gregoryjenks

Author: Gregory C. Jenks

  • Easter 2C (7 April 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Acts 5:27-32 & Psalm 118:14-29 (or Psalm 150)
    • Rev 1:4-8
    • John 20:19-31

    Introduction

    During the great Fifty Days of Easter, the RCL will deviate from the usual lectionary architecture that begins with a reading from the Hebrew Bible, followed by a passage from one of the NT epistles and then a text from the liturgical gospel of the year (in this case, Luke). Instead we shall have all the Sunday readings drawn from early Christian sources:

    First Reading: Obedience to God comes first

    The selection from Acts 5 depicts the apostles—led by Peter—proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus when they are brought before the Sanhedrin to explain their actions in continuing to preach and heal in the name of Jesus:

    When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.” But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:27-32 NRSV)

    This is part of a longer narrative in which the storyteller portrays the early Christian community as enjoying incredible success and winning the respect of everyone—even those who did not dare to join the new movement. Typical of Luke’s treatment, however, the Jewish authorities are portrayed in uncomplimentary ways. They are said to be directly responsible for the death of Jesus, the very one chosen and vindicated by God. Their incapacity to see ther significance of Jesus is compounded by their incompetence in keeping the apostles in detention over night.

    Luke’s intention seems to have been to lampoon the opponents of Christianity as unworthy of the authority they exercised, and to boost the respectability of Christianity in the eyes of readers who enjoyed (or aspired to) Roman respectability.

    In the process, Luke has created another occasion for Peter to articulate the Easter message—and unintentionally provided a liturgical text for Christians communities two millennia after his own time (and in locations Luke could not have imagined).

    At the same time, and despite his desire to make Christianity more acceptable in the higher classes of Roman society, Luke has given voice to a core principle of the Christian community:

    • We must obey God rather than any human authority.

    That principle lies at the heart of civil disobedience as a strategy for prophetic actions against discrimination and oppression. It is often expressed as nonviolent resistance but in extreme situations, such as Deitrich Bonhoeffer faced during World War Two, it can also be udnerstood as permission to use violence against those who cause harm to others.

    Second Reading: The coming One

    The second reading is replete with echoes of themes from the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as numerous expressions of Christian devotion to Jesus as the one raised to heaven and soon to return as the divinely-authorised judge of the world:

    John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
    Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
    To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

    Look! He is coming with the clouds;
    every eye will see him, even those who pierced him;
    and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.

    So it is to be. Amen.
    “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

    (Rev 1:4-8 NRSV)

    The greeting grace and peace is a Christian variation of the common form of greeting used in ordinary letters at the time. We are most familiar with it from Paul’s letters, and its use here serves to give this Christian apocalypse something of the feel of a letter.

    We have a kind of trinitarian formula, but it is not quite the classic form that came to dominate in Christian thinking:

    • God – “the one who is and who was and who is to come”
    • Spirit – “the seven spirits who are before his throne”
    • Jesus – “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth”

    The initial triple description of Jesus is interesting in its own right, as it rehearses different aspects of Jesus role:

    • the faithful witness – the one who faithfully proclaims the message entrusted to him by God
    • the firstborn of the dead – the risen One
    • the ruler of the kings of the earth – a claim to universal dominion that relativizes all other human authorities

    Following that triple description we have another triplet, this time a pastiche of biblical phrases:

    • he is coming with the clouds – like the son of Man in Daniel 7:13
    • every eye will see him, even those who pierced him – c.f. Zechariah 12:10-12
    • on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail – the significance of Jesus extends far beyond the Jewish community

    Alpha & Omega

    Finally there is the distinctive use of Alpha and Omega—a formula that is found only in the Apocalypse, where it occurs three times:

    • “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Rev 1:8)
    • Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. (Rev 21:6)
    • “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Rev 22:13 NRSV)

    By citing the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, the phrase suggests an all-encompassing completeness about God, and Jesus. In subsequent Christian art, the Alpha/Omega becomes a symbol for Jesus, but here it seems to be used of God and also of Jesus.

    For an extensive collection of Alpha-Omega images see the WikiMedia Commons.

    Beyond Locked Doors

    GJohn presents a distinctive account of Easter. Unlike Mark and Matthew, there is no immediate trip to Galilee for the first sightings of the risen Jesus. (How do the literalists rationalize the discrepancy between the angels’ clear instructions and the very different versions in Luke and John?) John has more in common with Luke, whose entire relocation of the Easter appearances from Galilee to Jerusalem may have been inspired by John’s compromise with the major appearances taking place in Jerusalem and a secondary set of appearances—relegated to an appendix—happening in Galilee.

    The appearance tradition within the four NT Gospels can be mapped as follows:

    Mark Matthew John Luke
    Women find an empty tomb and are told by an angel to pass on a message that the disciples are to meet with Jesus in Galilee. Women find an empty tomb and are told by an angel to pass on a message that the disciples are to meet with Jesus in Galilee. Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty and reports it to Peter and the beloved disciple. The male disciples verify her report but receive no angelic messages nor any encounter with Jesus. The women find an empty tomb but Luke’s two angels cannot pass on the instruction for the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, since that is not to happen in Luke-Acts. Instead, the angelic pair remind the women of what Jesus said to them while he was still in Galilee, and the women are left to share this reminder of the biblical texts that spoke of the Messiah’s sufferings and his resurrection “on the third day.”
    The women leave in fright and say nothing to anyone. The women meet Jesus on their way to tell the disciples. He repeats the instruction that the disciples meet him in Galilee. Mary Magdalene meets Jesus in the garden and is given a message to share with the other disciples: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Luke tells the story of two disciples (not members of the Twelve, but the otherwise unknown Cleopas and his partner) who have a surprise encounter with Jesus while walking home to Emmaus, a village just a few miles from Jerusalem. As they travel their unrecognized companion upbraids them for not understanding the Scriptures that had predicted the suffering, death and resurrection of the Messiah. After agreeing to stay the night with them, the Stranger’s identity is revealed as he breaks the bread at the start of the meal — and then he vanishes.
    There are no appearance narratives in Mark, but the suggestion is that they took place in Galilee. The Eleven (No women! Not even Mary, the mother of Jesus, or Mary Magdalene?) go to a specified mountain in Galilee (a detail not previously given) and there Jesus appears to them (out of the sky?). The disciples worship him, despite some having doubts. Jesus then claims universal authority. He commissions them to share his message and make disciples from all nations, before assuring them of his continuing presence. At evening that same day Jesus appears to the disciples in their secure meeting place. He commissions them for their work, and delegates his own authority to bind and to loose. Thomas is absent. After the Emmaus couple have rushed back to Jerusalem to share their news with “the eleven and their companions,” Jesus himself appears in their midst. He relieves their alarm by eating a small portion of food, before giving them a master class on the correct interpretation of all that was written about him in the Scriptures. The disciples are commissioned as witnesses, and told to wait in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high.
    A week later (and with seemingly no appearances in the mean time) Jesus again appears to the disciples, this time including Thomas. There is no purpose for this second appearance other than to meet Thomas’ need for a direct experience of the risen Lord. Jesus then leads them to Bethany on the far side of the Mount of Olives, from where he made his ascension into heaven.
    In an appendix to the Gospel (ch 21), we have the story of an appearance by Jesus by the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee. After a fruitless night of fishing, the disciples are given a miraculous catch of fish by a Stranger on the beach. When they reach land, they find the Stranger is Jesus and he already has fish cooking on a fire for them.
    Jesus then has a private conversation with Peter, in which Peter’s love for Jesus is affirmed and Peter is commissioned to feed the sheep.
    Jesus refuses to entertain Peter’s questions about what will happen to the Beloved Disciple.

    It seems reasonable to conclude that the appearance traditions within the NT Gospels are in three distinctive streams:

    • Mark/Matthew speak of Galilee as the place where the risen One was encountered, and as the birthplace of the continuing Jesus movement after Easter.
    • John has the major events happening in Jerusalem, with appearances to Mary Magdalene, the Ten (plus others?) and to the Eleven (including Thomas, and perhaps others). The lakeside appearance is not part of the original design of the Gospel, but its inclusion in the appendix extends the distinctive Johannine focus on individuals as well as honoring the older tradition of appearances in the Galilee.
    • Luke allows no appearances in the Galilee, and each of his scenes includes explicit reference to the theme of prophetic fulfillment. While there is a mention of an otherwise unreported appearance to Peter (Luke 24:34), Luke chooses to avoid any appearances to significant individuals. Jesus appears only to gatherings of disciples: the twosome heading home to Emmaus, and those gathered in the Jerusalem safe house.

    The point of the appearances never seems to be to establish the resurrection of Jesus. Rather, in all three traditions the appearances serve as occasions for the disciples to be commissioned for their future roles within the Christian community. This is especially clear in John 20, where …

    • The risen Lord tells the disciples that they are now being sent by him, just as he had been previously sent by the Father.
    • Jesus gives them a special endowment of the Holy Spirit.
    • The Eleven are given the power to bind or loose.

    The central issue seems to be not “What happened to Jesus?” but rather “How are we to order our life together as the continuing community of Christ?”

    Jesus Database

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

    Music suggestions

    • Alleluia (Richard Bruxvoort)
    • By your kingly power – AHB 306
    • I know that my redeemer lives – AHB 299
    • The Lord is risen indeed – AHB300
    • The strife is o’er – AHB287

    See also David MacGregor’s Together to Celebrate site for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre.

  • Study Leave — Week Four

    It is hard to believe, but already I have been in Israel four weeks. That time has certainly gone by very quickly. I guess one of the indicators that this has indeed been the case is my growing familiarity with the roads. After three or four trips to Jerusalem without the aid of my trusty GPS, I am starting to feel like I know the place. Even the process of checking in at the gas station counter for my credit card to be approved before I begin to fill the tank now feels routine.

    The public calendar has been dominated by Shabbat and Pesach (Passover), creating an extended holiday week for many Israelis, whether religious or nor, Jewish or not. The schools are in Spring break, and the roads are busy with holiday traffic.

    I made two trips to Jerusalem this week, and happily missed the worst of the traffic. The absence of trucks on the main tollway has certainly helped in that respect.

    On Sunday I went back to the Israel Museum, but as a paying visitor so that I could see the Herod Exhibition and also spend some time in the archaeology hall. The exhibition is very good, but I was expecting it to be larger than it is. Still, it is well worth the 30–45 minutes needed to see everything, watch the videos, etc. On arrival at the Museum I was reminded how small our world is when I looked up to see Mary Cohloe from Melbourne (but formerly teaching in Brisbane) leading a group of students past the front of my car towards the Museum. We crossed paths later in the day and it was good to catch up with her.

    One of unexpected highlights from this visit was the opportunity to see the White Gold exhibition, featuring the earliest coins that were made from electrum. As it happens the curator of the exhibit was there at the time and asked if I had any questions. When we began to talk I realised that I had seen him in the coin department at IAA a few days earlier when he brought in a book I was needing to consult. It was good to have an opportunity to talk with him about the exhibition.

    On Monday evening I had the opportunity to join a local Jewish family for their Passover Seder. The family are close friends of Judith and Shai from Kibbutz Ginosar, and it was a delight to share the evening with them all. Although the two families are not religious, it was clear that the Seder is a significant occasion for renewing and sustaining their Jewish identity. I was especially impressed by the care taken by Miriam, our hostess, to choose a progressive Haggadah with a focus on social justice and compassion. Her own reflections on the meaning of Pesach and the search for God were beautiful, and would have graced any pulpit.

    Tuesday saw me heading back to Jerusalem for some meetings to set up an on-going arrangement for students from St Francis College to come to Jerusalem for short term placements as interns with the Anglican Church here. Julianne Stewart from Anglican Board of Mission Australia was in town for the week, so it was a good opportunity to meet with her and to discuss the proposal with local stakeholders. Good progress was made, so I am hoping we shall have the scheme up and running for next year.

    Wednesday night I attended an ecumenical prayer service for the Feast of the Annunciation at the chapel of the Clarisse Sisters in Nazareth. Although not dressed in clerical gear, I was placed in a seat in the very front row and given an order of service in Arabic. The singing was beautiful, and the young Italian priest who gave the homily spoke in very good Arabic (raising the bar for me in the eyes of my local friends). Abuna Suheil from the displaced Arab Christian community at Iqrit led some of the prayers. I had met him and the community there last July, and have mentioned them at the beginning of each of the BIBLE360 workshops that I presented over the past six months, so it was good to see him again. All five clergy present for the event joined in the blessing at the end of the service, although I was not required to speak!

    In among all these trips to Jerusalem and other events I have managed to get some further work done on the new book. Research is continuing on the archaeology of ancient Nazareth, but in the last 24 hours I have completed the first draft of a chapter that explores the social location of Jesus and his relationship with John the Baptist. I keep reminding myself that a book is just a series of 5,000 word essays, so a chapter a week should see me have the book ready by the end of my study leave.

  • Easter Day (31 March 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionaries

    At the Vigil
    First Reading
    A selection from the following list …

    • Genesis 1:1-2:4a and Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26
    • Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13 and Psalm 46
    • Genesis 22:1-18 and Psalm 16
    • Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 and Exodus 15:1b-13, 17-18
    • Isaiah 55:1-11 and Isaiah 12:2-6
    • Baruch 3:9-15, 3:32-4:4 or Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6 and Psalm 19
    • Ezekiel 36:24-28 and Psalm 42 and 43
    • Ezekiel 37:1-14 and Psalm 143
    • Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Psalm 98

    Romans 6:3-11 and Psalm 114
    Luke 24:1-12
    In the morning of Easter Day
    Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 25:6-9
    Ps. 118:1-2, 14-24
    I Cor. 15:1-11 or Acts 10:34-43
    John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12

    In the evening of Easter Day
    Isaiah 25:6-9
    Psalm 114
    I Corinthians 5:6b-8
    Luke 24:13-49
    The readings shown here are from the RCL list, and some passages may slightly in other listings.

    Introduction

    The traditions associated with Holy Week and Easter lie at the heart of the Christian faith dealing, as they do, with the character of Jesus, the circumstances of his death and the affirmation that not even death could prevent the successful outcome of the divine program (the good news of God’s alternative empire) which Christians believe to have been expressed (indeed, embodied) in and through his words and actions.

    There are doubtless historical elements in all this, however inaccessible to us after two thousand years, and no matter how variously weighted by those studying them.

    There is also a powerful mythology at work here, as the imagination of faith sees through and beyond the historical details to catch a glimpse of a transforming reality; a faith to live by.

    Our primary access to both the history of Jesus and the myth of Jesus is through story, and it is that story which Christian communities around the world will recount all over this week.

    Like the Native American storyteller quoted in Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (page 50) we may find ourselves saying:

    “Now I don’t know if it happened this way or not,
    but I know this story is true.”

    For many people, their personal and communal preparations for Easter are deeply impacted by the publication of some new discovery, or a controversial new theory, relating to Christian origins. It is, I suppose, a perverse kind of compliment to the enduring influence of Christianity even in our largely secular societies that the media sees an opportunity to make an impact (increase viewers, and multiply advertising revenues) by such tactics. In 2006 it was the Gospel of Judas story, in 2007 the so-called Jesus Tomb story, and in 2011 the anticipated Paschal media beat up was a claim to have two of the nails used to crucify Jesus. Up to the time of reviewing these notes, we seem to have been spared such a media event in 2013. Maybe the election of a new pope has exhausted the media interest in religion for now?

    These regular media events timed for release around Easter reinforce the wisdom of the native story tellers who know the truth power of a story lies in its capacity to speak the truth to the present, not the accuracy of its description of the past or its projection of the future.

    At the very least, we know that the earliest Christians found story telling a powerful way to develop and test their theology. The different stories created by those ancient Christian faith communities both encapsulated what they were thinking and also extended their thoughts in new directions. The contest of sacred stories reflects a contest of theologies.

    Our modern question (But did it happen that way?) is ultimately not as urgent, nor its answer so satisfying, as the ancient question: What truth is in this story?

    Jesus Database

    There are several items from the Jesus Database inventory of historical Jesus traditions that are relevant to the Easter celebrations, and a convenient single gateway to those items has been provided at the following page:

    For items that are more closely related to the Passion Narrative, see:

    Jesus Seminar Voting Data

    A convenient summary of the Jesus Seminar’s work on the resurrection traditions is available at:

    The Once and Future Bible: Easter essay

    One important topic not able to be considered in chapter 9 of The Once and Future Bible was the death and resurrection of Jesus. This would include what we know about the circumstances of Jesus’ death, the date of his death, who was directly responsible for it, how Jesus may have viewed the prospect of his own death, and how the earliest resurrection traditions may have developed.

    This online essay offers supplementary materials around some of these questions.Some of these pages will continue to be edited and modified, but you are welcome to use the material that has already been prepared and published.

    The original form of the material is also available as a PDF download from that site for those wishing to print and read as a traditional text. Naturally, this means a loss of access to the hyperlinked materials embedded at various points.

    Sermons and Liturgies for Easter

    Please add links at this point for liturgies, prayers and sermons relevant to this weekend’s services, whether they are part of this wiki site or located on an external site.

  • Study Leave — Week Three

    Tiberias, Israel
    Friday, 22 March 2013

    azimuth:326.617615||elevation:90.000000||horizon:0.000000
    A sunny morning in Tiberias catching up on reading

    It is now three weeks since I arrived in Israel for my sabbatical, and the place is abuzz with preparations for Passover and—for the Western Christians in Jerusalem—Holy Week.

    For the local Christians, Easter will be observed on the first weekend in May and outside Jerusalem all the Christian communities have agreed to observe the Orthodox calendar this year. This creates some liturgical dissonance for visitors such as myself, but I welcome the grassroots collaboration between often competing Christian communities and rejoice in the messiness of it all.

    The shops have been crazy; like a pre-Christmas shopping frenzy back home. And I am told the traffic will be chaotic after the weekend as people take advantage of the holidays to visit family and friends.

    During this third week of my study leave I seem to have settled into more of a pattern. I went to Jerusalem on Sunday, without needing to use the GPS (despite taking at least one wrong turn in the process). Not long after arriving at St George’s College I ran into John Stuart, an Australian serving as chaplain to SGC this year, and we made arrangements to celebrate St Patrick’s Day at a nearby Irish Pub in West Jerusalem. O’Connells did not offer Irish Stew (despite it being on the menu), so we settled for “Australian Burgers” and Guinness. It was lovely couple of hours, and we found that we have so much in common. Finding such interesting people in unexpected places is one of the joys of travel.

    Monday and Tuesday were spent in the coin department at Israel Antiquities Authority beneath the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Some real progress has been made with the coin database project, although at times it seems that really just means I am getting a clearer sense of the mess I am seeking to clean up.

    The other major project on my agenda is beginning to call for my attention. Before my study leave is finished, I need to have the first draft of a new book for Polebridge Press. This will be the long-awaited (by me, at least) ‘Jesus book’ and it will draw together some of my work at Bethsaida, as well as other historical Jesus projects and biblical studies. The last few days I was able to spend some time on questions around the towns Jesus visited and avoided, including what we now know about Nazareth in the first couple of decades of the Common Era.

    While at a wonderful concert in Nazareth on Wednesday evening, I met a local gentleman with a deep connection to Nazareth Village project. We soon discovered that we hold very different views on the size of Nazareth in the first century, and the date of its founding as a Jewish village. He has offered to guide me through some of the local archaeological sites not open to tourists, and I am very much looking forward to that. In the meantime I have done some further reading on the key archaeological investigations at Nazareth so I am well prepared for our discussions (and re-assured in my existing opinions!).

    It has been good to have a break from the obsession with coins, although it was a real thrill to hold in my hands this last week a coin minted by Cleopatra during her ill-fated relationship with Mark Antony, as well as a coin of Agrippa II (who crossed paths with Paul of Tarsus according to Acts 25) dated to 82/83 CE. This date is about 10 years after the end of the Jewish War, while Agrippa continued to reign—and around the time that Josephus was sending Agrippa drafts of his own book project, The Jewish War, for comment and correction. Both coins were found at Bethsaida in 2012.

    With the imminent holy days I am planning to take a break from the research and enjoy time with friends here. I suspect the highlight 0f the next few days will be a visit to the Herod exhibition at the Israel Museum on Sunday. I have walked past it several times already, so now I plan to go and see the exhibition for myself. From all reports it is definitely well worth seeing.

  • Palm Sunday (24 March 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionaries

    Liturgy of the Palms
    Matthew 21:1-11 (Year A)
    Mark 11:1-11 or John 12:12-16 (Year B)
    Luke 19:28-40 (Year C)
    Liturgy of the Passion
    Hebrew Scriptures: Isaiah 50:4-9a & Psalm 31:9-16
    The Apostle: Phil 2:5-11
    The Gospel:
    Matthew 26:14-27:66 or Matthew 27:11-54 (Year A)
    Mark 14:1-15:47 or Mark 15:1-39,(40-47) (Year B)
    Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49 (Year C)

    The readings shown here are from the RCL list, and some passages may slightly in other listings.

    For links to resources for other holy days this week, see:

    Introduction

    This Sunday marks the transition from the observance of Lent to the beginning of Holy Week. Its themes are not restricted to those of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but extend through to the trial and execution of Jesus. With the solemn reading of the Passion at the Gospel, there is a vast amount of biblical text to process.

    The passion narrative is the most history-like part of the Gospel tradition. Here we are dealing with political events, in a familiar place and involving historical figures known to us. Further, we are dealing with perhaps the most secure historical fact of the entire Jesus tradition, namely his crucifixion. In addition, here we seem to have a connected and coherent series of events from the Last Supper through to the arrest in the garden and then the trials and the execution itself.

    • See Passion Narrative for a list of the major episodes with links to texts and discussion.

    The international controversy surrounding the release of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ a few years ago now (2004) made regular worshippers as well as the wider community more conscious of the personal and historical dimensions of Jesus’ trial and execution. Whether we affirm the film or take issue with some aspect or other of its treatment of the story, the interest shown in the film may deepen our appreciation of Palm Sunday and Holy Week.
    NT scholarship in the mid-20C was persuaded that the Passion Narrative was the first part of the Gospel tradition to take definite shape. The events were so central to the apostolic preaching (the “kerygma”) that some account of how Christians came to believe in a crucified Messiah would have had to be offered to Jews and Greeks alike.

    More recent scholarship has questioned this assumption. Even if the story of Jesus’ betrayal and death was fashioned in the 40s, as Crossan suggests, it is no longer seen as a simple historical narrative. In particular, the relationship between the OT prophecies and the Gospel narrative has been reconsidered.

    As a result, while the historicity of the core event (Jesus crucified) is affirmed, the political and theological agenda of the Gospel narratives has been increasingly recognized.

    Key themes running through the passion narrative include:

    • Jesus as an heroic figure familiar to a Greek world
    • Jesus as an innocent victim familiar from Jewish tradition
    • “according to the Scriptures” as a sign of divine providence
    • transfer of responsibility for Jesus’ death from Rome to the Jews
    • claims to apostolic authority by those who were witnesses to the resurrection

    The online resources gathered in this site may be helpful when thinking about these traditions, along with the following selected perspectives.

    Perspectives

    The Greek hero myth

    The pervasive Greek hero myth seems to have provided GMark with a way of presenting the Jesus story to people familiar with Greek culture. The classic forms of the hero myth, as outlined by Gregory Riley in One Jesus, Many Christs (1997:39ff), may be paraphrased as follows. The points of contact with the familiar story of Jesus are immediately evident.

    The Greek hero was properly the offspring of divine and human parents: most often a virgin human mother and a male god. As offspring of divine-human liaisons they were especially gifted: prowess, or strength, or beauty, or wisdom. The hero was a kind of bridge between divine and human worlds, and destined to be a central player in divine plan to control balance of justice (diké) among humans. As the one chosen by fate for such a destiny, the hero was also something of a victim to fate: constrained by something beyond personal control. Under these circumstances the willing choice to die for principle and with honor could be a pivotal heroic event. These gifted yet tragic heroes often found they had powerful enemies: sometimes a divine parent (or a jealous divine rival) may turn against the hero. In any case, success and popularity could provoke divine envy. Closer to home, however, were the major human opponents—usually rulers and kings with the hero cast as a subversive element boldly refusing the unjust dictates of those in authority. In the stories of the hero, ruler and city can suffer for their unjust treatment of the innocent hero. Inevitably, the hero faces a test of character that provides an opportunity to reveal his true colors. Not all heroes pass the test, but those who do can find that suffering results in learning. At times the hero is something of a bait in a cosmic trap, with his own suffering and death serving as bait to catch and destroy the wicked. In the Greek tradition, heroes often face an early death: painful and in the prime of life. While skepticism about an afterlife was typical of the Greek outlook, heroes were assured a place of honor after death. They would inherit immortality and claim their place in the Elysian Fields. The dead hero could then become an immortal protector of the living, having secured an ironic victory in his untimely and undeserved death. After such a faithful death the hero could protect his own devotees as they also faced the test of living faithfully in a dangerous world. These dead heroes offered protection and help in dire circumstances, with the cult of the heroes being most widespread religious activity in ancient world.

    It is immediately clear that the early Christian accounts of Jesus fit well with this common structure of meaning in the Hellenistic world. Those accounts would have resonated with the ancient archetype of The Hero. Indeed, Jesus himself would have been affected to some degree at least by such models of perfection. While the ancient Jewish biblical tradition can be assumed as the major influence upon Jesus, we cannot exclude the possibility that he was familiar with this widely-attested Hellenistic myth. At the same time, it is more likely that the early Christian story tellers chose to cast Jesus into this role, rather than the traditional assumption that Jesus is described this way because that was the historical reality.

    The Innocent Victim

    Jewish traditions about the suffering of the innocent victim would also have played their part in shaping Jesus’s own mind set and in determining how Christians would later choose to describe him.

    This pattern is best known to many people these days from the stories of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) or perhaps Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6), but in the 1C the Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-5:23 offered a powerful outline of the innocent victim who suffers at the hands of the wicked. When reading that passage, it is not hard to imagine a Jewish-Christian audience hearing it as a description of Jesus.

    Burton L. Mack (A Myth of Innocence, 1988:267) has taken up the work done by George W.E. Nickelsburg on the innocent victim tradition in second Temple Judaism and applied it to Mark’s Gospel. The basic elements of this Jewish myth of the innocent victim may be paraphrased as follows:

    After an introduction to the characters, there is some act by the victim that provokes the unjustified hostility of the wicked and results in them engaging in a conspiracy to eliminate this threat to their power. When the decision is made to dispose of this troublesome opponent, the response by the victim is one of trust and obedience to the divine requirements. A false accusation is brought against the innocent person, resulting in a trial and condemnation. The innocent can protest in vain (when the accusation is false) and pray for deliverance, but must still suffer the ordeal imposed on them by the unjust rulers. The reaction of others to the unjust treatment of the victim may also be noted. In the end, of course, the victim is rescued in some way and vindicated. This vindication can involve some form of exaltation to a place of substantial dignity and power, much to the shame of the unjust perpetrators. the newly invested judge/ruler is acclaimed by the faithful, while those who had mistreated him fear for their own fates before receiving their deserved punishment.

    This indigenous Jewish tradition about the innocent victim may offer one way to interpret the early Christian claim that Jesus’ suffering and exaltation were “according to the Scriptures.” We may be mistaken to look for texts that predict the suffering of the Messiah. Instead, perhaps we need to read the story of Jesus through the lens of the suffering Righteous One.

    The words placed on the lips of Peter by the author of Luke-Acts show just such a way of speaking about Jesus’ death:

    When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. [Acts 3:12-15]

    Biblical Interpretation

    Jewish midrash, and particularly the technique of pesher interpretation, may provide a clue as to how such classic models from both Greek and Jewish sources could be applied to Jesus. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has given us many examples of how the ancient sacred writings were read during the time of Jesus and the first Christians. Operating from the assumption that the texts were intended to provide clues for the reader to identify God’s purposes in the present time, details in the older writings were reinterpreted as cryptic references to current events and persons.

    What is true of isolated lines from the Psalms is also true of extended passages such as Psalm 22 (widely seen until recently as an awesome prediction of Jesus’ crucifixion rather than as the quarry from which Mark derived the details for his passion narrative) or Isaiah — both of which feature in this week’s lectionaries.

    The Letters of Paul

    Paul’s own writings offer an opportunity to approach the traditions of Jesus’ death from another perspective. While the impact of the previous considerations has been to deconstruct the historicity of the Gospel accounts, the letters of Paul allow us to see how someone writing before any of the Gospels were composed could talk about the death of Jesus.

    Several important passages are to be found in 1 Corinthians. In 1 Cor 11, Paul refers to the last supper as an event on the night that Jesus was betrayed and to the institution of the “Supper of the Lord.” Later, in ch. 15, Paul quotes a summary of the core events concerning Jesus:

    Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you–unless you have come to believe in vain. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1Cor 15:1-7)

    Elsewhere in that same letter we find Paul extolling the cross as the central theme of the gospel that he proclaims:

    For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1Cor 1:18-24)

    It is clear that Paul has an interpretation of Jesus that is centered around his death. While the later Gospel narratives might present Jesus’ life and death in heroic terms, and eulogize him as the innocent victim of corrupt rulers, those are not the notes struck by Paul. Instead, Paul is more inclined to speak of Jesus’ death as a sacrificial demonstration of ultimate trust (pistis) by Jesus in God — a trust that allows God to be forgiving to everyone, just as Abraham’s legendary trust had resulted in covenant blessings for the Jewish people.

    Elizabeth A. Johnson

    Johnson offers a fresh interpretation of the death of Jesus in her essay, “The Word was Made Flesh and Dwelt Among Us: Jesus Research and Christian Faith.” Her views are perhaps captured in this provocative paragraph:

    To put it simply, Jesus, far from being a masochist, came not to die but to live and to help others live in the joy of the divine love. To put it boldly, God the Creator and Lover of the human race did not need Jesus’ death as an act of atonement but wanted him to flourish in his ministry of the coming reign of God. Human sin thwarted this divine desire yet did not defeat it. (p. 158)

    See Jesus Research and Christian Faith for additional notes and extracts from Johnson’s essay.

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

    Music Suggestions

    See the following sites for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre:

  • Study Leave — Week Two

    After the excitement of the first week—with my arrival in Israel, settling into the house and the first trip to Jerusalem to work in the coin department at IAA—this has been a much quieter week.

    My first excursion at the IAA coin department was so productive there was no need to return to Jerusalem this week. I had more than sufficient material to keep me going all week. Instead of returning south, I remained in Tiberias and worked away at the task of checking that all of the information on each of the 350+ index cards has been included in the Excel spreadsheet that serves as a temporary database file. As I write I am within sight of the end of that task, and should have it done by this evening.

    One result of staying in Tiberias was that I have had considerable solitude. That is a very different reality than my usual work and life context, but an interesting set of dynamics to experience. I am rarely alone with my thoughts and never find myself feeling lonely, but at times this week it has felt very lonely.

    The highlight of the week on a personal note was my birthday on Monday, with greetings from family and friends around the world.  I was treated to a lovely dinner at a local Chinese restaurant by the lake in Tiberias.

    On Wednesday I was finally able to visit the Bethsaida site, which looks so very different in its Spring greenery. We were having another Khamseen event that day, so the sky was filled with dust and there was limited visibility. It still made for some lovely photographs of the site.

    The long days sitting at the laptop and checking the index cards given me a good sense of what coins are in the collection at this stage, and where we have gaps in the recorded information. I still find myself surprised to be dealing with coins from Alexander the Great, Herod, Claudius, Trajan, and the like. Some of them minted right here in Tiberias, all of them in circulation here at some stage in the past—and now recovered from the dig at Bethsaida.

    I am finding that my Hebrew cursive skills are developing as this project proceeds. I am now recognising the names of mints, denominations, etc even though they are only recorded in hand written modern Hebrew. Doubtless this will also assist with the challenge of  grocery shopping when all the labels are in Hebrew.

    Next week I will be spending a few more days in Jerusalem to push into the next phase of the coin project. This will involve tracking down published descriptions of the coins, as well as descriptions of similar coins, so these can be prepared for inclusion in the database. Along with the images of the coins, these technical numismatic records will add real value to the database as a research tool for my colleagues in the Consortium for the Bethsaida Excavations Project.

    However, in the meantime we have the Jewish weekend (Friday/Saturday), so it is almost play time for me …