The Spiral Path

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13 Aug 2012

RS23: Spit-Wives and Dead Goats

A: I saw an interesting story on the BBC News site this week about a young Palestinian man named Ayman Safiah who is the only classically trained male ballet dancer to emerge from the Palestinian culture.* He grew up in the Galilee in a town where Arabs and Jews treat each other well, and where some of its artists and writers have achieved international recognition. Despite his success, he’s meeting with intense prejudice from his own community. He reminds me a lot of you. Knows who he is. Doesn’t let prejudice and hatred stop him from doing what his heart and soul tell him to do.

I like the quotes from him: “‘My desire to study classical ballet was simply beyond the understanding of my classmates,’ he explains. ‘They only knew that it was something women enjoyed. It was completely alien to them.'” He also says, “‘My parents knew that ballet was going to be a large part of my life from early on . . . Even my grandfather accepted my career choice even though he didn’t fully understand what it entailed.'”

Yup. He reminds me so much of you. So stubborn. So determined to break through cultural taboos that have nothing to do with God or soul or faith.

J: Well, yes, I was told more than once I was more stubborn than a Hebron camel. It was a saying from my time.

A: Ayman Safiah faces huge opposition from the Palestinian community because men aren’t “supposed” to be passionate about dance. Even the fact that he’s worked extremely hard for many years and has graduated from the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in Richmond, England, has not earned him any respect from his Arab compatriots. Some insist that performing ballet is against Islam. Two thousand years ago, you faced the same kind of rejection and prejudice for daring to practise medicine in the Galilee. Tell me more about that.

J: It’s interesting that Safiah makes the link between ballet and women. In my time, the same kind of link existed between healing and women. Healing was something that women did, and only women were interested in learning more about it. No respectable man in the Judeo-Hellenistic culture I grew up in would have stooped to the level of the local village spit-wives. But I was passionate about healing.

A: Spit-wives?

J: A derogatory term for the women who carried on the ancient traditions of herbal medicine. They used poultices and teas and medicines handmade from various plants and minerals. From time to time they were known to use spit in their remedies. Since bodily fluids, including spit, were considered unclean — religiously impure — in the Jewish religious tradition, these traditional remedies and their practitioners were looked upon with contempt. Women from the lower classes of society shared healing information among themselves and did their best to help each other, since nobody else was willing to help them.

A (eyes rolling): Oh come on, now. What about all those religious temples where people could make their sacrifices and prayers for divine healing? Who needs medical science when you can ask a priest to slaughter a female goat for you?

J (smiling): A sentiment I certainly agreed with and talked about. Often. And loudly.

A: Didn’t win you any popularity contests, did it?

J: People of prejudice don’t like to have their prejudices challenged. And prejudices about illness and healing were extreme in my time. There’s a ridiculous idea floating around in liberal religious circles today that people should tolerate and excuse these ancient prejudices because “it’s just the way things were” and “they didn’t know any better.” This is crap. The Greek culture had a long tradition, dating back hundreds of years before my time as Jesus, of treating illness and healing as a field of science. They’d written many treatises about the workings of the body. Some of their scientific remedies were quite effective — not all of them, of course, but there was an ongoing interest in studying illness and healing from a scientific perspective. This was a perspective I sympathized with, much to the horror of my pious Jewish relatives.

A: Were the spit-wives trying to be scientific, too?

J: Women who are desperate to care for their families and relieve the suffering of their children can become shrewd and careful observers of scientific principles. They don’t have the time or skills or status to consult with learned scholars of religious scrolls, so they fly by the seat of their pants. They pay attention to what works. They remember what works. They tell their friends what works. They base their decisions on intuition and careful observation, not piety. They catch on fast when you show them how to wash and dress a wound so it won’t go “green.” They might have to do their healing work in secret, where the men won’t catch them engaging in apostasy, but they’ll do it if it means saving the life of a beloved child.

A: In this model, it’s okay for individuals to take personal responsibility for the problems created by illness. It’s okay for individuals to go ahead and try to fix it instead of wringing their hands and claiming that only God and the priests can fix it.

J: Exactly. It’s an integral part of the Peace Sequence we’ve been talking about on and off. You’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of bringing Peace to the wider community if you ignore the imperatives of illness and healing. For most human beings, illness and healing are the number one issues. If you don’t have mentors who can teach others about the realities of illness and healing, there’s no way for individuals to move on to the subsequent step of the Peace Sequence, which is personal responsibility. In the world human beings actually live in — as opposed to the world of false myths created by the likes of the apostle Paul — people have to accept that they themselves have a huge stake in this whole “illness and healing” thing. They can’t hand over their power and responsibility for healing to any religious group, no matter how big or successful the group.

All people are part of God’s world of science and faith, and all people are considered equal by God, so all people are called upon to uphold the steps of the Peace Sequence. A big part of this process, as I’ve just mentioned, is to apply the steps of education, mentorship, and personal responsibility to the questions of illness and healing. This is what I tried to do two thousand years ago. I tried to teach others that healing miracles are possible if you let go of prejudice and hatred and treat those who are ill with compassion not judgment.

Angels tread where fools fear to go.

*Please see “First Palestinian male ballet dancer battles prejudices” by Sylvia Smith, posted on BBC News on August 10, 2012, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19202612

Addendum May 4, 2017: For those who are scornful of the idea that ancient healers were able to devise useful medical remedies by engaging in objective scientific observation preceded and followed by powerful intuition, I found this article today which is a follow-up to an preliminary story that appeared two years ago. In a story posted by Erin Connelly — “Exciting potential: Medieval medical books could hold the recipe for new antibiotics” — the author talks about Bald’s eyesalve, “a medieval recipe that contained wine, garlic, an Allium species (such as leek or onion) and oxgall . . . cured in a brass vessel for nine nights before use.” It sounds terrible to modern ears, but according to the researcher, it’s a highly effective antistaphylococcal agent.

+28

13 Jun 2012

RS17: Excavating James: The James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb

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The James Ossuary. Photo by Paradiso (English Wikipedia, via Wikipedia Commons). The James ossuary was on display at the Royal Ontario Museum from Nov. 15, 2002 to Jan. 5, 2003.

In honour of today’s press release today from the Biblical Archaeology Review, with its hot-off-the-press link to Hershel Shanks’ article about the James Ossuary — “‘Brother of Jesus’ Inscription is Authentic!” (note: the Biblical Archaeology Society subsequently removed this article from its website) — I’m posting a term paper I wrote for an Historical Jesus course as a graduate student in theological studies.

I call the essay “Excavating James.” I’ve posted it here as I wrote it in December 2007, several years before an Israeli court found antiquities collector Oded Golan and antiquities dealer Robert Deutsch not guilty of forgery charges after a five year trial.* In my view, the defendants in this forgery trial ably demonstrated how scientific research can be used with dignity, appropriateness, and courage to push back against the vested interests of entrenched dogmatic beliefs.

I should also note that my Masters degree in Art Conservation (Artifact stream) offered me insights into the chemistry raised in this paper.

_________________

EXCAVATING JAMES:
BREAKING THROUGH OLD ASSUMPTIONS

by Jennifer Thomas
December 14, 2007

In October 2002, an unprovenanced chalk ossuary with probable origins in first century Jerusalem made international headlines when a press conference highlighted the possible significance of the box’s Aramaic inscription: “Ya’aquov bar Yosef akhui diYeshua,” translated as “Jacob, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” (Shanks and Witherington 22). The ossuary, commonly known as the James Ossuary, ignited a firestorm of controversy which has not yet subsided. The scholarly debate over the inscription’s authenticity has been complicated by several factors, including its acquisition by Tel Aviv collector Oded Golan; the puzzling evidence of its having been cleaned more than once (Krumbein, “Findings: Ossuary” par. 2); its history of repair by Royal Ontario Museum conservators after it sustained damage during shipping (Shanks and Witherington 36-40); its focus in the forgery charges brought by Israeli police against Golan; its examination by Israeli police and by independent geomicrobiologist Wolfgang Krumbein, hired by Golan’s defence attorney; and its recent inclusion by filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and paleobiologist Charles Pellegrino among the Talpiot Tomb ossuaries in their 2007 book, The Jesus Family Tomb. Some of the data presented by Jacobovici and Pellegrino is intriguing and worthy of more study. If further research can confirm the tentative scientifically established link between the James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb, then biblical scholars may be forced to reexamine some of their assumptions about the historical Jesus. In particular, the frequently ignored Epistle of James, when read against the background of the Talpiot Tomb and its ossuaries, in the manner of Crossan and Reed, may prove to have greater value as an exegetical tool for understanding Jesus than has previously been envisioned.

When John Crossan and Jonathan Reed revised their book Excavating Jesus to place the James Ossuary in the number one spot of their top ten archaeological discoveries related to Jesus, they probably never imagined that less than five years later a Toronto filmmaker would start knocking on doors in a Jerusalem suburb and asking residents if they had a tomb in their basement. The tomb in question was the Tomb of Ten Ossuaries, found accidentally in East Talpiot in 1980 while contractors were levelling ground for new construction. The Department of Antiquities (later called the Israel Antiquities Authority, or IAA) was contacted, and IAA archaeologists were dispatched to perform salvage archeology. The team physically entered the tomb, mapped the antechamber and the lower chamber with its six niches or kokhim, noted that almost a metre of terra rossa covered the floor of the lower chamber, and removed all the contents, including the red soil. The tomb’s ossuaries – at least, the nine that were later fully catalogued of the ten that were documented on-site – were taken to an IAA warehouse. The tomb itself was generally believed to have been filled with concrete in 1980 during construction of a condominium complex. Certainly this is Crossan and Reed’s stated belief (19). As we shall, however, rumours of the tomb’s demise were greatly exaggerated.

Amos Kloner, of the original IAA team, did not publish the group’s findings until 1996. Apparently, few scholars knew before then that six of the nine Talpiot ossuaries in the IAA’s possession were inscribed with names familiar to readers of the Gospels (an unusually high inscription rate, when compared to other ossuaries catalogued by the IAA (Shanks and Witherington 12)). In 1996, a BBC film crew came across the cluster of inscribed ossuaries, and created a brief media stir with their story (Jacobovici and Pellegrino 23). It is important, however, to separate media sensation from the fact of the tomb’s authenticity. Crossan and Reed quote from a 1996 article in which Joe Zias, then curator of the IAA, said, “[the list of names from the ossuaries] came from a very good, undisturbed, archaeological context. It was found by archaeologists, read by them, interpreted by them . . . a very, very good text” (19). The descriptions of the ten Talpiot Tomb ossuaries (nine in the possession of the IAA and one missing) are shown in Table 1.

Summary of Talpiot Tomb ossuary inscriptions (c) JAT 2007:

What are we to do with this list of family names that includes a Mary, a Jude (son of Jesus), a Matthew, a Jesus (son of Joseph), a Joseph, and a second Mary? Researchers tells us that Mary was a common name for daughters in the Second Temple period (Pfann 8). Shanks and Witherington, citing Rachel Hachlili, report that from the 1st century BCE to the 1st century CE, Joseph was second in popularity only to Simon, Judah was third, Jesus was sixth, Matthew was eighth, and Jacob/James was thirteenth among 18 Jewish male names that appear frequently in the archaeological record (56). In themselves, the inscriptions on the Talpiot ossuaries are not remarkable if they are viewed independently of each other. But they are not independent. They are a group, and must be examined as a group. They were found together. They were found in a South Jerusalem family tomb that, because of its size, location, and quality of workmanship, could only have been built by someone of means.

Pellegrino says in his book that Jacobovici took the list of six names to Andrey Feuerverger, a University of Toronto statistician (111-114). Feuerverger calculated a conservative “P factor” (probability factor) “of 600 to one in favor of the tomb belonging to the family of Jesus of Nazareth” (114). Another way to put this is to say “one in 600 families (on the conservative side) would have that particular combination of names purely by chance, based on the distribution of individual names in the population” (Mims, “Special Report” 1, quoting TABLE 1: SUMMARY OF INSCRIPTION DATA FROM TEN OSSUARIES FOUND IN TALPIOT TOMB).

In an interview with Christopher Mims published by Scientific American in March 2007, Feuerverger says, “I did permit the number one in 600 to be used in the film. I’m prepared to stand behind that but on the understanding that these numbers were calculated based on the assumptions that I was asked to use . . . I’m not a biblical scholar” (“Q&A” 2). One of the assumptions is that the family could afford an ossuarial burial.

The P factor would rise if it could be established, as Jacobovici and Pellegrino assert, that the James Ossuary is the missing tenth ossuary from the Talpiot Tomb. This may not be as far-fetched as it seems. Pellegrino worked with Bob Genna, director of the Suffolk County Crime Lab in New York, to investigate the possibility of using “patina fingerprinting” to scientifically establish provenance. Pellegrino says this:

My idea about patina fingerprinting rests on the fact that each soil type and rock matrix possesses its own private spectrum of magnesium, titanium, and other trace elements.

In theory, the patina inside a tomb or on the surfaces of its artifacts should develop its own chemically distinct signature, depending on a constellation of variable conditions, including the minerals and bacterial populations present at any specific location and the quantities of water moving through that specific “constellation.”

If such a chemical “fingerprint” existed, scanning patina samples on a quantum level with an electron microprobe would reveal a chemical spectrum that could be matched to a specific tomb and to any objects that come from it. (176)

His proposal is gutsy but by no means ludicrous or impossible from the perspective of analytical chemistry and related fields. At the least, it deserves further consideration. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal would assist others in assessing its feasibility. At the moment, though, we have Pellegrino’s anecdotal findings, some of which are published in the form of four spectra in the colour plate section of the book. He and Genna took patina samples from the following sources: the Jesus, Mariamne, and Matthew ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb, the tomb itself, the James ossuary, and a number of provenanced ossuaries from tombs known to have similar conditions to the Talpiot tomb. His proposed method relied entirely on the availability of patina samples from the walls of the Tomb of Ten Ossuaries. Had the tomb been filled with concrete, as some had been led to believe, it would have been impossible to retrieve an uncontaminated sample. Fortunately – and for this we must thank renegade explorer Jacobovici and his associates, who wouldn’t take no for an answer – the tomb was “rediscovered” in 2005. It lay beneath a concrete and steel slab on a terrace between two condominium buildings. A tenant who had lived in one of the buildings since the beginning told Jacobovici’s team that archaeologists had left the tomb open, but tenants had built the slab on top to keep children out (150). In addition, religious authorities had turned the tomb into a genizah, or burial chamber for damaged holy texts, before it was sealed (153). The tomb was now carpeted with fragments of holy books. There was concern that the presence of the decomposing texts might have significantly altered the chemical composition of the tomb’s patina over the previous 25 years; however, this was not borne out by the microprobe studies (180).

When Pellegrino and Genna used an electron microscope to examine a patina sample from the James ossuary, provided by the Israel Geological Study, they saw “hundreds of tiny fiber fragments” on the sample (184). They concluded that “someone in modern times had given the James ossuary a hard scrubbing with a piece of cloth . . . .(184)” They directed the electron microprobe to the fibres themselves, and got large chlorine and phosphorus peaks. “This was consistent with the phosphate-spiked detergents that were in common use during the 1970s and early 1980s” (184). Someone had apparently cleaned the James ossuary with a cloth soaked in a chlorine- and phosphate- based detergent.

Probes of the James ossuary patina clearly revealed the same detergent contaminants. When these modern contaminants were factored out, the remaining spectrum was identical to those obtained from the Talpiot tomb walls and from the Jesus, Mariamne, and Matthew ossuaries (185). Further, five probes taken of a James patina sample provided by the Royal Ontario Museum were also identical, “right down to contamination by cloth fibers and phosphate-based detergent” (185).

Meanwhile, the electron microprobe studies of samples taken from unrelated Israeli ossuaries yielded spectra that were significantly different from each other and from the Talpiot cluster, even when patina samples were visually indistinguishable from the Talpiot patina under light microscopy. Pellegrino says, “In conclusion, it seemed that, compared to other patina samples from ossuaries found in the Jerusalem environment, the Talpiot tomb ossuaries exhibited a patina fingerprint or profile that matched the James ossuary and no other” (188).

If we were to rely solely on Pellegrino’s admittedly novel technique to “rehabilitate” the James ossuary’s historical significance, we would not have much. However, because the box and samples from the box have been studied so many times since 2002 by specialists from different disciplines, including epigraphers, geochemists, archaeologists, art conservators, and even a geomicrobiologist, we have considerable scientific data at our disposal.

In June 2003, the IAA issued a public statement declaring the inscription on the James ossuary a modern-day forgery. Two of the 14 Israeli scholars who were invited to prepare an authenticity report were Avner Ayalon of the Geological Survey of Israel and Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology (Fitzmyer 3). These two, together with Miryam Bar-Matthews, also of the Geological Survey, examined the James ossuary, and published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science (Ayalon et al). They, too, chose a method never before used to assess the authenticity of archaeological artifacts. They took patina samples from various parts of the inscription, from other surface areas of the James ossuary, and from the surface patina and letters patina of unrelated Jerusalem ossuaries; ground the samples; used a mass spectrometer to analyse the oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O values) of each sample; then compared the results to well-dated secondary calcite (speleotherms) deposited in Jerusalem area caves during the last 3,000 years. Since only one James letter sample (of seven) fell within the same range as the other types of samples, Ayalon et al concluded the patina of the inscription could not have been formed “in the natural conditions that prevailed in the Judean Mountains during the last 3000 years, [indicating] that the patina covering the letters was artificially prepared, most probably with hot water, and deposited onto the underlying letters” (1188).

There are several problems with this paper, two of which are noted here. First, although Ayalon et al acknowledge that the inscription had been observed in a previous study to be freshly cleaned, they do not discuss how the residue of earlier cleaning might affect δ18O values. This is a significant lapse. Second, they apparently base the suitability of their δ18O method on the assumption that the patina on the rest of the James ossuary was pure calcite formed in a typical Judean cave environment, that is, in an enclosed or semi-enclosed atmosphere absent of soil. Krumbein’s report, however, conclusively demonstrates that the patina is not pure calcite, and that the presence of apatite, whewellite, weddelite, and quartz in the patina, along with biopitting and plant traces, suggests that “the cave in which the James ossuary was placed, either collapsed centuries earlier, or alluvial deposits penetrated the chamber together with water and buried the ossuary, either completely or partially . . .[rendering] δ18O isotopic tests irrelevant” (under “Findings: Ossuary”; italics added).

When Krumbein examined the ossuary, along with two other disputed artifacts, in Jerusalem in 2005, the Talpiot tomb, with its verified accumulation of terra rossa, had not yet entered the picture as the possible original resting place for the unprovenanced James ossuary. Nonetheless, his thorough examination and reported findings are fully in agreement with the documented conditions in which ten ossuaries were originally found in 1980.

It is by no means certain, based on the scientific evidence, that the inscription on the James ossuary is a modern forgery (for a current example of the ongoing debate, see the BAR 33.6 article). The box itself, however, seems genuine (Ayalon et al 1185). Are there other explanations for the “Jacob, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” inscription? Of course. It is possible the inscription is a well-meaning ancient addition to a plain box. It is also possible the latter part of the inscription (“brother of Jesus”) was added recently to an authentic “James, son of Joseph” inscription, as some have argued (for example, Chadwick as cited by Shanks and Witherington 42). The inscription might even be an ancient forgery. On the other hand, the entire inscription could be authentic. The question for historical Jesus researchers is this: If the ossuary and its inscription are authentic, what does it say about Jesus? Can we stretch the question further to ask what it might mean if the James ossuary is the missing tenth Talpiot bone box? Crossan and Reed have said, with regard to the James ossuary, that “like [the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices], the ossuary is now here and its presence demands discussion. . . . It is one single artifact that brings together archaeology and exegesis. It is also one single artifact that emphasizes how such objects are of value only when embedded among all those other discoveries that give it full context and final meaning” (28). I would argue that the Talpiot tomb findings create important archeological, scientific, and exegetical context, and that the James ossuary should be examined further in light of that context.

We can say with some measure of confidence that in the period during which ossuarial burial was practised in Jerusalem (usually given as 20 BCE to 70 CE (Shanks and Witherington 69)) a family who counted among their members a Mary, a Jude, a Matthew, a Jesus, a Joseph, another Mary, and possibly a James, had enough wealth and prestige to build a spacious tomb in the bedrock of a hill just south of the old city. Different languages were used on the ossuary inscriptions: Hebrew and Aramaic, but also Greek, with one name (Maria) a Latin version of its Aramaic counterpart. From this evidence, it could be argued the family was familiar with and possibly part of the wider Greco-Roman culture of 1st century Palestine. The family also had a penchant for widely popular names, and possibly followed a custom of naming children after close relatives.

We know from exegetical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth had a brother named Jacob or James. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark both name Jesus as the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon (Mt 13:55; Mk 6:3), though Jesus’ two sisters are not named in these passages. Matthew and Mark also refer to a Mary who is mother of James and Joseph (Mt 27:56; Mk 15:40). Although it is not clear which Mary is being referred to in these latter verses, she could be Mary the mother of Jesus, in which case James and Joseph would again be named brothers of Jesus. So we have two independent Synoptic sources, Matthew and Mark, that specifically name James. The Gospel of Thomas, which is considered an independent source by some (Crossan and Reed 9), refers to James the Just in Saying 12. Further, James appears a number of times in Acts and the writings of Paul. Paul lists James among those who have seen the risen Christ (1 Cor 15:7), and when Paul is writing his letter to Galatians, he describes James as one of the “pillars” of the Jerusalem church (Gal 2:9). The much-overlooked Epistle of James purports to be written by “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Jas 1:1). We also have extra-canonical sources that name James, two of which report on his death in Jerusalem a few years before the destruction of the city in 70 CE (Gillman 621). Josephus reports that James was stoned in 62 CE on the orders of high priest Ananus (Ant 20:200). Hegesippus, writing ca. 180 and quoted by Eusebius in the 4th century, gives a dramatic account of James’s martyrdom in 67 CE (?) at the hands of the scribes and Pharisees. Also from Hegesippus through Eusebius, we learn that “James became the first bishop of Jerusalem in part because he was the brother of Jesus” (Shanks and Witherington 96).

One begins to wonder why a man from the small peasant town of Nazareth in rural Galilee, where families “had an interest in keeping the head count low” (Hanson and Oakman 58) and the total population was probably less than 400 people (Reed 131), had such a large number of presumably adult siblings when childhood death rates were so high, and why one sibling – James – had such a position of honour and authority in Jerusalem. Archaeological excavations in Nazareth have brought to light no public structures and no public inscriptions from the Early Roman Period, which attests to “the level of illiteracy and lack of elite sponsors” there (Reed 131). Juxtaposed against this archaeological evidence, we have not one but two men from the same generation of the same family who rose, in the midst of an honour-shame culture, from the humblest of origins to positions of great moral authority. Both men knew Jerusalem and died there. Both had friends there. Both surely possessed impressive oratorical skills, otherwise they would have been ignored. Surely these two men started out with more than the knowledge of how to press Nazareth’s grapes into wine (see evidence for a vineyard and wine pressing vat: Reed 132). Something does not fit with a popular understanding of the historical Jesus as an illiterate Galilean peasant carpenter wisdom sage (for example Crossan and Reed; Mack). We might understand Jesus by himself in this way. But by all accounts, Jesus had a family. We must try to place Jesus more solidly within his large family, and within a culture that lived and breathed for status.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul engages in a lengthy appeal for monetary contributions to the Jerusalem church (“the collection”) (2 Cor 8:1 – 9:15). In the course of his letter, he says, “For you know the generous act [or the grace] of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). In the Greek, Paul uses ἐπτώχευσεν πλούσιος, “the well-to-do man became poor.” This verse is usually interpreted as being metaphorical, more akin to the christological construction in Philippians 2:6-8 (footnotes in Coogan NT 302). But maybe Paul isn’t being metaphorical at all. Maybe he means exactly what he says: that Jesus intentionally gave up his wealth to do God’s work. Paul, by his own admission, visited Jerusalem and saw James the Lord’s brother (Gal 1:18-19). If Paul had not known anything about Jesus’ family before this visit, he certainly did afterwards. Did Paul learn that Jesus had come from a privileged family with strong ties to Jerusalem? How would such knowledge have affected Paul’s understanding of his own divinely appointed mission, the mission he describes in Galatians 1:15-17? Would it have been to Paul’s advantage or disadvantage that the man who spoke so clearly to the non-elite about the spiritual woes of being rich (eg. Lk 6:24) might himself have originated in a family of wealth and status?

A modern analogy might be of help in understanding the historical Jesus not as a man who came from the bottom up, but as man who had the courage to intentionally step off the upper part of the pyramid, and live as a person among persons. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that one of the many descendants of American oligarch Joseph Kennedy suddenly had a profound religious experience, and saw for the first time how much suffering had been caused by his family’s commitment to certain values. What if this descendent renounced his family’s elitist way of life, moved to Canada, got a regular job, and used his spare time to study scripture? His family probably wouldn’t like him very much. They might even lie to their friends about where he had gone, rather than face the embarrassment of being “disowned” by him on spiritual grounds. Of course, such lies would become harder to maintain if he became known in his own right as a brilliant spiritual teacher up there in the boonies, a teacher of social and gender equality and . . . what’s that? . . . miraculous healings from God? For this we gave him an education? The shame, the shame.

Eventually, of course, word would get up to Canada that the guy working over there on that construction site is a Kennedy – one of those Kennedys. And suddenly the people who had ignored him the day before would invite him over to dinner to talk about his favourite subject, God. Even the local bishop might not be immune to the cachet of this gentleman’s esteemed lineage. Doors have a way of opening for those who come from “the right sort of people.”

Two thousand years ago, Jesus went through a lot of different doors. Many of those doors were owned by priests, Pharisees, scribes, and other elites who wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to a Galilean peasant on the street, let alone seek him out for questioning in public places (Mt 22:15-46; Mk 11:27-33; Lk 20:1-8) or invite him to dinner (Lk 14:1-24). However, it is quite believable that they would talk to a man who had “ascribed honour” on the basis of his descent (Hanson and Oakman 26-31), even if they didn’t agree with his theology. Much has been made of the evidence that Jesus ate with “sinners” and “tax collectors” and other outcasts. But it is just important that Jesus was known to dine with the elite. One could say that, in his ministry, Jesus swung both ways. This may be what made Jesus unique and loved by so many.

Whatever else can be said of Jesus, no one can dispute his commitment to God. He was a man of deep faith. He strove to communicate to the people around him the depth of God’s love for them. To this end, it was probably important to Jesus that he have the chance to speak in person to as many people as possible. He was not one to retire to life in an ascetic religious community like the one at Qumran. He was walking and talking (and dining) right up until his arrest. So, from a purely practical point of view, it would have been shrewd of Jesus to avoid talking about his family lineage, whatever its exact nature. The last time a devout Jewish family claiming priestly legitimacy had gathered political support from the Jewish rank and file, a rebellion had erupted that swept the Seleucid rulers from the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The Maccabean revolt, which proved the power of priestly Jewish bloodlines, would not have been forgotten by Palestine’s new Roman rulers. Here was a clear case of discretion being the better part of valour.

Many who would argue with the thesis presented here might wonder why an educated man from a privileged family would not have written down some of his own teachings. Surely such a man would be literate! Where are the letters of Jesus? Why did he not put something down on papyrus, and hand it to a trusted friend or family member?

Well, maybe he did. Maybe his words have been staring at us all along, hidden in plain sight in the canon as part of the Epistle of James.

The Epistle of James has to be one of the least examined sources in the New Testament. Open up the back of books written by historical Jesus researchers and examine the “Ancient Sources Index.” Under James, you will frequently find nothing. Nothing at all – this despite the fact that some of the most sophisticated theology of the New Testament is found in James, and despite the fact that it has obvious links to the Q source (Hartin; Johnson; Wachob). Some might lay the blame at the foot of Luther, who famously decried James as “an epistle of straw” (Laws 622). It seems generally to be avoided in research because its Greek is deemed too elegant for the family of a Galilean artisan (but what of a highly ranked family?); there are only two brief references to Jesus (would Jesus himself brag?); and its discussion of faith and works does not refer specifically to “works of the law” (Law 622) (is that the real message of this epistle?). On the basis of these arguments, some declare it pseudonymous. In terms of date, it has been placed in the second generation, or even in the 2nd century. However, there is much evidence to support an earlier, first generation date for the epistle of James.

Luke Timothy Johnson has done considerable research in this regard. In his book Brother of Jesus, Friend of God, he says:

With the exception of the evidence in Paul, Acts, and Josephus, the letter is the historically most certain evidence we have concerning James. Even if it is supposed that a composition by James of Jerusalem was later redacted by someone else, the present letter is almost certainly appropriated by early-second-century Christian writings [1 Clement and Shepherd of Hermas]. In fact, there are strong reasons for arguing that the extant letter was composed by James of Jerusalem, whom Paul designates as “brother of the Lord.” What is more, the evidence provided by the letter fits comfortably within that provided by our other earliest and best sources (Paul, Acts, Josephus), whereas it fits only awkwardly if at all within the framework of the later and legendary sources that are used for most reconstructions [here Johnson refers to Witherington in Brother of Jesus]. (2-3)

If Johnson is correct in his conclusions, then the Epistle of James, or parts of that epistle, could well be another independent source for understanding the historical Jesus (though Johnson himself would no doubt be chagrined at seeing his work used to support a theory he does not subscribe to (Kirby 10)).

The letter of James, far from being an epistle of straw, concerns itself with teaching the difference between earthly wisdom that does not come from above versus the wisdom that does come from above, and is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (3:17). This is an extraordinary vision of God, one that is in stark contrast to the God who clearly plays favourites in various Old Testament and apocryphal texts. Another breathtaking vision of God is given in Chapter 1, where the author says, “No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it” (1:13-14). He then goes on to say that “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (1:17). Note the complete absence of eschatological promises or apocalyptic warnings. The author of these sections, whom I believe was Jesus, is telling readers to take responsibility for their own actions and not blame their bad choices on a God who has “tempted them.” He is also saying they should not fear change, because God’s love never changes even when other things do.

When we place this understanding against the epistle’s opening statements – “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (1:2-4) – we can perhaps understand why its message has been so long ignored: this is not a message about justification by works alone, nor is it a message about justification by faith alone. It is an altogether radically new message about asking for God’s help in the here and now in the difficult spiritual task of transforming pain and suffering into maturity, wisdom, and love for one’s neighbour and one’s God, not to earn salvation, but simply because it’s the right thing to do.

No wonder they crucified the guy.

In conclusion, it is possible to apply Crossan’s and Reed’s “Excavating Jesus” method (balancing archeology with exegesis) to the task of “excavating James.” The excavated James can, in turn, shed greater light on the historical Jesus. Recent findings from the Talpiot tomb, the James ossuary, and the Epistle of James cannot be ignored. As a group, they demand discussion. As a group, they have a story to tell us about Jesus. And perhaps Jesus himself still has something to say.

* September 2, 2015: I have two updates to report which are relevant to the material posted on this page:

(1) I’m posting a link to a 2015 documentary that premiered on March 16, 2015 on VisionTV. The documentary, produced by Simcha Jacobovici, and Felix Golubev is called Biblical Conspiracies 6: The James Revelation. In this documentary, Simcha adds to his previous work on possible links between the James ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb ossuaries. He now states that the James ossuary may be a missing eleventh ossuary from the Talpiot Tomb. (His original position was that the James ossuary was the missing tenth ossuary, which mysteriously disappeared in 1980 after the Department of Antiquities (now the IAA) excavated and catalogued the contents of the tomb.) His new position no doubt derives from evidence presented during Oded Golan’s forgery trial which proved that he (Golan) was already in possession of the James ossuary a few years before the Talpiot Tomb was discovered. It’s still possible, however, that the James ossuary was looted at an earlier time from the Talpiot Tomb, as IAA archaeologist Shimon Gibson believes the tomb may have been broken into more than once before its official discovery (Biblical Conspiracies 6, 31 minutes).

In addition, Simcha uses the 2015 documentary to revisit the previous analytical analysis of the chemical fingerprint of the James ossuary inscription patina in comparison to that of the Talpiot Tomb ossuary patinas. This work was originally led by Dr. Charles Pellegrino (paleo-biologist and forensic archaeologist). In the documentary, Simcha consults with geo-archeologist Dr. Aryeh Shimron, who takes samples not from the inscription patina of the James ossuary but from the underside and inside of the box itself (from beneath the surface patina), then compares these with samples taken from the nine remaining Talpiot Tomb ossuaries as well as samples from random chalk ossuaries. Analysis of the chemical signatures shows strong similarities between the James ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb ossuaries, though, as Oded Golan rightly points out in an April 4, 2015 New York Times interview with Isabel Kershner, this isn’t conclusive proof that the James ossuary originally came from the Talpiot Tomb; the James bone box could have come from another burial cave in the same area and still show a similar chemical fingerprint. Samples would have to be taken from a large number of caves in East Talpiot to further refine the data.

It should be noted that Simcha’s new theory and new analytical data have no bearing on the actual authenticity of the James ossuary and its inscription. Whether or not Simcha is right, the James ossuary remains an important and authentic piece of archaeological evidence that can be legitimately combined with other pieces of evidence in the search for the historical Jesus, as stated above.

(2) I’m posting a link to an article by Hershel Shanks which appears in the Sept./Oct. 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. The article, called “Predilections: Is the ‘Brother of Jesus’ Inscription a Forgery?” reviews some of the recent debates surrounding the authenticity of the James Ossuary inscription and the forgery trial of Oded Golan. Mr. Shanks emphasizes that Mr. Golan did, indeed, own the James Ossuary before the Talpiot Tomb was found and excavated in a 1980 salvage operation. Mr. Shanks also comments on the recent analysis by Dr. Pieter van der Horst of the IAA committee’s own original report on the James ossuary. Says Shanks, “Van der Horst notes that the IAA ‘appointed almost exclusively committee members who had already expressed outspoken opinions to the effect that the inscription was a forgery.'”

BIBLIOGRAPHY (as it originally appeared in the 2007 research paper)

Ayalon, Avner and Miryam Bar-Matthews and Yuval Goren. “Authenticity Examination of the
Inscription on the Ossuary Attributed to James, Brother of Jesus.” Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004): 1185-1189.

Coogan. Michael D., Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with
the Apocrypha, College Edition. 3rd Ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.

Crossan, John Dominic and Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind
the Texts. Rev. and Updated Ed. New York: HarperCollins and HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.

“Demythologizing the Talpiot Tomb: family unit, group No. 1.” Filed under “Lost Tomb of
Jesus.” The View from Jerusalem. May 17, 2007. University of the Holy Land. 04 Dec. 2007 <http://www.uhl.ac/blog//?p=110>.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. “Update–Finds or Fakes? The James Ossuary and Its Implications.”
Excerpted from Theology Digest 52:4 (2005). Biblical Archaeology Society. Undated. 04 Dec. 2007 <http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/bswbOOossuary_fitzmyer.asp>.

Gillman, Florence Morgan. “James, Brother of Jesus.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. 3.
Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 620-621.

Goren, Yuval. “The Jerusalem Syndrome in Archaeology: Jehoash to James.”
The Bible and Interpretation. Jan. 2004. 04 Dec. 2007 <http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Goren_Jerusalem_Syndrome.htm>.

Hanson, K.C. and Douglas E. Oakman. Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and
Social Conflicts. Incl. CD-ROM. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998.

Hartin, Patrick J. James and the Q Sayings of Jesus. Journal for the Study of the New
Testament Supplement Series 47. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.

Jacobovici, Simcha and Charles Pellegrino. The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery,
the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History. New York: HarperCollins and HarperSanFrancisco, 2007.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. Brother of Jesus, Friend of God: Studies in the Letter of James.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.

Kirby, Peter. “Historical Jesus Theories.” Early Christian Writings. 2001-2003. 13 Oct. 2007
<http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html>.

Krumbein, Wolfgang E. “External Expert Opinion on Three Stone Items.”
Biblical Archaeology Society. Sept. 2005. 04 Dec. 2007 <http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/bswbOOossuary_Krumbeinreport.pdf>.

Laws, Sophie. “James, Epistle of.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. 3. Ed. David Noel
Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 621-628.

“Leading Scholar Lambastes IAA Committee.” Biblical Archaeology Review 33.6 (2007): 16.

Mack, Burton L. “Q and a Cynic-Like Jesus.” Whose Historical Jesus? Ed. William E. Arnal
and Michel Desjardins. Studies in Christianity and Judaism 7. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 1997.

Mims, Christopher. “Q&A With the Statistician Who Calculated the Odds That This Tomb
Belonged to Jesus.” Scientific American. March 2, 2007. 12 Dec. 2007 <http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=13C42878-E7F2-99DF-3B6D16A9656A12FF>.

Mims, Christopher. “Special Report: Has James Cameron Found Jesus’s Tomb or Is It Just
a Statistical Error?” Scientific American. March 2, 2007. 12 Dec. 2007 <http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=14A3C2E6-E7F2-99DF-37A9AEC98FB0702A>.

Pfann, Stephen. “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” UHL Articles on “The Lost
Tomb of Jesus” Documentary. University of the Holy Land. 2007(?). 11 Dec. 2007 <http://www.uhl.ac/Lost_Tomb/HowDoYouSolveMaria/>.

Reed, Jonathan L. Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-examination of the Evidence.
Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 2000.

Shanks, Hershel and Ben Witherington III. The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story &
Meaning of the First Archaeological Link to Jesus & His Family. New York: HarperCollins and HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.

Wachob, Wesley Hiram. The Voice of Jesus in the Social Rhetoric of James. Society for
New Testament Studies Monograph Series 106. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2000.

+105

-4

Posted in Bible, Favourite Posts, historical Jesus, James Ossuary, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus' family of origin, Jesus' original writings, Letter of James, Paul vs Jesus, Realspiritik, Talpiot Tomb and tagged James Ossuary, Talpiot Tomb | Leave a Comment

03 Dec 2011

RS16: Angels in Blue Jeans

(c) Jamie MacDonald. Used with permission of the artist.

A: Some people who are reading this discussion might say it’s unfair of us to suddenly throw brain science onto the same page alongside spirituality, to insist your teachings 2,000 years ago were built around ideas that have only been proven by science in the past few decades. How would you respond to that?

J: Well, the thing about science is that scientific research always lags behind the human mind, the human imagination. Research only evolves because somebody somewhere has had a great idea and wants to push the idea out of the 4D realm of consciousness and into the 3D world of physical reality. So it doesn’t phase me at all to hear people grumbling about the brain science. The honest truth is that I was a pioneer in the deep interconnection between science and faith. Sure, my ideas were rough around the edges, as early theories usually are. But that was the focus of my ministry.

A: I can hear the scornful scoffing from here — the outrage from pious Christians.

J: Well, I wasn’t a Pauline Christian. Never have been, never will be. Nor was I a devout Jew. So pious Christians and pious Jews can be as angry as they like. It won’t change the fact that I tried to found a radically new religious movement based on the most loving values I could find, regardless of where I found them. I was equally happy to gather insights from folk medicine as from Greek philosophy. In fact, I found more truths about God in the medicine chests of Galilean peasants than I ever found in Plato or Aristotle. Philosophers who live their lives inside their heads instead of their hearts have rarely contributed anything of value to the betterment of human lives. If I had a time machine (which I don’t, of course) I’d go back in time and invite Plato to spend a month in the copper mines and then ask him if he’d like to revise his bloody Republic.

A: Just a month?

J: He probably wouldn’t have lasted more than a month. The mines were brutal places.

A: There’s nothing like walking a mile in a slave’s shoes to understand how unjust slavery is.

J: Yes. I never became a slave — not in legal terms — but I went from a life of great privilege to a life of great hardship, and it altered all my ideas of, well, of everything. I wouldn’t have been able to see the truth about the Divine Heart if a lot of very powerful people hadn’t kicked the crap out of me.

A: Tell me more about that.

J: I’d been raised on a lot of insufferable ideas about how “important” I was and how “special” I was. I got it with my morning olives, you could say. “Yeshua, remember who you are. Yeshua, behave according to your station. Yeshua, don’t talk to those . . . those . . . filthy peasants. Yeshua, remember who you are!”

A: So who were you?

J: I was a descendant of the High Priest Onias III. One of many descendants, I should add. He had a lot of fertile children. John the Baptist was also a descendant of his. So technically speaking, John and I were cousins, though so distantly related that it only mattered to fanatical devotees of genealogy.

A: Was anyone keeping track of these things by the time you were born? Did anyone care that your great-great-whatever-grandfather had been High Priest of the Jerusalem Temple?

J: Oh yes. It was a big deal. It carried a lot a cachet. It was like saying today, “I’m a descendant of Queen Victoria.” The children of Queen Victoria married into many of the royal houses of Europe, and her descendants are spread all over the place. My family — on my mother’s side — was kind of like that. Our bloodline was considered “sacred.”

A: Even though your father was Greek.

J: Even then. He was talented and ambitious and indispensable as far as the Romans were concerned. He had a real talent for math. He could do complex calculations in his head, and he had a wonderful eye for architectural design. His name isn’t remembered in the annals of Roman architectural history, but he built some pretty memorable streetscapes in the newly conquered lands of Syria and Palestine.

A: He added to the status and prestige of Augustus.

J: Yes. His acceptance among the Romans made him a good match for my mother as far as my Jewish grandfather was concerned. Strong political connections. But, strange as it may seem, my parents’ marriage was a love match. They loved each other deeply. After my father died, when I was about four and my oldest brother, James, was sixteen, my mother lived as a widow in mourning for the rest of her very long life.

A: She was a widow during the small window of time when Roman marriage laws gave a measure of independence to widows who had at least three living children.

J: Yes. Few people see the significance of the list of my family’s names that Mark includes in his gospel. Mark 6:3 says, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters [plural] here with us?” There’s no mention of my father. There’s no mention of a step-father, either. Mark is clearly telling his audience that Mary had full property rights as a widow under Roman marriage law. It means she was wealthy and well connected, because only wealthy people could afford to provide the physiological needs and safety needs required to raise such a large family, and only well connected women could side-step the economic and cultural pressure on them to marry again. It’s right there in Mark. Plain as day.

A: In an era when infant mortality rates were high and most adults didn’t make it to “middle age” as we define middle age, it was important to note your family’s size and health and economic situation. It told readers something about who you were.

J: I grew up in a family that had enough money and enough prestige to guarantee that I had good nutrition and shelter while I was growing up (i.e. provide for my physiological needs); to protect me from being abused by robbers or slave-holding masters or religious masters (i.e. provide for my safety needs); to provide me with a family setting where I felt loved and respected (i.e. meet my needs for love & belonging); and to insist that I receive a strong education in Greek and Jewish philosophy, law, rhetoric, and geometry (i.e. give me the tools to build my self-esteem).

I may have made a lot of mistakes in my youth, but because of my upbringing I had a healthy brain. This gave me a considerable biological advantage compared to many others in the first century culture I lived in. My healthy brain made it possible for me to learn from my mistakes and ask new, harder questions about our relationship with God the Mother and God the Father. My healthy brain made me tougher and smarter than most of my peers.

A: Because you were using all parts of your brain in a balanced way. A holistic way. Not a rigid, fearful way.

J: When human beings stop being afraid of learning from their own mistakes — when they’re willing to be humble — they can do amazing things in the world.

But first — and this is the big stumbling block for status-addicted pious folk — first they have to get over themselves. They have to let go of every shred of religious chosenness and religious purity and religious salvation. They have to be willing to look God right in the eye. That’s what humbleness is. That’s what true faith is.

A: I love the way young children look their parents right in the eye and tell the truth out loud. That’s the way it should be.

J: That’s the way it actually is for angels-in-angel-form.

A: This morning my angel team shared a fascinating dream with me. They were talking about their own observations on the difference between Pauline Christianity and the kind of faith you tried to teach.

In the dream, they compared Pauline Christianity — orthodox Western Christianity — to a store that insists we each buy a fancy, expensive tuxedo. According to the store, you need to have a tuxedo on hand for that one-time-only day when you come face to face with God. You might never wear it during your lifetime as a human being. But, by golly, you better spend the money to buy it NOW so you can lock it in your closet and keep it safe for “That Day” in the future when God comes calling.

Of course, the store gets your money today . . .

You, on the other hand, would look pretty great in a tuxedo, but I know you well, and you’re no tuxedo-in-the-closet kind of guy. You’re a blue jeans kind of guy. Put on your blue jeans and go out into the world TODAY to see where you can help God TODAY. No standing on ceremony. No false humility. Just a guy with a big heart who knows what’s important in life.

Thanks, big guy. Thanks for saying what you needed to say in the way you needed to say it. We need more of this kind of courage in the world.

And thanks to my angel team, too. Couldn’t do it without you.

Food for thought (added March 3, 2015): On February 27, 2015, the National Post offered an article and video about a Canadian man who is a descendant of Queen Victoria. Hermann Leiningen carries a title, but in every other way is a normal Canadian. His story reminds me of Jesus’ story, right down to the excellent manners, quick mind, and good education. Please see “The Canadian who would be king: What it’s like to be the great-great-great grandson of Queen Victoria.”

Posted in brain-soul connection, Christ Zone, Divine Love, Gospel of Mark, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus' family of origin, Jesus' teachings, Paul vs Jesus, Realspiritik, slavery, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

02 Nov 2011

RS9: Jesus and the Occupy Wall Street Movement

A: I read recently on a Christian forum the assertion that if you were alive today, you’d be right in the thick of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. How do you respond to that?

J (sadly shaking his head): I’d say that anyone who believes I would willingly join the Occupy movement has no understanding of who I was or what I taught.

A: Many of today’s compassionate Christians feel some sympathy, some resonance with these anti-capitalist protests. The underlying message seems to fit in well with assorted attempts in Christianity’s history to renew and heal the church by simplifying church practices. Trying to root out corruption. Trying to make the church look more like your vision of church (as they imagine your vision to be). Francis of Assisi is a famous example of a well-to-do Christian who gave up all his worldly goods and chose a mendicant life of service. Francis believed with all his heart he was doing the right thing. He believed he was following your own example of how to live a spiritual life of charity and love and humility.

J: You know, the Occupy Movement reminds me a lot of the radical first century Jewish group called the Zealots. I wasn’t a Zealot (or proto-Zealot) then and I’m not a Zealot today.

A: The Zealots were very anti-Roman. They were one of several factions in the Jewish civil war that took place in the 60’s CE in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. They burned down the city archives in Jerusalem to try to destroy all the tax records and debt records. They thought this would end the grave imbalance of wealth between rich and poor, and bring about a more egalitarian economic situation.

J (nodding): What starts out in the beginning as a group of people with legitimate social and economic and political concerns can quickly devolve into rigid sectarianism: “We’re right and they’re wrong.” Black and white issues. Black and white solutions. Things are rarely that simple. Once you start burning down buildings, even for “a good cause,” you’re on the slippery road to war.

A: A few years later, there wasn’t much left of Jerusalem. Not after the Romans sent their troops in.

J: Yes, but the Jews themselves had done a fine hatchet job on themselves before Vespasian (and later Titus) arrived on the scene with their legions.

A: Okay. I think most compassionate Christians would get the idea that you didn’t — and don’t — support the idea of burning down buildings as a way to bring about change. But the protestors in the Occupy Movement aren’t burning down any buildings. They’re occupying public land and protesting peacefully. So isn’t that a positive thing?

J: During the time they’re hanging around in parks and beside churches, talking to reporters and making lots of noise, are they hard at work producing goods and services and taxable income that will help strengthen their local economies?

A: Um. Maybe some of them are. There’s probably a black market economy at these sites already.

J: Do black market economies put tax money into the communal pot so roads and sewers and schools and public hospitals can be built for the benefit of everyone in the community?

A: Uh, well, no. The whole idea of a black market economy is to stay off the grid so you don’t have to pay taxes.

J: Right. So this terrible evil — capitalism — which ultimately pays for the roads and sewers and schools and public hospitals must be brought crashing down so that . . . what . . . so that no one in America can afford to build public schools?

A: I see your point.

J: The problem today isn’t Wall Street — not at the deepest level, anyway. The traders and bankers and investors whose foolish actions led to the initial financial crisis in 2008 aren’t dealing in money or capitalism. They think they are, but they’re not. They’re dealing in the one thing I attacked with all my strength: they’re dealing in status. These financiers and traders are status-addicted individuals trading in the only thing that matters to them — status points. Like all addicts, they think only of their next high. This is why they seem to have no empathy for the people whose lives they’ve destroyed with their business actions. They’re simply unable — at a physiological level — to place the needs of others ahead of their own need for an addictive high. It’s that simple.

A: That’s pretty scary.

J: Scary, but consistent with the facts. These individuals have demonstrated clearly and repeatedly through their own actions that they’re not able to self-regulate their own behaviours. They’re not able to act in ways that lead to the greater good because — bottom line — they’re not interested in the greater good. They’re interested in acquiring status, and they can only get it at somebody else’s expense. This means people have to get hurt. Average Joe has to be hurt so Mr. Banker can feel he’s smarter and stronger and faster and better than Average Joe. Mr. Banker gets his hit of status by making Average Joe miserable. It’s just part of the reality for those who are addicted to status as their drug of choice.

A: Dopamine response in the neural pathways devoted to pleasure? Same as with cocaine addiction? Status addicts get a high when they make somebody else suffer?

J: You bet.

A: Schadenfreude.

J: Schadenfreude — enjoying the suffering of another person — is one manifestation of status addiction. But it’s not the only one. Status addiction can manifest in a number of different ways. In its most extreme form, status addiction becomes synonymous with psychopathy. But, as with all addictive disorders, there’s a spectrum or continuum of dysfunction, with some people in the more manageable range of the disorder and others in the range of treatment resistance. Like any other disorder, status addiction can present with a variety of signs and symptoms. Each case has to be looked at on an individual basis. It’s one of the hardest things to sort out from a medical point of view.

A: Interesting that neither psychopathy nor status addiction is included in the DSM-IV — the bible of psychiatry.

J: There’s no inclination among researchers to examine the reality of status addiction. It’s the garden rock nobody wants to lift up. Once you lift it up, you’re going to find a whole lot of human creepy-crawlies hiding there you don’t want to deal with. Most of these creepy-crawlies have a vicious bite and a toxic sting.

It can be dangerous to confront an addict’s core addictions. Status addicts can react in violent ways — emotionally abusive and sometimes physically abusive ways — when they suspect their supply of status is about to dry up. I know this from firsthand experience.

A: On October 15, 2011, the Globe and Mail published a fascinating article by Ira Basen called “Economics has met the enemy, and it is economics.” It begins with mention of Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims, who were recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2011.

The article says, “. . . no one who’d followed Prof. Sargent’s long, distinguished career would have been fooled by his attempt at modesty. He’d won for his part in developing one of economists’ main models of cause and effect: How can we expect people to respond to changes in prices, for example, or interest rates? According to the laureates’ theories, they’ll do whatever’s most beneficial to them, and they’ll do it every time. They don’t need governments to instruct them; they figure it out for themselves. Economists call this the ‘rational expectations’ model . . . Rational-expectations theory, and its corollary, the efficient-market hypothesis, have been central to mainstream economics for more than 40 years. And while they may not have ‘wrecked the world,’ some critics argue these models have blinded economists to reality: Certain the universe was unfolding as it should, they failed both to anticipate the financial crisis of 2008 and to chart an effective path to recovery.”

J: The rational expectations model and the efficient-market hypothesis both start with the simple assumption that human beings are all fully functional in terms of their brain chemistry. In other words, there’s the assumption that all individuals will make decisions on the basis of logical principles. This in turn will lead to logical — and beneficial — outcomes for everyone (as the theory goes).

But addiction disorders don’t operate on logic. Neither do they operate on common sense or fairness or empathy. They have their own internal logic that makes sense to them at any particular time, but the logic of an addict is like quicksand. It’s always shifting. There’s no solid footing underneath. Decisions are made for the wrong reasons. And there’s no willingness to take responsibility for the terrible consequences of these decisions once they arise.

Even worse, a status addict can’t learn from his or her own mistakes. He or she can’t self-regulate these behaviours. At the worst possible time, when she’s under the greatest stress, she’ll feel a desperate need to acquire the high of fresh status points — whether through a crazy trade or an impossible-to-keep business promise or a pump-me-up session of “positive thinking” bullshit or the purchase of a new luxury car or twenty-five visits to Facebook that day. Such a person (despite university degrees and impressive credentials) is the one least likely to be able to think clearly and effectively during a financial crisis, since a key source of her status is under direct assault.

Of course, like anyone suffering from an addiction disorder, a status addict is responsible for his or her own choices, and is responsible for undertaking the choice to change. Denial of the problem is no excuse for the harm that’s been caused.

An addict needs help to overcome the addiction, of course — lots of responsible, mature, non-judgmental help. It takes courage to confront addiction. Courage and time and commitment. And God’s help.

It’s never too late to confront the problem of status addiction. This is what I taught 2,000 years ago. This is one of the reasons that forgiveness and healing figure so prominently in my teachings.

It’s pretty hard to overcome the suffering created by status addiction without forgiveness and healing to help keep you on the path of recovery.

Been there, done that. Can’t recommend it enough.

Posted in Cause & Effect, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus' teachings, Materialism, psychopathy, Realspiritik, status addiction and tagged brain-soul connection | Leave a Comment

24 May 2011

JR43: The Case for "Mark Versus Paul"

Study of the Gospel of Thomas, which has strong links to the Q Source and the Synoptic Gospels, makes it easier to see what Jesus was actually saying and how Jesus’ teachings differed radically from Paul’s teachings. Ceiling mosaic in the original Queen’s Park entrance of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Photo credit JAT 2017.

A: Today, I’m shifting back into academic mode on the question of what Jesus actually taught 2,000 years ago — as opposed to what the Church says he taught.

I’ve had an inquiry about my academic arguments on the “Mark versus Paul” question — that is, on my thesis that Mark wrote his gospel as a direct rebuttal of Paul’s First Corinthians. To present this argument in its entirety would fill at least one big fat Zondervan text (as if Zondervan’s editors would publish such a thesis!) so all I can do at this stage is present a brief list of comparisons between the two texts. I’m aware that in order to build a case for each “talking point” in a complete academic format — a format that would be acceptable to a peer-reviewed journal — would require many months of research for each point and a long research paper for each. The work would go faster, however, if others were willing to help. If you’re interested in helping with this project, please contact me.

I’m going to present some of the major contrasts I see between First Corinthians and the Gospel of Mark. I’ll assume for this purpose that the extant copies of these two books represent with a fair degree of accuracy the original texts as they were written by Paul and Mark respectively, with the exception of Mark 16:9-20 (the very ending of Mark), which is generally believed to be a later addition.

If you want to see which researchers I rely on, please refer to the post called “The Author’s Research Bibliography” (http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/03/authors-bibliography.html).

I use more than one form of biblical criticism — more than one analytical tool — in this comparison. I tend to start with traditional methods — socio-historical criticism, source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism — and then I cross-reference these arguments with recent scientific insights from quantum theory, neurophysiology, psychotherapy, archaeology, and recent historical findings. I also use my own personal mystical faculties, but I won’t apologize for this, since insights derived from mystical conversations are only a starting point, not an ending point. Other researchers get “aha” moments and call them intuition, or divine revelation, or just plain ol’ personal brilliance. Me, I’m being honest about where I get my starting point for this discussion. After that, it’s up to me to use logical human tools to make my case.

Fortunately for me, what Jesus and my angels pointed out to me leads to an extremely strong case.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no biblical scholars currently publishing on this topic. So this is original research you’re reading. You’ll probably wonder straight away how I — an obscure blogger from Canada who has no PhD and no publishing record of note — could see evidence of a book-to-book biblical feud that nobody else has seen. To this I must reply that the feud has been obvious “to those who have eyes and those who have ears” (Mark 8:18) since these two texts began to circulate simultaneously in the latter part of the 1st century CE. Christians have always been called to decide whether they choose Paul’s teachings or Jesus’ teachings (even if they haven’t been able to articulate the choice in scholarly terms). However, it’s only now that Christians are getting round to being honest about this fact.

If Mark had simply written about entirely different themes than Paul did, there would be no point in trying to show that Mark wrote his gospel as a rebuttal of Paul’s First Corinthians. But Mark didn’t write about different themes than Paul did. He wrote about exactly the same topics and inverted them. He also chose his words as carefully as Paul did. He never uses Paul’s favourite word: nomos (Greek for law, authority, unbreakable tradition). Nor does Mark use the words charis (grace) or elpis (hope). The words nomos, charis, and elpis are part of the vocabulary of apocalyptic thought. And Mark is trying to show, contrary to Paul’s claims about Jesus, that Jesus himself rejected apocalyptic thought.

Mark never uses the words nomos, charis, and elpis. But for a man who never uses these words, he talks about them a lot in his book. He talks about what it means for a person of faith to be in full relationship with God the Mother and God the Father.

Here is a point form list of some of the direct comparisons. I reserve the right to edit, modify, add to, and clarify this list whenever additional information comes to light in future. If information is suggested to me by other writers, I will so note the contribution(s).

Concerns of Form:

1. Viewpoint Character
In Paul: The viewpoint character is Paul himself.
In Mark: The viewpoint character is Jesus; the author (Mark) is not present; reference to “a certain young man” in Mark 14:51 may indicate an eyewitness to whom Mark later spoke about events surrounding Jesus’ arrest.

2. Narrator’s Voice
In Paul: The narrator speaks in first person (Paul himself).
In Mark: Third person narration.

3. Literary Genre
In Paul: Written as a letter; uses rhetoric, exhortation.
In Mark: Written as a biographical narrative interspersed with parables, sayings, and teaching actions (i.e. teaching chreia).

4: The Narrative Hook: “The Hero’s Journey”
In Paul: The hero Paul recounts highlights of his long and arduous journey to save the Gentiles; the focus is on important urban centres; the hero’s personal journey is a metaphor for the path of spiritual ascent (i.e. the vertical path that leads to salvation and eventual bodily resurrection).
In Mark: The hero Jesus takes many small trips around a small freshwater lake; the focus is on unimportant outlying communities; the hero’s journey is horizontal, not vertical; the path is not straight; bad things happen on high hills; good things happen near boats and water.

Theological and Social Concerns:

5. Relationship to the Jerusalem Temple:
In Paul: The physical Temple has been replaced by Jesus and “believers” (1 Cor 3:9-17; 6:19-20); the Temple is now purely mystical; it is more important than ever. (Note: the actual physical Herodian Temple was still standing in Jerusalem at the time Paul wrote his letter and Mark wrote his rebuttal).
In Mark: The physical Temple exists and is the centre of corruption in Palestine (Mark 11:12-24;12:35-44; 15:38).

6. Relationship to the city of Jerusalem:
In Paul: Jerusalem is still favoured as shown by the collection for the Jerusalem church (1 Cor 16:1-4).
In Mark: Jesus spends little time in Jerusalem; healing miracles all take place outside the city; Jesus’ friends live outside the city; Jerusalem is the place where genuine faith withers away (Mark 11).

7. Healing Miracles:
In Paul: No mention of healing miracles.
In Mark: Several healing miracles take place; the theme of healing is introduced early on and repeated until Jesus reaches Jerusalem.

8. People With Disabilities:
In Paul: No special mention of individuals with physical or mental illnesses or disabilities or special needs.
In Mark: Those deemed “impure” according to Jewish custom and law are healed, touched, spoken to in violation of purity laws.

9. The Kingdom of God:
In Paul: The Kingdom is a reality outside the self; it depends on power (1 Cor 4:20; 15:24-28; 15:50).
In Mark: There is no simple explanation of the Kingdom, but empathy is central to it (Mark 10:13-31; 12:28-34).

10. Relationship of Body to Soul:
In Paul: Influenced by Platonic dualism.; the flesh is corrupt (1 Cor 3:1-4; 7:8-9; 9:24-27; 15:42-49). Souls are in peril without belief in Christ.
In Mark: Holistic attitude toward the body; non-Platonic and non-Covenantal; flesh is not impure or corrupt; right relationship with God involves caring for the body. Souls live as angels in the afterlife (Mark 12:24-27)

11: Forgiveness:
In Paul: No mention of forgiveness.
In Mark: The theme of forgiveness is introduced early on (Mark 2:1-12); both God and humans can forgive (Mark 11:25).

12: The Definition of Human Virtue:
In Paul: “Foolishness” (morias) and unquestioning faith are the highest expressions of right belief (1 Cor 1:10 – 2:5); obedience, fellowship, holiness, “strong consciousness,” and the proper exercise of freedom are emphasized.
In Mark: Courage (ischys) and a questioning faith are the highest expressions of right belief (Mark 8:11-21); egalitarianism, service, forgiveness, and insight (suneseos) are emphasized.

Posted in apocalyptic prophecy, faith, First Corinthians, Gospel of Mark, healing miracles, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' teachings, Kingdom teachings, Mark vs Paul, Mother and Father God, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings and tagged Mark vs Paul | Leave a Comment

04 May 2011

JR36: Saying 56 in the Gospel of Thomas

A: When we wrote last time (“Father of Lights, Mother of Breath”), I ran out of time, and we didn’t get a chance to return to the question of Saying 56 in the Gospel of Thomas. I was hoping we could continue that discussion. (For the record, Stevan Davies translates Saying 56 as “Jesus said: Whoever has known the world has found a corpse; whoever has found that corpse, the world is not worthy of him.)

J: I can’t help noticing the irony of a person who’s “alive” having a discussion with a person who’s “dead” about the question of “alive versus dead.”

A (rolling eyes): Very funny. I prefer to call you “molecularly challenged.”

J: Hey — I left some bones behind when I died. Traces of them are sitting in a stone ossuary in a warehouse owned by the Israel Antiquities Authority. Kinda reminds me of the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

A: The IAA can have them. I somehow doubt you’re going to be needing them again.

J: Well, you know, there are still people on the planet today who believe in the concept of bodily resurrection on the Day of Judgment. According to that way of thinking, I might actually need to retrieve my bones so I’ll be complete on the final day of judgment.

A: Hey! You’re not supposed to have any bones. According to Luke, you ascended bodily into heaven — at least once, maybe twice! (Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:1-11). Prophets who are “beamed up” aren’t supposed to leave body parts behind. That’s the whole idea.

J: Nobody gets out of a human life “alive.” At some point, the biological body reaches its built-in limits, and the soul returns to God in soul form. There’s no ascension. Never has been, never will be. Luke is lying.

A: Maybe Luke just didn’t understand the science of death. Maybe he was doing his best to explain something he didn’t understand.

J (shaking his head): Luke was lying. On purpose. If Luke had been sincere and well-meaning — if misguided — he would have to stuck to one story about my ascension. But one man — the man we’re calling Luke — wrote two scrolls together to tell one continuous story. He wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles as a two-part story. The Gospel finishes in Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus (who was the subject of a miraculous healing), and the last thing we hear is about is the disciples. Apparently, they obediently returned to Jerusalem to continually pray.

A: Yeah, like that was gonna happen.

A major problem for the spread of Pauline Christianity among Jews and Gentiles was the Eucharistic ritual instituted by Paul. A lot of people didn’t like the idea of ritualistically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a divine being. So one of Luke’s jobs, when he wrote the two-part Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles, was to soften the impact of it for newcomers, while preserving Paul’s occult meaning for those who were “in the know.” What you see at the end of Luke’s Gospel and the beginning of Acts is a slyly written (and entirely fictitious) account of twelve men who are “chosen” for the special privilege of receiving the Cloak of Glory from the Holy Spirit after they’ve properly prepared themselves for 40 days in the presence of the mystical body of Christ. They eat from the mystical body in order to purify themselves for the coming baptism of fire on Pentecost. Then, on the appointed day, the twelve (well, thirteen, if you count Paul’s later baptism of fire) suddenly receive the intense fire of Glory that Luke says was promised to the twelve by God through Jesus. After that, nobody is allowed to challenge the authority of the apostles. Please note that if you’re having trouble following this narrative in its established biblical form, there’s a good reason for that: the secret knowledge wasn’t meant to be easily understood by everyone. Interestingly, though, the themes of this secret knowledge have been found in other religious traditions, too. For instance, in this photo of the Tantric Buddhist deity Acala, “the Immovable One,” he is braced by the fiery tongues of phoenix flame — much like the fire delivered to the apostles at Pentecost. Who doesn’t like a really good bonfire when Divine Power is the prize? This wooden sculpture is on display at the British Museum. Photo credit JAT 2023.

J: Meanwhile, when you open up the book of Acts, which picks up where Luke left off, you get a completely different story from the same author. In Acts, he claims that after my suffering I spent 40 days with my chosen apostles in Jerusalem, and then was lifted up by a cloud from the Mount of Olives (which is just to the east of Jerusalem’s city walls). The Mount of Olives is closer to Jerusalem than Bethany, the “authentic” site of my so-called Easter ascension in the Gospel. Luke also adds two mysterious men in white robes to the Acts version of the story. These two sound suspiciously like the two men in dazzling clothes who appear in Luke’s account of the tomb scene (Luke 24:4). Luke is playing fast and loose with the details — an easy mistake for fiction writers to make.

A: Well, as you and I have discussed, Luke was trying very hard to sew together the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul. Mark puts a lot of focus on the Mount of Olives — a place that was most definitely not Mount Zion, not the site of the sacred Temple. Luke probably needed a way to explain away Mark’s focus on the non-sacred, non-pure, non-holy Mount of Olives.

J: You wanna bet the Mount of Olives was non-pure! It was littered with tombs. Religious law dictated that no one could be buried within a residence or within the city walls, so it was the custom to bury people in the hills outside the city walls. To get from the city gates of Jerusalem to the top of the Mount of Olives, you had to pass by a number of tombs and mausoleums. If you got too close to death, though, you were considered ritually impure, and you had to go through a cleansing and purification process once you got back to the city — especially during a big religious festival. Mark’s Jewish audience would have understood this. They would have wondered, when they read Mark, why there was no concern about contamination. They would have wondered why the Mount of Olives became the site of important events when the purified Temple precincts were so close by. It would have defied their expectations about death and purity and piety.

A: This was easier to understand when the Temple was still standing.

J: Yes. It would have made a lot of sense in the context of Herod’s humongous Temple complex. It started to make less sense, though, after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE.

A: A fact that Luke took advantage of.

J: Yes.

A: Mark doesn’t include the saying from the Gospel of Thomas about corpses (saying 56), but Mark’s portrayal of you shows a man whose least important concern is ritual purity — not what you’d expect at all from a pious Jew, in contrast to Matthew’s claim about you (Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”)

J: Matthew says this, but Mark says the opposite.

A: Not in so many words, but by showing your ongoing choices and actions.

J: Later Christian interpreters wanted to believe that God had given me special powers over demons and sin and death, and this is how they understood Mark’s account of my ministry. But this isn’t what I taught. I didn’t have the same assumptions about life and death that most of my peers had. It’s not that I had special powers over life and death — it’s simply that I wasn’t afraid of life or death. I wasn’t afraid to “live” and I wasn’t afraid to “die.” I wasn’t afraid to embrace difficult emotions. I wasn’t afraid to trust God. Maybe to some of the people around me it seemed that I had special powers, but I didn’t. All I had was maturity — the courage to accept the things I couldn’t change, the courage to accept the things I could change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

A: The Serenity Prayer.

J: Yes. It seemed to me that Creation is much more like a rainbow than like night-versus-day. It seemed to me that the world I lived in was not “evil” and “corrupt,” as many occult philosophers had said. (Including the Jewish sect of Essenes.) Yes, there were corpses, it’s true. People died. Other creatures died. Beautiful flowers died. But obviously death led to new life, and wasn’t to be feared. Death wasn’t the enemy. Fear of the self was the enemy. Fear of trusting God, fear of trusting emotions such as love and grief, were the obstacles between individuals and God.

To get over those fears, you have to face your initial fears about death — about “corpses.” You have to begin to see the world — Creation — in a new, more positive way, and accept — even love in a sad sort of way — the corpses. You have to stop spending so much time worrying about your death, because it’s gonna happen whether you like it or not, and no religious ritual can stop it. Accept that it’s going to happen, then focus on what you’re doing today. Focus on the Kingdom of today. Build the love, build the relationships, build the trust. Physical bodies come and go, but love really does live on.

“My friends, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). Photo credit JAT 2017.

A: Some people might take that as an endorsement of hedonistic behaviours or suicidal behaviours, since, in your words, death isn’t to be feared.

J: There’s a big difference between saying “death isn’t to be feared” and saying “death is to be avidly pursued.” If you avidly pursue death, it means you’ve chosen to avidly reject life — the living of life to its fullest potential. Trusting in God means that you trust you’re here on Earth for a reason, and you trust that when it’s your time God will take you Home. What you do with the time in between depends on how you choose to view Creation. Is God’s Creation a good creation, a place of rainbows where people can help each other heal? Or is God’s Creation an evil “night” that prevents you from ever knowing the pure light of “day”?

A: What about those who’ve chosen to view Creation as an evil place of suffering, and are now so full of pain and depression that they can’t take it anymore? What happens to those who commit suicide?

J: God the Mother and God the Father take them Home and heal them as they do all their children. There is no such thing as purgatory or hell for a person who commits suicide. On the other hand, our divine parents weep deeply when families, friends, and communities create the kind of pain and suffering that makes people want to kill themselves. There would be fewer tears for everyone if more human beings would take responsibility for the harmful choices they themselves make.

A: And learn from those mistakes.

J: Absolutely. It’s not good enough to simply confess the mistake. It’s important to confess the mistakes, but people also have to try to learn from their mistakes. They have to be willing to try to change. They have to let go of their stubbornness and their refusal to admit they’re capable of change.

A: Easier said than done.

Posted in Essenes, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Thomas, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Law (Nomos), life and death, Mark vs Paul, Matthew's and Luke's intent, Paul vs Jesus, relationship with God, Talpiot Tomb and tagged Jesus vs Paul, Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

01 Apr 2011

JR29: Eucharist: The Temple Sacrifice

A: One thing I’ve noticed over and over in my studies is the idyllic portrait that’s been painted of the apostle Paul. “Paul was such a good man.” “Paul was such a brave missionary.” “Paul teaches us how to be imitators of Christ.” “Paul was a selfless servant of God.” “Paul was a man I can relate to.” “Jesus is my saviour, but Paul is my hero. I want to be like Paul when I grow up.” I wonder sometimes if the Christians who are saying these things have ever read what Paul’s letters actually say. Paul’s own letters — Romans, First & Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, Philemon, and probably Colossians — reveal clearly that Paul was every bit as interested in “pagan” occult magic and mysticism as the “pagans” were at this time. This wasn’t a “modern” or “progressive” religious movement at all.

“His disciples said to him: Show us the place you are, for it is essential for us to seek it. He responded: He who has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and it lights up all the world. If it does not shine, it is dark” (Gospel of Thomas 24). This saying can be understood as a central thesis statement in guiding your understanding of Jesus’ original teachings. Among those who believe in dualistic traditions about light versus dark that include good versus evil, purity versus sin, and mind versus body, a quick glance at Thomas 24 suggests that Jesus is talking about the light of divine knowledge and salvation. But only those who haven’t been paying attention to Jesus’ teachings on love, forgiveness, and healing could conclude that, for Jesus, the inner light sought by the disciples is the light of gnosis (occult understanding, illumination, pure wisdom). For Jesus, the highest state of human experience revolved around Divine Love — how to feel it, how to share it, how to be healed by it. You can choose to accept a life of relationship with God, in which case you’ll begin to live a life of wholeness, expansiveness, empathy, and healing (i.e. entering the Kingdom that can’t be “seen” but can be “heard,” or, more properly, emotionally sensed). Or you can choose to block God’s love and forgiveness in your life by allowing ancient occult rituals and beliefs to get in the way of your daily relationship with God (i.e. choosing Paul’s moveable Temple with its occult feast of body and blood). The photo shows a marble head and torso of Dionysos, God of Wine, Roman copy after a Praxitelean work of the 4th century BCE, on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017.

J: In the first century of the Roman Empire, the idea of gods and goddesses and cult rituals and visions and prophecies and sacrifices and divine fools and chosen oracles and sacred pools and sacred temples and sacred stones and sacred forests was — by far — the dominant understanding of humanity’s relationship with the divine. This way of thinking has become foreign to the modern mind. But it was the context in which I was teaching. It was also the context in which Paul was teaching. In my time as a teacher and healer, I was not only trying to undermine the authority of the Jerusalem Temple — I was also trying to lessen the authority of occult magic in people’s minds. I was trying to say that visions and prophecies and sacrifices get in the way of people’s relationship with God. I wanted to make the experience of faith consistent with the experience of the human senses and the natural world. Some would call it a form of natural theology.

A: If this is what you were trying to do, it doesn’t come across well in the New Testament.

J: No. It can only be seen clearly in the Gospel of Mark. There’s also an indication of it in the Gospel of Thomas and in the parts of the Letter of James I myself wrote. The Kingdom parables that Matthew and Luke cut and pasted from earlier written sources also give an indication of my lack of support for ritual, magic, prophecy, and the like. The images I used in my teaching parables were all very practical, very normal. You won’t find any mystical flying chariots in my teachings.

A: Or any trips to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2). On the other hand, there are lots of references to healing miracles in Mark, and many people today would want to lump healing stories into the same category as other first century superstitions.

J: Well, the honest truth is that healing miracles do take place, and always have, because healing miracles aren’t a form of magic. They’re a form of science. Healing miracles, when they take place, are the result of conscious choices made by God or by God’s healing angels. At a scientific level, God is collapsing probability wave functions and shifting quantum energies by means of non-locality (quantum entanglement) to effect changes at the macroscopic level. In other words, if God decides to give you a “miracle healing” — and only God is in charge of this decision — then God uses perfectly acceptable scientific tools to bring about the healing. This is just a more sophisticated form of what today’s medical researchers are doing with targeted therapies and surgeries performed with computer-aided magnification. Really, it’s just goofy to claim that healing miracles aren’t scientifically possible. Just because the human mind can’t grasp the scientific principles God uses doesn’t mean those principles don’t exist. Modern science gives people more grounds for believing in healing miracles, not fewer.

A: What does a human being have to “do” in order to receive one of these healing miracles? What sort of religious observance will lead to a healing miracle?

J: What I was trying to get at 2,000 years ago was the idea that occult magic gets in the way of the relationship between each person and God. It’s the relationship that’s central to the healing process. It’s the choices that people make around their relationships — all their relationships, not just their relationship with God — that affect the functioning of the body’s built-in healing abilities. Human DNA comes with some pretty amazing built-in “healing subroutines.” If those subroutines are functioning properly, the body can bounce back quite quickly from all sorts of injuries and illnesses. I’m not saying there won’t be scars, and I’m not saying there won’t be psychological and emotional adjustments. Human beings can’t escape occasional illness or eventual death. (Though to listen to Paul, you might think you can.) On the other hand, you can make the most of your DNA package. You can make the most of your human biology. You can work with God rather than against God towards a state of healing.

A: I continue to be amazed that Paul’s silence on the question of healing and healing miracles doesn’t bother today’s orthodox Christians.

J: The author of Luke-Acts did a brilliant job of making it seem that Paul’s spiritual concerns were the same as my spiritual concerns. Acts makes it seem that Paul cared about healing the disadvantaged in society. Paul’s own words say otherwise.

A: In 1 Corinthians 11:23-30, we see Paul instituting the Eucharist. In his own words, Paul says he received a revelation from the Lord in which you supposedly commanded your faithful followers to eat bread in remembrance of you and to drink the cup which is “the new covenant in [his] blood.” How do your respond to that?

J: The same way I respond to all Temple sacrifices: they gotta go.

A: You’re implying that Paul’s Eucharist is a Temple sacrifice?

J: I’m saying it right out loud. I’m saying that Rabbiniic Judaism freed itself from the horror of Temple sacrifices more than 1,900 years ago, and now it’s time for Christianity to follow suit. Paul’s mystical Eucharist is nothing more than an extension of Paul’s Temple theology. First he tells people that if they have blind faith in Christ, the Temple will come to them. Then he institutes a classic Temple sacrifice — in this case the sacred Messianic bread and wine of the Essenes (1QS 6 and 1QSa). This would have made perfect sense to a first century audience steeped in occult magic — you go to a Temple to offer a sacrifice. Logically, however, you can’t take an external sacrifice to the Temple of the Spirit if the Temple is already inside you. So to keep the Temple clean and make it habitable for the Spirit (so that the Spirit can come in and bring you lots of special spiritual goodies) you have to ingest the sacrifice. You have to drink holy blood and eat holy flesh because nothing else in the corrupt material world is powerful enough to purify your inner Temple.

A: But this inner Temple isn’t really “you.” It’s something that originated outside of you — something that God gives and God can take away. It’s like a surgical implant, a pacemaker or a stent or a pin in a broken hip. Right?

J: Exactly. It’s a Gnostic idea. An occult idea. Paul’s Eucharist is a pagan ritual. A cult ritual. A vampiric ritual. It has nothing to with “remembrance” and everything to do with occult power over evil forces. The very idea of drinking blood would have offended and horrified mainstream Jews, including me and my followers. Even John the Baptist doesn’t speak of the Eucharist in his gospel. Paul’s Eucharist crossed a big line.

A: And I suppose Mark confronted this very issue in his gospel?

J: Oh yes. Most definitely.

A: Good. Then I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that topic.

+10

Posted in "4 S's", Essenes, faith, First Corinthians, Gnosticism, healing miracles, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' original writings, Letter of James, Mark vs Paul, occult themes, Paul's teachings and tagged Kingdom teachings, Mark vs Paul | Leave a Comment

28 Mar 2011

JR28: Paul’s Easy Salvation

A: You’ve said that Paul’s Temple teachings were very different from your own Kingdom teachings — so much so that when your great-nephew “Mark” read what Paul had written in the letter called First Corinthians, he blew a gasket and started work on his own version of your teachings. Why was Mark so upset about Paul’s Temple teachings?

J: Mark knew that one of my basic teachings had been about the Jerusalem Temple and the stranglehold the Temple and its priests exerted on regular Jewish people. It was much the same equation as Martin Luther faced when he decided to go public with his rejection of Papal and Vatican corruption in the early 1500’s. Luther didn’t reject the idea of faith in God — far from it. But he rejected a number of official claims made by the Church. He thought the Church was no longer representing the ideals of true Christian faith. So he protested.

A: This was part of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

J: Yes. But Luther was protesting from within the Church, not from outside it. He was an Augustinian monk and priest, highly educated and highly devout. He held a doctorate in theology. So he wasn’t easily dissuaded from the idea — once he saw it — that the Church wasn’t “practising what it preached.” I had the same problem with the Jerusalem Temple and the priestly hierarchy in my time. Once I saw the problem, I wasn’t easily dissuaded. Much to the chagrin of my aristocratic family.

A: You’ve said your mother was descended from the priestly bloodline. That must have given your family a lot of status, a lot of authority.

J: My family was somewhat on the fringes of the power and authority that priestly families were entitled to. This was partly due to the fact that my mother’s line wasn’t descended from the “first son of the first son.” We were related to the “junior sons,” so to speak — pretty good as far as pedigrees go, but not “the best of the best.” Another factor was our geographical location. I wasn’t born and raised in Jerusalem — one of the hotbeds of Jewish political intrigue. I was born and raised in the city of Philadelphia, on the other side of the River Jordan. It was a Hellenized city, but also quite Jewish in its cultural norms, so I was raised with a strange mix of values and religious teachings. That’s what allowed me, when I reached adulthood, to be more objective about trends in Jewish thought — by that I mean the blend of religious, political, cultural, and social ideas that were intertwined in people’s hearts and minds. I was far enough away from the Temple — physically and geographically — to be sceptical about the grandiose claims being made by the Temple priests.

A: In the Gospel of Mark, it’s quite apparent what the author thinks of the Temple. Mark shows you visiting all sorts of Jewish and Gentile locations to teach and heal, but the one place you don’t visit till the end is Jerusalem. Things start to go badly for you as soon as you get to David’s city. This is a strange claim to make if you’re trying to promote the idea that Jesus is the prophesied Saviour of the Jewish people.

J: Well, my great-nephew did think I was an important teacher, a rabbi who could help the Jewish people become free from oppression, but his understanding of my role was not the traditional Jewish understanding of who — or what — the Messiah would be. Mark was a very spiritual fellow — a free thinking Jewish scholar who made his own observations and his own decisions. He got a little carried away, I think, with the idea that I was an important teacher, but on the whole he embraced my ideas about the Kingdom and did his best to live them.

A: Mark wrote his gospel before the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE.

“Jesus said: Grapes are not harvested from thornbushes, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit. A good person brings forth good from his treasury; a bad person brings forth evil things from his mind’s corrupt treasury, and he speaks evil things. For out of the excesses of his mind he brings forth evil things” (Gospel of Thomas 45 a-b). The photo shows a marble Mithraic relief, (restored), from Rome 100-200 CE on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Mithraic Mysteries, in so far as we know what they entailed, showed uncanny similarities to the teachings of Paul. The teachings of Jesus, meanwhile, explicitly rejected the occult practices and secret rituals of mystery cults. Photo credit JAT 2017.

J: Yes. And this is an important detail to bear in mind. Paul and Mark both wrote their comments about the Temple before the Temple was physically destroyed. This fact is important to bear in mind, especially when you’re trying to understand what Mark is saying. Mark was seriously — and I mean seriously — pissed off about Paul’s “moveable Temple.” For Mark, as for me, the only way to free the Jewish people to know God and be in full relationship with God was for us to confront the harm and the hypocrisy of the Jewish Temple — a huge, bloated, phenomenally expensive physical structure that had robbed people of their livelihood through high taxes and ongoing dues, payments, sacrifices, and obligatory pilgrimages. Herod the Great spent a fortune — a literal fortune — on his building projects. His children continued his habit of profligate spending on status symbols to impress the rest of the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, the widows and orphans and foreigners we were supposed to look after — according to Exodus — were going hungry and selling themselves into slavery because of their poverty. This was unacceptable to me and to many others. I certainly wasn’t alone in being outraged at the unfairness, the hypocrisy, the status addiction, and the corruption.

A: Chapter 13 of Mark has long puzzled Christian scholars. It’s viewed by reputable scholars such as Bart Ehrman as a “little apocalypse” because it seems to prophesy the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. They use this chapter as part of their proof that you yourself claimed to be an apocalyptic prophet. How do you respond to that?

J: Without wishing to be harsh, I’d say these biblical scholars need to refresh their memory on what the earlier Jewish prophetic books and Jewish apocalypses actually said about the role of the Temple in the prophesied End Times. It’s clear that highly revered earlier writers such as First Isaiah and Second Isaiah and Zechariah believed the physical Temple on Mount Zion (i.e. Jerusalem) would be absolutely central to the ideal future restoration of Judah in the End Times. Yet Mark uses imagery from apocalyptic texts like Daniel to turn these predictions on their head. Mark 13 shouldn’t be called the “little apocalypse”: it should be called the “anti-apocalypse” because of the way it intentionally subverts and repudiates the prophecies of Zechariah. Mark may be attacking Paul’s theology throughout his own gospel, but he uses well-known Hebrew prophecies to do it. Mark’s own Jewish audience would have understood these references. They would have understood that Mark was openly attacking traditional Jewish teachings about the future End Times when God would one day return and “fix everything.”

A: Traditional teachings that Paul continued to endorse in his letters (1 Corinthians 15).

J: Yes. Paul enthusiastically taught his followers about the coming End Times — a traditional Jewish teaching in itself — and on top of that he added a wonderful new theological guarantee. He promised people that if they gave themselves over fully to a belief in Christ, then God’s Spirit would be able to live inside of them in the “Temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19-20). Paul took the sacredness of the Jerusalem Temple and made it “moveable,” an inner sanctuary of purity for the Spirit, just as the Essenes had already done in their Charter (1QS 3 and 1QS 8). He didn’t try to undermine the importance and authority of the Jerusalem Temple. He actually added to it (as the Essenes had done) by elevating it to an inner mystical state that could only be known to true believers who followed Paul’s teachings. This is a simplified version of Paul’s Temple theology, but you get the picture. He’s offering his followers the ultimate in “easy salvation.” “You no longer have to go to the Temple; the Temple will come to you.”

A: And once you have the Temple, you can access all those spiritual goodies that Paul promises (1 Corinthians Chapters 2, 12, and 14).

J: It’s a theology that’s very appealing to people who want all the benefits without doing the hard work.

A: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — your teachings are much harder to stick to than Paul’s are. It’s impossible to follow your recommendations for connection with God without making spiritual commitment a regular part of everyday life. Once a week on Sundays — or twice a year at Christmas and Easter — won’t do it. You ask a lot of regular people.

J: Only because I have faith in you. Only because I have faith.

Posted in apocalyptic prophecy, Essenes, First Corinthians, Gospel of Mark, historical Jesus, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Mark (Jesus' great nephew), Mark vs Paul, Messiah, Paul's teachings, slavery and tagged Mark vs Paul | Leave a Comment

25 Mar 2011

JR27: Paul’s "Temple" versus Jesus’ "Kingdom"

“Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world. I came to them in the flesh. I found all of them drunk. I found not one of them to be thirsty. My soul was saddened by the sons of men for they were mentally blind. They do not see that they have come into the world empty and they will go out of the world empty. But now they are drunk. When they sober up they will repent” (Gospel of Thomas 28). Photo of Komombo Temple, dedicated to Sobek and Horus, Aswan, Egypt. Author Dennis Jarvis. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

J: Today I’d like to talk about the starting place for understanding the many differences between what I taught and what Paul taught.

A: Sounds good to me.

J: I’ve mentioned before that Paul and I had different motivations, different purposes behind our respective religious movements. One of the few things we had in common was a strong sense of conviction. Paul believed in his cause, and was willing to argue for it. I believed in my cause, and was willing to argue for it. We both had strong opinions. We just didn’t have the same opinions.

A: Part of Paul’s cause involved arguing against your cause.

J: Definitely. Paul rejected — even feared — my teachings on the nature of the Kingdom. He was sure my Kingdom teachings would lead to anarchy. Widespread civil and social disobedience. His fears were shared by others.

A: Why was he so afraid?

J: Well, Paul, like so many others then and now, had allowed his brain to become focussed — riveted — on the perfection of Divine Law. Of course, he thought it was Divine Law he was giving all his time, energy, and devotion to, but really it was human law, human authority. He didn’t see it this way, though. He convinced himself that he was doing the right thing in aggressively attacking me because he was protecting Divine Law. He believed that Divine Law justified — gave sanction to — his actions.

A: Where have I heard that before?

J: Rigid, perfectionistic thinking is a symptom of imbalance and dysfunction in the wiring of the biological brain. It’s common in bullies throughout the world.

A: Paul spends a lot of time in his letters telling the people of his churches that they don’t need to follow Jewish laws on food and circumcision. If he believed so much in the law, why was he dissing it? It doesn’t make sense.

J: It makes perfect sense if you understand that Paul wasn’t trying to protect the “praxis” laws of regular Jewish people — laws about “petty little daily practices,” as he saw them. To him these minor practices were nothing, they were of no consequence. He wasn’t interested in the small stuff, the things that matter to regular people on a day to day basis. He was after the big stuff. The End Point. The Omega. The be all and end all. He was after the Power.

A: What power?

J: The power that he and many others close to him believed was woven into the fabric of Creation. The power to command the universal Law of Cause and Effect.

A: That sounds seriously creepy. And not even very Jewish.

J: Well, as we’ve talked about, there were different schools of religious and philosophical thought that used the sacred Hebrew texts, and these schools fought fiercely among themselves. In the 1st century CE, there was no agreement on what it meant to be a pious Jew, just as today there’s no agreement on what it means to be a pious Christian. Most people forget that there was a civil war among Jews in Judea in the 60’s CE. Sure, the Romans came in eventually and torched everything in Jerusalem. But before the Romans sent in their troops, the Jews were doing a fine hatchet job on themselves. This mood of dissension among Jews was already brewing when I was teaching and healing in Galilee. It’s part of the reason I left my home in Philadelphia (modern day Amman) and went to Galilee. There was a measure of religious sanity that still existed there.

A: The Bible claims that Paul was a Pharisee.

J: In Philippians Chapter 3, Paul is very clever about the claims he makes for himself. He says that according to Jewish laws of bloodline, he’s a member of the tribe of Benjamin. Big deal. Lots of people could make that claim. He says that according to prevailing Jewish customs around religious authority, he’s a Pharisee — a sort of rabbi/lawyer/teacher who deserves to be treated with respect for his religious knowledge. Then comes the clincher: he says that according to “zeal” (zelos in Greek) he was an early persecutor of the church and according to “righteousness” he was blameless in his actions against the church. When Paul talks about “zeal” and “righteousness,” he isn’t talking about “beliefs” or “opinions.” He isn’t saying he was just really enthusiastic or really committed. He’s saying he had “the zeal” inside of him. He’s saying he had a piece of Divine Law inside of him, a spark of God inside of him that was guiding him, commanding his thoughts and actions. He’s saying he was a “vessel of humility” into which God had poured the divine substance called “zeal.” Zeal is a kind of love, therefore — a love for the Law. Devotion to the Law. Obedience to the Law. Adoration, even, of the Law. It sees the Law as a quasi-divine being. Sort of an embodiment of the Divine desire for orderliness in Creation. More than just a philosophical structure. An animated, conscious entity, if you will. Wisdom — Sophia — was also envisioned in this way as a semi-divine female being.

A: Plato talked about the Laws in this kind of weird anthropomorphic way.

J: Yes. And so did the Essenes. The Essenes were very much a fringe cult within Judaism. They had the most highly developed mystical rituals, the most “out there” beliefs about God and Creation and occult magic. They were also highly devout, highly wealthy, and highly powerful. They were a scary bunch. And Paul was greatly influenced by Essene teachings about God, the Spirit, the indwelling Temple, and occult ritual.

A: Would you say that Paul was an Essene? An accepted member of the yahad?

J: No. He wasn’t teaching pure Essene thought. But he was influenced by their thought. He also had strong links to another important school of thought that’s harder to track.* He blended ideas from Essene thought and Hellenistic thought to create his “new and improved” version of the Law of Cause and Effect. By the time he began his “mission to the Gentiles,” he was no longer interested in mainstream Judaism, with its focus on Mosaic Law. He’d “moved up” on the spiritual ladder of ascent, on that ever so narrow and hard-to-find ladder of spiritual hierarchy. He’d found an enticing and intoxicating blend of occult magic and hidden knowledge — the kind of hidden knowledge reserved only for a few select apostles. He was drunk on the idea that this new knowledge would lead him to power — power over evil entities.

A: What evil entities?

J: The corrupted versions of Law and Wisdom and Life — their “evil twins.”

A: Their evil twins? This is sounding like some of the “contemporary horror” dramas that are so incredibly popular in books and movies and TV shows these days.

J: Same old, same old. It’s just a dysfunctional, distorted version of the Law of Cause and Effect when taken to occult extremes. It goes like this: “Well, if there’s a Perfect Law, a semi-divine being who brings only virtue and righteousness to people of virtue, then, logically speaking, there must be an evil twin of Perfect Law — a powerful semi-divine being who sows vice and corruption in the world.” It’s a nice, neat, simple mathematical formula to explain why evil exists. Sons of Light versus Sons of Darkness, as the Essenes clearly formulated it. What could be easier to understand?

A: It’s so easy to see what you’re saying by looking at Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Romans is filled with paranoid, dualistic, judgmental thinking. Paul tells people in gory detail how they can fight the evils of Law, Sin, and Death, and overcome these evil cosmic forces through the power of Christ’s name.

J: Yes. For Paul, Mosaic Law had become the evil twin of the pure Essene Temple Law. Sin was the evil twin of Wisdom (implying by analogy to Wisdom’s femaleness that Sin was also female). And Death was the evil twin of Life. Paul called this evil trinity Law, Sin, and Death.

A: On my God. That makes a ridiculous amount of sense. It explains how Paul could go around telling people they wouldn’t die if they believed in Christ — a promise that soon proved to be a lie, because some of Paul’s followers had already died, and he had to answer for it in his letters.

J: It’s popular these days for theologians to make excuses for this kind of apocalyptic promise, excuses based on the naive assumption that people in the 1st century CE “just didn’t know any better” and “can’t be blamed for believing in salvation from death.” This, I’m sad to say, is hogwash. No balanced, mentally healthy individual is going to accept the idea that human beings can escape physical death and continue to live for centuries on Planet Earth the way their mystical forebears supposedly had (e.g. Methuselah). It’s just goofy. It’s what Paul promised his followers in the beginning of his mission, but it’s goofy. In his Letter to the Romans, he has to go through huge theological contortions to try to salvage people’s belief in him. It’s a pretty sad way to go, if you think about it.

A: Promises, promises.

J: You know what works best in the Gospel of Mark? The fact that there are no “Cause and Effect” promises. Everything’s messy. Everything’s unpredictable. Shit happens, but so what? It can’t take away your courage or your faith or your trust in God or your desire to help other people. Even shit can be turned into very useful fertilizer.

A: So your Kingdom is about turning shit into fertilizer, and Paul’s Temple is about the quest to stop shitting at all?

J: And you say I have a way with words.

* For more on Paul’s true motives and affiliations, please see “The Peace Sequence” (Jesus Redux 38).

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Posted in Cause & Effect, Essenes, Favourite Posts, Gospel of Mark, historical Jesus, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Kingdom teachings, Law (Nomos), Materialism, occult themes, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, Plato, spiritual ascent and tagged Jesus vs Paul | Leave a Comment

14 Feb 2011

JR10: Son of David or House of David?

A: You’ve said more than once that you were the son of a wealthy, aristocratic family, a descendant of priests. Were you a descendant of King David? Was your father “of the house of David,” as Luke says in Luke 1:27?

J: This is the great thing about modern socio-historical criticism of ancient religious texts. Today’s research gives so many terrific, irrefutable facts that contradict the Church’s teachings. It’s like a game of Battleship, blowing up beloved traditions and sacred doctrines one piece at a time.

A: So I’m thinking the answer to my question is “No”?

J: With a capital “N.” There is no way — no possible way — that the Jewish hierarchy or the Roman hierarchy would have allowed a male with a proveable link to the lineage of David to survive, let alone go around preaching a radical doctrine about God. That lineage was dead. Long gone. Jesus scholars trace the last reference to a verifiable descendant of David in Hebrew scripture to the 5th century BCE Book of Ezra-Nehemiah. After that, the Jewish texts are silent on David’s genealogy.

A: This appeared to be no obstacle to the writers of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. Matthew and Luke both insist you’re an actual descendant of David, and give you a genealogy to prove it.

J: Yes, but they don’t give the same genealogy, which has to make you wonder . . . could it be possible these men made it up? [Voice dripping with facetious humour.]

A: You mean, invented the genealogy. Lied about it.

J: Well, there’s certainly no truth to either of their genealogies.

A: If a written record of David’s line of descent had actually existed in the first century, where would it have been kept?

J: In Jerusalem. In the Temple. The records of bloodlines for the high priests and the other priests were highly valuable documents. They were carefully preserved. Any record of Judah’s or Israel’s ancient kings would also have been preserved. During the Second Temple period, the safest storehouse for valuables was the Temple and its precincts. The originals were kept there.

“His disciples said to him, ‘Who are you to say these things to us?’ [Jesus replied]: ‘You do not know who I am from what I say to you. Rather, you have become like the Jewish people who love the tree but hate its fruit, or they love the fruit but hate the tree'” (Gospel of Thomas 43). In this saying, Jesus is referring to the struggle within 1st century Judaism to reconcile opposing claims about authority. Some taught that bloodline was the key. Others taught that rigorous knowledge and obedience to the Law was the key. Jesus himself rejected both these arguments, even though he came from a priestly family and was highly educated. He taught a holistic approach wherein the ability to love God and to love other people took precedence over both bloodline and advanced study of scripture. Photo credit Hemera Technologies 2001-2003.

A: But in 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple. Any scrolls that were saved were probably taken into hiding. Making them hard to check, hard to verify — at least until the political situation had settled down.

J: A fact that “Matthew” and “Luke” both took advantage of. Both of them wrote after the Temple was destroyed. “Mark” wrote just beforehand. Mark was very careful not to make any claims about my background that could easily be disproved.

A: Yet in the Gospel of Mark, there’s reference to you as “the son of David.” How do you explain that?

J: That’s an easy one. Mark never says that I’m from the “House of David.” Mark says that a blind beggar named Bartimaeus called out to me as the “son of David.” The short and simple answer — plain as can be — is that “House of David” and “son of David” mean two completely different things.

A: Explain.

J: To claim to be of the “House of David” is to make a genealogical claim — a claim to be a direct blood descendant of a former king. It’s like saying, “I’m descended from King Henry VIII” or “I’m descended from Queen Elizabeth I.”

A: Except that everybody knows Queen Elizabeth I died without children, without direct heirs. So anybody making that claim would have a hell of a time proving it to historians and archivists.

J: Same thing with King David. If descendants of King David were still known, still living, where were they when the Hasmoneans — the so-called Maccabeans — claimed both the High Priesthood and the de facto Kingship of Judea in the 2nd century BCE? Why didn’t the Davidic family step forward then to reassert their “claim” to the throne? Or when Pompey invaded in 63 BCE and made Judea a Roman protectorate? Or when Augustine officially turned the Roman Republic into an Empire with the Emperor as divinely appointed ruler and keeper of the Pax Romana in Judea, (as well as everywhere else)? It’s just not historically realistic to believe there really was a “House of David” by the first century of the common era.

A: So when “Matthew” and “Luke” made their claims about your ancestry, we should understand these as fictional claims — about as meaningful and factual as it would seem to us today if Stephen Harper were to say he’s a direct descendant of King Arthur of the Round Table. Pure hype.

J: You bet. On the other hand, if Stephen Harper were to liken himself symbolically or metaphorically to King Arthur — if he were to say he’s following the inspiration of his hero King Arthur — then people would respond differently.

A: It never hurts for a politician to model himself after a popular hero.

J: And in the 1st century CE, David was a popular folk hero. Not David the King, but David the humble shepherd lad who brought down the oppressor Goliath with one well-aimed blow of a stone.

A: Plus a swift sword to the neck.

J: People often forget that just as there are two different versions of the Creation story in Genesis, there are two different versions of the early David story in First Samuel, and there are two strikingly different “images” of David in the Bible — one humble, one royal. Which version is going to appeal more to regular folk oppressed by their leaders, both domestic and foreign?

A: The version where David is the little guy up against the big, mean, nasty Goliath.

J: Or the big, mean, nasty Herodian Temple, in my case.

A: It was a metaphor, then. A reference to the heroic folk tale of David. A reminder that God doesn’t always choose “the big guy” or “the firstborn son.”

J: Regular people didn’t love David because he was a king. Regular people loved David — the young David, the innocent David — because they could relate to him. David was a popular symbol amongst the slaves and the hard-working lower classes who longed to be freed from the cruelty of unjust leaders.

A: Huh. Well, as the Staples commercial says, “That was easy.”

Posted in Bible, Book of Genesis, Gospel of Mark, historical Jesus, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Matthew's and Luke's intent and tagged historical Jesus | Leave a Comment

13 Feb 2011

JR9: Jesus Explains "The Kingdom"

A: You told me several years ago that you wrote parts of the Letter of James yourself — specifically James 1:2-27, James 2:1-8, and James 3:1-18 — and that after your death your older brother James added the remaining verses to blunt the effect of your writings and make them more “pious.” Yesterday I was checking something in the Letter of James, and I couldn’t help smiling. What you wrote 2,000 years ago sounds an awful lot like what you said for the record last Wednesday. Do you mind if I put in a quote from James?

J: Knock yourself out.

A: Okay. Here’s the NRSV translation of James 2:1-8a, with a couple of changes in emphasis. Here goes:

“My brothers, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in God? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there,’ or ‘Sit at my feet,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and becomes judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'”

J: You give them one little inviolable spiritual law to follow, and they argue with you until you’re blue in the face and dead in the ground. It’s 2,000 years since I said that, and a huge number of Christians still don’t get it — you can’t love your neighbour and keep your status addiction, too. You have to make a choice.

A: There are almost no Christians who believe you wrote these verses yourself. Few theologians pay attention to the Letter of James. It doesn’t have any real “Christology” in it. To them, it’s little more than a typical 1st century wisdom sermon. Martin Luther hated this letter because it seems to deny Paul’s doctrine of “justification by faith.” Luther called it “an epistle of straw,” and would have had it removed from the Protestant canon if he could have.

J: There you go. More proof for the theory that Paul and I had very different things to say about God.

A: Tell me what you meant when you described the poor as “heirs of the kingdom.”

J: That goes to the heart of my teachings.

A: I know.

J (grinning): No point beating around the bush, eh?

A: Exactly my thought.

J: Well, I guess you could say that I was trying to be a good teacher. By that I mean I was doing my best to explain complex ideas in a useful, useable way. Good teaching often involves finding the right image, the right metaphor for the group you’re teaching. The right metaphor can open up doors in a student’s mind, help her find the connection between what she already knows and what she’s learning. You can try to invent new terms, new words for a complex idea. Scholars often do this. Or you can try to work with existing vocabulary and use it in new ways. I opted for the latter.

A: So you chose the word “kingdom” because of the symbolism attached to it at the time.

J: Well, here’s where it gets confusing. The word “kingdom” by itself was not the exact image I chose — not that word by itself, anyway. But, like all people, I was sometimes guilty of shortening things for the sake of convenience. The actual phrase I chose was “basileia ton ouranon” — Koine Greek for “kingdom of the heavens.” Eventually, when I was speaking or writing for my own community, I called it “the kingdom” for short. But by then it was understood what I meant.

A: Which was . . . ?

J: I was trying to express the idea that each individual person should think of themselves as a whole and complete entity, lacking nothing as far as God was concerned. A tiny kingdom of “selfhood” unto themselves. An inviolable kingdom. A worthy kingdom. A very small kingdom, to be sure, but one they had full rights over as its “sovereign.” It’s about boundary issues, really. Today’s teachers and psychologists use the phrase “boundary issues.” I used the phrase “kingdom of the heavens.” But it’s the same idea exactly. It’s the idea that your body and your mind and your heart belong to nobody but you. Therefore, it’s wrong to transgress those boundaries. It’s wrong for you to invade somebody else’s body, mind, and heart, just as it’s wrong for them to invade yours. It’s about human dignity, human worth. It’s about seeing each individual as, well, as . . .

A: As an individual?

J: Yes. It’s about seeing each individual as an individual, instead of seeing them as property or as a means to an end.

A: Status addicts. Psychopaths. Narcissists. People suffering from these disorders can’t see other people as they really are — as other people. They tend to see them as objects to be used.

J: That ideal — if you can call it that — was ingrained in the culture of my time. People were so used to hearing about “the chosen” and “the judged” in society that they weren’t questioning the wrongness of it. They had little mental framework, little understanding of the idea that slavery was a violation of the soul. Most of the people I worked with in my ministry felt like the proverbial dog who’s been kicked. The dog is at the bottom of a long list of people kicking each other according to rank. The dog has the least rank, so he gets kicked the hardest. That’s the mentality I was facing in Galilee.

A: You were facing an uphill battle trying to persuade your students that they were worthy of God’s love and forgiveness — just as worthy as the priests in Jerusalem.

J: It’s not easy to overcome the conditioning of a lifetime. They weren’t inclined to believe me. These were people of faith. They didn’t want to anger God. They wanted to show God their obedience and faith. They were suspicious of me for a long time.

A: What turned the tide?

J: In the end, it was about trust and compassion, I guess you could say. I stuck to my guns. I did what I said I would do. I wasn’t a hypocrite — that alone earned me a lot of trust. I treated people fairly and respectfully the way I thought God wanted me to. Stuff happened.

A: Stuff happened? Like what stuff? What happened?

J: Oh, you know. Healings. Changes. Stuff like that.

A: You mean like healing miracles? That kind of stuff?

J: Well, yes, if you want to get right down to it, I suppose you could describe it that way.

A: Healing miracles began to take place, and the people around you — the poor and disadvantaged of Galilee — began to notice.

J (nodding yes): [Nods without speaking]

A: Were you the source of the healing miracles? Did you yourself heal them?

J: No. Never. No human being has that kind of power, that kind of ability. Healing miracles, when they take place, come from God. Only from God and God’s healing angels. I was only a facilitator, if you will. A human being people could see and touch with their own senses. My job was to reassure them, comfort them, encourage them to trust. The actual healing was God’s work. And I said so. Loudly. As often as I could. I never claimed to be a chosen prophet, and I yelled at anybody who tried to call me the Messiah. I clearly understood that my role — my task as a human being who’d been given many advantages during my youth — was to help people feel okay about receiving God’s love and comfort and healing. If I was helpful in my role as a physician — suggesting teas and salves and other sorts of medical treatments — it was only because God was guiding me in my work. I listened carefully to what God’s healing angels were saying (that’s where it’s handy to be a practising mystic), and I did what they suggested to me. I wasn’t being “forced” to listen to my angels. I wanted to listen to my angels, and I wanted to trust their advice. That was my choice — my own free will. They’re damned smart, and they had some wonderful healing suggestions.

A: Can you give any examples of their advice?

J: Gosh. They had tons of medical insights. Things like, “Tell that woman she has to eat orange vegetables.” Of course, they knew — although I didn’t — that orange vegetables contain Vitamin A, important for normal vision. Two thousand years ago, that was a miracle. They warned me, as well, about the dangers of lead. Lead was used in those days in many practical ways because of its low melting point and malleability. “Stay away from food vessels or utensils made of lead or pewter,” they said. Good advice, that.

A: And pewtersmiths have stopped making pewter with lead.

“A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed in the country; and people came to him from every quarter” (Mark 1: 40 – 45). Photo credit JAT 2016.

J: The most important thing my angels taught me, however, was to ignore the standard Temple teachings about illness and healing. To be honest, my angels had nothing nice to say about traditional purity laws. They told me it was okay — by that I mean medically safe — to ignore the “do not touch” laws about skin diseases, bodily fluids, and dietary restrictions. My angels said to me, “Touch, touch!” So I touched. I looked in people’s eyes when they were sick. I held their hands. I told them their angels were with them. I told them God was with them. Any physician worth his or her salt will know what this means to a frightened patient. The relationship between physician and patient is integral to the healing process.

A: So you took the healing process away from the designated Jerusalem priests and put it into the hands of God. You made the healing process both more scientific and more compassionate. Which somehow led to more miracles.

J (nodding yes): Um hum.

A: I can just imagine how furious the priests would have been that people were getting better from eating carrots instead of from giving sacrifices at the Temple.

J: The fact that I was descended from priests on my mother’s side didn’t help the situation any.

A: They must have been very upset when they started to hear rumours about your healing ministry — a son of priests performing unsanctioned healings outside the Temple precincts.

J: That would be an understatement.

Posted in boundary issues, ethical mysticism, faith, healing, healing miracles, historical Jesus, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' original writings, Kingdom teachings, Law (Nomos), Letter of James, slavery, Soul, status addiction, trust and tagged historical Jesus, Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

09 Feb 2011

JR8: Mystical Bloodlines, Mystical Castes

J: I’d like to start out today’s discussion by emphasizing a very important point. I want to emphasize that it’s wrong to make sweeping generalizations about any particular religion or religious tradition. Just as it’s wrong to “hate” somebody on their basis of their religion, it’s just as wrong to “love” somebody on the basis of their religion. Religious beliefs form a framework for people, a place to start on the journey of faith. But in the end, the only thing that matters as far as God is concerned is what choices you make as an individual. No religion has all the answers. No religion is even asking all the right questions. So when I come out swinging against a revered figure from the past such as John the Baptist, I’m not trying to attack huge groups of people. I have specific complaints about the choices made 2,000 years ago by John the Baptist while he was incarnated as a human being. I also have specific complaints about specific choices made by a number of individuals who were close to John at the time. However . . . and this is a big however . . . the choices made by John the Baptist 2,000 years ago have nothing to do with the choices open to individual people today. There is no “loss of honour” for readers today because of choices that were made by somebody else centuries ago. No real “loss of honour,” anyway. If individuals today believe I’m undermining their own personal sense of honour by exposing the reality — the harsh and painful truth — about ancient religious teachings, then they’ve got bigger problems than they realize.

A: Yes, but a lot of people still believe very deeply in ancient ideas such as the mystical power of bloodline. For these individuals, there’s such a thing as honour in the blood. Honour carried from generation to generation through the bloodline. Power carried from generation to generation. Divine rights carried from generation to generation. It’s one of the underpinnings of their modern day lives. So they’ll take enormous offense at what you’re saying. Gargantuan offense.

J: I’m sorry to have to say this, but a conviction in the innate mystical power of bloodlines is a fantasy superstition that belongs only in novels and films. God does not favour any one clan or family group over another. It should be clear to everyone by now what happens in the wider world when particular clans, tribes, or nations give themselves the label of “Chosen by God.” Nothing good comes of it. Nothing.

A: Yet it’s a myth-dream that’s found in most cultures and most places in the world. Not to mention most major world religions. Why is this myth-dream so universal?

J: It goes again to the issue we’ve been discussing — major mental illness.

A: Ooooh. I can hear the gasps already.

J: Well, I won’t apologize for saying what needs to be said. Individuals will have to deal with it. It’s the reality. It’s time the blunt reality was brought into the open. Other forms of violence and abuse have been brought forward, brought into the open in recent decades. It’s painful and awkward at first, but it’s only when people openly discuss their suffering that change begins.

A: As you’ve said many times to me, healing follows insight. Healing follows self-honesty and public transparency.

J: Abusers will keep their secrets for as long as they can. They won’t volunteer to tell people their dark secrets. Even when they’re caught, they typically deny they did anything wrong. Other people have to step forward, point the light of truth at the abusers, collect evidence of their wrongdoing, and demonstrate their guilt through a public, transparent, non-corrupt legal system. It’s the only way to change a society’s perception of what’s moral and what’s immoral.

A: Can you give some examples?

J: Sure. Not so long ago, it was considered acceptable by many North Americans to treat women as inferior “possessions” of men. It was considered acceptable to turn a blind eye to incest and child sexual abuse and child pornography. It was considered acceptable to dump vast quantities of highly toxic pollutants into the water, air, and earth.

A: These things are still going on.

J: Yes. But these choices are no longer considered acceptable by the majority of North Americans. There’s been a cultural shift. The harmful actions of the abusers — the narcissists and psychopaths — are no longer being condoned by wider public opinion. There are legal and social implications for the abusers now. The legal and social implications didn’t use to exist. They only exist today because a lot of decent people got on board with the idea that these particular choices — the choice to abuse women, the choice to abuse children, the choice to abuse the environment — are wrong. Immoral. Not acceptable in a compassionate community.

A: It’s a work in progress.

J: Yes. It’s astounding and beautiful and amazing because it shows the truth. It shows that if you boldly and honestly expose the reality of abuse, a lot of people will recognize the wrongness of the abusers’ choices. They’ll feel it deep in their bones.

A: Deep in their souls.

J: The soul is consciousness with a conscience. The soul knows the difference between right and wrong, between moral choices and immoral choices. The soul is not stupid. Everybody has a soul, and everybody comes “prewired,” so to speak, with a “right and wrong” package in their DNA. It’s why mentally mature, emotionally mature people instinctively recoil from certain actions, certain choices. They just feel in their gut that it’s wrong.

A: Except for the people with psychopathy. The psychopaths have lost access to the “right and wrong” package. They know it exists, because they can see it operating in the world around them, but they don’t care. They don’t recoil from horror and abuse the way other people do. Brain scans confirm that certain parts of their brains are underactive, other parts are overactive.

J: As I said, it’s a major mental illness.

A: One that isn’t in the DSM-IV, the bible of psychiatry.

J: Psychopathy is a touchy, touchy topic. It should come as no surprise that a lot of “successful” people in politics, business, religion, and entertainment have little regard for the nuances of “right and wrong.”

A: That’s a polite way of saying that many successful people are psychopaths.

“Jesus said: There was a rich man who had a great deal of money. He said, ‘I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing.’ These were the things he was thinking in his head, but that very night he died. Whoever has ears should hear” (Gospel of Thomas 63). Even psychopaths have a personal code of morality — a set of internal laws to live by — despite their lack of conscience. Competitiveness, dominance, perfectionism, obsessiveness, chosenness, and eradication of weakness are among the key markers of moral success for a psychopath. Needless to say, a psychopath has no use for traits such as love, tolerance, forgiveness, ambiguity, or individuation, despite what he or she may say out loud. Shown here is the entrance to the Chapel of John the Baptist, Westminster Abbey, England. Notice all the sharp, spiky, metal forks on the door — all the better to stab your heart as you try to open the door to relationship with God. Photo credit JAT 2023.

J: Again, no surprise. But these people have tremendous power, tremendous resources. It’s risky to piss off a psychopath. They think nothing of getting revenge. In fact, revenge is a favourite pastime. Even worse, psychopaths lose their ability to feel empathy for others, but at the same time, they show an eerily heightened grip on logic and a creepy ability to spot other people’s vulnerabilities. It’s scary how manipulative they can be in a purely cold, hard, logical way.

A: Almost as if they’re compensating for the loss of empathy and emotion by putting extra biological resources into their logic circuitry.

J: That’s exactly what psychopathy is. They’re trying to find a way to cope with life. They’re trying to find a workable system. They have no capacity for love, forgiveness, or trust. They’re so empty inside that they’re always looking for ways to fill the void. It’s a literal void, not just a metaphorical void. They can’t access certain functions of their brains. They can’t access the emotional circuitry they were born with. So they actually do feel empty, as if something’s constantly missing. They’re so narcissistic, however, that they believe everybody else on the planet feels as empty as they do. They think other people are faking it when they talk about love, redemption, forgiveness, and trust. In the world of the psychopath, love — mature, respectful love — is pure fantasy. It can’t be real. A psychopath feels nothing but contempt for the ideals of love, redemption, forgiveness, and trust.

A: A contempt that’s notably present in the orthodox doctrines of the Western Christian church.

J: True. But Christianity isn’t the only faith tradition that’s riddled with contempt for these compassionate ideals. I was dealing with the same contempt 2,000 years ago in Palestine. Lots of people were. Women, children, slaves, foreigners — all these people had to deal with the fallout of a religious tradition that had steadily erased all the empathy from the earlier spiritual traditions —

A: Like the Covenant Code in Exodus.

J: Like the all too brief Covenant Code. Bit by bit they replaced the Covenant Code’s early focus on human dignity with mystical authority for a few select men and their families. What scholars today call Second Temple Judaism bears so little resemblance to the Rabbinic Judaism practised today that I hesitate to even call the ancient religion “Judaism.” It was a bizarre caste system, really. It placed incalculable power in the hands of the High Priests and the Levites, who happily abused the “lesser tribes” of Israel — the lower Jewish castes. Meanwhile, the priests derived all their power, authority, and wealth from the “sacred books” they themselves wrote. A bit of a conflict of interest, don’t you think?

A: Yeah. I notice that after a while they decreed there could be no more prophecy. No more troublesome prophets standing up on soapboxes and speaking the truth.

J: The priests were always willing to endorse new prophetic voices off the record as long as those new voices reinforced the idea among the general population that Jews were the chosen people and Jerusalem’s priests were “the best of the best.”

A: Hence they could tolerate the Essenes, who required obedience to the caste system, but they couldn’t tolerate you, because you rejected the caste system in its entirety. And said so publicly.

J: The idea that Jews had allowed themselves to become enslaved to the priests may have entered my teachings more than once.

A: Yeah, I’ll bet.

Posted in conscience & morality, empathy, Essenes, faith, HDM Myths, healing, intent, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, John the Baptist, occult themes, psychopathy, religion and mental Illness, slavery, Soul, status addiction and tagged religion + mental illness | Leave a Comment

29 Jan 2011

JR5: Jesus and the Jerusalem Temple

A: Jesus, could you please explain why the brain health of people 2,000 years ago makes a difference to what you’re saying today? Why should people on a spiritual journey care about the question of brain health?

J: Well, there are a couple of different approaches to that question. Many religious individuals don’t care about this question and don’t want to care. These are individuals who are happy with their current understanding of God. They believe they have the correct understanding. Therefore, from their point of view, it’s a complete waste of time to be asking about the brain health of the people I lived and worked with. There’s only one reason a person today would be asking about the brain health of Jesus and Paul and John. Only a person who’s interested in the historical facts about what happened would ask such a question.

A: You mean a person who suspects the Church hasn’t been telling us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing about the truth?

J: Yes. A person who isn’t afraid of asking difficult questions about the past. Questions that can help bring healing into the world today.

A: The same sorts of difficult questions that cultural groups in the 20th century had to ask themselves repeatedly. Questions about the motivations that lay behind crimes against humanity. Questions about personal responsibility and ethical conduct in the face of horrendous mob behaviour.

J: There was no shortage of opportunities for deep soul-searching in the 20th century.

A: Here in Canada we’ve had to address our treatment of First Nations people and ethnic and religious minorities. It isn’t easy to be honest about past mistakes, but it’s in acknowledging our mistakes that we’re able to learn from them and make our society more inclusive, more compassionate.

J (nodding): It’s a painful struggle to bring major change to a society. But it can be done when a sizeable group decides to “get on board.” You need a critical mass of people to bring about effective change. Individual members of a society have to be willing to decide for themselves that change is a good thing. It has to come from within people’s hearts. When the rules are imposed on them from the top down by a small cadre of rulers or leaders, that’s not change. That’s fascism or totalitarianism.

A: Or church authority.

J: Exactly the point I was trying to make 2,000 years ago.

A: Tell me more about that.

J: There was no church at the time, of course. But there was a Temple. Actually, there were lots of temples, because many different religions co-existed in the first century, and most of them built temples as places of worship. I wasn’t interested myself in Greek or Roman or Egyptian temples. I knew about them, had visited them, but my main concern was the Jewish Temple.

A: In Jerusalem.

J: Yes, physically the Jewish Temple was in Jerusalem. But the Temple was more than that. It was a symbol. A powerful symbol. It overshadowed Jewish people no matter where we lived. If you were Jewish, you couldn’t get away from it.

A: Was this a good thing?

J: Sure, if you were a wealthy Sadducee. Or a member of the privileged Jewish aristocracy. Or a wealthy Roman merchant-mercenary.

A: You mean Roman merchants and Roman mercenaries?

J: No, I mean the unique class of Roman culture that was clawing its way up the rigid social class system by making buckets and buckets of money in various mercantile enterprises of dubious ethical merit.

A: Huh. That sounds a lot like some corporations today.

J: There’s a reason the English word “corporation” comes from the same Latin root as Paul’s “one body — corpus — in Christ.”

A: That’s pretty inflammatory.

J: Yes. But accurate. Religion was THE biggest business in the first century. It was intimately linked with politics and power, even more so than people can imagine today. It’s just crazy to pretend that Paul was talking about love and salvation. When you get right down to it, Paul was a businessman. He wasn’t selling relationship with God. He was selling power. Like certain televangelists in recent years who’ve been building market share — along with their own investment portfolios. Same old, same old.

“Jesus said to his disciples: Compare me to something and tell me what am I like. Simon Peter replied: You are like a righteous messenger. Matthew replied: You are like an intelligent lover of wisdom. Thomas replied: Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like. Jesus said: I am not your teacher; because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended. Jesus took Thomas and they withdrew. Jesus said three things to him. When Thomas returned to his friends, they asked him: What did Jesus say to you? Thomas replied: If I tell you even one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come out of the rocks and burn you up” (Gospel of Thomas 13). This photo shows the underground alleys in the old city of Jerusalem. Credit FreeIsraelPhotos.

A: And that’s not what you were doing? Building a power base for your own ideas?

J: I was interested in dismantling the power base of the Temple. Brash, crazy, and impossible at the time. But I gave it my best shot.

A: Some political observers would suggest this makes you a Zealot — a first century Jewish political revolutionary. Were you a Zealot?

J: No. The Jewish faction known as Zealots were the equivalent of today’s radical religious fundamentalists. I was as far from religious fundamentalism as it was possible to get.

A: But you also weren’t a religious conservative devoted to preserving the status quo.

J: No. I came from a family of religious conservatives. My mother’s father was a Sadducee. My father was a Roman citizen from Greece who hobnobbed with Roman merchant-mercenaries. As a young adult, I rejected the social values my family taught me.

A: Okay. So you weren’t a Zealot. And you weren’t a Sadducee. What else was left within Judaism at the time?

J: There were the Pharisees. Their influence had been steadily growing for decades. They were highly obedient to the Jewish Law and the traditions of the Jewish Temple.

A: And you weren’t.

J: Nope.

A: So you didn’t have much in common with the Pharisees.

J: Not by the time I came to my senses.

A: Which was when?

J: When I realized that the group Josephus calls the Essenes were extremely powerful and dangerous, and that they were influencing the teachings of well-meaning Pharisees. I decided then to stop listening to “factions” within Judaism and start listening to my own heart and soul.

A: So basically all the Jewish religious factions that existed in Palestine in the first century (that we know of) would have considered you a heretic?

J: Damn straight.

Posted in Essenes, historical Jesus, insight, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Paul vs Jesus, religion and mental Illness, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged historical Jesus | Leave a Comment

23 Jan 2011

JR3: Some Family History of Jesus

“Jesus said: It is not possible for anyone to enter a strong man’s house and take it over forcefully unless he first ties his hands. Then he can steal from that house” (Gospel of Thomas 35). Photo of a side entrance of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Bloor Street, Toronto. Photo credit JAT 2017.

A: On my Concinnate Christianity blog, I take aim at the Apostle Paul and try to show some of the ways that his teachings were very different from your own. I wonder if we can talk some more about that.

J: There’s a lot there to talk about.

A: One of the things that has surprised me most over the past few years is the shortage of people willing to examine the differences between you and Paul. Even serious biblical scholars — people like the scholars of the Jesus Seminar — have a blind spot around Paul. They seem to want to pretend that Paul was preaching the same core teachings as you. But it’s not that hard to draw up a list of the similarities and differences between First Corinthians and Mark. In fact, it’s one of the easier academic analyses I’ve tried in the past few years. The differences are blatant. I mean, scarily blatant. So I’ve gotta ask — what the heck has been going on? Why are so many Christians, even the ones who label themselves Progressive, so completely unwilling to be objective?

J: Brain chemistry.

A (rolling eyes): Why did I know you were going to say that?

J: It’s the brain chemistry. It’s the way most people have wired their brains — or have allowed their brains to be wired for them. Their biological brains are loaded with software packages about God and religion, and there’s a conflict between the existing software — provided in the beginning by Paul — and the “new” software I and other angels have been trying to reintroduce. Of course, it’s not really “new.” It was old when I was teaching it 2,000 years ago. But the Church tried very hard to eradicate it early on, and to keep eradicating it each time it sprang up again. So to today’s readers it seems “new.”

A: Can you give us an analogy that will make sense to today’s readers?

J: Yes. It’s like the difference between early Macs and PC’s. Groups were fighting over which platform was better. At that point PC’s couldn’t read Mac software. Mac software existed, and Mac software was useful and real, but PC’s couldn’t read it. So a lot of users missed out on good programs. The human brain can end up like that — wired so it can only read one kind of software, though others kinds of software do exist. For many Christians, their brains have become so used to the ideas of Pauline Christianity that they literally can’t “hear” any other ideas about God. Their brains can’t process the information. They’re literally the people who have ears but cannot hear. They’re not able to understand the “new” message at first because their brains aren’t used to hearing that kind of language.

A: What you describe sounds a lot like brainwashing. People conditioned to the point where they can hear only one kind of “truth.”

J: You could put it that way.

A: That’s scary.

J: Yes. But it’s not new. It’s a very old way to control a large group of people. You don’t have to put chains on everybody in your culture to get them to do what you want. A clever tyrant controls the mind — keeps the body free, but controls the mind. Nothing new there.

A: Except that 2,000 years ago your culture had real slavery — the kind where human beings were bought and sold and forced to do all sorts of things against their will.

J: The kind that continues in many parts of the world today.

A: Yes, that too.

J: One reason my great-nephew Matthew — the man you know as the author of the Gospel of Mark — went ballistic when he read what Paul was writing about “Jesus Christ” was Paul’s take on slavery. Paul never comes out and says that slavery is wrong. Instead Paul tries to preserve the status quo by persuading slaves to understand slavery as an illusion — something not worth fighting about because they have something more valuable than freedom: the higher “truth” of salvation.

A: Right. But can we back up the truck for a minute? I’d like to go back to that historical tidbit you just dropped in. The part about your great-nephew Matthew.

J: Matthew was the grandson of my brother Andrew. Andrew was the only one of my siblings who believed in my teachings.

A: And this Matthew who was your great-nephew . . . is this the same man who wrote the Gospel of Matthew?

J: No. The author of the Gospel of Matthew was not named Matthew. Just as the author of the Gospel of Mark was not named Mark.

A: Okay, well at least that part is known to scholars. But this is all very confusing. Is it okay with you if I keep calling the author of the Gospel of Mark, “Mark”? It’s much less confusing to call him Mark.

J: Sounds like a plan.

A: So you’re saying that your great-nephew wrote the Gospel of Mark.

J: Well, one of my great-nephews wrote the Gospel of Mark. I had a lot of great-nieces and great-nephews, but only the children and grandchildren of my brother Andrew carried on my teachings the way I taught them. More or less. The rest of my family didn’t like me very much.

A: You and I have talked about this a lot. But can you talk a bit today about why your family didn’t like you?

J: Basically because I was a shit-disturber. I disagreed with most of the values my family raised me to believe in, and I went on record to say my family and their social class were wrong about the way they were treating other people and God. I grew up in an aristocratic family where we held slaves and where we believed we were chosen by God. I said that was wrong. My family didn’t like it. I was embarrassing them.

A: The way a man from the state of Georgia, for instance, would have embarrassed his wealthy plantation owning family in the 19th century if he’d joined the Abolitionists.

J: Or if a son of the Kennedy clan had disavowed the Kennedy myth and run away to live in Canada in a small town where nobody cared that he was a Kennedy.

A: As Canada is to the U.S., so Galilee was to Judea.

J: As Port Hope is to Washington, so Capernaum was to Jerusalem.

A: So you picked Galilee on purpose because it was not a major centre of religious and political influence.

J: And because the people in Galilee had different priorities. They were interested in real healing, real teaching, and they had no use for arrogant priests or rabbis who had their heads stuck up their asses.

A: You always have such a way with words.

Posted in First Corinthians, Gospel of Mark, historical Jesus, Jerusalem Temple, Jesus Redux, Jesus' family of origin, Jesus' teachings, Mark (Jesus' great nephew), Mark vs Paul, Paul vs Jesus, slavery and tagged historical Jesus, Mark vs Paul | Leave a Comment

27 Nov 2010

CC45: Who Is the Snake in Genesis?

I make no apologies to anyone for trying to put the Book of Genesis in its proper historical context.

The Book of Genesis is one short piece of human writing, written for a specific purpose almost 2,300 years ago, and it’s not reasonable, fair, or honest to place so much authority on this book. To insist that Genesis is the inspired word of God is to show a profound lack of trust and faith in God. If you want to continue to proclaim that Genesis’s truth is more important to you than all the other evidence available to your mind, senses, and common sense, then please go ahead. But don’t tell me in the same breath that you believe with your whole heart in God. Because you don’t.

It’s not acceptable for people in the 21st century to read Genesis as if it were written yesterday by well-meaning modern theologians. It wasn’t. Genesis has to be understood in an ancient context — a context that no longer exists in the modern Western world. It wasn’t written for a postmodern world that believes in Newtonian science and human rights legislation. It was written for a world that believed at its core in occult magic and slavery.

Genesis was not written for Rabbinic Judaism or Christianity. Neither Rabbinic Judaism nor Christianity existed until the second half of the 1st century BCE. By that time, Genesis had been making the religious rounds for over 300 years. It was a very old text by the time both Jewish rabbis and early Christian preachers began to radically alter the way in which people were allowed to relate to God.

What was so different about early Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity in comparison to other religions of the time?

No Temple.

Judaism had to radically re-envision itself after the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. Christians, too, were supposed to pay more attention to their spiritual commitments and less attention to imperial temples. Neither 1st century religious group would have been recognizable to the people who wrote Genesis.

I don’t give a hoot that the people who wrote Genesis may have been Jewish or may have spoken Hebrew. They weren’t Jewish in the way that Judaism is practised today, any more than Alexander the Great’s armies were Macedonian in the way that Macedonians understand themselves today. It’s ridiculous to try to put 2,300 year old writings under the umbrella of political correctness. These writings were used in their early years for the express purpose of perpetuating HDM myths. For this reason, they need to be brought into the light of critical scholarship and examined honestly for what they actually say, instead of what we want them to say.

Among biblical scholars, there seems to be an almost fanatical self-imposed blindness when it comes to talking about the snake/serpent in Chapter 3 of Genesis (the snake that beguiles Eve). Many scholars will tell you that the snake shouldn’t be read as a metaphor for Satan/the Devil, and I agree with them. In place of the snake-as-devil reading, the preferred explanation these days is that the story about the snake describes the “broken relationship” between humanity and God, a brokenness which is in turn the cause for our suffering as human beings.

I’m all for the big moment of psychotherapeutic interpretation, when, after many months of quiet listening, the therapist suddenly drops a major insight onto the unsuspecting heart of the suffering patient. But, you know, I’m not getting the sense that the authors of Genesis really cared that much about your suffering.

And usually the transformative interpretation comes at the end, not at the beginning. At the beginning, nobody’s listening. It’s only after a patient has heard him/herself talking for a while that he/she is ready to hear what the therapist has to say. (Reality TV shows, while not always ethical or kind, have at least shown us time and again that insight follows relationship, not the other way around.)

There’s a much simpler and more obvious reading for the snake/serpent in Genesis, one that relates directly to the historical context of the Alexandrian authors.

The snake is Hellenism. Pure and simple.

Based on the evidence of Genesis, it seems that the Jewish scholars who lived in Alexandria, Egypt (a Hellenistic hot spot) were furious about the corrosive influence of Hellenistic religion and philosophy on their own traditions and beliefs, so they decided to fight back. They decided to give their faith community some ammunition to strengthen them in the great cultural war that Alexander the Great had unleashed on Egypt (and on many other places). This is a perfectly understandable motive. When outsiders push aggressively at you, you push back. Sometimes you push back with iron weapons. And sometimes you push back with words.

Gruppo del laocoonte, 04 by I, Sailko. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - httpcommons.wikimedia.orgwikiFileGruppo_del_laocoonte,_04.JPG#mediaFileGruppo_del_laocoonte,_

The Laocoon Group is a famous ancient marble excavated in Rome and now displayed in the Vatican. Laocoon was a Trojan priest who, according to myth, was killed, along with his sons, by serpents sent by a Greek god. (The identity of the Greek god, along with other details, varies from version to version of the myth.) Photo credit I. Sailko. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

In the early 3rd century BCE, nobody would have needed an explanation as to the snake’s identity. If I were to say to you today, “the Eagle did it,” you’re probably going to think “American eagle” (or maybe Roman legions, if you’re a real history buff). Same thing with the snake in the ancient world. The snake meant Greek ideas — Greek myths and Greek magic — which had had a HUGE impact on people’s thinking all around the Mediterranean, and not always for the better.

Biblical scholars profess to be puzzled about the great void in the canonical Hebrew scriptures around Alexander the Great and his conquest of Syria-Palestine. They see many accurate, verifiable references to other known historical events, historical persons, and military campaigns (e.g. the Assyrian conquest, the Babylonian conquest, and the return of Jewish exiles to Jerusalem). But there’s nothing — not a thing — in the canon about those Hellenistic bastards in the late 4th century.

Of course, Alexander’s successors created empires. And emperors never look sympathetically on explicit criticism, do they? In any dangerous religio-political climate (as Alexandria would have been in 275 BCE), writers of polemic have to tread carefully for their own protection and the protection of their communities.

So you disguise your polemic in metaphors. You never mention specific pharaohs (in this case, Ptolemaic emperors) by name. You identify your enemies through metaphor (the wily Greek snake who entraps vulnerable Jews). And you pretend to set your claims in the far distant past (the Patriarchal Age) so nobody can accuse you of current sedition.

And you conclude your story in Egypt. Not in Judah or Israel, but in Egypt. And the hero of your story — Joseph — is technically a slave, but he’s a slave with so much power and prestige that he has the ear of the (unnamed) Pharaoh. And God favours Joseph and his family, even though they all have to travel to . . . Egypt. And the hero and his kin inherit the fruits of God’s first covenant with Abraham.* And lo and behold! the first covenant says that Abraham’s descendants are promised all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates River — not coincidentally the choicest parts of Alexander’s empire!

Genesis is focussed on Egypt because it was written for Diaspora Jews who lived in Egypt.

What’s the big deal about that? It makes perfect sense in its own context. Let’s just accept that and move on.

* Gen. 15:1-21; there’s also a second covenant between God and Abraham in Gen. 17:1-27.

Posted in A.N.E. Wisdom literature, Bible, Book of Genesis, Concinnate Christianity, Creationism, HDM Myths, Jerusalem Temple, relationship with God and tagged Wisdom literature | Leave a Comment

23 May 2010

CC14: Why I Think Jesus Was A Physician-Scholar

Among Progressive Christians in Canada these days there’s a popular new trend in church reform. This is the “Jesus-is-obsolete” trend.

Well-known authors such as Gretta Vosper and Tom Harpur, along with less well known but influential biblical scholars such as William Arnal (plus my own New Testament professor), have concluded that even if we could figure out who the historical Jesus was with some degree of accuracy, it wouldn’t matter to the church today. According to these authors, if Jesus has any remaining importance to us in the third millennium, it’s only in a symbolic way. In other words, the symbol of Jesus is more important than the reality of Jesus. Our acceptance of this reality will help the church move forward, say these authors. Tom Harpur is so convinced of this that he no longer believes a real individual called Jesus of Nazareth even existed. For him, Jesus the Pagan Christ was an entirely fictitious character from the get-go.*

I guess you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I don’t agree with these authors or my New Testament professor.

Limestone ossuaries were used in Jewish burials in Palestine for a fairly limited period of time just before and after the start of the Common Era, so they’re a useful archeological tool for gathering information about Palestinian Jewish families from the late Second Temple period. This one, with a common motif of rosettes, was found in Jerusalem and is dated to the Herodian Period. (It’s on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017) If you want to know more about this topic, you can read my post called “Excavating James: The James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb” at https://jenniferthomas.ca/?p=603

On the other hand, I wouldn’t dispute the level of confusion and disagreement among scholars of the historical Jesus. These are the researchers who use historical, archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic data to try to piece together the facts of Jesus’ life — things like his actual date of birth, his actual date of death, the identity of his family members. They’re looking for information from verifiable sources outside the Bible to try to make sense of the conflicting biblical accounts of who Jesus was. This “Quest for the Historical Jesus” has been going on since the time of the Enlightenment, so it’s not new. Albert Schweitzer was so frustrated by the whole process that he gave up on theology and went off to Africa to be a doctor. (There’s a certain irony in this, as I’ll show.)

A couple of years ago I stumbled across a really cool website called “Historical Jesus Theories,” put together by Peter Kirby (www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html). On the first page, you can see at a glance how much disagreement exists among scholars of the historical Jesus. You can see that scholars have studied the “facts” about Jesus, and have concluded that Jesus is best described as “Jesus the Myth: Heavenly Christ.” But wait! There are also 8 more theories! There’s the theory of Jesus the Myth: Man of the Indefinite Past — Jesus the Hellenistic Hero — Jesus the Revolutionary — Jesus the Wisdom Sage (a popular one) — Jesus the Man of the Spirit — Jesus the Prophet of Social Change — Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet (also a popular one) — and last but not least, Jesus the Saviour.

Wow. All those theories based on the facts, and not a single one that suggests Jesus was a physician-scholar. It’s my own thesis that Jesus is best understood as a physician-scholar, so I can’t suggest any books for you to read on this theory because as far as I can tell there aren’t any books (apart from the one I’m writing).

I also think Jesus was a practising mystic, but secondarily to his role as a physician-scholar. (If you think I ruffled a few feathers in my theology classes with my theory that Jesus was a physician-scholar, you should have seen my Christology professor’s eyes almost pop out of her head when I suggested in a class discussion that Jesus had been a mystic!)

I have to admit I’m somewhat puzzled about the resistance to this idea that Jesus was a physician-scholar. To be frank, this understanding of Jesus fits much better with historical and psychological realities than any of the other theories. It fits like a hand in a glove when you read the Gospel of Mark. When you read only what Mark says, and you try to completely ignore what the other gospels say, you have a story about a guy whose priorities are healing the sick, forgiving people, teaching people, spending lots of time with people (even when they make him slightly exasperated), and trusting God.

Right near the beginning of Mark, Jesus says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Today’s commentators seem to want to interpret this allegorically: they say that Jesus wasn’t actually a physician, but was more like a healer of the soul for those who had sinned. So when Jesus self-identifies with the role of medical practitioner, it’s okay for Christians to ignore it. But when other people who don’t even like or trust Jesus call him “the carpenter” in Mark 6:3, that’s not allegorical — that’s factual! Jesus is a poor, illiterate carpenter! Jesus is a poor, illiterate, Jewish, Aramaic-speaking carpenter who probably couldn’t speak Greek! Jesus is a poor, illiterate, uneducated, Aramaic-speaking carpenter from the Galilee who obtained his amazing ability to engage in sophisticated debate with scribes and Pharisees because . . . well, because the Spirit had chosen him! And, to prove this fact, we can easily see that the history of Christianity has been similarly shaped only by men who imitated Jesus in his illiteracy, who were all were poor, uneducated tradespeople, fluent only in their local dialect, and unable to use the tools of rhetoric to argue their case except when the Spirit moved them! Yes! History and psychology prove that Jesus must be seen in this light! Why, all of Christianity’s thinkers fit this model!

Don’t they?

What . . . you mean you think that history and psychology prove the opposite — that the great religious thinkers who’ve been remembered for centuries (regardless of their respective religious traditions) have — to a person — been highly educated and charismatic but emotionally humble? Like, oh, like maybe Gandhi. Or Martin Luther King, Jr. Or the Dalai Lama. These men are from our own era, yet it’s pretty hard to imagine that any of them could have made a difference if they hadn’t used their personal charisma and advanced education in service to the people they love(d).

Do we have to imagine that Jesus was a carpenter and only a carpenter? (Not that I have anything personal against carpenters. My own father is a tekton in every sense of the Koine Greek word, and has always spent his spare time building and repairing things in his workshop — but my father is also one of the smartest people I know, and he earned a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering in the 1940’s. The fact that he’s an amateur carpenter doesn’t negate his other training.)

There are many other clues in Mark that together build a portrait of Jesus as an educated physician-scholar. (I won’t go into all of them in this post, or this post would end up as long as a book chapter.)

I’ve wondered from time to time whether today’s scholars can’t “see” Jesus in this light because they’re thinking of “physicians” through their own hermeneutical lens. Let’s face it — modern Western medicine of the allopathic variety is not doing much these days to impress people with its compassionate bedside manner. This is especially true if you live in the United States, where health care decisions are increasingly being made by for-profit insurance companies. If your own personal experience has led you to equate physicians with cold-hearted, scientifically-based, profit-oriented medical care, then you’re probably not going to be looking for Jesus to be a physician. In fact, you probably wouldn’t want Jesus to be a physician, because then you wouldn’t be able to relate to him anymore.

This is where it’s important to step back and apply the criterion of “historical context” to Mark’s picture of Jesus as a physician-scholar. Jesus lived in a time when healing and religion were intertwined in a way we don’t fully relate to in this era of modern medicine. So when Jesus is quoted in Mark 2:17 as saying that sinners are in need of a physician, he means that both medically and religiously. Mark is giving readers the clue they needed in the first century CE to understand what claims he is making about Jesus’ training and background. It would have been obvious to readers then that Mark’s Jesus was a physician-scholar. It also would have shocked many pious people, because according to the “righteous” (who also make an appearance in Mark 2:17) only priests sanctioned by the Temple had the power and the right to heal the sick.

Mark’s Jesus is a rogue healer. He doesn’t follow any of the Laws when he does his healing, either Jewish laws or Greco-Roman laws. This is why I call Jesus a founding member of Doctors Without Borders. He put the suffering of the sick ahead of the Law.

Only those who’ve had a doctor fight for them or their loved ones against today’s institutional medical bureaucracy and conventional scientific wisdom will understand what courage it took for Jesus to do this.

Thanks be to God.

For a scholarly update on some of the early non-biblical sources that talk about Jesus or imply his historical existence, please the article by Dr. Lawrence Mykytiuk called “Did Jesus Exist? Searching for Evidence Beyond the Bible” in the Jan/Feb 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

For more on Jesus’ approach to healing, please see “Spit-Wives and Dead Goats.” For introductory exegetical commentary on healings in the Gospel of Mark, please see The Way, the Truth, and the Life.