Are Gnostic Gospels Authentic?

A question I was asked back in August:

Q: What is the authenticity of Gnostic Gospels? Couldn't they have been written for selfish interests?

 A: Several Gnostic works claim to record the words or acts of people mentioned in the New Testament such as the apostles Thomas and Phillip, or Mary Magdalene and Judas. If by “authentic” you mean were they written by these people, then the answer is no, they are not authentic. Most scholars believe these books were written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries or later, although the so-called Gospel of Thomas was probably written around AD 100 - 110 and has portions that seem to be traditions from the earliest days of the church.

Could they have been written for selfish interests? Of course, but they also may have been written to publicize their teachings and provide teaching materials for their followers. When these books were written Jesus was just getting famous as the latest ‘mystic master’ in the Roman Empire. Gnosticism had been a tendency of long standing in the Mediterranean world deriving from the platonic teaching that matter is evil and the liberation of one’s soul from matter was the aim in life — and afterlife.

"Christian" Gnostics appeared at the end of the 1st century attempting to link the cache of Jesus’ name with this very popular Platonic philosophic idea. After all, the actual Christian teaching of Jesus and hi apostles with its bloody crucifixion, its ridiculous idea (to Greeks and Romans) of a man returning bodily from death, and its rigorous insistence that no other gods be worshiped — including emperors — was seen as woefully unsophisticated by many.

Merry Christmas From the Rebellion

What an invasion looks like

And so the child has been born, the King has arrived, and the invasion has begun. From that day in Bethlehem to our own, this revolution has continued. Following the example of our Master's own subversive activities, we deploy the full power of self-sacrificial love against war, hunger, poverty, suffering, pride, hate, cruelty, oppression, greed and the spiritual forces of evil behind them. 

And, like our earliest ancestors in the Christian movement, we spread that simple, innately powerful message, the joyful Great Announcement that "the Lord has come, let Earth receive her King!"

We have not always fared terribly well as we carried out our mission. Many, many of our brothers and sisters in the struggle all throughout the world are not doing well right now. But we've been warned of this from the beginning, and we are not afraid.

"I have told you these things," Jesus of Nazareth told us long ago, "so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage—I have conquered the world!" (Gospel of John chapter 16 verse 33).

But we press on. Because Christmas is not only a day of gifts, conviviality, and good cheer.  Christmas is a rebellion. 

A very happy Christmas (all 12 days) to everyone out there reading this!

Advent - The King on Your Doorstep

The True King arrives

The special child will be born.
    God will give us a son
who will be responsible for leading the people.
His name will be “Wonderful Counselor,
     Powerful God,
     Father Who Lives Forever,
     Prince of Peace.”
His power will continue to grow,
     and there will be peace without end.
This will establish him as the king
     sitting on David’s throne
     ruling his kingdom.
He will rule with goodness and justice
     forever and ever.
The strong love that the Lord All-Powerful has for his people
will make this happen!

Book of the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 9 verses 6-7, (ERV)

Advent, as we observed when we began these reflections four weeks ago, originally meant the arrival of a king. And just as the subjects of Rome long ago would have gone to great lengths to get everything ready for Caesar Augustus, Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of our King, Jesus of Nazareth.

Early tomorrow, while the sky is still dark (if tradition is any guide), the King will finally arrive. Not with a vast entourage of hangers on, not with all the opulent glory of an imperial ruler, but in obscurity and poverty and dirt. It still seems odd to us today, doesn't it? 2000 years have come and gone since Jesus' birth and we are quite familiar with this story. But we still instinctively associate luxury and showiness with importance and true power. When a world leader makes a gesture toward humility we do find it charming, but it would seem strange to us if they lived in a small apartment and ate cup-a-soup (although since I posted an earlier version of this essay one doing just that has turned up).

But the High King of the universe did live humbly from beginning to end, and he did it by choice.

I've come back to this dichotomy repeatedly throughout these little essays because it confronts me with a question: If God is like that when he comes to Earth, then what should I be like? If out of all the possible options he could have chosen he chose this one -- melding with and living among the poor and downtrodden -- then, out of all possible options available today, how should I live?

Tonight, for somewhere around the 2000th time, the High King comes again as a baby in that insect-infested manger, while his poverty-stricken parents and shell-shocked shepherds look on.

What does he want of us this time? Will we respond this year? Will we join his revolution?

*          *          *

Prayer: Our King, let us bow down at your makeshift crib with your poor, intrepid parents and worship you. And then help us to rise up and follow you wheresoever you may lead us. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, we pray. Amen.

Book of Isaiah, chapter 9 verses 6 - 7, Common English Bible

Advent, as we observed when we began these reflections four weeks ago, originally meant the arrival of a king. And just as the subjects of Rome long ago would have gone to great lengths to get everything ready for Caesar Augustus, Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of our King, Jesus of Nazareth.

Early tomorrow, while the sky is still dark (if tradition is any guide), the King will finally arrive. Not with a vast entourage of hangers on, not with all the opulent glory of an imperial ruler, but in obscurity and poverty and dirt. It still seems odd to us today, doesn't it? 2000 years have come and gone since Jesus' birth and we are quite familiar with this story. But we still instinctively associate luxury and showiness with importance and true power. When a world leader makes a gesture toward humility we do find it charming, but it would seem strange to us if they lived in a small apartment and ate cup-a-soup (although since I posted an earlier version of this essay one doing just that has turned up).

But the High King of the universe did live humbly from beginning to end, and he did it by choice.

I've come back to this dichotomy repeatedly throughout these little essays because it confronts me with a question: If God is like that when he comes to Earth, then what should I be like? If out of all the possible options he could have chosen he chose this one -- melding with and living among the poor and downtrodden -- then, out of all possible options available today, how should I live?

Tonight, for somewhere around the 2000th time, the High King comes again as a baby in that insect-infested manger, while his poverty-stricken parents and shell-shocked shepherds look on.

What does he want of us this time? Will we respond this year? Will we join his revolution?

*          *          *

Prayer: Our King, let us bow down at your makeshift crib with your poor, intrepid parents and worship you. And then help us to rise up and follow you wheresoever you may lead us. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, we pray. Amen.

Why Was the Messiah Born in a Manger?

No Room

(I usually repost this article during Advent because the question keeps coming up.)


Everyone is familiar with the fact that Jesus' parents couldn't find a place to stay when they arrived in Bethlehem. But why didn't just stay with relatives? After all, this was supposedly Joseph's hometown.

Luke, who tells this story in the 2nd chapter of his Gospel, does not elaborate. To him the point is that the King of the Universe was born in the most abject of circumstances -- abject to the point that he had to be laid in a feeding trough.

Even if there had been "room for them in the inn," the surroundings would not have been opulent. The "inn" of a small, first century, middle eastern village like Bethlehem would have been a few crude lean-to's for traveling people and animals found on the edge of town. Even those were full, and very old tradition says Mary and Joseph found shelter in a little cave (more like a nook in the rock).

But what about Joseph's relatives? Scholars put forward two possible reasons that they didn't provide shelter for the two travelers that night. Both are conjectures of course and neither is supported by any of the early Christian writers, so you can decide for yourself which seems more likely.

One explanation is that Joseph may not have had any relatives in Bethlehem. He and Mary traveled there because it was the ancestral home of King David, Joseph's ancestor. But it's quite possible that in the 1000 years since David's time his descendants had spread to the four winds. Joseph had, of course. At some point he or his family had chosen to move 90 miles north to tiny Nazareth.

This possibility is made more likely by the fact that, being of royal stock, the family of David was often a target of suspicion by the authorities.  We know for instance that relatives of Jesus were examined at the end of the first century for just this reason.  So  the harder it was for current rulers like Herod and the Romans to locate David's descendents, the better. It may be then that, when Caesar decreed his census, the entire lineage of David found themselves in the same situation as Joseph -- having to find a place to stay in a tiny, overcrowded village where they knew nobody.

Another Alternative
Or... There may well have been some of David's descendants still living in Bethlehem. But imagine it: They must have been completely overwhelmed by the influx of travellers. Bethlehem was a poor, miniscule hamlet at this time, so small that there's no clear archaeological evidence that it even existed (though from documentary evidence it's certain that it did). Several hundred people -- including many with other ancestors besides David -- suddenly descending upon it looking for a temporary place to stay probably created havoc.

Recently a number of scholars (such as C. S. Keene and Ben Witherington III) have pointed out that kataluma (the Greek word translated "inn") actually refers to many different types of lodging places, including whatever kind of guest room Joseph's relatives might have had available. In fact, the recently published Common English Bible translates this famous passage as, "She... laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom," (Gospel of Luke chapter 2, verse 7)

So what Luke may be telling us is that, by the time Joseph and Mary reached Bethlehem, "the guest room in the relatives’ house... would have been filled beyond capacity with all the other relatives who had to journey to Bethlehem for the census."

All they had left to offer the holy family was the stable.

Advent - Joy and Sorrow

The 'Slaughter of the Innocents'
at Bethlehem

After the wise men left, an angel from the Lord came to Joseph in a dream. The angel said, “Get up! Take the child with his mother and escape to Egypt. Herod wants to kill the child and will soon start looking for him. Stay in Egypt until I tell you to come back.”

Herod saw that the wise men had fooled him, and he was very angry. So he gave an order to kill all the baby boys in Bethlehem and the whole area around Bethlehem. Herod had learned from the wise men the time the baby was born. It was now two years from that time. So he said to kill all the boys who were two years old and younger. This gave full meaning to what God said through the prophet Jeremiah:

“A sound was heard in Ramah —
  bitter crying and great sadness.
Rachel cries for her children,
  and she cannot be comforted, because her children are gone.”

Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 verses 13, 16-18, ERV 

____________________________

On the third Sunday of Advent (which was this past Sunday, the 11th) a candle is lit that is traditionally called the Candle of Joy.  This is done to signify the "Joy To The World" that arrived when Jesus was born.  His birth was the climax of a plan to rescue humanity that God had been working since before time began.  Once the King arrived, God's beleaguered children could lift their heads at long last because nothing would ever be the same again.  A new relationship with God would be open, forgiveness would be offered to all, and the power of Evil would be broken once and forever.  There was and is every reason to be joyful, and to this very day joy is one of the hallmarks of Jesus' followers.

But we should note that the Christmas story itself is not an unremitting song of joy.  As our scripture for today tells us, the birth of the infant King, the dawning of this new age, was greeted by blood, senseless violence, and all-consuming greed. Herod the Great was not about to turn his kingdom over to any new Messiah without a fight.  The fact that he discovered this one was just a baby, and then found he would have to kill dozens of other babies to strike at him did not slow the murderous old King down in the least.

A Haunting Song

Matthew calls upon a haunting poem written by the Prophet Jeremiah hundreds of years before to convey the unutterable sadness of this tragedy. In the original prophecy, God himself comforts desolate Rachel and promises that she will see her lost children again.

Scholars commonly point out that this was such routine cruelty for Herod and the number of babies involved so small that the "Slaughter of the Innocents" doesn't show up in any ancient history other than Matthew. From the standpoint of history it was an unimportant, unfortunate event. But the Christian Prophet John, writing 100 years afterward, saw it differently. He tells us in the 12th chapter of The Revelation that this cruel episode was not as just another brutal massacre of peasant children by an insignificant middle eastern client King, but a hideous attack on a cosmic scale. Behind the scenes, he says, as the nation of Israel lay giving birth in the person of their most noble daughter, Evil itself -- mystically depicted as a huge red Dragon -- stood slathering before her, trying for a chance to devour her royal son. Bad as he was, it was not all Herod's idea.

The Advent season is a joyful time and we have every right to light that candle.  But as members of the Christian Movement we are called upon to announce a new King and a new Kingdom that supersedes all the rest. The Great Red Dragon still roams the world trying to devour us as he tried to devour our King. Not everybody appreciates our efforts. We should always keep in mind that there are still places where one can be tortured, imprisoned, and killed simply for following Jesus of Nazareth.  

Rachel still weeps for her children.

*          *          *

Prayer: God of Joy, help us to remember the pain in this world and what you went through to buy us that precious gift of joy.  We pray in Jesus' name. Amen

Advent - The Approaching King

Caesar comes for a visit

Photo by NoJin

This year Advent begins today, November 27th. Every Sunday and Thursday until Christmas, I'll be posting a series of short essays to help us listen for the approaching footsteps of the True King.


"Listen, I am coming soon!"
(Revelation 22.12, ERV)

Advent has been celebrated by Jesus' followers for millennia but these days it tends to get short shrift. In today's society it's been largely replaced by that hectic period of shopping, card writing, and drunken partying between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But at one time this was perhaps the most seditious season of all. And all because a peasant girl was in her last trimester.

Advent is an old Roman word that means, "the arrival of someone or something important." We use it today when we wonder how anyone managed to live "before the advent of the Internet," for instance.  For the ancient Romans though, an advent was the arrival of the Emperor himself on an official state visit. Heralds were sent out months ahead of time to announce the coming visit.  Buildings would be spruced up, the best food and entertainment would be arranged, and the richest family in the region would open up their estate to Caesar's use.


 We Christians announce the ultimate state visit: The arrival of the Christ, the King of the Universe. As Jesus' early followers understood (and as we still do today if the US President visits us in Montana or Morocco), a time of preparation is the appropriate response to a visit of this magnitude. And that is what the celebration called Advent is: A time of happy preparation for our King's imminent arrival.  As he draws ever nearer, we prepare ourselves for the moment when God invades history in the form of a poor family's baby.

Advent Gospel

It is this arrival of the Universal King that the Gospel -- the "Great Announcement" -- proclaims. The  Christian Movement announces a rival King, not just a sweet little baby in a manger or a man with nice ideas. As we have said elsewhere on this site, if Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not.  That is why authority figures tended to be rather hostile toward us for the first 300 years of our existence (and sporadically since -- when they aren't trying to co-opt us!). The peasant girl's baby that Advent warns of and Christmas extols has been in head-to-head conflict with the powers of this world for the last 2000 years.



You've no doubt been aware of this since you first heard the Christmas story, though it may not have fully registered. But what after all were the "Wise Men" looking for when they arrived in Jerusalem and asked, "'Where is the one who is born king of the Jews?'" (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, verses 1 and 2). Or as the old carols proclaim: "Joy to the world... let Earth receive her King."

Christianity is, in the final analysis, a subversive little religion.

Where is Jesus' Tomb?

Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Photo by israeltourism

(Another question I answered on Quora.)

Q: What evidence is there that the tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is the burial place of Jesus Christ?


A: The main piece of evidence is that we know from historical texts that if you went to the Holy Land in the AD 300s (and probably for sometime before that) and asked the local people to show you Christ’s tomb, that this is the location you would be taken to. Emperor Constantine’s mother Helena did this and built a church over the site, which became today’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This could indicate that the Christians around the city preserved a memory of where the tomb was that could possibly go back to the earliest days of the church.

There are also these supporting facts: 1.) The site was outside the city in AD 33, which fits the New Testament’s description, 2.) It’s the right style tomb for the time (the so-called ‘Gordon’s Calvary,’ an alternative site that’s sometimes shown, is not), and 3.) Approximately 1000 tombs, most of them Christian and very old, are clustered around this spot, indicating that it may have been held in special reverence from an early date.

The evidence gathered by the archaeology team this time around may give us more information in the future.

Are We Doing it Right?

Jesus of Nazareth came as the long expected warrior-Messiah, as I wrote Thursday, but his weapons, his enemy, his battlefield, his strategy, and the final, climactic battle he fought were entirely unexpected. And the same is true for us. We humans really have a thing for violent, bloody, wars, and that even goes for some of us in the Christian movement. But we're not doing it right, not following the king we've pledged to follow, unless we're fighting the same foe with the same weapons he used. Paul the Apostle and Jerome the scholar explain...


Put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand your ground against the stratagems of the Devil. For ours is no struggle against enemies of flesh and blood, but against all the various Powers of Evil that hold sway in the Darkness around us, against the Spirits of Wickedness on high.

(Letter to the Ephesians 6.11-12, TCNT

______________________

The battle is not against flesh and blood or ordinary temptations. The scene is the war of flesh against spirit. We are being incited to become entrapped in the works of the flesh... But this is not merely a physical temptation. It is not merely the inward struggle against flesh and blood as such. Rather Satan has cleverly transformed himself into an angel of light. He is striving to persuade us to regard him as a messenger of goodness. This is how he throws his full might into the struggle. He employs deceptive signs and lying omens. He sets before us every possible ruse of evil. Then, when he has so ensnared us that we trust him, he says to us, “Thus says the Lord.” This is not flesh and blood deceiving us. It is not a typical human temptation. It is the work of principalities and powers, the ruler of darkness and spiritual wickedness.

Jerome (AD 347 - 420)
Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians 3.6.11

Weapons of Redemption

Deep in the bloody four-year american civil war Abraham Lincoln was already contemplating the task of putting the country back together once it was over.

One congressman with whom he was discussing his plans for a merciful reconstruction was incensed. "Mr.  President," he exclaimed, "how can you speak of extending mercy towards the south? They our enemies! We must destroy them and treat them as conquered territories when this war is ended!"

To which Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"

Jesus of Nazareth of course called on his followers to live in just this way:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies. Pray for those who treat you badly. If you do this, you will be children who are truly like your Father in heaven. He lets the sun rise for all people, whether they are good or bad. He sends rain to those who do right and to those who do wrong. 

If you love only those who love you, why should you get a reward for that? Even the tax collectors do that. And if you are nice only to your friends, you are no better than anyone else. Even the people who don’t know God are nice to their friends.

What I am saying is that you must be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

(Gospel of Matthew 5.43 - 48, ERV)

Jesus himself lived this out all the way the end. Hanging from nails that had just been hammered through his hands and feet by hardened Roman soldiers, he famously prayed, "Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing," (Gospel of Luke 23.34, ERV).

At this far a remove from the events of Jesus' execution we 21st century people tend to think of forgiveness in abstract terms, as an admirable ethical principal that we ought to apply in our lives. But for Jesus on his cross that day it was also something else.

Love -- praying for the Romans and extending forgiveness to them -- was more than a noble principle.

Love was a weapon.

Forgiveness as a Weapon

Jesus was not a philosopher, social gadfly, violent revolutionary or most of the other interesting but historically groundless things he has been described as. As his student Simon Peter recognized, he was the Messiah and he fulfilled the role of the Messiah (read a little more about that here and here). When he crisscrossed Galilee and Judah inviting everyone into the Kingdom of God,  rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, and cleansed the Temple, he was doing what most Jewish people expected the Messiah to do. And they knew that the next step would be destroying the enemies of Israel -- the Romans, of course. Who else could it be but the Romans?

But that's where the paths diverged. All the other "Messiahs" battled Rome (or before that the Seleucid

Triumphant Christ by Melozzo da Forli (1483)

Empire), the "obvious" enemy of Israel. Jesus saw a greater enemy though. Yes, it's true, we must face facts: Jesus was a firm believer in "he who must not be named" (because it's so unenlightened, you know): Satan the devil. As the focus of evil in the world Satan was the power behind the throne of Rome and the other nations. He was the true enemy of Israel and the Messiah was duty bound to attack and tear down his kingdom. "The Son of God came for this: to destroy the devil’s work," (1st Letter of John 3.8, ERV)

This cosmic battle took place not on the Plains of Esdraelon or the Kidron Valley but on Jesus' cross and his weapons were self-sacrificial love, trust in God's justice, the words of Scripture, prayer, and forgiveness.  Forgiveness even for a man who maybe a few days ago had been living as a criminal (Gospel of Luke 23.29-43). The triumph of love over the worst possible hatred, the nullification of the horrific disease of sin, and the forgiveness of all people conquered the devil and smashed to shivers his kingdom in the deep mystery of God's atonement for his children.

It's the same for us today. We in the Christian Movement fight the same battle against evil and to extend God's reign. Praying for your enemies, living out God's love in realtime, and making the Great Announcement of forgiveness to people still has the power to destroy the devil's work.

"I will let everyone who wins the victory sit with me on my throne. It was the same with me. I won the victory and sat down with my Father on his throne," (Book of Revelation 3.21, ERV).


Note: FYI, this is a re-write of an earlier article

Why is Jesus Called a Nazarene?

From an old book

Sometimes the questions on Quora aren't that hard. They just need a little research...


Q: Why did Jesus call himself a Nazarene to Paul in Acts 22:8? Who is a Nazarene?


A: Jesus came from Nazareth, a town so small and insignificant that it is never mentioned in the Old Testament and has left scant archaeological remains from the 1st century. John’s gospel indicates that it wasn’t held in high esteem.

While Jesus was still alive “Nazarene” was simply used as an identifier synonymous with the more familiar “…of Nazareth.” For instance, Mark — our earliest gospel — records this bit of conversation while Jesus was on trial: “seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus,” (Mark 14.67, ESV). The name Nazareth doesn't seem to have any connection to the Nazarites of the Old Testament and Jesus didn't follow the rites that identified one under a Nazarite vow, (see Numbers 6.1-21, ESV).

In Acts 22.8 Paul is in the land of Palestine, speaking to his fellow Jews in their native language. The Greek here is Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος — literally, “Jesus, the one from Nazareth.”  First century Jews didn’t use last names, so terms like “of this city” or “son of this man” were used to identify which person you were talking about. “Jesus” was actually a very common name back then, so all throughout the gospels and Acts “Jesus of Nazareth” is used to refer to the Jesus we are all familiar with. Here is a list of all the references to “Jesus of Nazareth” in the New Testament. There are actually more than that where “the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee” or some such is added.

After he died and rose again, the movement Jesus founded was known under various names, such as “Christians” and “the Way.” The Book of Acts indicates that another designation (probably used derisively, as “Christian” originally was) was “the Nazarenes:” “For we have found this man (Paul) a plague, one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world and is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes,” (Acts 24.5, ESV).

So in his speech in Acts 22 Paul is most likely using “Jesus of Nazareth” just to identify what Jesus he is talking about. However, since he is speaking in the late AD 50s, when “the sect of the Nazarenes” was everywhere, he may have added that detail to connect the Jesus who met him on the road to Damascus with the founder of the despised Nazarene sect.

God's Colony

Christians eating the Agape meal soon after "Mathetes" wrote.

Painting from the Catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus

As I wrote on Thursday after the US election, the true country and first allegiance of a member of the Christian movement is not any nation on earth. "My kingdom is not from this world," said the one who is our king. Writing to Jesus' followers living in a Roman colony, the Apostle Paul made sure they recognized what nation they were really a colony of...


But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

Philippians 3.20-21

__________________________

Today I've asked an anonymous 2nd century writer (traditionally called Mathetes but never named in his letter) to explain what this meant to his fellow Christians then. 

The Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity...

They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, 5 (AD 130 - 200)

Was Jesus a Poet?

Jesus reciting one of his most famous works, 
'Blessed are the Poor in Spirit'

Painting by Henrik Olrik

Another answer from my 'Quora ministry':


Q: Was Jesus a Poet ? If yes, how good was he ?



A: Yes, Jesus was most definitely a poet! He certainly had the eye and soul of a poet in weaving the wild flowers that God clothed so grandly and the sparrows ‘not one of [whom] will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care’ into his teaching.

But more to the point, in common with some other ancient teachers and the Israelite prophets, much of Jesus’ teaching is cast in poetic form. Scholars have found that when they reverse-translate Jesus’ sayings back to the original Aramaic (Jesus’ native tongue) they are almost all poetry. This made it easier for the crowds to remember. The scholar Henry Wansbrough says that in Matthew especially, “the rhythm of the sayings is beautifully balanced, often with a neat double opposition (‘grapes from thorns or figs from thistles’ in Matt. 7.16; ‘the harvest is rich but the laborers are few’ Matt. 9.37).” 

This statement by C. E. Schenk was made in the 1920s but is even more true today:

When one comes to the words of Jesus he discovers that in a very true sense His speech answers to the requirements for Hebrew poetry. Examples of synonymous, antithetic, synthetic and causal parallelism are the rule rather than the exception in the utterances of Jesus. For the synonymous form see Matthew 10:24; for the antithetic see Luke 6:41; for the synthetic and causal forms see Luke 9:23 and Matthew 6:7. Not alone are these forms of Hebrew poetry found in the words of Jesus, but also the more involved and sustained poetic utterances (Luke 7:31-32). 

How good was he? Well, 2000 years later people are still reciting his stuff...

A Mighty Stillness

Christ on the Sea of Galilee

Painting by Eugène Delacroix

On Sundays I let an ancient writer or thinker of the Christian movement explain something about a passage of scripture. Today I called upon Peter Chrysologus  ("Peter of the Golden Words") to give us his thoughts on one of the passages I used in my post about faith last Thursday. 


So Jesus climbed into the boat and his disciples followed him. But then a mighty gale developed on the sea, and the boat was being swamped by the waves. Jesus himself, though, was sleeping. Finally they approached him and woke him up, shouting, “Lord, save us! We are about to be killed!”

“Why are you so cowardly, you 'little-faiths'?” Jesus said. Then, now fully awake, he reproached the gusty wind and the sea and there was a mighty stillness.

They were stunned.

“What kind of a man is this," they asked, "so that even wind and sea do his bidding?”

Gospel of Matthew 8.23-27 (my own translation)

___________________

Why did Christ himself, who knows all the future, seem so unaware of the present that he gave no thought to the onrushing storm, the moment of its height and the time of its peril? While all the rest were awake, he alone was fast asleep even with utter doom threatening both himself and his dear ones. Why? 

It is not a calm sky, beloved, but the storm which tests a pilot’s skill. When the breeze is mild even the poorest sailor can manage the ship. But in the crosswinds of a tempest, we want the best pilot with all his skill.

The disciples’ efforts as seamen had failed, as they could see. The seas attempted to spend their fury against them, and the waves were ready to swallow them. The twisting winds had conspired against them. So they ran in fear to the very Pilot of the world, the Ruler of the universe, the Master of the elements. They begged him to check the billows, banish the danger, save them in their despair.

Peter Chrysologus (c. AD 380–450)
Sermons 20.1 

What Does Faith Feel Like?

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1695)

Painting by Ludolf Backhuysen

When Jesus of Nazareth talked about faith, what did he mean? Did he mean positive thinking? Did he mean warm, comforting thoughts that help you get through life? Did he mean the definition skeptics and atheists frequently quote, "Believing something without any proof?"

Later on I'll post something about the actual nature and definition of the faith Jesus talked about. But in this article I want to give you my favorite practical example of what Jesus' faith was like for him personally -- the inside view so to speak. He constantly tried to hammer this kind of faith home and was surprised it was so hard for his students to get.

There are dozens of examples I could use, of course, but this one hit home with me one day a few years ago during a period of joblessness. This is the story of Jesus asleep in a fishing boat. It can be found in Luke 8.22-25, Matthew 8:23-27, and Mark 4:36-41

Boat

Try to enter into this picture in your mind:

After a long day of teaching the crowds Jesus decides to cross to another area on the Sea of Galilee. The disciples's boats were there so he hopped into one of them and instantly fell fast asleep on the cushion used by the man steering the boat. We know exactly what these boats were like because, remarkably, one from that same time period somehow survived to the present day and now is in a museum in Galilee. While great for fishing, these boats were very narrow and shallow. During a storm in the middle of the lake they could easily fill with water and go down.

Sea of Galilee Boat

Photo by Berthold Werner

So, sure enough, a storm does blow up. Rain pours down in sheets, the wind screams, lightning shoots down like hungry dragons, violent waves pour over the side and smash the little boat against other waves. The crew struggles just to keep their craft from flipping over and pitching them all into the lake. To seasoned fishermen it looks like they are goners (“Master, Master, we are about to die!”).

Meanwhile, Jesus is still peacefully sound asleep on the completely drenched cushion. Finally, as their last chance, they wake Jesus up -- rather accusingly as Mark tells it: “Teacher, don’t you care that we are about to die?!”

"Cowards"

Jesus seems a bit irritated. Or perhaps disappointed. He stands, essentially tells the storm to 'shut up' (which it does), then turns on whichever of his students had been able to cram into that particular boat and says...

Now, my trusty NET Bible translates this correctly but I'm using the obscure God's Word version here because in addition to being accurate it totally nails the meaning.

...and Jesus said,

Matthew: “Why do you cowards have so little faith?” (GW)

Mark: “Why are you such cowards? Don’t you have any faith yet?” (GW)

He calls them "cowards," (deiloi in Greek).  Jesus rebukes his apostles quite a bit in the gospels if you haven't noticed, but this is the only time he uses the term "coward" with these manly men. Seasoned fishermen though they were, they were terrified, while Jesus, with little practical fishing experience so far as we know, was completely unworried. And he was startled, even annoyed, that they weren't unworried too. Not that he expected them to lay down their oars and stop bailing the boat, but that they ought to have been unworried that God would let them -- and Jesus -- die.

The lesson I draw from this adventure is that for Jesus, faith (at least in part) = trust.  He had complete, robust, implicit trust in his Father, to the point where he could lay down in the center of a raging storm and fall sound asleep without a care in the world. Jesus' followers sometimes call this "childlike faith." If you had the good fortune to grow up in a loving home and ever curled up in your parent's arms and fell asleep while they read you a story, you have experienced something very close to what the faith Jesus described and lived feels like.

If you or I were on that boat with him would he have been incredulous that we didn't have it by this time too?

Is Jesus a Contradiction?

God-Man?

Photo by Edal Anton Lefterov

Aside from "How can anyone still believe there's a God in our modern, push-button world?" and "Isn't God a sadist for throwing people into hell on the slightest whim?" one of the most frequent Quora questions is some variation of this one. 


Q: Is there a contradiction in the Trinity since Jesus was a human being and a god being at the same time?


A: The Christian teachings on the Trinity and the nature of Jesus are probably its 2 most misunderstood concepts. Just to clarify, the Trinity is defined in Christian theology as one being (“ousia” in Greek, the language it was first defined in) eternally existing as three distinct and infinite underlying personal realities (“Hypostasis” in Greek) — commonly called “Persons” to emphasize God’s personal (i.e., He’s not a force) nature. These three are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God (specifically the 2nd ‘person’ of the Trinity) took on and fully united with human nature in the single person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was not God only or a man only, but truly God and truly man, “unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.” In Christian theology this is called the Chalcedonian Definition and is based on the concept of the incarnation in the Christian Scriptures.

Hence, there is no contradiction because Jesus was first, foremost, and eternally the infinite God, but God plus something — God plus human-ness.

Leaving Nazareth

Christ in the Synagogue

Painting by Nikolay Ge, 1868

Nobody upvoted this response, which happens on Quora sometimes. In fact, almost nobody paid attention to the question at all.  But I didn't think it was too bad for a short answer. 


Q: Why did Jesus have to leave Nazareth to get his first followers?

A: Nazareth in Christ’s time was a tiny, insignificant village of around 400 people — not much of an audience. Also, as his quoting of a popular proverb (“not without honor, except in his hometown”) indicates, they were not inclined to see this carpenter, whom they’d watched grow up, as a possible Messiah. In fact, Luke's Gospel reports they were downright hostile! Add to that the rumor that he was illegitimate — born out of wedlock.

To expose his message to as large an audience as possible — and generate followers — it would have been necessary to base his operation in a larger, slightly more cosmopolitan town like Capernaum (population 1500+) and canvas all of Galilee, as the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) describe.

In addition, John’s gospel indicates that Jesus met his earliest and most important students (Peter, Andrew, and possibly John) in the crowds that gathered around John the Baptist, south of Galilee on the Jordan river.

To sum up, Nazareth was a small and rather hostile audience, but Capernaum, the Galilee region, and particularly John the Baptist’s hangers-on provided more fertile soil for Jesus’ unique message.

Things Jesus Called Himself

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” 

Painting by Tissot

Here's another Quora question I answered. There are all sorts of interesting but unsupportable ideas floating around about what Jesus was really like, and they pop up constantly there, especially the ones that insist Jesus was just a friendly teacher (the more like the Buddha the better), but surely not a Messiah.


Q: Why did Jesus never refer to himself as the Christ, Messiah, son of God, but as son of man, teacher, rabbi?

A: He did refer to himself that way when asked point blank: “The high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus,” (Mark 14.61–62 NRSV).

Another instance: “[Jesus] asked his disciples, Who do people say the Son of Man is?… “Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16.13 - 20 NRSV), which Jesus accepted, blessed Peter for his insight, and then told his students not to spread it around.

Some translations say "Christ" in these 2 passages but “Christ” is just the Greek translation of “Messiah.”

“Son of Man” originally meant “a person,” but by Jesus’ time it had taken on messianic connotations because of the episode in the 7th chapter of Daniel where “one like a son of man” presents himself to “the Ancient of Days” (i.e., God) and is “given authority, glory, sovereign power” and is “worshiped.” In fact, Jesus alludes to this scene right after confessing to being the Messiah in the Mark passage I quoted above.

“Son of Man” also had other advantages. For instance, it let Jesus refer to his messiahship indirectly so as to maintain a measure of modesty. Plus, “Messiah” had a lot of militaristic baggage to it. The common people expected a warrior like the ancient King David when they used the term. But “Son of Man” was a more mysterious figure from prophecy and less commonly used. This gave Jesus the opportunity to define the kind of Messiah he was instead of having current assumptions forced on him.

And of course, part of his idea of a Messiah involved being a teacher and a rabbi to his people.

"What we proclaim"

Doubting Saint Thomas, Béla Iványi-Grünwald

It took years to fully sink in, but eventually the absolutely gobsmacking realization hit them: When his students touched this peasant craftsman and teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, as they probably did thousands of time, they were touching a being who had lived forever. 

They were touching eternity.


If you listen closely, you can almost hear the awestruck wonder of it in the first words of the Apostle John's first letter...







This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (concerning the word of life— and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us).

1st Letter of John 2.1-2

___________________________

Severus of Antioch, monk, theologian, and Bishop of Antioch contemplates this...

"Given that this same John also said, “No one has ever seen God,” how can he assure us that the living Word of life has been seen and touched? It is clear that it was in his incarnate and human form that he was visible and touchable. What was not true of him by nature became true of him in that way, for he is one and the same indivisible Word, both visible and invisible, and without diminishing in either respect he became touchable in both his divine-human nature. For he worked his miracles in his divinity and suffered for us in his humanity."

Severus of Antioch (fl. 488–538).
Note: Yes, Severus held some odd views on how God and man came together in Christ, but his comments on John's letter are totally orthodox.

Catena in Epistolas Catholicas, 106
Oxford: Clarendon, 1840, J. A. Cramer, ed.

The Greatest Trial?

Temptation in the Wilderness

Briton_Rivière

What I like to do here on Sundays is present a small portion of the Bible and then let some especially wise members of the Christian Movement talk to us about it. 

Since it is Lent and Jesus-followers around the world are reliving the 40 days he fasted in the desert, why not turn our minds to Mark's brief, enigmatic description of that event. Matthew and Luke describe Jesus' titanic struggle with the Devil during that time (John doesn't mention it all). 

But this is all Mark says...


At once the Spirit made him go into the desert, where he stayed forty days, being tempted by Satan. Wild animals were there also, but angels came and helped him.

Gospel of Mark 1.12 - 13, GNB

__________________________

When you think about it, maybe hunger wasn't his most agonizing trial there in the wilderness. Maybe there was something worse...

You see how the Spirit led him, not into a city or public arena, but into a wilderness. In this desolate place, the Spirit extended the devil an occasion to test him, not only by hunger, but also by loneliness, for it is there most especially that the devil assails us, when he sees us left alone and by ourselves. In this same way did he also confront Eve in the beginning, having caught her alone and apart from her husband.

John Chrysostom (AD 349 – 407)
The Gospel of St. Matthew, Homily 13.1

Same Old, Same Old With the Son of God

Boredom

Photo by Adam Jones adamjones.freeservers.com

"On the 5th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me... downtime."

In the version of the Christian calendar followed in the western world this is the 5th Day of Christmas -- the one where your supposed to get those famous "five golden rings." But despite that, there are no holy feasts today, no commemorations like the one I mentioned the other day marking the first martyrdom in the Christian Movement. If you happen to be a big fan of Thomas Becket this would be the day you remember him, though it has nothing to do with Christmas (although he was yet another martyr...).

But there is a lesson in this day. After all, even life with the newborn Son of God wasn't a miracle-a-minute. There were no doubt weeks and months where nothing happened outside of ordinary, droning, peasant family life. Even the fact that they were refugees in Egypt for some time wouldn't have altered the mundaneness of the life of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus much.

Days like the 5th Day of Christmas, which basically just tick off time in the commemoration of Jesus' young life, help bring home the reality of all this. They hint that, despite all the wonders that swirl around the Holy Family at crucial moments, they were much more like us with all our prosaic concerns than we may think. As the Gospel of Luke tells us a little later on, most of Jesus' early life could be described this way: "The little boy Jesus was developing into a mature young man, full of wisdom. God was blessing him," (Luke, chapter 2 verse 40, ERV).

But that's to be expected. It is in legends and fairy tales that miracles happen every minute; here we are dealing with history. It just happens to be history in which God is with us.