take risks in attempts to increase God’s wealth. It is still kind of inconsistent, because what would have happened to the slave if he had invested and lost the money? Wouldn’t he have been punished?
If God is the landowner – this one is pretty greedy. He is a man who is “hard, reaping where he doesn’t sow and gathering where he spread no seed.” V.24. How is that even possible for a creator god, since all seed is his seed? But the larger point – cast into outer darkness for doing what one was asked to do? I guess we are supposed to read God's mind.
25:31-46 is a beautiful passage about the Judgment, in which we are taught to feed the hungry, visit prisoners, clothe the naked, take in the stranger, etc., just as if each human is Jesus himself. Makes me want to e-mail it to all the self-righteous jerks who deny immigrants water in the desert because they are “breaking the law.” And these are the very same people who feel they are better than the Pharisees, (whom they equate with all Jews), and thus more deserving of God’s love.
Also the story of the night in Gethsemane is very moving. We see Jesus fearful, grieved, praying that he not have to be crucified. But willing, if that is what God wants. Like all Jewish heroes, he is utterly human. Again, though, it is “a great multitude . . . from the chief priests and elders of the people.” 26:47 who come to arrest Jesus. Jesus himself says hey, you saw me in the temple, so why didn’t you arrest me there? V.55. So why do they need Judas to identify him? Jesus answers in v.56 that it is only to fulfill the scriptures. So I read that as support for the Judas gospel.
Now, in 26:64, when Jesus is before Caraphas, not answering the charges, Caraphas asks him, “I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus answers, “You have said it yourself.” And Caraphas finds that such blasphemy that he sentences Jesus to death. There are a lot of issues here. Why does Matthew have C. equate “Christ” with “Son of God”? Unless I am very much mistaken, Jews did not equate the two at all. They expected a human Messiah, not a divine one. There was no concept of God having an actual son, just the notion that we are all his children and that those with whom God is pleased may be given that honorary title.
So is this a later interpretation creeping in? Or is C. outraged because Jesus has been preaching that God has a son, like the nasty Greek and Roman gods? But we don’t see any evidence of that previously in Matthew. Or is C. just mad because Jesus is saying he is the chosen one? That doesn’t fly – people don’t get accused of blasphemy for that – just ignored, usually.
Obviously, Jesus really made people angry. He keeps telling them they are wrong, and does it so well that they can’t answer back. He points out all the ways they aren’t following the scriptures. If Matt is to be believed, he’s also calling them names and insulting them regularly. He violates their code, breaks their laws. He’s stirring people up. None of that seems worthy of a death sentence, does it? But somehow it is. Will see what Armstrong says about it. Matthew wants us to believe it is because Jesus has claimed divinity, but I’m just not sure he actually did that.
In 7:1-10 we learn that Judas returned the silver to the high priests and hanged himself, and that the priests used the money to buy the “Potter’s Field” as a burial place for strangers. From all accounts it seems clear that Jesus accepted the title “King of the Jews,” if he didn’t propose it himself. Or is that just more of his patience with their lack of understanding what he really meant?
Barrabas is a “notorious person” 27:16 – not a crime suspect.
At the crucifixion, Matt has the people saying Jesus claimed to be the Son of God (27:43), and challenged him to save himself. He reports the women there as Mary M., Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of (James and John), the sons of Zebedee 27:56.
28:1, Mary M. and “the other Mary” went to the tomb first. Just realized that in neither Mark nor Matthew has Mary Magdalene’s presence been explained, except I think Mark says “she who had been exorcised of demons,” or something like that. No, now I can’t find that. But Jesus did not save a woman from being stoned in either of these gospels.
In Mark, there was a “man” in the tomb, who said Jesus was gone. Here, 28:2-8, an angel descends from heaven before the women, shows them the empty tomb, and sends them to report it. Then Jesus himself meets them and they touch his feet and worship him, 28:9.
In 28:11-15, Matt has the chief priests pay the soldiers to spread the story that the disciples stole the body themselves. No story of Thomas or 2 men on the road. Instead, the disciples do as Mary M said Jesus asked and go to Galilee, where Jesus met them on a mountain top, “but some were doubtful.” He commissions them to go out and baptize all nations and make them disciples, and promises to be with them to the end of the age. And that’s it.
Charles Freeman says that the original Mark ended with the empty tomb, and the passages about Jesus’ later appearances weren’t added until the 2nd century, 100+ years later, p.103.
I think I’ve done enough with Matthew for now. It’s pretty clear how I feel about this gospel. I just find so much of what it says suspect, because it so clearly has an agenda beyond familiarizing others with the life and teachings of Jesus.
Luke thinks more like we do. He wants to set things out in an orderly, chronological fashion. He even begins with an introduction. Then he begins his story with the parents of John the Baptists, and John’s birth is as miraculous, nearly, as Jesus. Gabriel appears to his priestly father and clearly says John will be the “spirit and power of Elijah.” 1:17
Then Gabriel appears to Mary, a virgin engaged and gives her the news, which troubles her. It is a compassionate view of Mary, makes her a real person. Mary and Elizabeth are related, and Mary visits her, and John, in the womb, recognizes her with a leap, which causes Elizabeth to prophesy. Then Mary is given a beautiful speech. The mythology has really grown by this time, hasn’t it? Luke feels like a good author, who (maybe) gives words to his characters to make them more real.
Chapter 2 tells of Jesus’ birth and childhood, with all the Christmas stories – of a census that seems unlikely – see Freeman. Not that they didn’t do censuses, but they didn’t ask people to go to their birthplace. Angels appear to the shepherds, and tell them the Messiah is born. Then Simeon, at the temple at Jesus’ circumcision, recognizes him, and that he’ll be “a light to the Gentiles.” Anna the Prophetess agrees.
There is nothing at all about Wise Men, or Herod killing children, or the family fleeing to Egypt. They do, though, go home to Nazareth where the child grows with “the grace of God upon him.” 2:40. They travel to Jerusalem for the Passover every year, and at age 12 Jesus hangs out in the temple amazing everyone, and rebukes his parents, calling the temple his “father’s house.” 2:49.
I wonder where Luke got all this stuff, since it isn’t in the earlier texts. Q? Another lost text? Or is it oral tradition by then? The prophecy of Isaiah that they all cite, about John being the voice in the wilderness; also says “every mountain and hill shall be made low, and every ravine filled up.” Isaiah 40:3-4. It doesn’t really seem like a prophecy. It’s a hymn, more like, praising God. It adds to my feeling that the gospel writers keep taking scripture out of context, and applying it where ever the verse makes sense, regardless of whether the surrounding verses do. A mistake – will cause one to stumble?
Luke includes a lot more the teachings of John the Baptist, which are quite similar to Jesus: In 3;23-38, Luke gives a different genealogy of Jesus, again through Joseph, who shouldn’t matter.
In the temptations, Luke has the devil (or Satan) say, “If you are truly the Son of God.” 4:9. After, he goes directly to Nazareth, unlike the other two gospels, and Luke gives us the content of his sermon. He read from Isaiah, a passage about being anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, release the captives, etc., and says, “Today the scripture has been fulfilled.” 4:18-21. Interesting, the people are pleased with that, they have no problem with until he creates one by saying prophets aren’t honored in their hometowns, and Elijah had to go to Sidon, not Jerusalem, for succor. Then they get pissed, and run him out of town. They almost threw him off a cliff, but he miraculously escaped.
In 6:20-26, Luke gives the beatitudes, and follows with the woes that Matthew had him saying only to the scribes and Pharisees. And previously Jesus is having civil discussions with them, none of which begins with name-calling. Luke’s Sermon on the Mount is altogether more generous, compassionate and kind. Stresses mercy, not judgment.
Matthew’s verse reads as if Jesus were saying no one is wiser than he (can’t find it now) but Luke’s says, “A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher” 6:40. Gives more the idea that we all can be like him.
I love the story of the woman, a sinner, who washes Jesus’ feet. He allows it, but one sees great compassion in him, and love, and forgiveness. Plus he teaches a good lesson to the Pharisee 7:40-49. By the way, he is eating and visiting with the Pharisee, not spitting insults at him.
8:1-3 Luke describes the women, “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom 7 demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.”
Again, calming the storm, it seems like to Jesus, it is so obvious that humans can do such things if they have faith. But the disciples keep missing that point, thinking Jesus must be something special. Wasn’t it for this reason the Buddha refused to do miracles?
In 8:26-39, it isn’t any more clear why Jesus lets the demons go into the swine. What about the owners of those pigs? Was he(they) in need of punishment? Were the pigs diseased? Why not tell us?
It is in Luke 9:18-22 that Jesus asks the disciples who they and the people say that he is. John: Elijah, a prophet from old. Peter: “The Christ of God”. Not the Son – there is no implication of divinity. Jesus answers, “The Son of Man must suffer many things,” and predicts his death and resurrection. But he also predicts that some of those there will see the Kingdom of God before they taste death. V. 27. What did he mean? Was he wrong? What was his definition of Kingdom?
Luke says that during the transformation, Moses and Elijah were talking to him about what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem 9:31. Sorry – what he was going to accomplish. He is the agent, not the victim.
I guess all three gospels are trying to imply that Peter, in offering to make 3 tabernacles, has offended God by placing Jesus on the same level with Moses and Elijah. That’s why God speaks, calling Jesus his “Beloved Son.” 9:35. No, Luke says, “this is my Son, my Chosen One.” That does not imply divinity, necessarily.
Jesus does lose his patience a little, with the disciples when they can’t cast out the one demon (which sounds a lot like epilepsy, btw). “How long shall I have to put up with you?” he says 9:41. Again, its because they don’t believe they can do it. He tells them to remember what he has said, for he is going to be delivered up to the “hands of men”. “But they do not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they might not perceive it.” 9:45.
Here it is again, this peculiar way of saying we aren’t totally responsible, for it will be “given” to us to understand, or “concealed” from us so we can’t.
I guess I don’t get what the purpose is of saying things to someone and then making it impossible for them to understand what you said. Maybe it is just the way people think in a culture in which prophecy is normal and an accepted part of daily life. People say things for posterity, not to be understood now, but later. Maybe its sort of like preventing paradoxes in time travel. If people understood, then they might change the future and thus nullify your prediction. But you, as the soothsayer, can point back and say, "See? Remember when I said such and such?"
Luke, like Mark, has it that “He who is not against you is for you.” 9:50. Only Matthew is vindictive. Go figure.
Whoa – totally new story. As the Passover was approaching, they begin heading for Jerusalem. And in a Samaritan village, the people won’t serve them, because they are Jews headed to the city. The disciples ask if they should rain down fire on the villages! So I guess they’d figured out their power! And Jesus says a moving thing, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” 9:35. Those are really interesting words. What kind of spirit you are of. Is he saying his essence is spirit, not flesh? Is he saying his spirit is physically in them; that they are in some way now a part of him? Is he suggesting that through their discipleship they have managed to find that Oneness? I highlighted that verse in my last attempt at Christianity, but I don’t remember it at all.
In the next bit, about exacting discipleship, Jesus’ words are pretty harsh. But maybe he said it in a compassionate tone, so that “You aren’t fit for the Kingdom of heaven” came across as “You are not ready to make the sacrifice of discipleship.”
One has to wonder about tone, about slight differences in nuance, in translation. Maybe some of what he said that sounds so brutal really wasn’t. Because if Matthew or the hardest bits of the others are accurate, it is hard to see how/why his followers would have spoken of him as loving and compassionate. I was going to say gentle, but I haven’t actually noticed anyone using that word to describe Jesus. I don’t get the feel of a gentle man. At times, yes, but not generally.
Huh, Luke has him send out another 70. And he’s like God here, cursing the cities that have not welcomed him. Hmm. In 10:18 he says, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven.” But the context is that of the 70 coming back exuberant because they have been casting out demons. So it doesn’t necessarily imply that it is literal, and definitely not that he was with God in the beginning, as I think I’ve seen it interpreted. He prays the same prayer, saying all things have been handed over to him, and that only the Father knows the Son, and the Son the Father.
In Luke’s version of “Ask, Seek, Knock” there is the implication that it might take persistence and repetition, because he precedes it with the story of a man waking a friend in the middle of the night, who first refuses him !!:
Satan, the devil, and Beelzabul are all equated by Luke’s time (11:18). Interesting, because I saw in 1 or 2 Kings references to the god Baal-zebul, the clear origin.
Now in 11:37-54, he gives a diatribe against the Pharisees. But he is eating with them in one of their houses, and he doesn’t keep calling them names. He lets the lawyers have it, too! None of them are too happy when he’s done.
He’s no clearer about what it means to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. 12:10. Slightly different context – in the middle of the sparrows and hairs speech. He gives a little more story to the “don’t lay up treasures on earth” speech, making it real for the people. The advice against worry is breathtaking in its simplicity and power. 12:22-34. What wonderful words: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom!” 12:32.
The “be in readiness” parables that follow are also great. It is most certainly not a message of fairness or equality he is preaching. More responsibility and justice. Though justice is not always “fair,” if that makes sense. For not only will more be given to those who already have, but “from everyone who has been given much, shall much be required, and to whom they have entrusted much, of him they will ask the more.” 12:48. Who are “they”?
Jesus is moved to anger at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees when they berate him for breaking the law by healing on the Sabbath, though they would move their oxen – un-tether them or a mule, but they won’t un-tether a poor woman who is bound by Satan 18 years? 12:10-17. he keeps reminding them not to put the law over compassion.
He says many will strive to enter but still not be able; God will close the door. Abraham and everyone else will be inside, but you will be cast out [if you aren’t careful] 13:22-29. Doesn’t this contradict the ask and you shall receive? If you strive to enter, why would you be unable?
Hey! In 13:31 some Pharisees come and warn him that Herod wants to kill him. They are trying to protect him. So much for Matthew’s belief that they are al the evil enemy of God! 14:1-6, he’s eating with the Pharisees and lawyers again, and having an amiable discussion about healing on the Sabbath.
Oops! I skipped a page when I moved outside - In the next section he tells people not to think they are better than some notorious cases where people got terrible punishments. “Are they greater sinners? No, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish!” But then he tells a parable about a fig tree that produced no fruit for 3 years. The landowner says to cut it down, but the steward says let me give it some fertilizer and care, and see if it produces next year. 13:6-9. Is he saying he is the steward, begging for one more chance before God strikes them all down? Then why does he himself curse the fig tree? Are the two things connected? Was he saying, “That’s it! I’m done with you!”?
It doesn’t look like Luke even includes that. Back to where I was. Jesus at dinner with the Pharisees and lawyers, and they have a lot of discussion. He says many wise things, and they appear to be receptive and learning from him. Later, he speaks to those following about the effort discipleship requires, and that they need to calculate if they are willing to pay the cost. Don’t start things you can’t finish, in other words 14:25-35.
There are so many instructions to be humble, to consider and declare yourself unworthy, that it is no mystery why I got the idea that it was a good thing to purge every good thought I had about myself. Because if you are outwardly humble, but inside you have even one thought of “I’m okay,” how are you any different from the hypocrites Jesus berates? See 18:9-14.
Luke also has Jesus say that “No one is good except God alone.” 18:18, differentiating himself from God.
In Luke, the story of the 10, 5, and 1 pieces of money is different. They are minas, not talents, and its about a king who puts the first two in charge of cities and berates the last who buried the coin. But its also about how the people didn’t want him to be king, and he put them all to death. I really don’t get what he’s trying to say. 19:11-27.
He does give more explication about the Sadducees’ question re. resurrection. Luke has him say clearly that there is a resurrection of the dead 20:37. It isn’t clear to me, though. He says, “but that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to Him” 20:37-38. Is that what Moses meant? That to God there is no time, and all live at once? I really doubt it. I think Luke is just trying to make sense of it, whereas the others didn’t try.
And Luke has him say, when they ask about the future, that there will be wars and rumors of wars, etc., but “the end does not follow immediately.” 21:9. My question – is he talking about 70 AD, when the Temple is destroyed and the Diaspora begins? Or a later date, which would be in my future, since there was no Israel in-between. Sure sounds like the Diaspora in 70. Course, all the geological and astronomical signs (21:25-28) didn’t occur then. Plus no Son of Man in a cloud. [that we know of]
Satan enters into Judas and causes him to betray him! 22:3.
Garden of Gethsemane was pretty bad for him. “He was in agony, his sweat became like drops of blood” 22:44. At the council he does say he is the Son of God 22:69. Luke is more specific about the charges the Council brings to Pilate (though he doesn’t mention Caraphas) “He was misleading our nation, forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and calling himself Christ, a King.” 23:2. Pilate asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?” “It is as you say,” he answers 23:3. This makes more sense – it is a political claim.
Oh – Luke has Pilate send Jesus to Herod, who was in Jerusalem for the holiday. But Jesus won’t answer Herod, so Herod’s soldiers dress him in purple, mock him, and Herod sends him back to Pilate. Pilate and Herod become friends through this 23:12.
Barrabas – insurrectionist and murderer 23:19.
First time Jesus says, “Forgive them” 23:33. Always bugged me – he tells the thief he’ll be with him today in Paradise – but he’s supposed to go to hell? When did that get added? Haven’t seen it yet.
What is my general impression of Luke? He’s a better writer. He too moves things around to make order and sense. He strikes me as having a real sense of both the wisdom and the compassion of Jesus. In Luke’s hands Jesus is a caring teacher. He doesn’t try to tie Jesus to old prophecy that much (except when using Mark?), but I do have a sense that he added his own words and interpretations when things weren’t clear. He feels truer to the spirit of what I imagine Jesus was like – would had to have been like to make such an impression. But he also has mythologized him and his story. In some ways the gospel feels far from the real man – but in others, in feel, he’s closer (I imagine – it is just my impression.)
He does make a case for Jesus as the Christ, and maybe as Divinity, but its gentle, not pushy. As a companion of Paul’s, his view of Jesus is Pauline. Currently scholars put the writing of this around 70, so 40 years had passed. That is enough time for things to begin to gel, various interpretations – and for things, words, to get lost.
The important test – if one followed Luke closely, based one’s life on its teachings, I don’t think one would go that wrong with God, either way, and one would have a peaceful, loving life that was of benefit to others. His gospel seems logical; it doesn’t contradict itself too much. I’ve benefited from reading it and would no doubt continue to grow if I read it more.
Well, I think I’m ready to leave the synoptic gospels and move on to John. Written last, maybe around 100-110 AD, it is quite different. Presents a theological argument, and argues definitively for the divinity of Jesus. I know this, and I know a lot more now about how that argument took shape, but like the others, I haven’t actually read John in ages. So let’s begin. For the record, it is now 7 pm and I’ve done nothing but this all day, and I’m in so much pain I can hardly stand it. Let John be a good distraction.
He begins with a bang – equating Jesus with the Logos. A philosophical argument - the true light, Logos, is like the breath, kind of, of God – giving life, or soul, or anima to man. Without it, man is not man. The true light came to its own – I.e. the humans it had caused to be, who were “like” it, and they did not receive it. But some did, and those he made his own.
1:14 The Word became flesh – Logos became man, God incarnated and dwelt among us. Boy, I wonder if this is clearer in the Greek. 1:16-18 “For the Law was given to Moses; grace and truth were realized thru Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God (some mss read Son), who is in the bosom of the Father. He has explained Him.”
Is he saying that God has 3 qualities, or has given 3 gifts to man? Law, grace, and truth? He is making a liar out of Abraham, Lot, and Isaac; not sure who else, but these all claimed to have seen God. Has explained Him – God explained Jesus through scripture? Jesus explained God through his life?
In the other gospels, Jesus implied John the Baptist was Elijah, but here John Baptist says he isn’t. Hmmm – no birth story here – as if John is stripping the myths back off. Freeman said that John used other, earlier texts than Mark and Q, now lost, and this may be the most historically accurate. However, John the Baptist is saying Jesus is the Son of God, and it really doesn’t seem likely that he said this, or at least, if he did he meant something different by it.
And there is no filling of boats with fish – Peter and Andrew were already disciples of John the Baptist, and switched when John told them Jesus was the Lamb of God 1:35-42. Oops, no. Andrew was John’s disciple, and as soon as he met Jesus he went and got his brother Simon, said, “We’ve found the Messiah!” and brought him. Jesus promptly renamed him Cephos. Do we have different apostles? Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, Nathaniel . . .
Wedding day at Cana – unique to John 2:1-13. And his mother knows full well he’s a miracle worker – has him doing household chores, essentially. And she and his brothers travel with him. John’s gospel has Jesus kick the money-changers out of the temple right off the bat, and he’s says he can destroy and rebuild it in three days. The other gospels all have people accusing him of saying that, but never show him saying it. Later his disciples realize (or decide) he meant the temple of his body 2:13-22.
So far - though it would anger many to hear me say it - he is coming off like a braggart.
Then there is Nicodemus, and being born again – all totally absent in the other gospels 3:1-20.
August 4
[long discussion of all the work that needs to be done] But I have long wanted to give serious attention to the gospels, and I’m glad I’m doing that.
Reading John last night, I just can’t believe I never noticed how different it is. I almost can’t believe it made it into the canon, it is so different and so contradicts the other three. But it is the only one to establish Jesus’ divinity, and it includes the only passages that really spell out what Christian doctrine came to be, so I guess they had to include it. What they do, like in my Bible, is say it was written to “supplement the others” so doesn’t have to cover what the synoptic ones do. My Bible attributes it to John, the youngest apostle, which stretches credulity, as it wasn’t written until at least 100 AD. Even if John was a teenager when Jesus lived, he would have been 70-80 years old. It’s possible, just not that likely.
We were up to chapter 3, which is a really beautiful passage about how God so loved the world, he sent his Son to save it. It has some mystical allusions to the nature of God – not flesh, but Spirit, which is like wind. We really get a different view of John the Baptist and his relationship with Jesus. In the other 3, its really a one-time thing, though Jesus continues to speak highly of John. Here, he spends time with him, takes some of his disciples, and in 3:22-25, preaches in the same area as John the Baptist. Rather than seeing him as a rival, John keeps saying, “That’s the guy I was talking about! He’s from God and baptizes in the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus had disciples baptizing more people than John – he himself wasn’t doing it 4:1-3. Then he heads into Samaria. In 4:7-38, we have the story of the Samaritan woman at the well (the one !Nai, the !Kung woman thinks is so scandalous), also unique to this gospel.
[This is a reference to an ethnographic film of a !Kung woman's life story. Part of it follows her to church, where the Afrikaans pastor preaches about this story. The !Kung are horrified by it. They listen to the scripture, shaking their heads throughout. When the minister tries to explain, he just makes it worse. The ethnographer later asks !Nai what she was thinking, and she says that first, a woman would never go to get water alone when there were strangers abou, and any man who approached a woman alone could not, by definition, be a good person. "He was just trying to have sex with her, that Jesus." That is the only sense they could make of the story at all. And it seemed especially terrible to them that someone would use water - the one thing all people must have and that San peoples NEVER deny to one another, even their enemies - as a tool to accomplish this seduction. Upon further questioning, !Nai says that the story helps to explain the white people's behavior - since even their gods behave so despicably.]
It isn’t really clear what he tells her. He says he has “living water,” which makes sense, has been interpreted as the Holy Spirit. He tells the woman her past, which impresses her. That part is all okay, but then she says, “you people,” meaning Jews, say only to worship in Jerusalem, and she says she worships on the mountain [a reference to Baal?]. He tells her a time is coming when people won’t worship the Father either on the mountain or in Jerusalem. Is he referring to the Diaspora and destruction of the Temple? He says she worships what she doesn’t know, he (Jews) worship what they do know “for salvation comes from the Jews” 4:22. But a time is coming, has come, when true worshippers shall worship the Father “in spirit and truth.” Have they not already been doing that? Is Judaism then not a true religion? “God is spirit,” he says, and people must worship in spirit. Maybe he’s alluding to the shift from temple worship with its material sacrifices, to the worship in small groups, filled with the Holy Spirit, leaving buildings and sacrifices behind.
The woman has heard of the Messiah, and seems to have heard that the Jewish Messiah will reach out to gentiles – she says, “He will speak to us.” And Jesus says, “I am he.” She tells her people and they all come, so John has Jesus teaching the Gentiles almost from the beginning of his career.
When the disciples bring him food, he says he doesn’t need it, that he subsists on a different substance. John is making him “otherworldly” right off the bat. Where is that very human Jesus of the first 3?
They accuse him of making himself equal with God, and he agrees. Reads very differently from the others. He makes himself distinct from the Father, but says they know all the same things, and that in fact the Father no longer sits in judgment – he’s give that all to the Son, plus the power of life and death, and says those who don’t honor the Son do not honor the Father who sent him 5;19-24. In 5:26, “Just as the Father has life in Himself (I.e. not given, nor able to be taken away), even so he gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” He says the dead will soon hear his voice, and will be resurrected to either eternal life or to judgment. But he also says that he can do nothing on his own initiative – so not a completely free agent, as he has no choice but to do as God the Father wills 5:30.
From 5:33-47, he spells out the many witnesses he has that he is indeed God – the witness of John the Baptist, of the works he, Jesus has done and will do, of God Himself and of the scriptures. Whereas in the other gospels, the disciples don’t really get what he’s doing with the loaves and fishes, here 6:1-14, all the people recognize he’s a prophet. Huh. And in 6:15 it says that Jesus knew they were going to take him by force, to make him King, so he went to the mountain alone. Then Jesus walks on water, and there is nothing about Peter doing it.
. . .
The people follow Him and want more bread, and want to know what to do to please God (Believe in me, says Jesus 6:29), and then ask for a sign. Jesus gives a beautiful speech about him being the bread of heaven, and the water of life, and promises eternal life to all who follow him. 6:32-40. The Jews grumble and argue, but Jesus extends his analogy, saying no one has seen God but him. He is the living bread, and they must eat of him and drink of him to be saved. Recall, this is written after 60 years of reliving the Lord’s Supper. They are beautiful words, but did Jesus really say them? 6:54: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day. The Jews have asked how they can eat him, and he really doesn’t say how, just that they must.
. . .
We have at least explanations of Judas’ betrayal now; he was possessed by Satan (Luke), or he never believed (John). Wow. In 6:66, it says, “As a result of this many of his disciples withdrew, and were not walking with him anymore.” Jesus sounds pretty depressed, asking his 12 if they want to go, too. Peter answers that he believes. People are leaving, the Jews want to kill him already, so he can’t go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths. He tells his brothers to go and preach for him 7:3-10. His brothers aren’t believing him, and tell him he needs to publicize himself if he wants to be known. Jesus does go, but in secret, and listens to what people are saying about him – some that he is a good man, some that he’s leading people astray.
He ends up speaking in the temple, saying he isn’t seeking his own glory, and defending his healing on the Sabbath. People figure out who he is, and accuse him, and he says he’ll only be with them a little while, then he’ll go where they cannot find him. 7:40 The people are really upset and divided over who and what he is. For the most part they reject his claims.
This all just is so different from the other gospels. Where is the humble servant, the compassionate healer and forgiver of sins, the wise story teller? We’ve had no parables, no advice, no real words of wisdom. Not a lot of healing, either. Mostly it is these strident claims of divinity, and threats, and “Why don’t you believe me?” His signs and miracles seem self-serving, rather than for the benefit of others.
Whereas the others stress Jesus’ humanity, here he is depicted as somewhat ethereal, speaking in esoteric riddles rather than down to earth examples. He can hardly be understood by the philosophers, let alone the masses. Yet he’s very human in negative ways. He seems kind of whiny and petulant. Superior and haughty, incredulous that people aren’t rushing to serve him. Surely this isn’t what John intended.
But I think his attempt to demonstrate Jesus’ divinity, and all the times he has Jesus claim it, produces almost the opposite effect from his intention. He sounds more like a fake Messiah, deluded, maybe, but in it for his own gratification. Whereas the humility and the insistence on his humanity in the first 3 makes you think to yourself, “this man is so good, maybe he really is God.” This one makes you want to say, as the people do say to him, “Prove it!”
Flipping through it again, I see that almost the only things Jesus says in this gospel are “Believe me, I really am God, and if you don’t believe me bad things are going to happen.” And he promises good things to those who do believe and follow. He does save the adulterous woman, again unique to John. 8:1-11. but that isn’t in the old mss.
. . .
Hey, a parable! That of the good shepherd 10:1-18. After first putting himself as shepherd, he says he is the “door of the sheep.” If any enter through him, they are saved. Then the good shepherd attain, who protects his sheep, knows them, lays down his life for them.
Before, I’ve always read the gospels by reading all of them at once, going chronologically through them, following guides that put it all together for you. Doing it that way one encounters these passages from John with the other gospels’ news of his good deeds, so they make sense and are beautiful. But you really need the context the other books provide. 10:16 says he has other sheep, to merge into the fold. Gentiles? He next says he has authority (from the Father) to lay down his life and pick it up again.
Some say he’s crazy or possessed again, others that demons don’t heal people. In 10:30 he says, “I and the Father are One,” and they pick up stones to kill him. But Jesus answers them and throws the whole thing into confusion by citing scripture that says, “I said, you are gods.’ If he called them gods, to whom the word came, do you say of him whom the father sanctified and sent into the world ‘You are blaspheming’ because I said I am the Son of God?” 10:33-36. So which is it? Is he a Son in a different way than we are, or what?
. . .
John gives a reason for Judas; the priests have posted a reward. Mary (sister of Martha) is the one who anoints him with costly oils and perfumes (12:3) and it is Judas who objects, because he’s a thief! He pilfers from the money box they carry for the poor (12:6). Poor Judas. John says the priests are thinking about executing Lazarus, too, for having been raised from the dead and thus drawing people toward Jesus.
. . .
Also, John always has Jesus “crying out” instead of just talking. However, he does have Jesus wash the disciples’ feet, which is lovely 13:5-20.
He gives the new commandment – to love one another – in 13:34. It is only in John that Jesus says clearly (over and over) that the only way to the Father is thru him 14:6. Goes over his oneness with the Father again 14:7-14: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” But then he says that those who believe in him will do the works he does and greater, and promises to do whatever they ask in his name.
He prays one part saying he “manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest me” 17:6. And since those men are His, he asks they be given His joy made fuller and guard them and keep them, safe from the evil one. Then about their future glory 17:22-26. Is this to justify the apostolic church? Legitimize it?
Judas does not kiss him, only shows the mob the meeting place. And it is Peter who cuts off a soldier’s ear – soldier named Malchus. Romans are there - not just the temple priests. The priests take him to Pilate because they have no the right to put him to death 18:31. And his discussion with Pilate is different, and Barabas is a “robber” 18:40. The women present are Jesus’ mother (not named) and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene, 19:25. Jesus asks for wine, to fulfill the scriptures. Side piercing – the only gospel with it, in 19:34.
Mary Magdalene comes alone to the tomb, and it is empty. Ran to Peter and “the other disciple Jesus loved” (I’ve see that one before), they go look, see it is empty, and go home. Mary stays, weeping, and 2 angels are sitting there. Jesus appears behind her, but she doesn’t know it is him. She doesn’t until he says, “Mary.” “Rabboni!” she cries. And he says, “Stop clinging to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brethren . . . 20:17. So she goes.
. . .
21:1-11, Jesus does the miracle with the fish. Asks Peter if he loves him 3 times, tells him to tend his sheep. Then a curious thing. Jesus says, “Follow me.” Peter turns around and sees “the disciple whom Jesus loved” following and the one “who had also leaned back on his breast at the supper, and said ‘Lord, who is the one who betrays you?” Peter says, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus says, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” What????? Because it goes on “This saying therefore went out among the brethren, that that disciple would not die.” But the disciple isn’t Judas. Is it John? Is John taken up to heaven? Or what?
And the gospel ends with a note from the author – “This is the disciple who bears witness of these things, and wrote these things, and we know that his witness is true.” Has to be John. Imagine, tho, calling yourself, “the one whom Jesus loved.”
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