2006 - July

June of 2006 was pretty well taken up with moving to a new city, where my new job awaited, and getting settled into summer housing. We had some family and friends visiting for awhile, and other things to worry about, and recovering physically from the move, and the excitement of being in a new place, and meeting new people, so it was a month before I got back to my spiritual quest in earnest.

July 7
I’ve been in a pretty low place this last week, and I haven’t been reaching out to God or anyone/thing else. Feeling very alone and unsupported, I guess. And under a lot of pressure to perform. Need to get back on my knees, figuratively speaking, and find a way to be full of gratitude again. Also need to remember that I am in control of nothing but myself. Cannot change anyone or anything around me, but I can control how I respond, inwardly as well as out. And I know from experience that getting control of inside requires prayer and an inward turning toward the Divine and Absolute.

It’s okay to be busy; this time of my life is supposed to be busy. But I can’t let myself make the graduate school mistake of not giving my spirit any food or time or room to grow. Just remembered that at lunch the anthropologists were unapologetic about their church membership. M brought it up because she was furious that some Republican had campaigned at a church function. It wasn’t so much that he was Republican as that the church allowed anyone to campaign there. J responded that at her church that would never happen, as the priest is really liberal. She said he was a Norbetine, as in St. Norbet, but we don’t know what that means.

I won’t be attending a Presbyterian Church, that’s for sure. . . [explanation of deeds on the part of my father's former church] . . . Just infuriating. What I want to say to them is that after awhile, people watching the church and trying to decide what they believe, will notice this: The founder of their religion, Jesus Christ, said that you judge the tree by the fruit it bears. And the church, at the local, Presbyterian, Protestant, and worldwide level (including all branches) produces mountains of rotten, bitter, nasty fruit. How can one not wonder whether the tree of Christianity is rotten itself? I know I don’t want to eat of it.

July 11
10pm – I went in and watched a NOVA program with Jim. He was watching one on physics. Standard stuff, but interesting, except they tempted us, teased us at the end with the suggestion that string theory is going to be the Grand Unifying Theory, but then they didn’t even really tell us what it is and why – just five minutes, max. 4.5 minutes saying how great it is, .5 on description.
But at least it got me thinking about things that are eternally important. Physics and philosophy are always the best antidote to self-pity. Need to remember that for the next slough of despond. The reality is, I’m a little human, who happens to be undergoing a period of immense stress, emotional and physical.

July 23
Ugh! I’ve been typing up my journals and Im up to the place - in 1994 – when I adopted Christianity again. While it seemed to me at the time that I was cleansing myself and my life, what it looks like to me now is more of the fear and intolerance I associate with Christianity. It’s embarrassing to read. But it is illustrative of how “born again” people come to take such extreme views. Also how intolerance is inherent in the religions of Judaism and Christianity. It is there in the scriptures, not something people read into it. How can I ever make peace with that?

I’ve been reading Alan Watts to Jim. In the chapter we just read, he concludes with quotes from a physics text book written in 1958. It was already a given at that time that all is one. So why do we persist in seeing ourselves as separate, not only from the rest of the universe, but from one another? Once again, it feels like proof to me that Hindus and Buddhists understand the world better than the West. And it casts the Semitic religions once again in the role of the willfully ignorant and misleading.

July 26
Been typing up my journals. Have been leaving out lots of references to God, because thru 1994, early 1995, I used my journal as a place to pray. So its all about religion. And it makes me sad, because while there is some joy there, overall the predominant feeling is guilt. Every time I practice Christianity, or try to, it becomes all about how evil I am, how I can’t measure up, how in need of forgiveness I am, etc. It really gets old, feeling that way. We’ll see, ‘cause it seems I might have had some success coming out of all that, to a more joyful, peaceful relationship with God.

One thing is certain – I sure was trying hard to build a relationship with God, and to understand Him by reading the Bible. And it wasn’t just my own weird guilt trip that made it hard. I found then, at age 24/25, the same things I’ve been finding the last couple years – that there is a lot of stuff in the Bible that just doesn’t make any sense. Part of my search has to be for people who actually know the Bible and who have thought about these troubling issues, and have answers. See how they make sense of it.

I have to conclude that the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians must just skip over all these things, if they read the Bible at all. But then how does one use it to guide one’s life? How do you figure out what God wants if you can’t figure out who He is?

July 27
Boy, every time I read them [the journals] I realize that when I’m in right relationship with God – which is NOT when I’m beating myself up for being human – things are much better. I’m a better person, I feel better about myself, those around me are happier, and life just runs more smoothly. I knew this. I have known it for a long time.

So I need to spend the time working out a way I can be close to God. I simply cannot, or I cannot simply, follow mainstream Christianity. The way it has come to be practiced, the doctrines that have developed – I just can’t believe. I’ll keep studying the Bible and other Christian texts. But what I can’t do is get bogged down in cynicism. For every negative statement, “I don’t believe . . . “ implies a corollary – what I do believe. I need to focus on the latter as much or more than the former.

Once I get things rolling for my next classes and my articles, I ought to settle into a rhythm in which I still have time in the mornings to feed my spirit. Surely my mind is complex enough to handle exploration and critical and creative thinking in four or more directions at once. And they will feed one another. I know, for example, that I want to look at the role of faith in teenagers’ lives. I think I am really well equipped to do that, and it is an area of study that doesn’t get much attention.

July 29
I’ve been reading the gospel of Mark. Accepted as the oldest, and certainly the simplest, it has none of the birth mythology or the politically inspired hatred of Jews from the 70s & 80s. It does inspire the question – where did the stories of the birth come from? When were they added? We know Luke and Matthew wrote their gospels using Mark and text the scholars call “Q.” Is it maybe in Q?

Some interesting things about Mark:
It begins with a description of John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. Says that immediately after that, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days, and says he was tempted, but does not describe the temptations at all. So where did those details come from?
In Chapter 2, we get the story of a paralytic healed – by the forgiveness of sins. The “scribes” were there and challenged that, and Jesus says in verse 9: “Which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to say ’Arise, get up and walk?’” 2:10. But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home. Is he here making the connection between the feelings we have (guilt, shame, worry) and our physical condition? Is he saying he has the power to forgive sins? Or that we do?

Over and over again he seems to be telling people that they have control over the physical world – they can multiply loaves and fishes, walk on water, heal themselves and others, etc. They have such trouble getting it. Getting even that He can do it, let alone that they can. He deputizes the apostles and they go out and heal, but it seems to me that even they didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that he had showed them what was possible. They just thought he had shared some of his super-powers.

He keeps telling people that their faith has healed them. Not God, or he himself, but their faith. And in 6:5, when he is in Nazareth, his home town, he is unable to work any miracles, because no one there believes, has faith.

I don’t understand the stuff about Elijah. I need to find out what the prophecies are about Elijah. And in Mark 10:11-12, he could not be more clear about divorce. It IS adultery. In 10:17 he makes a clear distinction between himself and God.

Oh, in 7:19, the author of Mark makes an editorial remark, that by saying what goes out of a person is what defiles him, not what one eats, that he declared all foods clean. He wasn’t necessarily saying that – just trying to direct their attention to the bigger issues.

In 10:45, after Jesus has revealed what is going to happen to him in Jerusalem, and James and John have requested to sit on the right and left of Jesus, Jesus says they don’t know what they are asking for. Above, he says, “The cup I drink you shall drink, and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. But he can’t give them right or left, because that isn’t his to give. He reminds them again not to vie for power of place but to serve one another. And in verse 45, he says, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” So Mark has him say, at least to intimate, the doctrine of the Atonement. If that wasn’t added later.

In 10:47, Mark has Bartemaeus call him Son of David. Was that because people had done the genealogy, or is it a convention, a title of honor, a way to indicate one’s trust and respect?
In 11:1-6, Mark has Jesus orchestrating his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It wasn’t spontaneous on the part of the people. 11:14 is where he curses the fig tree for not having fruit out of season. Why? This has always bothered me. Is he saying we ought to be doing the impossible? It’s the Garden of Eden story over again – punishing organisms for doing what it is their nature to do. How different from the scorpion story in Hinduism!

[There is a story about a yogi who sees a scorpion about to drown in the river. He goes over and rescues the scorpion. The scorpion stings him and springs away, only to land back in the river. The yogi again reaches down to rescue the insect. An observer says, "Hey! Don't you learn? That thing will only sting you again, you should let it drown, or kill it!" And the yogi says, "The scorpion stings because it is a scorpion's nature to sting. I will rescue him, because it is a yogi's nature to revere life."]

In the temple, my students have had all kinds of wacky ideas about why Jesus got angry, and who he was angry with. In Mark 11:15 it says he drove out those who were “buying and selling” and overturned the tables of the “money changers and the seats of those were selling doves.” 11:17 – “You have made it a robbers’ den.”
At the end of the chapter, Jesus makes the cursing of the fig tree into an example of the power available to all who believe they have such power. And the key, again, is simply believing it. 11:23 . . . “who does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted him.”

In 12:1-11, he again seems to be hinting that he is the son of God in a way different from others, in the parable of the vine-growers. Should also note that throughout Mark, the Jews that oppose Jesus are referred to as the Pharisees and Herodians. Sometimes scribes, and in Chapter 12, Sadducees.

I think we all need to ponder 12:24-27. Jesus is answering the question about whose wife would a woman be in heaven who had successively married 7 brothers. Jesus first says that there is no marriage in heaven; that they are thinking about it as if it will be just a continuation of life as we know it, and he’s saying that is a wrong notion. More importantly he says, “But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the part about the burning bush, how God spoke to him saying 'I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are greatly mistaken'." What does this mean? Is it a statement about time? That God exists outside time? Or that there is no resurrection of the body? Or that there is no heaven? Or what? Look for this in the other gospels.

In 12:35-37, Jesus seems to be trying to make them think about what it means to be the “son” of God. Wasn’t David, a pure human, also “son?” His predictions of the end times are in Chapter 13. Some of it, especially about the return of Christ, is quotes of older scripture, older prophecies. Like about the sun darkening and stars falling from heaven. Also somewhat suggests the rapture, though that isn’t clear. He says all this will happen before “this generation passeth away” 13:30, but my copy has a note that “generation” might be better translated as “race.” What does that mean?

He is mostly referred to, and refers to himself, as “Teacher” and “Son of Man” – sometimes also Son of God, although that is never direct, just implied by context.
14:21 contradicts the Judas gospel, because here Jesus says he will be betrayed, and it would be better for the betrayer that he’d never been born. But – in other places the words “betray” and “deliver” are used interchangeably. And he might have meant, not that he would curse him, but that the world would.

Speaking of Judas, the whole story is fishy. Jesus has been preaching all over the place. He’s spent the day in the temple, answering the questions of the Chief priests, the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and elders. Then later in the next morning, in Gethsemane, those same scribes, elders, priests, etc. show up. Why would they pay Judas to identify for them a man with whom they had spent the previous day? Who was widely known throughout the region? It just isn’t reasonable. Unless it is guards, Roman, who come. But Mark has it as the Jewish power-wielders. I guess in verse 49 it is explained. Jesus says that it happened this way in order for the scriptures to be fulfilled. So that lends credence to the Judas gospel, which states that Jesus asked Judas to betray him.

In 14:62, Jesus answers directly that he is the Son of the Blessed One, is the Christ, and that he will be seen, “sitting on the right hand of Power,” a quote from old scriptures. But in quoting, he refers to himself as Son of Man. So is he claiming divinity?
Nope – definitely not Roman soldiers in Mark. It is the Sanhedrin, all the way, ‘til they deliver him to Pilate. And Barabbas is not a thief, but an insurrectionist! I’ve never noticed that before!

In 15:35, when Jesus has cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” the bystanders thought he was calling to Elijah. Why? Elijah sure figures a lot in this gospel. I suppose I better go back and read about him.

At the cross, the women listed are Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. Now elsewhere, Jesus brothers are listed as James, Joses, Judas and Simon. So at the burial he says there is Mary M., and Mary, mother of Joses. At the tomb on Sunday, he says Mary M. and mother of Jesus. But are these all the same Mary, the mother of Jesus? Also Salome goes with them to the tomb and discovers the resurrection.
Some manuscripts end at 16:8, with the women afraid, after having spoken to the “man” in the tomb. Others have verses 9-20, briefly outlining Jesus’ appearance to Mary M., two others, and then the eleven. As well as his commission to them to preach the gospel and his list of signs by which they would be known.
Found the place – 1 Kings 17 is the first mention of Elijah. So I’ll read that tomorrow.

July 30
Last night I began reading about Elijah and got so interested I went back to the beginning of 1 Kings to read it thru. 1 Kings 4:30 indicates that they did know of the wise men/philosophers from the east. I can’t remember the timing here. If Moses was around 1200 BCE, then David must have been somewhere around 1000, maybe? I can check – Yes, Solomon is supposed to have died around 935 BCE.

I Kings 9:6-9 is the curse God lays upon Israel if they break the commandments – cutting off Israel from the land and casting the temple out of His sight. “So Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins.” Hmmm – Under Solomon, Lebanon was part of Israel, and its people abused even then – conscripted as laborers when the sons of Israel were not. And once again, women are a good man’s downfall.

Chapter 11 Begins: Now Kind Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of the Pharaoh. He has 700 wives and 300 concubines. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that they beseech him to follow their own gods, and not only does he allow it but he even builds temples, altars and makes sacrifices to them. Yahweh is not happy about that.

I really don’t get the story of the disobedient prophet in I kings 13:11-33. God sends a prophet with a message and tells him not to eat or drink in the place where he gives it. Then he does so, refusing all the offers of bread and drink. Then, when he’s left, another old prophet goes after him, and lies to him, telling him God said it was okay for him to come eat and drink at his house. So the guy does, and then the old liar tells him a true prophecy – that because he did what God told him not to do, he will die on his way home and not be buried with his father. Sure ‘nuf, when he heads out a lion kills, but doesn’t eat him. Then the old prophet tells his sons that when he dies, he wants to be buried with the man. What? Tell me God isn’t a trickster! It is things like that which scared me to death as a child. There just is no pleasing this god. He’s whimsical and capricious. A human life is nothing to him.

Interesting – 14:24 has a reference to “male cult prostitutes,” who did all the “abominations of the nations which the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.”

Here’s another bizarre one. I Kings 20:35-43. Well, it has a point, but a lot of unnecessary violence and death. A prophet asks someone to hit him, and when he doesn’t, he puts a curse on him and he dies. Then, practically in the next breath, in chapter 21, Ahab is punished for causing the death of Naboth, whose vineyard he coveted. Maybe the real sin there was causing the people to sin, because his wife, Jezebel, caused mean to bear false-witness, which was the basis for stoning him to death. Murder, I guess, isn’t really that bad – or at least, God thinks nothing of doing it Himself.

22:19 is an example of how, when prophets saw God in his heaven, they didn’t see Jesus. There were “spirits” though, whom the Lord consulted. Need to look up what “sons of the prophets” means. And there must still have been prophetic guilds, because sometimes he refers to 400-500 prophets.

Aha! I have my answer to the question that started all of this in Mark, about why the people would have thought Jesus was calling for Elijah. It is in 2 Kings 2:12. A chariot and horses of fire come and separate Elijah and Elisha, and then “Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.” V. 12 “And Elisha saw it and cried out, ‘My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and is horsemen!’ and he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in 2 pieces” – like the curtain in the temple? So that makes sense; Jesus was echoing Elisha’s cry. And Elijah had been like a father to Elisha.

And here again, some kids make fun of Elisha, so he curses them, and two bears come out and kill 42 ‘lads.’ I mean, I get that it isn’t a good idea to insult the mouthpiece of the Lord, but why is it necessary to kill 42 little boys? Maybe Jesus came to stress the loving part of God, but unless he was talking about a totally different god, we still have to look to the Old Testament for clues to his nature.

4pm – I was pretty engaged in 2 Kings, but think I am done with it for awhile. But I began reading Matthew and got annoyed right away. First, Mark. In my experience, the other three gospels are relied on and memorized much more often than this one, and I can’t remember reading it this closely before. I think I read the others first, always, and saw this one as repetitive and with nothing new to add to my understanding of Jesus, since it is so bare bones. I don’t think I knew until a couple of years ago, or didn’t care, that it was written first.

Now, I liked it quite a lot. For the most part it sticks to facts as the author understood them, with only a few instances of marked interpretation. It doesn’t refer incessantly to the Old Testament prophecies, trying to make them fit. It doesn’t feel like an attempt to convince. In fact, it doesn’t even try to establish Jesus’ lineage, or his divinity.

Jesus seems very human. He has brothers and sisters, he eats and drinks, he sighs occasionally, but not all of the time as in Matthew. I appreciate that the author just states the experience, as well as he was able to put it together from others’ experiences, and pretty much leaves it at that. Now, the gospel is believed to have been written around 70 CE, so nearly forty years after Jesus’ death. Therefore there is interpretation; it reflects what people were thinking at the time it was written, and they’d had almost half a century to think about it.

My Bible (New American Standard) says the author was Mark, a companion of Peter’s, who would have heard Peter speak and preach often. It was written to the Romans, it says, and, “He portrays Christ in all His power and authority, and stresses His deeds. Christ is depicted as the Servant of the Lord.”

Armstrong doesn’t really have much to say about it that I haven’t, except to note that none of the mythology of the conception, birth or childhood or present. No angels singing over him, no wise men seeing stars, etc. Pagles points out that Mark, in reference to the resurrection, says Jesus appeared “in another form” not his earthly form.

Mark seems remarkably solid. Let’s see how Matthew differs. And, of course, see what its strengths are. My Bible has Matthew being written by the tax-collector of that name, one of the 12 apostles. Also it says it was the 2nd one written, before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. But I trust Armstrong more. She says it clearly reflects the tensions between Jews and Christians during the 80s. let’s see for ourselves.

It doesn’t take long for me to run into problems. First, the genealogy seems squished in order to make it 14 generations between Abraham and David, and between David and Jesus. As I noted a long time ago, the genealogy differs from that in Luke – giving a different father for Joseph and many other things. Matthew does establish the virgin birth, and says wise men came from the east. He has them come to Bethlehem. And there is the slaughter by Herod.

In 1:23 is the first attempt to tie Jesus’ life to the old prophecies. And it is one I’ve already seen busted. When you read that scripture, it is in Isaiah, it is crystal clear, unambiguously, that the text is referring to the birth of a different child. Plus there is the fact that the word Matthew uses for “virgin,” in Ancient Hebrew meant “young woman,” which a) shows the author didn’t know his ancient language, and b) blows his attempt to make Jesus fit the old scriptures all to hell. And he keeps doing it, over and over.

Next one is 2:6, identifying Bethlehem as the city where the Messiah must be born. Then 2:18 is a real stretch, but yes, now I remember, it comes from the same place in Jeremiah the first one does. And in 2:23 justification for him being of Nazareth. It would be a full week’s work to track all of them down, unless I can find the full text of the Bible on line.

In 3:7, he has John the Baptist call the Pharisees and the Sadducees “brood of vipers.” The temptations are spelled out, and it is basically a quotation-fest. While Mark was really the story of what Jesus did, Matthew reports what he said. It is consistent with Mark, but more detailed. Is this a matter of what was most important to the observer? Matthew has 30 more years to twist, forget, fabricate (even if unconsciously) and interpret. Some of the things Mark had Jesus saying that were confusing there are clearer here. But is that because people made them clearer by interpreting? Or did Mark just have a poor memory? I should ask V how much she thinks Matthew and the others relied on Mark’s text when writing their own.

Matthew is clearly writing for a Jewish audience, and he emphasizes Jesus’ Jewishness, while at the same time goes to great lengths to distance him and his followers from the Jewish power-holders, I.e. Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, priests, etc. Matt 7:9 is the verse about the father – earthly fathers care, how much more God does. Actually, 7:7-12 is the key to the whole gospel.

July 31
Back to Matthew. It has the feel of having been rearranged to make more sense. For example, in 8:18-27, all the times the disciples were tested are grouped together. Are we to believe they really happened all in a row like that? It doesn’t bother me at all that events are rearranged – that seems wholly reasonable, and meaning is not necessarily lost. The problem, though, is that some of the things Jesus said cannot be understood, or could easily be misunderstood, without reference to the context. So in that way, moving statements or teachings could easily change the meaning, primarily by giving the words the meaning the author sees in them, by grouping them with teachings he thinks have similar meaning.
The willingness of Matthew to insert scripture to support his interpretation provokes some doubt as to how much Jesus cited those scriptures. Matthew gives us a picture of Jesus as a scholar of Torah, with perfect knowledge of the scriptures. I readily accept that, but wonder if he really quoted every other sentence.

Matthew also has Jesus be quite partial to Jews, at least at first. Now I can’t find it. But 6:7 – don’t use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do. Pretty ironic, since he then gives them the Lord’s Prayer, which becomes meaningless repetition for many Christians. Lost the other place, but Mark had the same reference, about not casting pearls before swine. I.e. his words are pearls, Gentiles swine. Pretty big insult.

One of the views of Jesus I have entertained I see glimpses of here – a man who is unsure of what he is, who does not know his own power. In Mark, he seemed surprised that the woman with the hemorrhage was healed just by touching his robe. In Matt 8:5-19, he is “amazed” when the centurion likens him, Jesus, to an army commander. Jesus himself had intended to go to the centurion’s house to heal his servant. It is as if it hadn’t occurred to him that he could work long distance. Importantly, he says again that it is the centurion’s faith which healed the servant – not God’s reward for faith, as I think it is often interpreted.

In 8:34, after Jesus had cast out demons from two men, the townspeople come out and beg him to leave. So not everyone is thrilled to have him around, underscoring that it was not obvious to people who or what he was.
Case in point. 9:1-8, Jesus cures the paralytic by forgiving his sins, is challenged, and says the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins. In v.8, the people interpret that to mean God has given that authority to men, humans, not just Jesus. So that’s how they were interpreting the title he gave himself, which suggests that is what he meant by it, too.

Here it is – 10:5, Jesus tells the new disciples not to enter, preach and heal in any Gentile towns. Mark doesn’t have that clause. There is an urgency in Matthew. The author believed, and portrays Jesus as believing, that the end of the world is imminent – see 10:23.
Jesus talks about the meaning of discipleship, and says he came to bring not peace, but a sword 10:34. Cites scripture about setting folks against their own families (now suspect), and says those who don’t follow him are not worthy of him, nor are those who are not persecuted in His name.

Now, it is a possibility that Jesus said something like what the Buddha did – that it requires great effort, determination and sacrifice to become as he is. But at the time of the writing of Matthew, his followers were being persecuted. Therefore they might have heard something different in what he had said. Matt 11:6: ‘And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over me.” That is Jesus’ response to John the Baptist’s question of whether he is the Messiah. Not very direct, is it? He first responds by pointing out the miracles he’s worked, partly by citing scripture, but ends with that. What does it mean?

In 11:7-19, Jesus talks about John, and according to Matthew calls him Elijah, returned to make the way for the Messiah. Then in 11:20-24 he gives a tirade about the cities who haven’t repented from his teachings, and he curses them. In the next breath he says, “All things have been given me by the Father,” and implies that only he knows the Father and that one must go through him. And he says it will be easy, in contrast to the proceeding [about having to be persecuted to be worthy].

He’s already referred to himself as the bridegroom. Now in 12:6 he says that “something greater than the temple is here.” And in 12:8, “The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.” But the quote in 12:18-21, from Isaiah, suggests God will choose a human man to be his servant and a light to the Gentiles. Matt 12:30 is “He who is not with me is against me.” Mark has it the other way. [He who is not against me is with me – quite a different meaning]. And in 12:34 he again calls the Pharisees “brood of vipers” and ‘you, being evil cannot speak good’ – paraphrased. In 12:40 Matthew has him prophecy that, like Jonah, he’ll spend three days in the belly – of earth, not a whale.

Here is one of those verses that really upsets me. After Jesus has told the parable of the seeds, he goes off with his disciples and explains it to them. Before doing so, he says that understanding has been granted to them, but not to the others. And, “For whoever has, to him shall more be given, and he shall have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” 13:12-13. He goes on to cite Isaiah. It would be one thing if he is talking about wisdom, to be saying that those who sought wisdom and therefore have it from their own effort, will be rewarded with more. But he seems to be saying effort has nothing to do with it. We either will be given it, or we won’t. Even the parable suggest that lack of agency – you are one type of soil or another.

Two more things before I call it a night. In 13:58, when Jesus goes to Nazareth, Matthew reports his brothers – James, Joseph, Simon and Judas – along with his sisters are there. But v.58 says, “And he did not do many miracles there, because of their unbelief.” Has a different tone, doesn’t it? Then in 14:22-34, where Jesus walks on water, he calls Peter to him, and we get that whole story. But if Mark was Peter’s friend, why don’t we get that in Mark’s gospel? Seems odd. Matthew includes a lot of parables about good people being separated from evil on Judgment Day. The whole tone is more fearful and punishing.