Contents Foreword vii Preface ix One: Not in doubt
1
Three: Gospel
17
Two: A word for Jesus Four: True story
Five: The miracles of Jesus
Six: Heaven comes down to Earth Seven: Jesus in the Qur’an
Eight: Jesus’ love for disciples Nine: Jesus’ love for the lost
Ten: The wise judgements of Jesus
Eleven: The absolute demands of Jesus Twelve: The resurrection of Jesus
Thirteen: The sure blessings of David
Fourteen: Jesus, the Man from Heaven
Fifteen: Transcendence and transformation
9
23 37 49 53 59 65 73 89 95
107 115 123
Endnotes 127
Not in doubt
• ONE •
Not in doubt Two things about Jesus are not in serious doubt. One is that he existed and the other is that we know the main outline of his life. Jesus through hostile eyes We do not have to depend on Christian sources for evidence that Jesus was a genuine figure of history. Two famous secular historians make clear reference to him. One was the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, and the other the Roman historian, Cornelius Tacitus. Each was the most eminent in his respective area in the first-century AD: Josephus for Jewish history and Tacitus for Roman history. Neither man was sympathetic to Christianity. For Josephus, Jesus was but one of a number in the passing parade of troublemakers in that era. While Josephus referred to Jesus as ‘the Christ’, it is almost certain the Jewish historian did not personally believe this. Josephus regarded Jesus merely as a ‘teacher’ whose followers believed he was ‘the Christ’ but whom the Roman governor Pontius Pilate crucified. Tacitus spoke of Christ as the ‘founder’ of a sect whose members were called ‘Christians’. Tacitus also stated that Christ was executed under the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate. The sect did not die out with the death of its founder, but spread from Judea to Rome where, within the next three decades, it had become ‘a vast multitude’. Josephus and Tacitus are excellent sources for historical enquiry about Jesus. Both write within 80 years of Jesus, by which time the Christian movement was well established. And both are in varying degrees hostile to Christ and the Christians. Both agree that Jesus was executed in Judea under Pontius Pilate and both imply that it was only what he deserved. Jesus through sympathetic eyes Many raise their eyebrows at the idea that we should trust the
1
2
A Short Book About Jesus
Gospels’ accounts about Jesus. Rightly they point out that these writers were biased about Jesus. How can we believe the writings of his committed followers? First, the Christian sources and the secular sources agree fully about the ‘raw’ facts concerning Jesus. As already mentioned, they agree with the Gospels that Jesus was executed in Judea under the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Further, they agree that Jesus had followers and, in the case of Josephus, that Jesus had a brother named James. These are important points of agreement. In no historical detail do the secular sources and the Christian sources differ from one another. They do disagree, of course, in their respective opinions about who Jesus really was. Second, the Gospels provide multiple witnesses to Jesus. Mark and John were written independently of each other. Their narratives are so different that any idea of one copying from or depending on the other is ruled out. Also, underlying Matthew and Luke are three separate sources that are also independent of each other. This means that the Gospels, when carefully analysed, provide as many as five separate portrayals or part portrayals of Jesus. For historians this is an embarrassment of riches. It enables us to make a substantial sketch of the life of Jesus, which we will offer shortly. Third, sources that are written by ‘insiders’ should not be ruled out automatically. Much valuable information from the past has come to us from those who were interested in a person or event. The enquirer’s empathy with the subject or event led him or her to do the research and write up their findings. PhD students usually commit themselves to researching a subject or person they are interested in. We rely on Wikipedia and other online sources but those who write the entries often have a genuine interest in or empathy with the person or subject. This is a reason not to exclude the Gospels’ information, but rather to examine it critically and cross-check it against other sources. That can and should be our attitude to the information about Jesus in the Gospels. A brief life of Jesus Jesus was born in Bethlehem near Jerusalem during the last two
Not in doubt
or three years of King Herod, who died in 4 BC, and he was executed by the Roman authorities in Jerusalem in 33 AD. He was raised in Nazareth in Galilee, as the oldest child of Joseph and Mary. He followed the same trade as Joseph as an artisan who worked in wood and stone. As a boy of five he would have been educated in the local synagogue school. His extensive knowledge of the Hebrew Bible suggests that he was an avid scholar, though so far as we know his learning was in private. John baptised Jesus in the Jordan River in the year 28 or 29 AD, marking the beginning of Jesus’ preaching in the synagogues and in the open. His message was that the long awaited intervention of God had drawn near, the signs of which were Jesus’ own exorcisms and acts of healing. At that time he began calling men to follow him as his ‘apprentices’, 12 in number. These were his daily companions for the next three or so years. They overheard his instructions to the local people and his legal judgements with the religious lawyers, both of which he explained in private to his Twelve Disciples. Jesus sent his disciples on a mission to the towns and villages of Galilee where their message, like his, was that the kingdom of God was fast approaching. Following the mission he met up with the disciples on the eastern side of Lake Galilee where a large crowd, who had been inspired by the disciples’ mission, converged on him. These he fed miraculously from a boy’s modest lunch. Following this miraculous sign the crowds attempted to make Jesus ‘king’, to replace the local Herodian ruler who was based in Tiberias across the water. Evidently displeased with this Jesus took his small band of followers out of Galilee and into regions to the north and the east. At Caesarea Philippi, capital of Gaulanitis, the disciples—through Peter—declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the ‘One who was to come’, whereupon he declared himself to be the ‘Son of Man’ who was to be crucified by the Romans. Against the confused and protesting disciples Jesus set out for Jerusalem, travelling down the Jordan valley and passing through Jericho before reaching the holy city. Calculatedly arriving in Jerusalem on a donkey in fulfilment of prophecy, Jesus engaged in spirited debate with the main factions— the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Among his dramatic acts Jesus
3
4
A Short Book About Jesus
physically drove the moneychangers from the temple precincts. Jesus’ very public behaviour, first in Galilee then in Jerusalem, alarmed the temple authorities in Jerusalem, who had him arrested. A Jewish trial concluded that his actions in the temple and his refusal to deny being the Messiah led them to hand him over to the Roman authorities. Although Pontius Pilate was uneasy about the chief priests’ accusation that Jesus claimed to the ‘king of the Jews’, he was crucified for that claim, as an act of treason. Only Tiberius Caesar was the ‘king of the Jews’. Such is a brief account of Jesus’ story. It is possible to introduce and amplify other details, but most of what we have written is uncontroversial, and would be affirmed by many who practice history writing. Interpretation This ‘bare bones’ summary of Jesus’ life is accurate enough, but unmoving. It marks Jesus out as an interesting figure of first century Jewish history, but does not explain how he launched the beginnings of the world’s largest religious movement. Secular writers noted with concern a movement they likened to a rapidly spreading disease. As mentioned, by the 60s AD in Rome a ‘vast multitude’ belonged to what Tacitus referred to as the ‘sect’ of the Christians. By the early second century AD the governor of Bithynia informed his emperor that ‘a great many individuals of every age and class’2 were Christians. How are we to explain the immediate rise and development of this movement? The straightforward answer is because of the impact Jesus made on the small band of men who followed him and who engaged in vigorous missionary work in the immediate aftermath of his lifespan. This is evident from the letters of Paul, the first of which was written by the year 50 AD, and by the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles. That missionary work resulted in the formation of numerous Christian congregations who met in homes and private halls. Within a few years these were to be found in Israel, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, as well as, no doubt, in other places.
Not in doubt
These new gatherings (called ‘churches’) needed faith-based texts for the instruction of their members. The apostles adapted and expanded the humble letter as a means of teaching and modifying the beliefs and practices of these fledgling ‘churches’. Letters then were generally brief but many of the early Christian letters were quite long. Two terrible events occurred in the 60s that shook the world to its foundations. One was the fire in 64 AD that destroyed most of the world capital, Rome, and the other was the Roman military invasion of Israel in 66–70 AD. Those cataclysmic events of the 60s, together with the martyr deaths of James, Peter and Paul, seem to have prompted the early Christians to write the four Gospels. Jesus had not returned, as they had expected him to do, so it was important to have reliable permanent records about him. After Peter’s death in Rome in 64 or 65 AD, his ‘apprentice’ Mark set about recording his master Peter’s preaching about Jesus. Within a short time Luke and Matthew obtained copies of Mark’s Gospel, which they used as the narrative basis for their own Gospels, and which they filled out from the other three sources (noted above). Almost certainly John wrote independently of Mark, Luke and Matthew. Other first-century Jewish leaders It will be a surprise to some readers to discover that Jesus was not the only Jewish movement leader in the first century. There were broadly speaking two types of leader—warlords and attemptedmiracle-working prophets. Judas the Galilean, the most prominent warlord who was part bandit and part patriot, attempted to defeat the occupying Roman forces in Judea in 6 AD. The Romans killed him, but his influence lived on through his descendants James and Simon (executed in c. 47 AD) and Menahem (executed in c. 66 AD). Thus, for about 60 years, members of Judas’ clan emerged from the wilds of the Golan Heights in futile attempts to attack the Romans. Other warlords arose when Vespasian and his son Titus led Roman armies into Israel to suppress the rebellion that broke out in 66 AD.
5
6
A Short Book About Jesus
From the mid-40s for the next 20 years there arose a sequence of ‘prophets’ like Theudas and ‘the Egyptian’ who attracted large followings based on their promises to repeat the miracle ‘signs’ of Moses and Joshua. Like the warlords, their intention was to rid the holy land of the evil Gentile occupying forces. The Romans quickly overcame these ‘prophets’ and their followers. In each case these movements, which had numerous members, disappeared with the deaths of their respective leaders. Today they are little more than footnotes in first century Jewish history. But they prompt an important question. The Romans killed Jesus so why didn’t his movement die out with him? How is it that his movement became the vibrant, rapidly growing movement that within three centuries captured the heart and mind of the Roman Emperor, Constantine? Why Christianity survived and grew There are several reasons why the Jesus movement survived and grew. The first, and dominant reason, was that Jesus’ followers were convinced that he was not dead, but alive. By ‘alive’ they did not only mean ‘alive’ in their memories, subjectively speaking. They were certain that God had raised the crucified Jesus from the dead. It was Jesus’ bodily resurrection, above all, that confirmed to them that he was the one, unique, transcendental man. For this reason one of our chapters is focused on the resurrection of Jesus. If the resurrection is not historically true there is no Christianity, then or now. Everything depends on it. There were connected subsidiary reasons, the chief of which was that Jesus’ resurrection gave to his followers the certain expectation of their ‘eternal life’ beyond the grave. It was a dangerous time back then. Wars, disease, famines, earthquakes, and volcano eruptions were frequent occurrences. Few people lived beyond their forties. But Jesus’ resurrection from the dead overcame the daily reality of death. It also emboldened believers to die for their faith. The crucifixion of Jesus was equally important as his resurrection. Paradoxically the crucifixion of Jesus was at the same time deeply offensive yet strangely attractive. For Jews the crucifixion of Jesus
Not in doubt
automatically cancelled his claimed messiahship, while for Gentiles that shameful manner of death made the Christians’ claims ludicrous. But for many, both Jews and Gentiles, the crucifixion was seen as the divine remedy for sin. God forgave the sins of those who turned in faith to the crucified one. At the same time, the cross of Jesus gave those who had been sinned against a resource for their forgiveness of an offender, including a persecutor. Jesus was noble in death, calling for the forgiveness of his tormentors. In a society where the self-serving clamoured to gain a competitive edge over others, the Christian insistence on love of neighbour proved to be deeply refreshing. Jesus reached out to the poor, the marginalised, the diseased, the disabled, and children. From the beginning of Christian history the followers of Jesus cared for the needy, including those who were not believers. Early Christian ethical teaching grew by natural extension from the teaching of the Master. In a culture that despised work as the province of slaves and where divorce and abortions were commonplace, the example of Jesus and Paul as men who worked with their hands, and the teaching of Jesus on the sanctity of marriage and the priority of family life were truly revolutionary. True, many values relating to work and family were shared by the Jews. Judaism, however, required males to be circumcised and for proselytes to embrace total conversion to that religion. While extolling the virtues of hard work and family life the Christians did not demand that Gentiles must become Jews or that Jews must renounce Judaism. The Jewish warlords and prophets blazed briefly like comets, but then left the sky darkened by their absence. Jesus’ resurrection, the power of his crucifixion, and the nobility of his life and teaching brought a new and permanent light into the darkness of that world. This light continues to shine where Jesus’ people are true to him and the message about him. Conclusion Jesus was a genuine figure of history and the broad outline of his life is not seriously in doubt. While there were a number of wellsupported leaders in first-century Jewish history, their movements
7
8
A Short Book About Jesus
died out immediately following the deaths of the leaders at the hands of the Romans. The Romans also killed Jesus but his movement went from strength to strength and spread rapidly around the shores of the Mediterranean and into the interior regions. Comparison with other leaders raises the question about why Jesus’ movement survived and grew. We need look no further than the signature facts associated with Jesus, that is, the hope his resurrection inspired and his crucifixion’s promise of divine forgiveness. Furthermore, the people of the Roman Empire listened with awe to Jesus’ forgiveness of the crucifiers and to his revolutionary teaching about love, work and family life. In a word, the message about Jesus identified him not as one leader among others, nor even the best leader among others. That message identified Jesus as transcendent, someone beyond comparison with anyone else, ever. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Is it a fatal problem that we depend mainly on sympathetic sources for our knowledge of Jesus? 2. Why do we find a ‘bare bones’ biography about Jesus unmoving? 3. How do we explain why the Christian movement not only survived the death of its founder, but grew?
A word for Jesus
• TWO •
A word for Jesus What is the word that best describes Jesus? Perhaps it is ‘unique’? But ‘unique’ is often used for ‘the best of the best’, for someone like Don Bradman who averaged 99 runs for every innings. The next highest so far has been the South African Graeme Pollock, averaging 61 runs per innings. Bradman had a special talent, one that may never be repeated, but I doubt that we should call him unique in an absolute sense. We have to be content with something like, ‘As a batsman, Don Bradman was the greatest of the great’. Another problem with the word ‘unique’ is that each of us is unique. No-one else has my fingerprints or DNA. We must find another word. Paul confronts us with Jesus as ‘the Man from Heaven’3, that is, Jesus is not one of us, but one who has come down to us. Mark, the writer of the first Gospel, makes the same point. But he does so through his story about Jesus, rather than by an outright statement like Paul’s. Mark’s beginning and end In the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus just appears out of nowhere. It is all very otherworldly. Our eyes are directed to a man standing in the River Jordan with another man, John the Baptist, who refers to the focal figure as ‘the Lord’. The heavens part and a dove-shaped Spirit descends on the man. The voice from on high says, ‘You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased’.4 Mark tells us nothing of Jesus’ age, appearance or background. Nothing. It is as if he has just parachuted down from heaven to us. The end of the Gospel of Mark is similarly mysterious. The last we see of Jesus is his body taken down from the cross, wrapped in a linen shroud and laid in Joseph’s tomb. That was late Friday afternoon.
9
10
A Short Book About Jesus
When the women come to the tomb early on Sunday Morning they find the large circular stone rolled to one side. Climbing in they find—nothing. The body is gone. An angelic figure tells them, ‘You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen; he is not here’. That is all. No resurrected Jesus, just a gaping, empty tomb. Mark has shaped his Gospel’s beginning and end to focus on Jesus as an otherworldly figure. Jesus, the miracle-worker From the moment of his baptism Mark positions us to see Jesus doing miracles. His primary function was as an itinerant rabbi who went about teaching in parables that God was about to break into history. In the course of his travels around the Galilean Lake he was confronted with human misery in those possessed with unclean spirits, leprosy, chronic internal bleeding, even death in a young girl. He stilled the storm on the lake in response to the terrified pleas of the fishermen. He fed a hungry crowd from a boy’s modest lunch. Later, passing through Jericho, he healed Bartimaeus the blind beggar. Mark narrates these and other astonishing incidents with a minimum of fuss. Yet each incident on its own, and all of them taken together, challenge the reader to recognise that Jesus is ‘not one of us’ and does not fit in with anyone else that we have met or heard about. Our sense of Jesus’ strangeness was no less felt back then. Reactions to Jesus Mark records many examples of amazement at the actions and words of Jesus: 1:27 They were all amazed … ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority!’ 2:7 ‘Why does this man speak like that? ... Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ 4:41 They were filled with great fear … ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’ 5:15 They saw .. the one who had had the legion … clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.
A word for Jesus
6:56 Wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. 7:37 They were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak’. 9:6 [Peter] did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 16:8 They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Mark has confronted us with Jesus as an otherworldly figure by his beginning and end, by his compassionate miracles to meet human agony, and by the amazed reactions of those who were present. It would be a mistake, however, to think that these astonishing events were the sum total of Mark’s narrative. There is more to this Gospel than a succession of awe-inspiring miracles. Mark’s story Two tightly connected themes dominate this Gospel. The first is its story that begins with the baptism of Jesus and ends with his death in Jerusalem. From the time of the baptism, the plot of the Pharisees and Herodians to kill Jesus, and Jesus’ own announcement at Caesarea Philippi to go to Jerusalem, the narrative moves relentlessly to the crucifixion of Jesus at Golgotha. The second and deeply connected theme is Jesus’ call and training of the 12 apprentices. This fits exactly within the framework of Mark’s story about Jesus. Mark tells us nothing about Jesus before the baptism and he also tells us nothing about the disciples beforehand. Their story is interwoven with his story. The connection of the disciples with Jesus is inseparably part of the same narrative. Why is this? It is because Jesus foresaw that his self-revelation to them was to be restricted within the three or so years between his baptism and his resurrection. Their narrative about him was to be defined by these events. This was the ‘gospel’ the disciples were to proclaim to
11
12
A Short Book About Jesus
the ‘whole world’.5 Here I share a thought that is new to me. It would be unwise to claim it as an absolutely new insight. People have been studying these texts for 2,000 years. Nevertheless, it is a new flash of knowledge for me. It is that the written Gospel by Mark covers exactly the same span of events as the spoken gospel by Peter and Paul, as summarised in their six speeches in Acts 2–13—that is from the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan to his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. Suddenly it was clear to me why the call of the Twelve was exactly co-extensive with Jesus’ own story from baptism to empty tomb. It was for just one reason, for them to bear true testimony to these events about him. The word for Jesus I am now ready to suggest a word to describe Jesus. It is the word ‘transcendent’, meaning ‘beyond our experience’. Jesus, the ‘Man from Heaven’, is absolutely singular, beyond comparison or classification. It is true that various ‘human’ characteristics can be applied to him. He was a ‘rabbi’ or synagogue teacher, as each of the Gospels makes clear. Such was the force of his character and power of speech that many thought he was also a great prophet. Yet no rabbi or prophet relieved human agony so instantly and effortlessly as Jesus did. He taught with the authority of God, pronounced forgiveness with the authority of God and subdued the raging elements of creation with the power of God. This is my justification for portraying Jesus, based on Mark’s witness, as the one singular transcendent figure. The Gospel of Mark and Rome The Romans had killed Jesus in Jerusalem back in 33 AD and just over 30 years later they killed his leading disciple Peter in Rome. During the next few years Peter’s junior colleague Mark would commit his mentor’s spoken Gospel to written form. This Gospel, however, is not merely a challenging book about the Man from Heaven, the only truly transcendental figure. Mark leaves numerous clues that his Gospel unveils the substitute Christ, the evil
A word for Jesus
pretender. And who is that? The Roman Caesar who was, until his suicide in 68 AD, Nero. No doubt Mark and other members of the Christian community in Rome lived in humble tenements. By contrast the emperor lived in opulence in his palace on the Palatine Hill from which he ruled the whole world. His armies had created secure frontiers to protect the Romans from the invading ‘Barbarians’. His navies had cleared the Mediterranean of pirates. A mighty network of roads beginning from Rome criss-crossed the empire. Quite a contrast: the omnipotent Caesar and the seemingly powerless group of the followers of Jesus. The Romans had a name for an official decree that the emperor sent out from Rome throughout the ‘whole world’. It was the word ‘gospel’. We can see, therefore, how audacious Mark was in calling his book ‘Gospel’, which was to be sent forth from Rome to ‘the whole world’.6 Mark’s book is subversive, a mockery of Caesar and his ‘gospel’. A high point in Mark is when the Roman centurion stood before Jesus, crucified by the Romans for treason against Caesar, and declared him to be ‘the Son of God’. This was a key title for the Caesar, yet this Roman soldier said that the man crucified for treason against Rome was the true ‘Son of God’, the true ruler of the world. Mark’s breathtaking message was that Jesus was the true ruler of the world, not the all too human Caesar of the moment. Nero, who had killed his mother Agrippina, and probably also his pregnant wife Poppaea, took his own life in the year 68 AD, leaving the imperial succession in turmoil. Despite all the trappings of power, the security of the empire at its very heart was vulnerable. This is astonishing. Had Jesus merely been a rabbi or prophet Mark would not have dared to present Jesus to the ‘whole world’ as the transcendent one, the Man from Heaven, the true ruler. The Gospel of Mark and the Roman Caesar The Caesars promised great blessings to the Roman world. Their many temples and statues of themselves scattered around the Empire were not there for ceremonial reasons, at least not primarily.
13
14
A Short Book About Jesus
The naked statue of the Caesar pointed to his divinity as one of the gods. Caesar portrayed in military garb pointed to his military power. While dressed in a civilian’s toga his statue gave the message of an empire enjoying peace and prosperity. These forms of propaganda, along with the messages stamped on coins, conveyed one message: Caesar is ‘Lord and god, look to him for protection and prosperity’. Like many political promises it was a phoney message, crafted to bring reassurance of well-being. It was, however, in the end a morality-free message that endorsed violence, a rigid caste system, slavery, cruelty, corruption, the heartless exposure of babies, and oppression of the weak by the powerful. Mark’s message was that true power was found in this Jesus, the true Son of God. As the resurrected Son of God he alone had the power to free those gripped with the power of demons and the omnipresent fear of death. By his death, the Crucified One secured freedom from the wrathful judgement of the Almighty. But that death also established a revolutionary new template for human relationships. That exemplary death called for the forgiveness of an offender and the noble ethic of service for all, enemies included. Responding to Jesus Mark’s Gospel is two things simultaneously, as implied by its opening words. ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ’ carries a double meaning, the Gospel about Jesus Christ and the Gospel that Jesus Christ speaks. In the first sense it is a historical record of Jesus from baptism to empty tomb along with his engagement with the disciples. In the second sense, however, it is the ‘word of Jesus’ to his hearers (the Gospel was written to be heard) from the late 60s until today. Understood in this second way means that Mark’s Gospel is and continues to be the living word of Jesus to the ‘whole world’. He, and not the Roman Caesar, is the transcendent one to be worshipped and served. Mark deflects us from any worship of Caesar or his modern counterparts. According to Jesus those who rule the Gentiles only seem to do so.7 In saying, ‘Render to Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’8 Jesus placed strong
A word for Jesus
limitations against the veneration of Caesar. Caesar had a role in human affairs (tax gathering, administration), but to God alone is worship to be given. This role is nothing compared to Caesar’s grandiose ideas of his importance. What, then, does Jesus say to us about himself ? Many of the commands of Jesus are limited to their original setting so that it would not be right to transfer them to us in an unqualified way. Other words of Jesus, however, are specifically timeless, for example, ‘What I say to you (the disciples) I say to all (all other Christians): Stay awake’.9 Jesus is saying to his followers in every generation, ‘Be prepared for my coming’. The Roman Caesars are long gone, but their successors are with us in every generation. Some are worthy leaders, others are not. But the transcendent one who speaks to us from Mark, is ever the same, ever faithful and ever true. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. How does the story about Jesus at the start and end of Mark’s Gospel point to his transcendence? 2. How does Mark portray Jesus as the true king while implying that his counterpart, the Caesar, was a phoney? How should we regard modern politicians? 3. Spell out the implications of ‘Render to Caesar … render to God’.
15