J.D. Crossan 2000 UNI lecture on the historical Jesus

it is a pleasure and an honor to be with you this evening as your Hearst lecturer and to speak to you on the historical Jesus I will be emphasizing especially this evening the question of methodology how do you reconstruct the historical Jesus with some scholarly integrity and I would ask you to notice the term I'm already using reconstruct I don't talk about the search are the quest for the historical Jesus because that makes it seem as if Jesus is out there somewhere like the truth in certain TV series and all we have to do is get them reconstruction means that this is something we may have to do over and over again with any person who is of supreme importance either for good or for evil so let me say a few words first of all about reconstruction and then I will go into the methodology I'm using there's a standard jibe that those who are not in historical Jesus studies make of those of us who are which is that all we ever see is our own face at the bottom of a deep whale ha ha ha ha ha ha ha sometimes one Jesus scholar says it of another Jesus scholar but you never see it of course of yourself so when I first heard this I thought it was a cheap crack but the more I think about it the more I think it is a profound truth and so I define history I define history as the past as interactively reconstructed by the present through argued evidence in public discourse public debate now the key word is you might imagine is interactive that is there is an interactive loop between the past and the present in which the past is changing the present and the present is changing the past so it's in between two extremes which I would call positivism and narcissism positivism is the delusion that you can get back and see the past totally untouched uncontaminated unchanged by your own viewing eye that's a delusion it's as if you could see your own face in the mirror in the bathroom in the morning if you just look real fast and you wouldn't see your own eyes seeing your own face seeing if you could just do it fast enough positivism is a delusion that you can see the past totally unchanged by your own viewing eye I leave that over here the other extremist narcissism which is the presumption that all we're ever seeing is our self imposed on the past and then we fall in love with it like narcissus I don't think either of those two extremes are necessary there is something which the term is rather awful interactive ism which is that we always interact with the past as we reconstruct it we are changing it by our own process of viewing it and hopefully if we give it half a chance it's also changing us now if you have reached the postmodern position where you think history is not possible the next time you're called for jury duty try and tell the judge that you do not think you can reconstruct the past beyond a reasonable doubt and I think his honor will not buy it so that's what I mean by history when I do it now how do I go about investigating the historical Jesus and understand the historical Jesus is if you are there as it were in the 20s of the first century and you're a neutral observer you are just reporting say for The Jerusalem Post or something what would you actually see you're obviously seeing some people saying this person is criminal and should be crucified and you're seeing other people saying maybe this person is divine and should be followed if not worshipped how are you going to explain to your audience what's this person about that can raise such absolute disparate reactions that's the historical Jesus what would you see can you explain to me why some people want them dead and some people want and worshiped that's what we're trying to do now how do you do that the first thing I do is I separate what I will call context and text by text I mean the Christian Gospels what I want to do for a moment is leave them aside I want to let on as if I don't know them now obviously it's too late for that but let us imagine we don't know those Christian texts and we ask this question what was it like to be in the territories of Herod Antipas in lower Galilee in the 20s of the first century now obviously the only reason I know the focus at that point is because I've been cheating and looking at the text right but let's imagine we now put them aside and it's as if I wanted to gather a group of world experts and ask them give me a thicker description as you know how about the 20s in the churches of Herod Antipas in lower Galilee and to say well why do you want to do that oh it's just random I just happen to pick that don't worry give me as thick a description as you can do it now that's the discipline I'm trying to do focus on context I will not for the moment look at mark or Matthew or Luke or John or anyone else because the context there may be a later I leave it aside now how do I do that context I work with three interweaving interdisciplinary layers of cross cultural anthropology of Roman Jewish history and of Galilee and archeology and I'm deliberately making it from the basement as it were of anthropology the next layer of history and the final layer of archaeology but I want them interdisciplinary and interactive that is they will move and influence one another now that gives me three disciplines to work with to get this wrong I really have to blow three disciplines now I'm probably capable of doing that but it takes much more work so I will be watching these disciplines sort of correct one another a little bit and it's also an open matrix that can change new archaeological discoveries new anthropological discoveries so a triple-layer working from the broadest to the narrowest as a word my first layer I call cross cultural anthropology cross cultural you understand is that if I were to tell you I'm going to look at say the 19th century peasant population of Ireland and apply that to the first century in the Jewish homeland you would laugh at me so what I have to do is take a cross-cultural view of what do we know about peasant society in an agrarian Empire from those who have studied all of them we've got past and present what generalizations do they make now they're not physical laws of course not there's statistical expectations possibilities what do we find for example in peasant society in an agrarian Empire an agrarian Empire is one which has discovered the iron plough and has of course the ecology to go with it the Eskimos would probably not find it particularly useful so the ecology and the technology for the iron plough that would be the first question about an agrarian Empire what happens the Roman Empire of course is such an in Empire what happens the first thing I find from anthropology is a huge increase in agricultural productivity there is lots more stuff to eat now is that good news or bad news for the peasants who form about eighty to ninety percent of the population and of course do all the work to produce this food is that good news or bad news for them now I don't know that till I go to the anthropologists and what do they tell me well for example they tell me this so this is my first basic principle from anthropology that when you have this huge increase in agricultural productivity the rich get richer and richer and richer and the poor stay pretty much where they always have been if you are a peasant that is somebody a farmer whose surplus is taken and expropriated by powers greater than that peasant you can't really get much worse as the emperor tiberius said you you shear my sheep you don't fleece them no you don't skimp sorry you share my sheep you don't skin them so what happens in a new gradient society is a yawning chasm that's a phrase from an archaeologist opens up between the haves and the have-nots it gets higher and higher it's not to just get much lower but there's a yawning chasm all right that's one thing to know second is this you probably wonder why if a peasant society means that the agriculture producers who produce everything that everyone needs for food why don't you repeal why do they take this why do they let superior forces granted armed forces take their surplus why aren't they in constant rebellion now I get to my second point from anthropology it's almost like you have a steady state that the aristocrats take and the peasants give until you move into a commercializing agrarian Empire commercializing commercializing means don't think of it quite the way we would use it that the aristocrats have learned that you know there's ways you could get much more if for instance you moved in and instead of having the peasants being small freeholders you amalgamated all those small little ten acre farms into a big farm with a steward running it now you're not going to steal a course from the peasants that's old-fashioned you only do that in wartime so how do you do that well you offer loans and since the peasants are always in trouble by definition they will take your loans and you will foreclose you didn't steal it it's just business so in a commercializing agrarian Empire as the commercialization comes up in one variable resistance rebellion revolt comes up with it you can chart the coincidence of those variables in a mature agrarian Empire as commercialization increases and it may only be a very small change it might be just that okay you can't hunt rabbits anymore or you can't go into the the forest where you used to be able to go in some move in which what you have learned is if instead of taking the peasant surplice you took the peasant lands you could make much more money you could for example in the first century plant vines and make 7% over against cereals at 5% profit so my second point from anthropology is watch this in an agrarian Empire watch commercialization watch the point at which there's a push to increase the profits off the land why would you want to do that well for example if I'm an aristocrat in the Roman Empire in Galilee I would like very much to be able to have let's say a marble column all the way from Egypt for my villa Wow a single marble column none of these fluted things you know painted white that we're trying to fake everyone into thinking it's marble but real marble I can do that now because it's an empire but I want more money to do it so as commercialization goes up resistance goes up with it and the final point I take from anthropology is this that when you get finally overt resistance revolt when it's desperate enough in other words to probably get yourself killed figuring you're going to die in any case then that's the tip of the iceberg there's covert resistance on all the layers underneath all right that's a generalization I take from anthropology and one of the things I love reading the anthropologist is none of them were the least bit interested in the historical Jesus so even if they're all wrong they're not all wrong for anything to do with Jesus but that's the general understanding I take from anthropology now it's very general maybe that doesn't apply over here but the Roman Empire is a commercialising agrarian Empire that's my foundation and watch that word commercial because in one sense that's going to be the linchpin that comes through my various layers alright let me move now to the second layer history put the question this way what went so terribly wrong between the Jewish homeland and Roman Imperial policy how do I know something went wrong because the legions were stationed in Syria and whenever the legions came south it meant the resistance were serious enough to bring in the heavy dragoons as it were they came in 4 BCE the death of Herod the Kim again in 66 and ended up with the temple burned to the ground Jerusalem in ruins again in 132 to 135 another huge war basically that meant that their foreign policy was it was a failure it is not a success for an empire when it has to repeatedly subdue a colony so that raises this issue why were the Jews so often rebelling against Rome if you say well it's the colonial people in colonial people do that well wait a minute they have been under empires for almost 500 years and only once had there been elde against those empires at the time of the Maccabean crisis but now the Romans have arrived and within say two hundred years we're going to have three major wars something went wrong why what's wrong if you're dealing with the Irish for example you wouldn't have to worry you have to figure why didn't there a bell and that generation if you're dealing really with the Jewish people you have to explain why they did so I'm asking the question now from history what do we see that went so wrong there's minor reasons you could say well some of it was bad administration on the roman part fine but what was the core reason that set these two people on a collision course let me go back into the tradition probably the most stunning single sentence in the entire Bible including the New Testament as far as I'm concerned is the statement of God in the Book of Leviticus a book I know you all read regularly which states the land belongs to me God is speaking the land belongs to me as far as I am concerned you are all tenant farmers and resident aliens now wait a minute the land belongs to me the Romans hearing that would say now this is some kind of a Jewish joke right the land belongs to us we took it from you it's called conquest you have a problem with that so watch these two things now you could say well that's just a nice idea in Leviticus you know pious thought no it isn't when you go through the law and the prophets and the Psalms you find again and again that land is not another commodity to be bought and sold like a like a sheep or a goat land is life itself so for example the land cannot be bought and sold it can't be handled like another commodity that's in the law it's not just a nice idea the famous story is of naboth vineyard where the King Ahab says to Naboth you have a vineyard I'd like to buy it from you I'll give you a very good price for it or if you don't want to buy it I give you another vineyard somewhere else I would like to have your vineyard and now both says I can't do it it's against the law to sell my ancestral inheritance now pour a cup has been very nice he did not say once again I am The King I want your vineyard thank you very much so he tells his Queen Jezebel who is a Canaanite princess who is a different economic theology who believes in free trade and she said this is a calculated insult to the king I'll take care of it so she kills now but and gives her husband the vineyard but that's the point you cannot sell land because as Isaiah says if you do that what's going to happen is a few of you are going to own all of it and most of you are going to have none of it so the attempt to keep the land's distribution the lands distribution just and equitable and fair and sufficient is profoundly integrated in the basis of the Jewish law now if that is true then there is a collision course on Roman Imperial policy which thinks the law the land belongs to us what do we want to do with it we want to increase its surplus we want to make it more profitable we're not in the least bit interested of course in destroying it we want to maximize its profits and the Jewish tradition says the land belongs to God and God is just and the land must be handled justly and the Romans say the land belongs to us and it must be handled profitably so when I look at the history then I see the same word that I found the anthropologists using commercialization what the Romans did was perfectly normal romanization was urbanization was commercialization they didn't send traders out and horseback as it were they moved in and created a city the city housed of course aristocrats the aristocrats had to have land which was the only capital in the world really and the function of that land was to increase the profits and as I said the way he did that was by loans and foreclosing all of which was tightly regulated by Jewish law so as I look at these if anyone takes any of this seriously there's going to be trouble and that is the reason that I would say why Roman Imperial policy not because it was brutal or anything but because it was normal he's in a collision course with Jewish tradition so now I put my historical layer on top of my anthropological layer and the linchpin that's coming up through is commercialization maximizing the profits of the land what about the Anthropology excuse me the archaeology somebody could say well although that's fine well that simply doesn't apply to to Galilee Galilee was just minding its own business the Romans weren't interested in it what does the archaeology tells us now to be honest with you it doesn't tell me nearly as much as I would like to know it tells me for example that Herod Antipas who took over Galilee the death of his father in 4 BCE rebuilt the city of Sepphoris which is a few miles from Nazareth to make it as he said as Josephus says the ornament of all Galilee so you have one big city wooden walled city 20 years later by 20 miles to the east about the year 19 let's keep it 24 round numbers in the year 20 heard Antipas builds a brand new capital at Tiberias on the lake notice the name Tiberias what's going on his father had built Caesar eeeyah on the coast a giant port which was commercializing that's the reason you build a port to bring in trade into the Jewish homeland his son Antipas builds a city on the lake and calls it after the new roman emperor Tiberius what Antipas is doing is making his move I suspect to try and become King of the Jews king of the entire Jewish homeland as his father had been romanization commercialization urbanization hits lower Galilee forcibly about the year 20 that's my thesis now I admit completely I like much more data from the archaeologists telling me can you see the relationship between the arrival of these two cities in lower Galilee and what is doing to the countryside what's happening to the peasants is this good news for the peasants some of my colleagues said this is marvelous news for the peasants they now much more place where they can sell their goods that's not what I would be hearing from the anthropologists the function of the city is to control the countryside and maximize its profits that's why you're building cities you're not just doing it for your own amusement so as I put those three things together what I see is my anthropology my history and my archaeology starting to come together Antipas stayed very quiet when Augustus was alive you remember Augustus had divided up Herod's kingdom between his sons our collage got the south and lasted ten years before he found himself dumped into exile I suspected up in Galilee Antipas is taking notes be very careful with Augustus don't make any moves Augustus dies in 14 a couple of years later Antipas starts to move he builds a brand new city or starts the building of a brand new city and he calls it after the new emperor Tiberius also by the way you remember he marries a has money in princess and I think he is making his move to become King of the Jews now when I look at all of that what would I call it those layers of the context over here what I find is not just three layers a kind of sit on top of one another but commercialisation as the linchpin that goes through it from the bottom up because the anthropologists tell me that when you have commercialization expect resistance as commercialization goes up resistance goes up the history tells me that it's precisely the commercialization of the land that again and again and again will cause problems in the Jewish homeland that's what caused the Maccabee in revolt against Antiochus of Syria who is just trying in a way to make the Jewish homeland more profitable from his imperial point of view the land belongs to me it's not there for conquest and expropriation so that's my context that tells me this by the year 20 in lower Galilee I expect that something might just happen now can I predict that like a law of course not of course not but if something does happen I'm not going to let our enterprise what I'm expecting is resistance in the name of God not just resistance but resistance in the name of God so now I'm going to shift for the moment from context to text and at the back of my mind sort of is this question why did Jesus happen when he happened I put it this way why did the Baptist movement of John and the kingdom movement of Jesus both happen in the territories of Herod Antipas in the 20s why not 10 years before 10 years later why then why they're now at this point I'm going to start looking from text to context my context has told me expect something at least don't be surprised if something happens now I start looking at the texts what text do I use how do i how do I do this do I just go into the Gospels and choose whatever ones I wanted suit this here's what I'm going to try and do after 200 years of study for example it has been established pretty much with a magnificent consensus that mark has been copied by Matthew Luke so you go from mark into Matthew and Luke and that John this is much more controversial John may well have used Matthew Mark and Luke now I'm seeing a stream of tradition in other words so the way I do it is this way does the earliest texts I can get cohere with that context I've just outlined for you does the earliest layer of those texts cohere with that context does it make sense in that context now I don't presume it has to I don't presume it has to it could easily be that the earliest layer of the text about Jesus makes sense in the 40s not the 20s and in that case you would have to say the historical Jesus is lost forever behind the first layers of the text is lost so my question is what's the earliest layer I want to look at with those texts now the earliest layer we can get of course would be Paul Paul's in 5050 so if Paul spent his epistle telling us about the historic and Jesus I wouldn't be here tonight we'd have Paul and that would be it the earliest texts we can get that I can identify are two texts one is called the Q gospel Q is short for quaint just checking okay the scholars who found that mark was used by Matthew and Luke notice there was another source in there and they call it the source in German D quail a R Q for short so it's the second gospel that kind of might date back to the 50s secondly ate another gospel called the Gospel of Thomas was discovered in 1945 at NAG Hammadi in Egypt it's an independent as far as I'm concerned gospel so I now have the Q gospel in the Gospel of Thomas independent of them of it one another and therefore earlier than either may I repeat that if they are independent of one another the material that they have in common is earlier than either it's that material I'm going to focus on what do I find in there for example I find that Jesus speaks about the kingdom of God now that's probably by the way when one of the things that almost all scholars of the historical Jesus agree on which would be great news if they all agreed what it meant the first thing it doesn't mean is this kingdom of God means exactly the same as kingdom of heaven if you don't want to use the sacred name of God you could use heaven as assertive a euphemism for God that's like using the white house instead of the present you simply use heaven but you mean God the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is not about heaven but about heaven how heaven wants earth to be so the kingdom of God is about how should this earth be run put it more bluntly the kingdom of God is how would this world look like if God sat on Caesars throne kingdom of God is a terribly dangerous expression people of God is not so hair-raising community of God but kingdom of God most Romans would say well that's us right we got the kingdom we got the power we got the glory I guess that's what you're talking about the kingdom of God that's us so when for example Matthew says in the our Father thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth that's exactly right the kingdom of God is about how should this be now look at the collision course over here you have Roman policy working through Antipas to commercialise urbanize lower Galilee and you have Jesus saying that is not the kingdom of God that might be the kingdom of Antipas but it ain't the kingdom of God this is how do I put this 100% political and 100% religious you cannot in the first century separate those two things you can't say well that's political are that's religious it's a religion political clash of different gods as it were so the vision of Jesus is about the kingdom of God and that's over against the kingdom of Antipas but does he have a program okay let's say he has a vision of how it should be does he have a program or is it all sort of a beautiful idea of how things should be do we see any program the slogan I use to catch your memory and your imagination is that John the Baptist had a monopoly and Jesus had a franchise but John the Baptist did was he was the Baptizer that's the nickname given to him in the New Testament by Josephus he was the Baptist if you wanted to be baptized you went to John therefore when Antipas wanted to get rid of John's movement it was relatively simple all he had to do was take out John and then the movement might last in nostalgia and remembrance but it was basically a dead movement what Jesus did in the program of Jesus was quite different and I would like to leave it hanging that maybe he had learned from what happened to John he told his companions to go out and do exactly what he was doing this is very very important for my understanding of the historical Jesus he didn't settle down with his family at Nazareth and send out his companions to bring everyone to him our with Peter at Capernaum at Peter's house and send out his companions bring everyone to me I have the kingdom bring them to me had he done that once again it would have been very easy to have ended the movement all you had to do was get him what he did was tell other people to go and do exactly what he was doing now when you read those texts two things keep coming up healing and eating he told his companions to go and heal those who are sick and eat with those you heal that might sound to you like not particularly marvelous but think about it for a second healing is probably the only true spiritual power we have and eating of course is the basis for material life so what Jesus is doing is building peasant society in a sort of an anti community to what you might call the green community of Rome and commercialization we are going to share absolutely together spiritual power and physical power it's a very strange thing he never tells them to go do it in my name he doesn't tell them as I said to bring people to me he doesn't say good to go do it in my name he doesn't even say go do it in God's name he doesn't tell them and by the way don't forget to pray before you do it he just tells them go do it and that is the kingdom of God the kingdom of God is where spiritual power and material power are distributed and shared absolutely and equally it's terribly strange Jesus doesn't pray enough in Mark's Gospel he only prays twice once at the very beginning of his life and once at the very end which by the way really embarrasses Matthew and Luke so Matthew says well you're supposed to pray in secret so obviously Jesus was doing in secret and Luke says what I used to go out into the desert and pray okay then if he was out in the desert II don't know what he was doing out there but but they see a problem when jesus heals he doesn't pray he doesn't say Oh God healed this person if you are in the kingdom of God healing and eating is taken for granted it is the kingdom of God now he sends out people to do this and I think this is a crucial moment in the whole history of the future I'm not going to say that's the moment kind of when the future is inevitable but that's the moment when it's going to be too late for Pilate to get them because by the time what Jesus is doing is going to without a doubt bring them into trouble with either Antipas or Pilate it's only a question of will it be in Galilee under Antipas are in Judea under Pilate who will get it's only a question of time but by that time it's going to be too late you're going to have a network of people who have experienced the power of the kingdom it works let me try and imagine it this way imagine somebody who hears they kill them they got him they got him in Jerusalem and maybe it takes another month before they're sure it's not just a rumor so it's four months but way back there 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon the kingdom wasn't switched off nothing changed they didn't even know Jesus was dead but the power of the kingdom was still operative it's too late it's not all dependent on Jesus it's not all centered on him like the Baptist program was so that Antipas could take him out now let me look a little bit more at that program we talked about eating and healing let me say a little bit about dress because it's rather strange Jesus tells them now this would be in the queue text that they're not supposed to carry any sandals that's what swear sandals which is really weird one they're not supposed to carry sort of a bag a knapsack and three they're not supposed to carry a staff now all of that is really weird stuff first of all sandals of some type is the basic security against stones and everything else as staff is the basic security against say a a mongrel dog that comes at you from the outskirts of the village let alone a good start staff will make somebody think twice before they attack you at least you have a defensive if not an offensive weapon and they're also told not to carry a knapsack what's the point of the knapsack the knapsack is what anyone would carry with their provisions for the rest of the day they're supposed to be interdependent with the people they heal they're not supposed to be beggars the presumption is they bring spiritual power and share it freely they obtain material resources and share it freely but they don't need a bag now I'd like to let that sort of sink in a little bit they don't need a bag because they're interdependent with those with whom they interact focus a bit in that staff for a minute what's interesting is there is no staff in the queue Gosselaar but by the time you get to Mark's Gospel maybe 10-15 years later they're told to take a staff now in one sense told to take a staff is so extraordinary itself that you'd almost know if you didn't know that somebody must have said don't take a staff because that's part of the ordinary equipment what's the point of this no staff it sends a clear signal this is not an offensive mission as it were I'm defenseless I don't have the basic defensive weapon that anyone would have with me and so by the time you get from cue to mark in 15 years we're saying well this is all a little bit too idealistic you can take a staff and by the time you get to Luke you have Jesus revoke these conditions and mentioned that you should take a sword now all of that is terribly important for me because it confirms something that what Jesus's program is is what I would call nonviolent resistance to Roman oppression nonviolent resistance to Roman oppression women isn't this some kind of absolutely crude and obvious ret rejection of Martin Luther King or Gandhi or Tolstoy our modern liberalism back into the first century is it one of the things that I learned growing up in Ireland was that in colonial or post-colonial situations you can see almost every possibility of resistance or non resistance violence or non-violence in the people involved so when I went to in the first century I wasn't surprised to find that I had the full spectrum of anything I could imagine I didn't I wasn't surprised to find Josephus saying it is the will of God that we obey the Romans God gives power to the great empires the power of God now rests over Italy do not resist the Roman Empire or you fight against God I know no doubt he was sincere with the technical term is collaboration right another example in the 50s there was a group called the Sicari a Sica is a short dagger that you would carry beneath your cloak and what they used to do was assassinated high-profile Jewish collaborators with the Roman system they really didn't go after the Romans piloted and would meet Pilate then but the Roman procurator had too much defenses but you could assassinate see a Jewish aristocrat who collaborated with the Romans now look what they did it wasn't like you know the assassination of Julius Caesar more or less public when the crowds were there in the festival day the person was assassinated in the crowd and nobody knew who did it now I use quite deliberately I call that urban terrorism because Josephus statement is actually the damage they did was not nearly as much as the fear yeah they weren't killing hundreds of people just that everyone was looking this way all the time I would call that urban terrorism finally what they really did next was when they were captured they started capturing some of the aristocrats and bargaining ten for one we give him back and give ten of our guys out of prison I thought we invented urban terrorism and kidnapping to get your people out of prison I thought we invented all of that stuff now that doesn't prove I recognize that they also invented nonviolent resistance what this does in probably the year 26 today there's a certain were probably the year 26 when Pilate arrived first of all in Judea he brought the standards up into the holy city with the conic images of the Emperor and the way that was resisted was by unarmed resistance the crowd went from Jerusalem towards his Praetorian which was at Caesar II on the coast gathering people as they went and they confronted Pilate and said in effect we're not going to leave until you change Pilate surrounded them with his soldiers and they said well then we're all going to die now I would like to know who organized that I don't think they just sort of wandered up there backed by martyrdom that's nonviolent resistance in the year 41 Caligula the Emperor decided to put a statue in Jerusalem's temple Petronius who is the Syrian leg it was given the job of taking the statue down with with the legions and Petronius being a very wise person knew exactly what this was going to mean and he dragged his feet he tried to postpone and the crowds went up to meet him at ptolemaeus on the coast and also at Tiberius Philo and Josephus tell us this men women and children that sends a clear message our women and children are with us so we're not armed but we're not leaving and you're going to have to kill us all now once again I don't know what would have happened if they started but I'm going to declare nonviolent resistance was should I say invented okay was also invented along with urban terrorism in the first century so I'm not making the statement at all that I think Jesus invented nonviolent resistance I think it was there I think that's what he was doing and I think that was his program finally I think it was his program because he believed that was the character of God I don't think it was simply well this is the only strategy to take on the Romans if we do anything else to send the legions I think John the Baptist had said the avenging God is coming and Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist so it for the time he was under the water he must have believed what John said but then John was executed and God didn't do anything at all to stop I think at that point Jesus changed that is not then the way God acts if the avenging God didn't come in time to save John then I don't know if the avenging God is going to come at all so Jesus's vision of God as I see it changed and therefore our vision of what we do in union with that God changed so the program that I see that Jesus is sponsoring if you will as the kingdom of God program is first of all non violent but second resistance it's not simply non-violence that's what you're Cephas was advocating it don't rebel it was nonviolent resistance to the kingdom of Caesar which is not the kingdom of God and at that stage of course you could probably tell it's only a matter of time before this man is dead and it's not going to be a mistake Pilate will eventually crucify Jesus he will not run round up all his followers because he knows he's not a military threat but he will publicly crucify them as a warning that what this person is doing is subversive of the Roman law and order and this person will die publicly alright I think what I'm going to do then is release those students who have to go to their rooms and start working immediately all night on their papers so I know that they can't wait for the questions because they want to start immediately so while they are going and then what I will do is feel questions directly from all of us who do not have to spend the night writing papers I'd like to know what your views are on the resurrection whether or not believe it occurred what kind of archaeological anthropology all historical historical evidence you might have by the way on that alright and remember that what we've been asking all the time is historical questions so now let me ask an historical question about the resurrection the historico question is what did a first century Jew mean when that first century Jew use the term resurrection alright forget whether you believe that or not what to determine like what the internet mean for us we all know what it means whether you like it or not so another question the resurrection in first century Judaism meant the general resurrection at the end of time which was the moment when God finally cleaned up this mess that the world was in and justified especially the martyrs who had died tortured brutalized in their bodies that comes from the time of the Maccabees when it was clear that this was not just people were dying as martyrs and God was not doing anything about it where was the Justice of God for the first time in Jewish tradition you get a brand new idea and finding the same second Maccabees which is the bodily resurrection that the bodies of the martyrs have to somehow be justified be redeemed be vindicated publicly now I would like you to you know leave little room for the ancient people for how literal or metaphorical that was but what was at stake was not the survival of me but the justice of God now when a Christian Jew in the first century like Paul for example is used Paul says God has raised Jesus from the dead they are making the most astounding claim ever made which is not at all that Jesus has come out of the tomb and ascended to god that's not astounding in the first century that's only astounding among all those rationalist in the first in the first century okay Jesus came out of a tomb went up to God how nice for Jesus I can show you the coin of Julius Caesar showing him streaking up to the among the gods like a meteor when this declared God has raised Jesus from the dead they were saying the general resurrection has begun that's what Paul means by Jesus is the firstfruits of them that slept that's why Paul will argue 1st Corinthians 15 Oh general resurrection of Jesus resurrection of Jesus resurrection of general resurrection now this is an astounding claim because it has to have some evidence if you're saying well the general resurrection is coming soon or the apocalyptic consummation is coming soon you could say that all you want because it's in the future and you can't be wrong unless you're stupid enough to date it but if you say the general resurrection has begun you have to be able to show how is the world changing now how would Paul have argued that if you imagine Paul talking to perfectly open-minded pagans for whom resurrections virgin births miraculous healings all of that was part of their culture they knew the stories so they're not going to say to Paul as I said like rationalist might we don't believe in that sort of stuff Paul we've had an Enlightenment here we just don't believe that stuff they're going to say that's really interesting Paul you're telling me now the world is changing because God is finally starting to justify the world could you show me Paul where that's happening because I don't see and Paul would have to say and have to say come and see our communities we have a small community of 10 or 12 people who meet down in that shopping on the corner there where the sardines are sold and we meet every Sunday and we have committed ourselves to sharing and making this part of half our food the half I'm making up that we believe the world belongs to God used to be the land land is about food food belongs to God we share our food with one another if you get one day's work this week you bring half your stuff you get five days work this recouping half your stuff come and see whether you think the world is getting more just come and see our society and tell us whether you think our society our little group we call it in ecclesia a church what do you think that is more just by the way I should tell you that we have ones like this in every city of the Empire that's why I'm on the road all the time says Paul how many people do you have well it's not so much whether we have a thousand people as that we have ten and a hundred cities so I think that's going to be Paul's argument now I could easily be listening to him and say this guy is really not so he's not nuts because it claims Jesus came out of the tomb the desert of stuff like I can believe but I mean once Jesus ever done for me I can see Caesar has ascended into heaven and I can see what that's why the Roman Empire is running so well Caesars up there taking care of things as a work that makes sense to me I got the coins to prove it now your claim partners is Jesus ever do for me but then somebody else might be listening and say well yeah I don't think Caesars never done much for me so he's he's a customer that's I think the way it happened in the first century none of this stuff that we claim is extraordinary was extraordinary if all you have to say about Jesus is he came out of the tomb appear to people and went up to God that is not news in the first century it is news in the nineteenth century among both secularists and fundamentalist because they are both rationalists they don't believe that sort of stuff happens so it never happened or it happens just to our Jesus but in the first century you have to have something better than that because we accept those things can happen so tell me why I should care about Jesus and not about eschol a pious or Caesar or somebody else so the resurrection is about is the world being changed to a more just place if it isn't then you cannot see the resurrection has begun you can say if you want the Jesus taken up to God that's an ascension or an exaltation but you cannot use the word resurrection except to mean the general resurrection has begun and if you say that you better be able to show some evidence yes I will repeat the question okay I will repeat it if you just said to me during that time hospital to buddhism wash oppa and regarding the hospital level will see some length all right the two questions is first of all do I see any sort of genetic links between Buddhists non-violence and Jesus are Jewish non-violence in the sense we are talking about it and to do I think this would work in terms of the Nazis for example what I don't see genetic links I don't see genetic links I see no reason why all of these options couldn't arise when people are confronted with the same type of situation the full spectrum of options comes up all the way from collaboration all the way from from abandoning your faith to collaboration to violent resistance to nonviolent resistance to wait for God can God's going to do it you know don't attack them God will do it any day all of those options seem to come up all the time in the same situation so I don't know if I don't know of any genetic links nor do I think they have to be there to explain it now if they were there that's fine for example let's imagine the 30s no I don't want to send any anyone out before guns you know to get slaughtered but I do know that eventually six million are going to be slaughtered what would have happened now we're talking 1933 we're talking before 1936 before the Olympics in 36 what would have happened for example if people had taken to the streets they would have got killed let's make no mistake about that what would have happened worldwide that's what we don't know now what's the worst case scenario you could imagine thousands of people getting killed as this thing for millions now I what I'm really seeing here is not so much where there in any given situation I myself by the way probably can't live like that I can't do it but violence is almost like slavery there's going to become a point where we're going to have to say even if we're doing it it's wrong and that's very much where I would be I think we change it if at least we say when we use violence we're doing wrong we're not doing right we're doing wrong and where we're throwing from God and I'd be quite willing to say that okay I'm going to do it it's called sin that's what I think sin is it's withdrawing but I go you're doing because I don't have I don't have the courage of Jesus to die so I will hit back finally but eventually we're going to have to say that's not going to work violence is going to destroy us yes we get control of it so you know in any given case I think it's the transcendental grounding in say Jainism or Christianity that makes a Gandhi or Jesus capable of doing it not just talking about if it's if it's simply the idea of nonviolent resistance and that we don't need God our religion for that and we could have thought that up by yourself but to do it so we're saying this afternoon I think by the third day you know yourself hit back that's where you need the transcendental power of believing that your God is nonviolent or that the meaning of existence is nonviolent and that you're plugged into that that at least would be a step yes sir I have a question just what was Jesus doing when he was 13 to up to 30 I mean how come there's enough no record of what was going on or it's not in the New Testament I've always been wondering about that he went to Ireland huh would it no it's a bit side no it's a very it's a very good question it's a very very good question let me put it because it raises a profound issue basically what we usually think of is well we've all just information about the birth and we even have the story in Luke at 12 and then we get this great silence as you said I think what's happened is we've deluded ourselves into thinking that we're getting genetic information about the birth the function of a birth story is to be an overture not a first act so it's not that we have a first act and then we've missing second act you know from 13 to 30 and then we get into the third act as a word Matthew is going for example the tell the tell a story of Jesus as the new Moses that's going to be his gospel so right in chapter 5 Jesus is going to go up in the new Mount Sinai and say you've heard with them said of old what I say to you and you a new improved Moses as a word so math you know is that I have to write my infancy story so to describe Jesus as a new Moses what do I know about Moses well Pharaoh tried to kill him by killing all the kids Herod is going to kill all the kids to get Jesus so the infancy story that you have in Matthew and differently in Luke but the same thing is an overture to their Gospels it's not information about the birth of Jesus put another way we don't have a clue of anything about Jesus beyond his name Mary and Joseph until the public life we don't know anything and that shouldn't surprise us because Augustus for example wrote his own biography to be up on his mausoleum that's what we still have a copy of it and he begins with at the age of 19 you know who cares yeah I did all those stuff but at the age of 19 I hit the public scene so it's really in the ancient world when a person moves onto the public stage that we really start getting anything the other stuff is probably well this was it this was a tremendous leader so his mother must have had a dream the night before he was conceived or something the infancy stories are not about Jesus so we don't have missing years everything is missing in effect up until the public life so it's all missing and that's not a surprise that's fine lots of people important people in the ancient world we know the date they died we haven't a clue when they were born nobody was watching you know it so it's only when there were we know exactly when they died because people were watching at that time but you know it fades backwards into so there are no missing years it's all missing that's two questions first one is in the Gospels there are multiple references to Christ or Jesus saying or alluding to a familial relationship between himself and the father in heaven that he's a son and obviously that caused certain reaction apparently within the Jewish hierarchy so I'd like to know if you could comment on that and also in the same vein there's obviously a political relationship for a political relationship between Jesus and Sanhedrin and Pharisees and if you could kind of like me a little bit about the inner politics that's going on within the Jewish organization at that time especially from the ruling body and how these you know three interact okay let me underline the language that I use what we have to understand is that in the first century the Jewish tradition and ancient venerable tradition is under extreme pressure from Hellenistic our Greek international cultural imperialism which is like Americanization today colonization in the first century was sort of get with it get modern like Americanization today and get the same backlash so you get a lot of diversity you have sad you see in Judaism you forsake Judaism you have s in Judaism I guess you would even talk about Sakaki Judaism zealot Judaism in Judaism Christianity is one more option within the Jewish spectrum of options and each of these options are saying particularly nasty things about one another by the way all of them the Sadducees are saying nasty things about the Pharisees the Qumran s scenes are saying nasty things about the the Sadducees the Christians are saying very nasty things about the Pharisees none of which is accurate none of which is job description white and Sepulchre brood of vipers that's not a job description that's presidential political name-calling as it were that's that's you know v2 Bharati o was what the Romans call it the trooper Asian all right so all of that's going on everyone's calling one another they're calling Jesus names too he's a glutton he's a Samaritan which is a racial slur he's a drunkard he's a bastard answer to names are being called the one another all within this spectrum so in one sense if we focused down just on say the Pharisees and Jesus all of these people were saying ask your Cephas were saying nasty things about everyone as far as I can see so understand the situation they're under extreme pressure and they have serious decisions about first resistance are not resistance violence or not resistant or non-violence by the end of the century this country is going to be in ruins so these are serious decisions it's not like well there's a hierarchy and there's Jesus when Jesus for example if you imagine somebody saying Jesus is the Son of God they almost certainly if they use that would mean the Messiah it's in sound to that the Lord said to my lord sit at my right hand but then I want to know well Messiah wot violent Messiah nonviolent Messiah what's a non-violent Messiah so all of these options you have to imagine were there in the first century it wasn't as simple as well there's the Roman higher excuse me the Jewish hierarchy and thus against Jesus now the function of of the aristocracy was to collaborate with the Romans the function of any colonial aristocracy is to collaborate with the Tyrael powers which means that that he killed by both people if there's a revolt from both sides it was particularly bad because the Herodian aristocracy had destroyed the Hasmonean aristocracy and were of doubtful validity the high priestly class was sapped of strength because we're being hired and fired by the Herodians and then the Romans so if I'm pilot and I come here and say okay now who do I deal with I'm used to dealing with the local aristocracy I have to deal with a high priest who seems to be in charge but I can fire him that that's not a good situation that means that the the indigenous aristocracy were the buffer between their own people and the imperial and you have to walk the fine line of trying to keep both sides relatively happy are extremely weak in the situation they're helpless to put it bluntly because the Roman governor can hire and fire the high priest whom he has to collaborate so let's imagine Caiaphas was a saint no particular reason to think he was but no particular thing he wasn't either his job is collaborate with Pilate he must have done it very well because he was in for what Peter was in for 10 years and I think he was in for 16 or something like that and they were both removed by the Roman governor of Syria at the same time twin 3637 which means they collaborated to well I guess even for the Roman point of view so if you're imagining Jesus running into trouble with somebody like Caiaphas yeah definitely and it could be it could be from a totally huge point of view you see what I mean that from a Christian point of view the essence down at Qumran had withdrawn completely from the temple they didn't even go there so imagine all of these as different groups elbowing one another calling one and other names saying very nasty things about one another because there's life and death involved here and son of God to sit to claim son of God is not something that would have made probably another Jewish group particularly happy but it's not it's not blasphemy or anything like that it's simply claiming a very special relationship with God and presumably you're male yes sort of a follow on you've addressed a politics factionalism in vituperative name-calling and judaism the time of Jesus mission could you do the same thing with reference to the Jesus Movement in the years immediately after the crucifixion what sort of factionalism name-calling was going on you mean inside the movement itself yeah and what sort of issues were involved yeah because actually it's quite true we have not only to speak about divisions within within Judaism but even within Christianity right from the very beginning for example I talked about resurrection theology which we usually think of as Christian theology as far as we can tell the people who were behind the cue gospel the community of the cue gospel didn't use resurrection theology at all the way they saw is wisdom it's coming straight out of the Old Testament but out of the wisdom books wisdom dwells with God wisdom comes down to earth and tries to tell human beings how they're supposed to live and is usually repulsed wisdom came down in the prophets wisdom came down in John the Baptist wisdom is running out of time and wisdom came down in John in Jesus and maybe you get very close to Jesus being wisdom incarnate and Jesus has gone back to God as wisdom always does and maybe wisdom is not coming back again you can do a whole theology out of wisdom and never mention resurrection now have you does that mean that Jesus is just another Wiseman no it means that he is wisdom maybe the last messenger of wisdom before it's too late so there it's a different freight it's not using resurrection at all but it's based on not so much the apocalyptic so much as what's called the sappy engine or the wisdom traditions now I don't think maybe those could speak to one another but maybe they wouldn't so we have for example Paul in the 50s and we have the cue gospel around the same time of what we really have the face now is they ain't saying exactly the same thing on a fairly profound level but they're both folks focusing on Jesus so that's one one very clear one that we have not even to bring up say the Gospel of Thomas are the Gospel of John which would multiply it yes what would be your vision of the women in the scriptures and particularly Mary Magdalene and your vision of the gospel of Mary the the most interesting chapter for me is for a first example to be John 20 where the Beloved Disciple is exhausted by denigrating first Peter you know the race to the tomb that Peter gets there first I think buggy now I think the Beloved Disciple gets there first looks in first Peter goes in first but it says the Beloved Disciple believes doesn't say Peter doesn't believe it doesn't see Peter did believe so the Beloved Disciple is exalted above Peter the next above Mary Magdalene because Mary kept saying they've sown the body that's low on the body and then over Thomas who wants to touch and feel so I look at that and say well the Beloved Disciple whatever community this for whom this is the leader is taking on Peter and Mary and Thomas as major leaders and saying as far as Jesus is concerned the Beloved Disciple is really the leader so Mary of Magdala is a major leader in the early church that's what she is she's not jesus' girlfriend and she's not just bringing the coffee she's a major she's impossible okay not big enough that you have to you know go after like you go after Peter or Tom's secondly the other major text is I'm not as impressed as my feminist friends are by the fact that women are the first people who see the Risen Jesus because I don't think those texts are compliments they're told to go tell the guys the guys are told to go tell the world so it's what I had called secretarial vision and executive vision that's not a compliment it wasn't intended as a compliment no on the other hand oh the supreme accolade in mark is given to a woman because the woman who annoys Jesus is the only one who has believed what he's been saying since he left Galilee you know Marquez keeps saying and going up to Jerusalem to die and to rape rise in the 3rd day die and rise in the third day and Peter says no way and James and John wants to say could we get first seats afterwards and you know it's like nobody's listening and there's women with him - of course now finally at Bethany the woman says well in effect if you're going to die and ride he said I'd better anoint you now because not gonna get another chance so I'm going to anoint you for your death no that's why whenever the gospel is told that this story's got to be told in memory of her because she is the first believer the first believer Jesus been saying and she says okay I better do it now then right so when when mark tells that story she is exalted as the first believer the women who go to the tomb to anoint Jesus didn't get there not there the counterpart in the same way that the disciple excuse me the Centurion at the cross was a pagan when he says for mark this is the Son of God that's a confession so the first believers in mark are an unnamed woman and an unnamed pagan now I think there's where we're getting the signal from mark that this unnamed woman is supremely important those are complementary the other ones are not but in the early church I've not the slightest doubt because we have the evidence which has been quietly is swiftly suppressed that which would be gone you know in other hundred years that women were very important I'm not going to argue they had to be important because Jesus was egalitarian because men can be very gala tarrying and still forget half the human race so American that we have evidence all the way to say when 2nd Timothy you say women are not allowed to teach me that's precious because that tells me they were it's very important the analogy I use is that just you don't announce we don't allow any elephants in the church and this somebody is brought an elephant into the church so somebody is doing it if you make up a law that you can't so women were teaching of course they were yeah now as we you know normalize this community make it look like a good Roman community we want the paterfamilias to be in charge and that's what's happening unfortunately or is it okay because you stood up I'll take you that okay sorry and I take this one and Ed this one person here is that right okay um do you believe that it was Jesus's place when he came on earth to try to convince everybody of the existence of God or to try to get people to live a certain lifestyle regardless of whatever God they believed in and I I don't think that would have worked in the first century because basically as we said on all Caesars coins it was Caesar was the son of God and if you ask people you know what type of God are we dealing with most people would say well it's the God that gave you the Roman Empire Zeus or Jupiter or whatever and he's a God of power and that's why we have the legions and everything else now I don't think Jesus would say you know whatever God you got Caesar I think you have a clash a profound clash between gods between to put it very crudely the Roman god of power the normal God nothing special and the God of justice and whether you're dealing with a God of power incarnate and Caesar or a God of justice and carnation Jesus is the clash so the terms that we hear like has been kind of very theological or religious or are like son of God Lord those are the titles of Caesar so when when a Christian in the first century says Jesus is Lord that Christians come high treason and knows it that's why they're dying they're not just saying well you know Jesus is the Lord Jesus look got lots of Lords around here he's just our Lord and that would be fine the Romans understood that that was in fact a very nice multicultural Empire they were running no problem with bringing in Egyptian goddess like Isis into the Rome into Roman and create a temple but there was always an age when the Christians said that they were saying you ain't he is a new age and in what sense you had to say well if we're talking about the same God how can this guy be encountered in Caesar in the carrying of Jesus this looks like almost a joke so yeah they were forcing the issue Jesus is because Caesar ain't so it was and it did involve lifestyle of course you're quite right so the claim they were making is that this type of God if you wanted to see what this type of God was like look at Caesar maybe what I do is let me let me stop with a or end with a am a story to sort of crystallized get get us back into the first century but my thesis by the way is if you get the first century right we get the 21st century right there was a Roman television show in the first century called who wants to be a millionaire and the first person who won a million denarii was a person called richest and the question the final question that was given for the the million denarii was this if your God or your Supreme Being became incarnate would your God be a a conquering Emperor like Augustus are be a beautiful queen like Cleopatra or see a wise philosopher like Socrates Rd a Jewish peasant like Jesus that was the question and so the guy thought for a while and he said well I think a because if you were a conquering Emperor you could marry the beautiful hire the beautiful philosopher and crucify the Jewish peasant and that was the right answer final answer the conquering philosopher the conquering Emperor so that's really the first question choice where do you where do you find your God incarnate what's he look like in sandals all right thank you very very much

Channel: ProfBoedeker

Views: 100,322

Rating: 4.6893735 out of 5

Keywords: Untitled

Id: C2m7I4WEoso

Length: 77min 29sec (4649 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 03 2012