gregoryjenks

Category: Lectionary

Links to lectionary notes from the Jesus Database site.

  • Last Sunday after Pentecost (Reign of Christ) (24 November 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Jeremiah 23:1-6 & Luke 1:68-79
    • Colossians 1:11-20
    • Luke 23:33-43

    Jesus Crucified

    There were almost 100 Seminar ballots on issues relating to the crucifixion tradition, including the historicity of the Passion Narrative and many of its component elements. For complete voting details see “The Jesus Seminar Voting Records: Passion Narrative” Forum (new series) 1.1 (Spring 1998) 227-233.

    Some of the key elements were assessed as follows:

    • Jesus was crucified
    • Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate
    • Jesus was crucified with the participation of the highest Jewish authorities
    • Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem
    • Jesus was crucified in some conjunction with Passover
    • Jesus was crucified at Golgotha

    The Seminar’s views on some of the elements found in this week’s Gospel were:

    • There was an inscription attached to the cross with the words, “King of the Jews.”
    • The two thieves came originally from Ps 21:17 (LXX) supported by Isa 53:12.
    • Casting lots for clothes is based on Ps 22:18.
    • Gall and vinegar to drink derives from Ps 69:21.
    • The episode in Luke 23:39-43 in which one of the criminals crucified beside Jesus believes in him is a report of an actual historical event.

    Mark 15:22-38 = Matt 27:33-51a = Luke 23:32-46

    The close literary relationship between the three synoptic Gospels can be seen in a horizontal line synopsis. It is clear that Luke has essentially followed Mark, except for his creative elaboration of the scene with the two thieves.

    There are three distinctive sayings attributed to Jesus in Luke’s version of the passion legend, and they were most likely not in the pre-Luke tradition:

    • The prayer for his tormentors to be forgiven as they did not know what they were doing is not found in some important MSS. It may have been added by a later scribe impressed with the similarities to Stephen’s death in Acts 7. The effect is to enhance the portrayal of Jesus as a Greek hero who goes to his death with courage and grace.
    • The promise of immediate participation in paradise for the penitent thief is found only in Luke.
    • Jesus’ prayerful commendation of his spirit to God’s care closely parallels the words of Stephen in Acts 7:59. Both Jesus and Stephen die as innocent heroes, and with their faith in God undiminished.

    On the festival of Christ the King, this passage highlights the character of Christ as a crucified king; and one meeting the needs of those around him even in his final moments. However, the promise of immediate participation in paradise is a strange promise to find on the lips of Jesus. The word “paradise” [Greek: paradeisos] occurs nowhere else in the Gospel tradition, and was originally a loan word adopted from Persian. It is found in just two other places in the NT:

    • 2 Cor 12:4 where Paul speaks obliquely of his own mystical experiences:

    It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven–whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person–whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows–was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.

    • RevJn 2:7 where those who are faithful are promised a share of the tree of life in the paradise of God:

    Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
    To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.

    Luke’s account of the death of the noble King

    Luke’s description of Jesus as the quintessential Greek hero contrasts with the way Jesus is portrayed in the other Passion accounts. We catch a glimpse of these differences if we focus just on the final words of Jesus in each Gospel:

    Mark 15
    Matthew 27
    John 19
    Luke 23
    34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 46 And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 26–27 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. 34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
        28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” 43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
    37 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. 30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. 44–47 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, … Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last.

    While Matthew has stuck quite close to the account created by Mark, John and Luke each take considerable liberties as they develop the story’s potential as a classic scene in the final moment’s of their hero’s life:

    The Johannine Jesus has no sense of desolation, but rather sets about making the arrangements for his mother’s care. Knowing that Scripture must be fulfilled, John’s Jesus feigns thirst in order to prompt the mere mortals in the script to offer him a drink. Finally, in John 19 Jesus expires with a victory shout.

    Luke’s Jesus is even more the classical Greek hero. Jesus seeks divine forgiveness for those acting as executioners. He converts one of his fellow victims and offers him a place in heaven that very day. In stark contrast with the Jesus who feels himself abandoned by God, this Jesus deliberately commends his spirit into the Father’s hands and then breathes his last.

    Clearly we are not dealing with historical recollection, but with literary artistry.

    Jesus Database

    • 005 Crucifixion of Jesus – (1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) GPet. 4:10-5:16,18-20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22-38 = Matt 27:33-51a = Luke 23:32-46; (2c) John 19:17b-25a,28-36; (3) Barn. 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem. 16:3-4 (=Isaiah 53:1-12); (4b) 1 Clem. 16.15-16 (=Psalm 22:6-8); (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1.2

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

  • Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost (17 November 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Isaiah 65:17-25 & Isaiah 12
    • 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
    • Luke 21:5-19

    Good news for this side of death

    The oracles in the final few chapters of Isaiah are commonly thought to come from an anonymous prophet dealing with the disappointment of life in Jerusalem after the return from exile in Babylon. The hopes and promises of the central chapters of the Isaiah Scroll were not fulfilled. Yet the promise of “a new thing” is reclaimed and recycled in the lacklustre realities of Jerusalem ca 500 BCE.

    What catches my spiritual breath as I encounter these ancient texts again this year is not the hope for divine intervention. That is little more than whistling in the dark, but if it helps us to cope with the shadows and does not drive us to harm others, it serves a positive purpose. Rather, what engages my attention is the confidence that poverty and social disadvantage are entirely incompatible with the reign of God. Note these amazing words in verses 20-22 of this week’s OT reading:

    No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,
    or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
    for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
    and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
    They shall build houses and inhabit them;
    they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
    They shall not build and another inhabit;
    they shall not plant and another eat;
    for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
    and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. (Isaiah 65:20–22 NRSV)

    Here is a bold vision of the good life, the blessed life. While ever social disadvantage exists among us we have not yet attained the final intention of God for humanity.

    So much religious effort is directed to assuaging our fear of death, yet the prophets would have us work for justice on this side of death. Now that would be good news for our world, if only the religious communities would embrace this radical social agenda. Imagine what an impact we could have on our politicians and our neighbours if we practised a religion that was more concerned about enjoying God’s blessings on this side of death, rather than securing fire insurance for the other side of death.

    Gospel: Jesus and the Temple

    At the heart of this week’s Gospel lies an ancient oracle of Jesus about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.

    The following photographs show excavations down to a first-century street adjacent to the temple in Jerusalem.

    FIRST PHOTO (looking south): part of the Herodian structure on which the temple itself was located (to the left), the remains of some shops (to the right, about half way up) and broken blocks of limestone resulting from the conflagration when the temple was razed. The post-Crusader city walls are visible in the background.

    Fallen Stones.jpg

    SECOND PHOTO (looking north): the Herodian structure is now on the right, while the remains of ancient shops are more visible on the left, and the broken blocks of limestone are in the distance.

    WesternWallFromSouth.jpg

    The temple and its related activities had a profound economic and social impact in 1C Jerusalem, and its destruction by the Romans was a major setback for the city and for the Jewish community in the Roman world. For extracts from Josephus concerning Herod and the significance of the Temple project, see Mahlon H. Smith: Into His Own.

    The traditional material dealing with Jesus’ words about the temple’s fate is particularly complex. That, in itself, may be an indicator of the sensitivity of the core question for Jesus’ earliest followers and especially so after the Jewish War of 66/73CE ended with the temple in ruins. There seem to be four intertwined traditions that have an explicit reference to the fate of the temple:

    • A saying of Jesus threatening to destroy the temple
    • A saying where Jesus foretells the siege of the city and its destruction
    • A saying of Jesus predicting total destruction of the imposing structures (not one stone upon another)
    • An incident where Jesus threatened or symbolically enacted the destruction of the temple

    Marcus Borg devotes chapter 7 of his Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus to a discussion of Jesus and the Temple, with an extended treatment of the texts found in this cluster.

    He begins with a brief study of temple ideology in the Second Temple period, citing the interesting parallel from Paul in 1 Cor 3:16-17 which retains that traditional ideology even when reinterpreting “temple” as reference to the physical body of the Christian:

    Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
    If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person.
    For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

    Like Crossan (see below), Borg understands the “disruption in the Temple” as a prophetic or symbolic act (p. 182) that would never have been without some prophetic pronouncement to clarify its significance (p. 184).

    Borg then directs his attention to the prophetic saying as attested by the complex set of sayings relating to the fate of Jerusalem and its temple that are placed on the lips of Jesus in our sources. He identifies 8 texts as example of “words against the Temple” and works his way through them carefully. Four of these sayings (Mark 14:58; 15:29-30; John 2:19; Acts 6:14) speak of Jesus as the agent of the temple’s destruction and promise its replacement. They are also typically attributed to the enemies of Jesus. Another set of 4 sayings (Mark 13:2; Luke 19:42-44; 21:20-24; 13:34-35) are more likely to have originated from the prophetic oracle of Jesus that must have accompanied his symbolic act in the temple. Borg also associates the enigmatic “desolating sacrilege” saying with this group.

    … if Jesus did not prophesy about Jerusalem, then who was the insightful prophet in that generation [after him] who was responsible for both this concern and this use of the Hebrew Bible? Of course, the rhetorical question does not imply that the oracles contain the ipsissima verba Jesus, but it does imply that they reflect the ipsissima vox Jesus. Quite probably the Jesus movement and perhaps the evangelist reworked the language of the threats, but without an initial impulse from Jesus, it is difficult to account for their presence in the primitive tradition. (p. 203)

    Then Borg draws upon the sayings of Jesus that speak of a threat of war coming on the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Luke 13:1-5; 23:27-31; 17:31 (= Mark 13:14b-16); Matt 26:52b.

    Unlike Crossan, Borg observes that Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s destruction was not because Jesus opposed the temple:

    … the destruction was not threatened because of an in-principled objection to Temple worship … Indeed, about the role of the Temple in Jewish worship (including sacrifice), Jesus did not say much. There is only the vague notion of “another Temple” coming from the mouths of accusers and mockers. Though the early Christian movement rapidly spiritualized the understanding of the Temple … there is little evidence for this in the synoptics. They never report that Jesus opposed the Temple on the grounds that it was obsolete, or that he objected to sacrifice in principle. Indeed, about the Temple as cult there is silence. (p. 211)

    John Dominic Crossan [Historical Jesus, 354-60] begins by noting the work of Jonathan Z. Smith (“The Temple and the Magician,” 1977) who established that a deep tension between traditional sacred places and the emerging role of the sacred person was typical of hellenistic societies in the last two centuries before the Common Era. Crossan goes on to outline the structural conflict between Jesus and the temple as follows:

    Not only John the Baptist but, even more, Jesus, fit within that wider and profounder antinomy. John offered an alternative to the Temple but from another fixed location, from desert and Jordan rather than from Zion and Jerusalem. Jesus was, as we have seen, atopic, moving from place to place, he coming to the people rather than they to him. This is an even more radical challenge to the localized univocity of Jerusalem’s Temple, and its itinerancy mirrored and symbolized the egalitarian challenge of its protagonist. No matter, therefore, what Jesus thought, said, or did about the Temple, he was its functional opponent, alternative, and substitute; his relationship with it does not depend, at its deepest level, on this or that saying, this or that action. (p. 355)

    In seeking to unravel the complexities represented in this cluster of sayings, Crossan notes the “intensive damage control” to be observed in Mark 13, 14 and 15. Mark is at pains to argue that Jesus did not threaten to destroy the temple himself; only his enemies make that assertion in Mark’s Gospel while Jesus (in ch 13) pointedly schedules the destruction of Jerusalem some time prior to the parousia of the Son of Adam. Still, as Crossan observes, that Markan spin only seeks to underline the fact that in certain Christian circles prior to and contemporary with Mark, there had been a belief that Jesus had said or done something to threaten destruction of the temple and also that the destruction of the temple was understood to be associated with the parousia.

    Behind the confused set of sayings about the fate of the temple there lies the incident in which Jesus is described as taking some action to disrupt the functioning of the temple. We seem to have two independent versions of this tradition: Mark (with Matt and Luke parallels) and John (where it occurs near the start of Jesus’ ministry). Mark’s version makes it clear that this event was a prophetic condemnation of the temple, as the events in the temple are bracketed by the story of Jesus cursing a useless fig tree and then returning to find it withered and dead.

    Crossan proposes that there was some historical action by Jesus that symbolically destroyed the temple (at least to the extent of some disruption to its functioning), and that this action was accompanied by a prophetic saying by Jesus in which he foretold the complete and utter destruction of the site.

    Subsequently, according to Crossan, the story of the action in the temple developed with various biblical texts being drawn into service to explain and justify Jesus’ actions. Meanwhile the saying came to be reinterpreted as either a reference to the resurrection or to the parousia.

    Jesus Database

    • 049 Temple and Jesus – (1) Thom 71; (2a) Mark 13:1-2 = Matt 24:1-2 = Luke 21:5-6; (2b) Luke 19:41-44 (2c) Mark 14:55-59 = Matt 26:59-61; (2d) Mark 15:29-32a = Matt 27:39-43= (!)Luke 23:35-37; (2e) Acts 6:11-14; (2f) Mark 11:15-17 = Matt 21:12-13 = Luke 19:45-46; (2g) Luke 13:34-35; (2h) Mark 13:14a = Matt 24.15a = Luke 21:20*; (3a) John 2:13-17; (3b) John 2:18-22
      [NOTE: Items marked with an asterix are not in Crossan’s inventory of early Jesus traditions, but they are included in his Sayings Parallels: 191 Jerusalem Indicted; 449 Temples Symbolic Destruction; 456 Temples Actual Destruction; 457 Jerusalem Destroyed; 466 Temple and Jesus. Please also note that the item numbers in that collection do not match with numbers used in his later inventory that forms the basis of this database.]
    • 062 Spirit under Trial – (1) 1Q: Luke 12:11-12 = Matt 10:19-20; (2) Mark 13:11 = Matt 10: 19-20 = Luke 21:14-15; (3) John 14:26
    • 064 The Last Days – (1) Did. 16:3-5; (2) Matt 24:10-12; (3a) Mark 13:3-10,12-20 = Matt 24:3-22 = Luke 21:7-13,16-24; (3b) Matt 10:17-18; (3c) Luke 17:31-32.

    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

    • Joyful, joyful we adore you – TiS 152
    • Seek ye first – TiS 745
    • Feed us now, bread of life – TiS 538
    • Community of Christ – TiS 473

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

  • Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost (10 November 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Haggai 1:15b-2:9 & Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21 (or Psalm 98)
    • 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
    • Luke 20:27-38

    Introduction: The Sadducees

    This story raises a number of interesting questions, as it is one of very NT passages that even mention the Sadducees. In its present location in the story of Jesus’ final days, the story functions as an illustration of the rising tension between Jesus and the Jerusalem authorities.

    If it could be established that it preserves some memory of Jesus’ own teachings on the resurrection, this story would be, as John P. Meier says, “a unique and precious relic that allows us to appreciate more fully Jesus’ own views on what the future coming of the kingdom would mean” (A Marginal Jew, III:443). Few scholars are willing to go that far, but the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar were so divided over the authenticity of this story that the outcome was a compromise Gray vote.

    In the notes this week we focus on the protagonists of Jesus in this story: the Sadducees.

    The NT and the Sadducees

    When the three variants of this single story are excluded (Mark 12:18-27 = Matthew 22:23-33 = Luke 20:27-40), we find very few references to the Sadducees:

    Matthew adds them to the Pharisees as stock elements in his description of John the Baptist (Matt 3:7 – “But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming …”) and again in chapter 16 where they appear as little more than decoration to the story:

    • Matthew 16:1 – The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Jesus they …
    • Matthew 16:6 – … of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
    • Matthew 16:11 – Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!
    • Matthew 16:12 – … and Sadducees.

    Mark only mentions the Sadducees in this story of the dispute about the resurrection, and makes no connection between these influential members of the Jerusalem hierarchy and the arrest, trial and death of Jesus.
    John does not mention the Sadducees at all.
    Luke has no other reference to the Sadducees in his Gospel, but in the Acts of the Apostles does refer to them as one element among the Jerusalem authorities:

    • Acts 4:1 – the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, …
    • Acts 5:17 – him (that is, the sect of the Sadducees), being filled with …
    • Acts 23:6 – When Paul noticed that some were Sadducees and others were …
    • Acts 23:7 – … and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.
    • Acts 23:8 – (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, …

    None of the NT epistles mention the Sadducees, not even Paul who might be expected to have known several personally and who Acts describes as having been commissioned by the (Sadducee) High Priest to harrass the early Christians.

    Flavius Josephus

    Josephus describes the Sadducees in his writings that are more or less contemporary with Matthew:

    Life

    And when I was about sixteen years old, I had a mind to make trim of the several sects that were among us. These sects are three: — The first is that of the Pharisees, the second that Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes, as we have frequently told you; for I thought that by this means I might choose the best, if I were once acquainted with them all; so I contented myself with hard fare, and underwent great difficulties, and went through them all. Nor did I content myself with these trials only; but when I was informed that one, whose name was Banus, lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than grew upon trees, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequently, both by night and by day, in order to preserve his chastity, I imitated him in those things, and continued with him three years. (3) So when I had accomplished my desires, I returned back to the city, being now nineteen years old, and began to conduct myself according to the rules of the sect of the Pharisees, which is of kin to the sect of the Stoics, as the Greeks call them. (Life 2)

    Wars of the Jews

    2. For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes. (Wars of the Jews II.8.2)

    But the Sadducees are those that compose the second order, and take away fate entirely, and suppose that God is not concerned in our doing or not doing what is evil; and they say, that to act what is good, or what is evil, is at men’s own choice, and that the one or the other belongs so to every one, that they may act as they please. They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades. Moreover, the Pharisees are friendly to one another, and are for the exercise of concord, and regard for the public; but the behavior of the Sadducees one towards another is in some degree wild, and their conversation with those that are of their own party is as barbarous as if they were strangers to them. And this is what I had to say concerning the philosophic sects among the Jews. (Wars of the Jews II.8.14)

    Antiquities of the Jews

    9. At this time there were three sects among the Jews, who had different opinions concerning human actions; the one was called the sect of the Pharisees, another the sect of the Sadducees, and the other the sect of the Essenes. Now for the Pharisees, (11) they say that some actions, but not all, are the work of fate, and some of them are in our own power, and that they are liable to fate, but are not caused by fate. But the sect of the Essenes affirm, that fate governs all things, and that nothing befalls men but what is according to its determination. And for the Sadducees, they take away fate, and say there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal; but they suppose that all our actions are in our own power, so that we are ourselves the causes of what is good, and receive what is evil from our own folly. However, I have given a more exact account of these opinions in the second book of the Jewish War. (Antiquities of the Jews XIII.15.9)

    6. Now there was one Jonathan, a very great friend of Hyrcanus’s, but of the sect of the Sadducees, whose notions are quite contrary to those of the Pharisees. He told Hyrcanus that Eleazar had cast such a reproach upon him, according to the common sentiments of all the Pharisees, and that this would be made manifest if he would but ask them the question, What punishment they thought this man deserved? for that he might depend upon it, that the reproach was not laid on him with their approbation, if they were for punishing him as his crime deserved. So the Pharisees made answer, that he deserved stripes and bonds, but that it did not seem right to punish reproaches with death. And indeed the Pharisees, even upon other occasions, are not apt to be severe in punishments. At this gentle sentence, Hyrcanus was very angry, and thought that this man reproached him by their approbation. It was this Jonathan who chiefly irritated him, and influenced him so far, that he made him leave the party of the Pharisees, and abolish the decrees they had imposed on the people, and to punish those that observed them. From this source arose that hatred which he and his sons met with from the multitude: but of these matters we shall speak hereafter. What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side. But about these two sects, and that of the Essenes, I have treated accurately in the second book of Jewish affairs. (Antiquities of the Jews XIII.10.6)

    4. But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of any thing besides what the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent: but this doctrine is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them. (Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.1.4)

    1. AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, (23) who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. (24) Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest. (Antiquities of the Jews XX.9.1)

    The Historian and the Sadducees

    Like the quest for the historical Jesus, the historian’s quest to recover what the 1C Sadducees may actually have been like is complex. Our sources are limited and mostly composed by groups that were hostile to the Sadducees — the NT Gospels, Josephus and the early rabbinic texts.

    John P. Meier devotes 22 pages of his third volume (Companions and Competitors) to a review of the Sadducees. He concludes with this cautious statement:

    Are we to imagine that for some 200 years, the Sadducees as a group engaged in mass hypocrisy, focusing their religious concerns on a temple whose prayers and sacrifices, conducted often by Sadducean priests, contradicted what the Sadducees really believed and openly professed as their teaching?

    While such a damning portrait … is not unheard of in modern scholarship (they are often made the convenient “bad guys” or “heavies” of ancient Jewish history), it hardly seems supported by the evidence. I think it more reasonable to suppose that just as Josephus exaggerated a major tendency of Essene theology, turning the Essenes into fatalists for the sake of his neat pattern of Jewish philosophical schools, so too he exaggerated a major tendency of the pragmatic Sadducees, whose obligation to run the temple and govern Judean Jews during direct Roman rule naturally made them concentrate on human initiative, actions, and obligations …

    This, I think, is all we can say about the Sadducees. Even more than in the case of the Pharisees, our discussion of the Sadducees has had to reply on indirect arguments, reading between the lines, and hypotheses — only to produce a very fragmentary picture. We must resign ourselves to the fact that, short of the discovery of new documents from the ancient Mediterranean world, the Sadducees will remain for us very shadowy figures. (p. 410f)

    Jesus and the afterlife

    For a more detailed discussion of this week’s Gospel, and also the wider traditions about Jesus and afterlife, see Gregory C. Jenks, “Jesus and the afterlife: Glimpses of Jewish traditions in the teachings of Jesus.” in Heaven, Hell, and Afterlife; Eternity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Ed. J. Harold Ellens. 3 Vols. Vol 1, 147-168. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2013.
    The items from the Jesus Database that are especially relevant to this topic are listed below.

    Crossan’s data begins with the item number followed by a numerical symbol. A plus (+) or minus (-) sign indicates his judgment on whether the complex derives from the historical Jesus or from the later Jesus tradition. As Crossan himself notes, “the plus sign does not, of course, refer to all sources and units in a given complex but means that, despite any later changes and developments, the core of the complex derives from Jesus himself.” One complex—130 Dead Man Raised—is marked with ± to indicate that it “represents a dramatic historicization of something which took place over a much longer period” rather than a single event.

    Items listed by literary type

    Parables

    Aphorisms

    Chreiai

    • Man with Money – 253 The Rich Man: (1a) Mark 10:17–22 = Matt 19:16–22= Luke 18:18–23, (1b) GNaz.16a.
    • Hundredfold Reward – 200 Hundredfold Reward: (1) Mark 10:28–30 = Matt 19:27, 29 = Luke 18:28–30, (2) ApJas 4:1a.
    • On the Resurrection – 262 On the Resurrection: (1) Mark 12:18–27 = Matt 22:23–33 = Luke 20:27–40.
    • Patriarchs and Gentiles – 166 Patriarchs and Gentiles: (1) 2Q: Luke 13:28–29 = Matt 8:11–12.
    • Rich Man and Lazarus – 471 Rich Man and Lazarus: (1) Luke 16:19–31.
    • Penitent Thief – 005 Crucifixion of Jesus: (1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) GPet 4:10–5:16,18–20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22–38 = Matt 27:33–51a = Luke 23:32–46; (2c) John 19:17b–25a, 28–36; (3) Barn 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem 16:3–4 (=Isa 53:1–12); (4b) 1 Clem 16:15–16 (=Psalm 22:6–8); (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1:2.
    • Eat and Drink Anew – 016 Supper and Eucharist: (1a) 1 Cor 10:14–22; (1b) 1 Cor 11:23–25; (2) Mark 14:22–25 = Matt 26:26–29 = Luke 22:15–19a [19b–20]; (3) Did 9:1–4; (4) John 6:51b–58.

    Discourses

    Raising the Dead

    Items listed by attestation and date

    Stratum One (30-60 CE)

    • Penitent Thief – 005 Crucifixion of Jesus: (1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) GPet 4:10–5:16,18–20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22–38 = Matt 27:33–51a = Luke 23:32–46; (2c) John 19:17b–25a, 28–36; (3) Barn 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem 16:3–4 (=Isa 53:1–12); (4b) 1 Clem 16:15–16 (=Psalm 22:6–8); (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1:2.
    • When and Where – 008 When and Where: (1a) Thom 3:1 & P. Oxy654 3:1; (1b) Thom 51; (1c) Thom 113; (2) 2Q: Luke 17:23 = Matt 24:26; (3) Mark 13:21–23 = Matt 24:23–25; (4?) DialSav 16; (5) 1Q?: Luke 17:20–21.
    • Eat and Drink Anew – 016 Supper and Eucharist: (1a) 1 Cor 10:14–22; (1b) 1 Cor 11:23–25; (2) Mark 14:22–25 = Matt 26:26–29 = Luke 22:15–19a [19b–20]; (3) Did 9:1–4; (4) John 6:51b–58.
    • The Fishnet – 071 The Fishnet: (1) Thom 8:1; (2) Matt 13:47–48.
    • The Rich Farmer – 094 The Rich Farmer: (1) Thom 63:1; (2) 1Q?: Luke 12:16–21.
    • Treasure in Heaven – 099 Treasure in Heaven: (1) Thom 76:2; (2) 1Q: Luke 12:33 = Matt 6:19–20.
    • Lazarus – 130 Dead Man Raised: (1) John 11:1–57; (2a) Secret Mark 1v20–2r11a; (2b) Mark 14:51–52.
    • Whom to Fear – 158 Whom to Fear: (1a) 1Q: Luke 12:4–5 = Matt 10:28, (1b) 2 Clem 5:4b.
    • Patriarchs and Gentiles – 166 Patriarchs and Gentiles: (1) 2Q: Luke 13:28–29 = Matt 8:11–12.

    Stratum Two (60–80 CE)

    Stratum Three (80–120 CE)

    Stratum Four (120–150 CE)

    (No items relating to heaven, hell, or the afterlife are from the final stratum.)

    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

    • All People that on Earth do Dwell – TiS 59
    • Alleluia. Give thanks to the risen Lord – TiS 390
    • Halle halle – TiS 720
    • Amazing Grace – TiS 129
    • Where the wide sky rolls down – TiS 188

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

  • Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost (3 November 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 & Psalm 119:137-144
    • 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
    • Luke 19:1-10

    First Reading: Habakkuk

    The first reading this week strikes a prophetic tone that fits well with the eschatological themes that will dominate the next few Sundays as the liturgical year draws to a close.

    It seems that this prophetic message was shaped by the crisis in Jerusalem during the decade or two prior to the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE. Out of the darkness of that difficult time this prophet wonders “how long” it will be before the end comes:

    O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?
    Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?
    Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble?
    Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
    So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails.
    The wicked surround the righteous– therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

    The answer that Habakkuk received continues to reverberate across the centuries thanks to the way Paul used one line from this prophet:

    Then the LORD answered me and said:
    Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.
    For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
    If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.
    Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them,
    but the righteous live by their faith.

    The first part of that message is directly relevant to issues about the delay in Christ’s parousia that lie at the heart of 2 Thessalonians, but the final line in that excerpt was to be taken up by Paul of Tarsus as a key theological principle: those who are just live by their faith/trust. For Paul that becomes not so much the key to “when will it all end,” as the key to how to live within the blessing here and now. In the process he exploits an ambiguity in the Hebrew text which can be rendered, “the just by-their-faith-will-live” or even (as in Paul) “those who are justified-by-faith will live.”

    In Paul’s lexicon of faith, Jesus is both “the Just One, the Righteous One” and also the one whose unwavering trust in God brought blessings to all humanity just as Abraham’s unwavering trust brought blessing to his physical progeny.

     

     

    Second Reading: 2 Thessalonians

    Having completed a series of readings from the Pastoral Epistles, the RCL will conclude the year with a short series from 2 Thessalonians:

    • Proper 31C – 2Thess 1:1-4, 11-12
    • Proper 32C – 2Thess 2:1-5, 13-17
    • Proper 33C – 2Thess 3:6-13

    Quite unintentionally, this letter indicates just how important the legacy of Paul was in some Christian circles towards the end of the first century. As a self-conscious forgery that seeks to pass itself off as a genuine letter from Paul even while condemning other spurious letters circulating in his name, 2 Thessalonians reveals the importance of Paul’s authority even some decades after his death.

    Bart Ehrman comments on the question of forgeries in the ancient world:

    The frequent occurence of forgery in this period does not suggest a basic tolerance of the practice. In actuality, it was widely and strongly condemned, sometimes even within documents that are themselves patently forged. This latter ploy serves, of course, to throw the scent off one’s own deceit. One of its striking occurrences is in the orthodox Apostolic Constitutions, a book of ecclesiastical instructions, ostensibly written in the name of Jesus’ apostles, which warns its readers to avoid books falsely written in the name of Jesus’ apostles (VI, 16). One cannot help thinking of 2 Thessalonians, which cautions against letters falsely penned in Paul’s name (2:1-2); many New Testament scholars believe that 2 Thessalonians is itself non-Pauline.” [The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 23]

    For further resources on 2 Thessalonians, see Peter Kirby’s Early Christian Writings page.

    Gospel: Jesus and Zaccheus

    This week’s Gospel is the last of the units to be taken from the long narrative section that is unique to Luke, and it comes near the end of that extended reflection on discipleship.

    Several units that occur between last week’s story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14) and this week’s lection have been skipped by the lectionary editors:

    • Jesus Blesses the Children (18:15–17 = Mark 10:13-16 & Matt 19:13-15)
    • The Rich Young Man (18:18–30 = Mark 10:17-31 & Matt 19:16-30)
    • The Third Prediction of the Passion (18:31–34 = Mark 10:32-34 & Matt 20:17-19)
    • Healing of Bartimaeus (18:35–43 = Mark 10:46-52 & Matt 20:29-34)

    After the Zacchaeus story (another item with no parallel in the other Gospels) Luke has the Parable of the Pounds (19:11-27), which is also unique to his Gospel. His narrative then rejoins the Markan order with the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

    When dealing with a story that is known only from a single source there is always the possibility that we have an example of the author’s literary creativity rather than the chance survival of earlier material taken over from pre-existing tradition. While it is always possible that an authentic saying has survived in just a single witness, the probability of an item with single attestation being authentic is lower than an item that enjoys multiple independent attestation.

    This is a significant issue when reading Luke-Acts since so much of the tradition found there is not attested in any other source, for example:

    • Of the 522 items in John Dominic Crossan’s inventory of historical Jesus materials 342 items have single attestation
    • Luke uses 262 of the 522 items: 143 of these come from the 342 with single attestation, and 49 of them occur only in Luke. (The remaining 94 items with single attestation also occur in related texts such as Mark or Matthew, but the duplicate attestation is not independent.) These 143 items, and especially the subset of 49 unique to Luke, give us a window into the distinctive emphases of the Jesus movement known to Luke. It may be worth reflecting what our understanding of Christianity would be if we had only the material unique to Luke?

    The items unique to Luke include such classics as:

    • Conception of John the Baptist
    • Birth of John the Baptist
    • Jesus (in the Temple) at Twelve
    • The Good Samaritan
    • Martha and Mary
    • The Lost Coin
    • The Prodigal Son
    • The Unjust Steward
    • Rich Man and Lazarus
    • The Unjust Judge
    • Pharisee and the Publican
    • Salvation for Zacchaeus
    • Ascension of Jesus

    For further detailed information about the special Lucan material and its use in the lectionary, see:

    The Jesus Seminar developed a set of rules of evidence as it went about its task of reviewing all the extant Jesus materials. One of the subsets comprised the “Rules of Attestation” [A1—A4] and this outlines the issues when considering varying degrees of attestation:

    A1. Sayings or parables that are attested in two or more independent sources are likely to be old.
    A2. Sayings or parables that are attested in two different contexts probably circulated independently at an earlier time.
    A3. The same or similar content attested in two or more different forms has a life of its own and therefore may stem from old tradition.
    A4. Unwritten tradition that was captured by the written gospels relatively late may preserve very old memories.

    (These rules of evidence are outlined with examples and brief commentary in Robert W. Funk & Mahlon H. Smith, The Gospel of Mark, Red Letter Edition. Polebridge, 1991. Pages 29-52.)

     

    In this case, there seems to be general agreement that the story of Jesus converting Zacchaeus is a Lukan creation rather than being an older tradition that he took over and adapted. Most commentators see it as a remake of the story of Jesus calling Levi. For example, the conclusion of the Jesus Seminar is expressed as follows in The Acts of Jesus:

     

    Luke has constructed this scene to counterbalance the story of the rich ruler who has just rejected Jesus’ advice that he give his wealth to the poor (18:22). Although the ruler had observed the commandments his whole life, he apparently could not be saved without that final act of obedience (18:26). Zacchaeus is presented as Luke’s model for gaining the salvation the rich ruler failed to attain. (page 335)

    Taking our lead from that comment, we might note the way that the stories in 18:18-30 (The Rich Man) and 19:1-10 (Salvation for Zacchaeus) relate to the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 1:9-14. The observant and respectable believer fails to find salvation, while the humble and repentant tax farmer enjoys God’s favor in both cases. As a footnote, it is interesting that we know of a wealthy (and presumably respectable) tax collector at Jericho with the name Zacchaeus, as well as another from Caesarea with the name John. [E. Schurer, History of the Jewish People. (rev.ed. Vermes & Millar) I.374-76]

    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

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

  • Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost (27 October 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Joel 2:23-32 & Psalm 65
    • 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
    • Luke 18:9-14

     

    Joel: Dreaming of a better time

    The short prophetic book of Joel (a name meaning, “Yahweh is my God”) makes a rare appearance in the Sunday lectionary cycle this weekend. Apart from being used every year in the Ash Wednesday liturgy, Joel is only listed this one time in the Revised Common Lectionary. In some US denominational lectionaries, Joel is also listed for Thanksgiving Sunday, Year B. The Episcopal lectionary also lists Joel for Easter 6C. Interestingly, in each of these cases it is Joel chapter 2 from which the reading comes. Other potions of Joel are never heard in the Sunday liturgies.

    Almost certainly, the texts from Joel will be heard out of context. Like the passage chosen for this week, we are offered little more than a prophetic sound bite, and it is almost impossible to hear those words with any sense of their original context and significance. As it happens, even reading the entire book would not help us much as the date and circumstances of the book’s composition are obscure.

    The first part of the book (1:1-2:27 in English versions; chs 1 & 2 in the Hebrew) is concerned with recovery from a devastating locust plague. The plague is seen as punishment sent by God, but hope is offered for survival and recovery. This section of the book is impossible to date, and could fit with any period in the history of ancient Israel after the building of the Jerusalem temple. The second part of the book (2:28-3:21 in English; chs 3 & 4 in Hebrew) is comprised of two apocalyptic hymns that promise divine punishment on the surrounding nations as Yahweh the divine warrior fights on Israel’s behalf. Apart from the final verses of ch 2, these hymns are never read in the Sunday liturgies.

    The portion of Joel that does get drawn upon for Christian liturgies is chapter 2 with its mixture of repentance and renewal.

    The classic text from this passage is:

    Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
    your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
    Even on the male and female slaves, in those days,
    I will pour out my spirit. (Joel 2:28-29)

    With our naturalistic worldview, it is not fashionable to interpret natural disasters as divine punishments for national sins. Our secular societies also lack a theological framework within which to speak of God blessing or punishing a modern nation. Despite this, we are not reticent in asking God to bless our nation or save our sovereign; and in times of drought political and religious leaders call for prayers – and even repentance. As I prepare these words in October 2013 a major fire emergency is happening in Australia, with fears of a massive fire front several hundred kilometers wide.

    Hopefully no-one will claim these fires as divine punishment. They are simply part of the cycle of life-death-life in the forests of this ancient land. Indeed, such fires — catastrophic to many creatures (including humans) living in the forest or close to their edges — are essential for the propagation of some tree species. The forests depend on these fires that cause such devastation to us.

    Yet we might also wonder just when extreme weather events become the predicted results of climate change, and when we might discern a prophetic message in the cycle of nature about consumerism and industrialisation. We do not need to interpret these disasters as the gods inflicting punishment on recalcitrant nations in order to notice that collective and personal decisions (including our failure to make decisions) have inevitable consequences that affect not only humans, but also our fragile planet and all her life forms. Maybe we can pray that our old men (and especially our political “elders”) will indeed dream dreams of a better world, a more just society, and an economy that does not simply plunder the planet. While God may not punish us, Gaia certainly will.

    Joel speaks of a collective wisdom that will emerge when God pours out his spirit on everyone – male and female, old and young, and even the slaves. May that time come. Soon!

    Second Reading: Pseudo Paul and the Parchments

    The NT reading this week concludes a series from 2 Timothy, one of the three “Pastoral Epistles” attributed to Paul but almost certainly coming from second or third generation Paulinists who are addressing a different set of issues than those that Paul dealt with in the 50s and early 60s of the First Century.

    For links to online resources, and information about offline materials, see Peter Kirby’s Early Christian Writings web site, which dates the Pastorals between 100 & 150 CE.

    This week’s passage omits six verses that have been important in shaping the Christian imagination of Paul and his companions:

    Do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will pay him back for his deeds. You also must beware of him, for he strongly opposed our message. (2Tim 4:9-15 NRSV)

    Interestingly, the mention of “the parchments” may be one of our few early Christian references to written materials underlying the extant NT texts.

    While scrolls were regarded as a more prestigious form of publication, and the codex would soon emerge as the pre-eminent format for Christian texts, parchment and papyrus notebooks were also used. We have no extant examples before late 2C or early 3C, but they are mentioned by Quintilian c. 90 CE.

    The exact process by which early Christian texts developed remains unclear, but some non-Christians authors used the codex format already in late 1C and it was also beginning to be used for more substantial documents. The Roman poet Martial recommended parchment codices for travellers, and pocket editions of Homer, Virgil, Cicero, Livy, Ovid, etc were readily available. It seems that such convenient formats were popular with travellers and this may suggest why Christians adopted it so readily.

    Scrolls were probably the original format for the Gospels & Acts, but parchment notebooks were likely to have been better suited for itinerant Christian leaders—just as this Christian text from around the turn of the century indicates: “above all … (bring) the parchments!”

    The Vindolanda texts (Northumberland) discovered in the UK include large numbers of “thin slivers of smooth wood” which seemingly served as ancient version of the loose-leaf binder. These texts date to c. 100 CE and represent a further stage in the development of the codex.

    Gospel: Rethinking the Pharisees

    At the heart of this parable (which is preserved only in Luke) is a contrast between two familiar stereotypes: the Pharisee and the tax collector.

    As we saw in the notes for Proper 24C, the tax collectors were dubious characters in the view of 1C authors:

    … tax collectors are connected in Greco-Roman literature with those who trafficked in prostitution and slavery, particularly to brothel keepers and pimps, those responsible for supplying women and slaves for banquets (Kathleen Corley, Women and the Historical Jesus, 85)

    Assuming then, for our purposes, that the publican served as a symbol for non-observant Jews who were in engaged in corrupt and immoral conduct; what are we to make of the Pharisee in this little story?

    The cameo essay in The Acts of Jesus (pages 240-241), may serve as a starting point for discussion groups wishing to explore the history and character of the Pharisees and the historicity of their representation in the NT gospels.

    Our information about the Pharisees comes from just three sources:

    • the 1C Jewish writer, Josephus
    • early Christian texts such as the Gospels
    • rabbinic literature

    Each of these sources has its own strengths and weaknesses.

    (For an extract from John P. Meier on the limitations of rabbinic texts as sources for historical reconstruction in the NT times, click here.)

    The cameo essay in The Acts of Jesus traces the material relating to the Pharisees found in the Sayings Gospel Q, in the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of John. John P. Meier includes the treatment of the Pharisees in Matthew and Luke in his extended discussion of the Pharisees in A Marginal Jew: III. Companions and Competitors (pp. 289-340).

    The underlying theme of all recent studies on the Pharisees is the need to distinguish the historical Pharisees of the 1C from the negative stereotypes found in Christian writings from the NT Gospels down to recent Sunday School curricula. Not only was Paul himself both a Pharisee and a devotee of Jesus Christ, but at least some of the Pharisees who were contemporaries of Jesus seem to have been supportive of his mission.

    John Meier introduces a short review of 20C portraits of the ancient Pharisees with the following paragraph:

    The dirty little secret of NT studies is that no one really knows who the Pharisees were — although many thought they did before a wave of more critical studies hit the academic beach in the 1970s. As Joseph Sievers bluntly remarks, “we know considerably less about the Pharisees than an earlier generation ‘knew.’” The history of 20th-century research is strewn with many portraits of the Pharisees, most of which are discarded today. (p. 311)

    It is essential to distinguish between research into (the beliefs, history and practices of) the Pharisees, and the question of Jesus’ relationship with the Pharisees in the period 25-30 CE.

    If we take the former first, we can outline the likely history and emphases of the Pharisees as follows. What follows is a précis of Meier’s “thumbnail sketch” of their history and beliefs.

    The origins of the Pharisees lie around 150 BCE, during the early Hasmonean period. They were one of several religious and political responses to the crisis caused by the aggressive Hellenization of Jewish life in the time of Antiochus IV. The Pharisees’ response to this crisis was centered around a renewed commitment to the study of the Torah and the careful observance of customary requirements in certain areas of life, such as tithing, purity laws, the sabbath, marriage and divorce, and temple ritual. Essential to this Jewish renewal movement was a growing body of oral tradition that elaborated and expanded the requirements of the Torah. Underlying this passion for faithful living was the vision of Israel as a covenant community whose future blessing/punishment was contingent on observance of the Torah. Unlike other Jewish sects, the Pharisees had a missionary zeal and actively sought to spread their interpretation of Judaism among the people at large. When opportunity allowed them to do so, they were quite willing to use the power of the state to impose their practices on the general population. The Pharisees had little opportunity for political power under the despotic rule of Herod the Great and the Roman prefects of Judea, but gained renewed influence at the beginning of the Jewish War in 66 CE. After the Romans suppressed the Jewish uprising, the Pharisees coalesced with other devout and studious Jews at Yavneh to form the beginnings of the rabbinic movement. They then faded from history although their spiritual heirs, the rabbis, began to exert control over Palestinian Judaism. (Compare Meier, A Marginal Jew, III,330)

    The question of Jesus’ historical relationship to the Pharisees is rather more vexed. There is broad NT support for the tradition that Jesus engaged in dialogue and debate with Pharisees, even if every individual report of those interactions is subject to historical questions. Meier notes that “every single Gospel source” reflects this tradition:

    • Sayings Gospel Q: the woes in Luke 11:39-44
    • Mark: dispute stories such as 2:16,18,24 & 3:6; etc
    • Matthew: see 5:20; 21:24; 23:2; etc
    • Luke: 7:36-50; 11:37-38; 13:31; 15:2; etc
    • John: 3:1; 7:32,45,47f; 9:13,15f,40; 11:46f,57; 12:19,42

    While there is no reason to doubt that Jesus had common interests as well as significant differences with the Pharisees, we also have to allow for the fact that all these Christian texts are shaped by the struggle between “Christian Jews” and “Pharisaic Jews” in the decades after Easter, and especially after 70 CE. It remains an open question just how much of the NT portrait of Jesus engaged in dispute with the Pharisees reflects events prior to 30 CE or the tensions after 70 CE.

    A complicating factor in all this is the way that the stereotype of the Pharisee (and the adjective, “Pharisaic”) has played out in Christian history. This can be seen in the way that Jewish faith has been represented in Christian polemic as legalistic and hypocritical, in contrast to the heartfelt and authentic faith of Christians. In addition, the invective directed against “the Pharisees” and/or “the Jews” in NT texts such as Matthew and John has been taken as license for anti-Semitism within western Christianity. Dialogues which originated in the internal disputes of Christian Jews and Pharisaic Jews during the second half of the 1C become “texts of terror” (to recycle a phrase from Phyllis Trible) in the rhetoric of Gentile Christians.

    Given all these complexities, we have to move with care when interpreting texts that attack the Pharisees or, as in this week’s story, use them as stereotypes of misdirected piety.

    With that in mind, it is helpful to note that the rabbinic tradition itself offers parallels to the underlying spiritual dynamic in this week’s Gospel:

    R. Nahunya b. Haqaneh when he came out of the Bet Midrash used to say: “I give thanks before Thee, O Lord my God and God of my fathers, that Thou hast placed my portion with those who sit in the House of Study and not with those who sit at street corners, for I and they rise early, I to words of Torah, but they to vain matters; I and they labor, but I labor and receive a reward, whereas they labor and receive no reward; I and they hasten, I to the life of the world-to-come, but they to the pit of destruction.” [B. Ber. 28b]

    It was a favorite saying of the Rabbis of Yavneh: “I am a creature of God and my neighbor is also his creature; my work is in the city and his is in the field; I rise early to my work and he rises early to his. As he cannot excel in my work, I cannot excel in his work. But perhaps you say, I do great things and he does small things. We have learned that it matters not whether a man does much or little, if only he directs his heart to Heaven.” [B. Ber. 17a]

    In addition to these direct parallels, Samuel Lachs (Rabbinic Commentary, 324) notes the following saying attributed to the Hillel to Elder:

    Do not separate yourself from the community;
    trust not in yourself until the day of your death,
    judge not your fellowman until you have come into his place. [M. Avot 2.4]

    John Meier offers this summary of the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees:

    It is hardly a wonder, then, that Jesus would have interacted more with them than with any other Jewish movement or party. Both Jesus and the Pharisees shared a consuming desire to bring all Israel, not just an esoteric sect or a privileged elite, to the complete doing of God’s will as laid out in the Law and the prophets. No doubt Jesus and the Pharisees would have agreed on many basic points: God’s free election of Israel, his gift of the Law, the need to respond wholeheartedly to the Law’s demands in one’s everyday life, God’s faithful guidance of Israel through history to a future consummation involving the restoration of Israel, a final judgment, the resurrection of the dead, and perhaps some sort of eschatological or messianic figure as God’s agent in the end time. At the same time, disagreements were inevitable, (1) granted the peculiar mix of present-yet-future eschatology that implicitly put Jesus himself at the center of the eschatological drama that he proclaimed, (2) granted the eschatological significance he attributed to some of his “miracles,” (3) granted some of his unusual teaching on halaka that flowed from his eschatological message: e.g., (a) the total prohibition of divorce; (b) celibacy as one possible way of serving the kingdom; (c) the rejection of voluntary fasting; and (d) the neglect of various familial obligations and purity rules … (p. 338)

    It seems, then, that Jesus (and most certainly his followers after Easter) shared with the Pharisees a passion for the renewal of Israel as a community that expressed and promoted the imperial rule of God in human affairs, but that they differed profoundly over the way to achieve that. Where the Pharisees looked to the Torah and the oral traditions of the Elders, the Christian community looked to Jesus and the community gathered around his open table. On the one hand, Christians elevated Christ over Caesar. On the other hand, they located the ultimate epiphany in the person of Jesus rather than the teachings of the Torah.
    Where Jesus may well have promoted the archetypal sinner (publican) over the archetypal believer (Pharisee) as a symbol of humanity open to God’s justice, the temptation to think like the self-righteous believer remains a real and present danger to his followers.

    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

    • Gather Your People – GA530
    • Alleluia, the gospel is among us (Bruxvoort-Colligan)
    • You Are Near – GA451
    • Here I Am, Lord – GA496

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

  • Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost (20 October 2013)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Jeremiah 31:27-34 & Psalm 119:97-104
    • 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
    • Luke 18:1-8

    First Reading: A new covenant

    The first reading offers one of the classic prophetic texts from the Hebrew Bible, and the source for the familiar phrase “new covenant” (or, “new testament”).

    During the last couple of decades of the 7C BCE and the first decade or so of the 6C BCE, Jeremiah found himself exploring the boundaries and contours of his relationship with God. He seems to have begun as an avid supporter of the deuteronomistic reform agenda in the kingdom of Judah. That movement is named “deuteronomic” or “deuteronomistic” by scholars of ancient Israel and Judah because its key ideas seem to have been encapsulated in the book of Deuteronomy. Indeed, it is possible that the mysterious document “found” during the “repairs” to the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem was an early form of the central chapters of Deuteronomy.

    These religious reformers developed an early form of prosperity theology. The well-being of the nation could be assured if it observed the laws of Moses with great care. In this theology, blessings were promised by God to those who obeyed the “statutes and ordinances”—and severe curses were to fall on those who did not. Such a theology could cut both ways. Success was a visible demonstration of God’s favour, while calamity was a sure sign that the person had sinned and was under divine wrath. The friends who arrive to comfort Job in his predicament are almost caricatures for this kind of orthodoxy.

    After initially investing his personal and national hopes in the simplistic algorithm of the Deuteronomists, Jeremiah eventually came to a different view. He realised that the covenant required radical obedience from the nation, and that calamity would almost certainly befall the city if it failed to keep the covenant. The old covenant, once the most sacred concept in Jeremiah’s religion, came to be seen by him as a symbol of failure and judgment.

    However, Jeremiah did not abandon the idea of covenant. Rather, he looked for a new and different kind of covenant. In this new convenant, there would be no need of religious experts and teachers of Torah, because each person would have the divine Torah inscribed on their hearts.

    There is also a radical idea of personal and individual responsibility emerging in this passage. Without losing his profound sense of solidarity with the whole community, Jeremiah asserts that people will now be blessed (or judged) on the basis of their own faithfulness to God’s demands.

    Second Reading: The sacred tradition

    The second letter to Timothy is not counted among the genuine letters of Paul, and the passage chosen for this week illustrates why this document is correctly assigned to a much later stage in the development of early Christianity.

    The recipient, Timothy, is described as having grown up in a religiously observant family—presumably Jewish, although by late in the first century it could have been a Christian family. Sacred tradition plays a major part in the way that faith is understood, and right at the centre of the faith are the inspired writings—the Scriptures:

    … from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

    The phrase “all scripture is inspired by God and is useful …” is perhaps not the best rendering of the Greek (pasa graphe theopneustos kai ophelimos … ), which might be more accurately translated as:

    “every God-breathed writing is also useful for …”

    In any case, it soon becomes apparent that the author is is not so much seeking to define the Bible nor to describe Timothy’s upbringing. Rather, we are in the midst of a tirade against opponents whose views, were they to prevail, would—at least in the imagination of the writer—ruin the faith and the lives of anyone who came under their influence.

    You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them! For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these people, of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, also oppose the truth. But they will not make much progress, because, as in the case of those two men, their folly will become plain to everyone.” (2Tim 3:1-9 NRSV)

    Similarly, the words that follow the compliments about Timothy’s upbringing and his sound grasp of the tradition, urge him to resist false teaching:

    In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.” (2Tim 4:1-5 NRSV)

    These words reflect the tensions within Christianity in the final decades of the 1C and the opening decades of the 2C. The descriptions of the opponents draw on traditional Jewish descriptions of moral and religious decay “in the last days,” but they also reflect the growing estrangement between what came to known as the “catholic” and the “gnostic” expressions of Christianity. The Pastoral Epistles prescribe a good dose of patriarchal authority as the cure for these problems, and for the best part of the next 2,000 years that was to be the recipe adopted by the church.

    Gospel: The unjust judge

    This story presents commentators and worshippers alike with a dilemma. Like the Shrewd Manager, this is a story about someone who is not doing the right thing. While the story has mostly been domesticated, so that the persistent woman is a metaphor for perseverance in prayer, the underlying assumptions challenge and confront us.

    As a story with only single attestation (there are no parallel versions in other Christian texts), this episode is suspect in some eyes. On the other hand, there seems to be a general consensus that this parable may indeed derive from Jesus.
    The Jesus Seminar identified the core parable (vv. 2-5) as possibly coming from Jesus:

    It exhibits the kind of unconventional features that are characteristic of the parables Jesus told: the judge grants the widow’s request not because her case has merit or because he is impartial and just in his judgments. He decides in her favor to be rid of her. He wants to avoid being harassed, perhaps to avoid having his honor or reputation beaten black-and-blue (such is the implication of the Greek term used here) by her continual coming to demand vindication. (Five Gospels, 368)

    The Seminar understood v. 1 to be an introduction created by Luke to provide a framework for the parable, while vv. 6-8 reflect other Lucan interests of prayer and parousia.

    In a similar vein, Gerd Lüdemann affirms the historicity of the core story in vss 2-5:

    These verses, the original stratum of the parable, certainly go back to Jesus. That is supported by (a) the criterion of growth, for here with vv. 2-5, calculated backwards, we are at the third stage, and (b) the offensive character of what is narrated. Normally a judge should pronounce judgment on a legal basis. But here he is godless and pronounces judgment only because he is forced to. (Jesus, 375)

    Bill Loader notes the “playfully shocking” character of this story:

    The parable is not unlike that story Jesus told about the rogue in 16:1-8. Here, too, we may be dealing with a story that was going the rounds at the time and which Jesus picked up and used. The woman was likely to be such a nuisance that the judge relented and dealt with her case. Good on her! In 18:6 Jesus turns the attention of the listener to the unjust judge and proceeds in 18:7 to make a statement about God. If this kind of judge was willing to respond to this poor widow, can’t you believe that God will respond to us? The point is not that God is also corrupt, but that God is likely to respond. The parable is playfully shocking in the way it is prepared to liken God to the judge. This enhances its effect.

    Eduard Schweizer suggests a historical process as the tradition gave different meanings to the story at various stages:

    The earliest form of the parable culminated in “how much more.” It inculcated the certainty that God hears the prayers of the oppressed “widow,” i.e., the community, which prays for the coming of the kingdom. The parable would be entirely altered if the appellant were a wealthy property owner with all kinds of connections, who could bring a variety of pressures to bear in order to receive vindication. The parable thus also tells the community that its prayers reflect its relationship with God. It cannot, need not, coerce. It can take comfort in the knowledge that it is entirely dependent on God and learn to pray even in times when prayer seems totally meaningless. God in freedom will give the community the kingdom, when and wherever the time comes. This confidence springs from the fact that it is Jesus who tells the parable (or that the community traces it back to him), for in Christ the kingdom is already coming to those who can really hear the parable.
    Later it became important that the kingdom come soon (vss. 7b, 8b). The admonitory question in vs. 8b was also added. Finally, Luke takes a sober look at the community of his own day and recognizes that prayer plays too small a part in its life; he, therefore, puts more emphasis on the summons to pray (vs. 1). In the context of 17:22-37, he is probably thinking of prayer for the coming of the Son of Man. (Good News according to Luke, 280)

    John Drury offers an interesting and very different assessment. Drury looks at the story of the corrupt judge from the perspective that the long narrative section between Luke 9:51 and 18:14 (“one of the great riddles of gospel study”) is a Christian Deuteronomy — “a handbook on the Christian life in the historical setting of s journey to Jerusalem, just as Deuteronomy is a guide for the devout Jew set in the historical perspective of the journey into the promised land with Jerusalem, the place where God will cause his name to dwell, as its centre.”

    Next Deuteronomy insists upon the judge’s duty to condemn the guilty and to acquit the innocent, setting Luke to his more sophisticated parable about the godless judge who did justice out of self-interest. We have seen him mixing the blacks and whites of Deuteronomy into grey before. The parable is an obvious pair with the friend at midnight (Lk 11:5-13), having the same construction — the grudging giving of men as a shadow of God’s generosity.(Tradition and Design in Luke’s Gospel, 140)

    There is something very attractive about Drury’s understanding of Luke as a self-conscious historical narrative designed to instruct the reader in the dynamics of faithful living. Whether or not we accept his historical assessment of this saying, that seems like an interpretation of Luke-Acts worth retaining.

    Still most interpreters put considerable weight on the fact that Luke himself understood this parable as a model of prayerful perseverance. John P. Meier notes this intention by Luke when discussing the relationship between this parable and the short eschatological discourse that precedes it in Luke 17:

    With regard to the eschatological discourse in 17:20-37, some may wish to include the parable of the widow and the judge in 18:1-8 as the concluding section of the discourse (so Feuillet, “La double venue,” 5, 25-28). Notice how the reference to the Son of Man in 18:8 forms an inclusion with the mention of him at the beginning of the main section of the discourse in 17:22 + 24. However, the separate introduction at 18:1, indicating that Luke understands the parable mainly as an exhortation to persevering prayer, weakens the possible connection of the parable with the preceding discourse. (A Marginal Jew, II: page 477, note 107)

    This interest in exhorting the faithful to persevere in prayer, confident that God will never treat them like a powerful patron who finds the demands of his clients burdensome, is also seen in the rabbinic tradition.

    Samuel Lachs notes the following parallel:

    She will wear me out Gr. hupopiaze me, lit., “she will give me a black eye.” One suggestion to explain this difficult expression is that it is a translation of tashechir panai, “she will blacken my face,” meaning she will embarrass me. (Rabbinic Commentary on the NT, 323)

    Bill Loader is one contemporary reader of this ancient story who seems able to find a seam of gold running through this troublesome tale. In his “First Thoughts” commentary for this week, written in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Bill observed:

    … it is missing the mark if we treat the passage as a general teaching about intercessory prayer. It is primarily about the yearning for change. It was very appropriate that the story told of a poor widow. She represents a behaviour, but she also represents the poverty and vulnerability which is the point of the parable’s message. The story has been shaped in the cruelty of exploitation and the arbitrary abuse of power. It belongs in the world which Jesus is addressing. Jesus is reading the signs in the wounds of the people. The contours of their devastation shape the structures of his thought, because this is where he belongs and these are the people whose cries he hears. Take some heart, even from the behaviour of a corrupt judge who has no respect for anyone! This is digging deep, scraping the bottom of the barrel in pastoral care. The alternative for many is despair, if malnutrition has not already dulled the senses to other possibilities. We know such corrupt figures exist. Does God? Does a God exist who cares? The paralysis of hope can occur at many levels. For many it plummeted with the towers of the World Trade Centre. Faith then retreats into survival mode or fences itself within petty concerns, loses its political and social edge in a sweet jellied peace of mind, or surrenders to the demagogues and demigods of hate. People do not need to avoid pain. It is our role to be there with them in it and not to collude with the alternatives. It means being in touch with the struggles, with the poverty, with all that makes people cry out in our world. It also means living with the affirmation of a God who cares, even though, unlike the promise of 18:8, the solution does not come speedily. In that sense we are to be building supportive communities where people can sustain the crying day and night and not lose heart, where we do not tune out, but live in hope and with a sense of trust that does not make us feel we have to carry the whole world on our shoulders. For facing the pain of the world is, indeed, a crushing experience which most of us cannot bear and which, without support and acceptance of our own limitations, we will inevitably either deny or ourselves become part of the hopelessness. Finding a glint of God in the grey of corruption is a way of affirming we do not have to be God; we are not alone; faith and hope are possible.

    That seems like a good note on which to conclude this week’s materials.

    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

    • Lord, your almighty Word – AHB 61
    • God has spoken by his prophets – AHB 92
    • Take up your cross – AHB 496
    • Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go – AHB 480

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