Jesus: a new vision

by Marcus J. Borg

  25. Mark 1:35, 6:46.

  26. Luke 6:12. Luke emphasizes the role of prayer in Jesus’ life more than the other evangelists; in addition to 6:12, see 3:21, 5:16, 9:18, 9:28-29, 11:1. However, the picture is not due simply to Lucan redaction, as is clear from the references to Jesus’ prayer life in the other gospels.

  27. See Mark 14:36. Though this is the only occurrence of the Aramaic Abba in the gospels (which were written in Greek), it may lie behind the unadorned “Father” in Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2). A consensus of scholarship affirms its authenticity. That it was also part of the prayer life of first-century Christians is indicated by the appearance of the word in Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6, remarkable in letters composed in Greek for Greek-speaking audiences. It is reasonable to assume that early Christian usage derived from Jesus’ own practice. The classic study of Abba is J. Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1967), though Jeremias overemphasizes its distinctiveness, arguing that it was unique to Jesus (an argument perhaps motivated by theological considerations).

  28. See Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 210-213.

  29. Luke 4:18-21, quoting Isaiah 61:1-2; see also Isaiah 58:6.

  30. Even by quite conservative scholars, Luke 4:18-30 is commonly attributed to Luke and categorized as “inauthentic” (that is, not among the actual words of Jesus). To a large extent, this is because the placement of the sermon is so obviously the product of Luke’s compositional work: these verses replace Mark’s account of Jesus’ “inaugural address” (Mark 1:15: “The Kingdom of God is at hand”). Moreover, the verses identify one of Luke’s central themes: Luke stresses the presence of the Spirit in Jesus more than the other gospels. Thus it seems to be Luke’s advance summary of who Jesus was and the thrust of his ministry. However, the possibility remains that Jesus did use these words with reference to himself at some other time in his ministry (perhaps even in the context of a synagogue reading—there is nothing improbable about the scene); though Luke is responsible for inserting the story at this point in the narrative, it is not necessarily created by Luke. Moreover, even if Luke did create the story, it aptly describes what we have seen to be true on other grounds. Whether Luke was reporting or creating tradition, he has seen well.

  31. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958; first published in German in 1917), especially 155-159. On 158, Otto writes, “The point is that the ‘holy man’ or the ‘prophet’ is from the outset, as regards the experience of the circle of his devotees, something more than a ‘mere man.’ He is the being of wonder and mystery, who somehow or other is felt to belong to the higher order of things, to the side of the numen itself. It is not that he himself teaches that he is such, but that he is experienced as such” (italics added). See also Otto’s The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man, translated by F. V. Filson and B. L. Woolf (Grand Rapids, ca. 1938), especially pages 162-169, 333-376.

  32. Mark 10:32. As Otto puts it, in “these few masterly and pregnant words,” Mark states “with supreme simplicity and force the immediate impression of the numinous that issued from Jesus.” The Idea of the Holy, 158; italics added.

  33. Mark 1:22.

  34. On Gevurah, see E. E. Urbach, The Sages (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975), 80-96; for his interpretation of this verse, see 85-86.

  35. Mark 6:14-16, 8:28; Matt. 21:11; Luke 7:12.

  36. Mark 3:21. The Greek text means literally, “He is out of himself,” that is, ecstatic, a nonordinary state often characteristic of holy men, easily mistaken as dementia.

  37. Mark 3:22-30, Matthew 12:24-32, Luke 11:14-23.

  38. Quoted phrases are from Mark 1:33, 2:4, and 5:24; the motif runs throughout the gospels.

  39. Mark 11:27-33. The narrative, in which Jesus puts his opponents in a dilemma, is also an excellent example of Jesus’ skillful repartee in debate.

  40. Matthew 12:28 = Luke 11:20. Matthew has “Spirit of God,” Luke has “finger of God”; however, the two expressions are synonymous.

  41. Mark 5:30.

  42. On “Amen,” see J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology. (New York: Scribner, 1971), 35-36. According to his tables, it appears thirteen times in Mark, nine times in Q sayings, nine times in Matthew only, and three times in Luke, as well as twenty-five times in John. Thus all strata of the gospel tradition attest to it.

  43. See the six antithetical statements found in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44. Some scholars accept the antithetical formulation of only the first, second, and fourth as authentic (for example, Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition [New York: Harper & Row, 1963], 134-136). For a defense of the antithetical form as original to all six, see Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 251-253.

  44. Mark 1:16-20; see also the call of Levi in Mark 2:13-14.

  45. Mark 10:28.

  46. See Martin Hengel, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (New York: Crossroad, 1981; originally published in German in 1968). Hengel finds Matthew 8:21-22 especially illuminating, and notes that it echoes the call of Elisha by Elijah in 1 Kings 19:19-21.

  47. Mark 6:4, Luke 13:33.

  48. For a superb and passionate exposition of prophetic consciousness (including the prophet as one who knew God), see Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), especially volume 1.

  49. Mark 9:2-4, Matthew 17:1-8, Luke 9:28-36. Matthew calls the experience a vision.

  50. Moses and Elijah are significant not because they represent “the law and the prophets,” as is often stated in commentaries, for they were not symbolic of the law and prophets in the time of Jesus. Rather, they were the two great holy men of the Jewish Scriptures.

  51. See chapter 1, pages 10-11.

  52. Examples of it referring to Israel as a whole: Hosea 11:1, Exodus 4:22-23; referring to the king of Israel in particular: Psalm 2:7, 2 Samuel 7:14.

  53. This is an important point. To use a very mundane example, George Washington is legitimately referred to as “the father of his country” even though he presumably did not think of himself in those terms. Similarly, from a Christian point of view, Jesus is legitimately spoken of as the Messiah, even if he did not think of himself as such.

  1. For an excellent introduction to the modern scholarly treatment of the miracle stories, see R. H. Fuller, Interpreting the Miracles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963). Somewhat more technical studies include D. L. Tiede, The Charismatic Figure as Miracle Worker (SBL Dissertation Series 1, 1972); H. C. Kee, Miracle and the Early Christian World: A Study in Socio-Historical Method (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); G. Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).

  2. For the whole story, see John 6:1-59; quoted phrases are from 6:35, 48, 33.

  3. Consecutively, Mark 1:32-34, Matthew 4:24, Mark 1:45.

  4. Matthew 11:3 = Luke 7:19. John’s question, “Are you he who is to come?” did not inquire if Jesus were the Messiah, as is sometimes thought. Instead, the phrase “he who is to come” is explicitly associated with the expectation of Elijah (see Malachi 3:1, 4:5), not the Messiah.

  5. Mark 6:14-16.

  6. For example, no less than two-thirds of Mark’s gospel prior to the story of Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem concerns the miraculous.

  7. Luke 8:2.

  8. Matthew 12:27 = Luke 11:19; Mark 9:38-39; Mark 6:7-13, 9:18; Matthew 10:1-8; Luke 9:1-6, 10:17.

  9. For studies of possession and exorcism, see I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1971).

  10. See, for example, an account of a Jewish exorcist roughly contemporary with Jesus: “Eleazar put to the nose of the possessed man a ring which had under its seal one of the roots prescribed by Solomon, and then, as the man smelled it, drew out the demon through his nostrils, and, when the man at once fell down, adjured the demon never to come back into him, speaking Solomon’s name and reciting the incant
ations which he had composed.” The episode is reported by Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8:46-48.

  11. Mark 5:2-5, 9.

  12. The story contains many details which point to a symbolic meaning as well. The picture Mark paints in his narrative is full of images of impurity or “uncleanness,” which was believed to separate one from “the holy” (God). The demoniac lived in Gentile (“unclean”) territory; he also lived among tombs (proximity to death was seen as one of the most powerful sources of defilement); he lived near pigs, which were an “unclean” animal; and he was possessed by an “unclean spirit.” The scene is a picture of all that separated one from God within the framework of the religious beliefs of the time. The story makes the point that Jesus is one who overcomes the most potent and devastating sources of defilement and alienation, banishes the forces of evil from life, and restores its victims to both health and human community (the exorcism ends with the demoniac “clothed and in his right mind” and told to “go home”).

  13. Mark 9:17-18, 21-22. The description of a seizure in this episode should not lead to an equation between possession and epilepsy; they are two quite different phenomena.

  14. Mark 1:23-27. The location of the story in the gospel narrative shows the importance of Jesus’ exorcisms to Mark; this is the first public event of Jesus’ ministry reported by Mark, following immediately upon Jesus’ gathering of the nucleus of the disciples.

  15. For Gevurah as the “mouth of Power” or Spirit, see chapter 3, note 34.

  16. See the provocative and illuminating discussion by M. Scott Peck in People of the Lie (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 182-211. Peck, a practicing psychiatrist, began his study of possession and exorcism believing that a clinical diagnosis within the framework of current psychological understanding would be possible. However, he and a team of professionals eventually became involved in two cases of “possession” (and exorcism) which he could not account for within a purely psychological framework.

  17. See especially Lewis, Ecstatic Religion.

  18. For a very illuminating description of the cosmology of such societies, see Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Pantheon, 1970), viii-ix, 103, and 107-124.

  19. Mark 3:22. For the complete account, see Mark 3:22-30, Matthew 12:22-37, Luke 11:14-23. “Beelzebul” is a name for Satan; its two variants, “Beelzebul” and “Beelzebub,” mean “lord of dung,” “lord of flies.”

  20. In societies which affirm possession and exorcism, accusations of witchcraft are commonly used “to express aggression between rivals and enemies” (Lewis, Ecstatic Religion, 33). For the rivalry between Jesus and his opponents as involving accusations of witchcraft, see Jerome Neyrey and Bruce Malina, Calling Jesus Names (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, forthcoming), chapter one.

  21. From the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a.

  22. The word “magician” is not used in its modern sense of an entertainer who performs magical tricks. Rather, it is used in its ancient sense of one who can manipulate the powers of the spirit world. See especially the works of Morton Smith: Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), and his earlier Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973). Smith basically affirms the perspective of Jesus’ opponents, amassing a great amount of evidence concerning magical practices in the ancient world as he does so. Walter Wink’s critical and yet appreciative review of Smith’s first volume is appropriate as an assessment of both. One senses, Wink writes, “subliminally that Smith’s interest is in discrediting Christianity through a debunking of Jesus,” and yet part of Smith’s work is “a stunning scholarly achievement…. The great value of Smith’s discussion of Jesus’ ‘magic’ is that he does place Jesus’ healings and exorcisms within a broader context of first century ‘magical’ practices hitherto largely ignored.” W. Wink, “Jesus as Magician,” in Union Seminary Quarterly Review 30 (1974): 3-14; quotes from 9-10.

  23. Matthew 12:28 = Luke 11:20.

  24. Luke 10:18; see chapter 3, pages 00-00.

  25. Mark 3:27.

  26. For example, Mark 1:34: “He healed many who were sick with various diseases”; 3:9-10: “And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they should crush him; for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.”

  27. Matthew 11:4-6 = Luke 7:22. The list of types of healings (the blind see, deaf hear, lame walk, and so forth) is largely drawn from Old Testament passages that refer to the coming age (which is also referred to as the outpouring of the Spirit). Thus it is not clear whether the list was meant to be a citation of the categories of Jesus’ actual healings, or whether it was a way of saying that the coming age (the outpouring of the Spirit) had begun.

  28. Fever, Mark 1:29-31; leprosy, Mark 1:40-45, Luke 17:11-19 (ten lepers); paralysis, Mark 2:1-12; withered hand, Mark 3:1-6; bent back, Luke 13:10-17; hemorrhage, Mark 5:24b-34; deafness and dumbness, Mark 7:37; blindness, Mark 8:22-26, 10:46-52; dropsy (edema), Luke 14:1-6; severed ear, Luke 22:51; sick near death or paralysis, Luke 7:1-10 = Matthew 8:5-13.

  29. Mark 3:5.

  30. Mark 1:40-42.

  31. Mark 7:32-35. See also Mark 8:22-26, which reports that Jesus applied spit to the eyes of a blind man.

  32. Matthew 8:5-13 = Luke 7:1-10. For the story of Hanina, see chapter 2, page 3.

  33. Mark 14:62.

  34. Acts 1:8.

  35. Luke 4:14.

  36. Resuscitations: Mark 5:21-24, 35-43; Luke 7:11-17. Sea miracles: Mark 4:35-41 and 6:45-52. Feeding miracles: Mark 6:30-44 and 8:1-10. In the story of the catch of fish (Luke 5:1-11), Jesus functions as “game-finder” for his fishermen disciples, even though that is not the point of the story (the point of the story is that the disciples are now to become “fishers of men”). One of the traditional functions of holy men in hunting and fishing societies is game-finding; that is, they use their powers for the sake of “the tribe” (their people). In agricultural societies, the parallel function is rainmaking. The story of the cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, 20-25) is especially perplexing because it seems “out of character.” Scholars have often speculated that the story may have grown out of a parable about a fig tree which Jesus told (Luke 13:6-9). In any case, Mark’s placement of the fig tree narrative suggests a symbolic meaning. The story is told in two parts, with the “cleansing of the temple” separating the two halves. Mark apparently sees a connection between the fig tree (which is sometimes an image for Israel) having no fruit on it and the temple not serving the purpose for which it was intended. The “withering” of the fig tree points to the future which awaited Jerusalem and the temple.

  37. This is a different question from the question, “Are there limits to the power of God?” Our question is whether the mediation of that power through human beings is limited in any way. Illustrative here is the story of a Christian saint, St. Denis, who as bishop of Paris was martyred by the Romans in the third century. After his beheading, we are told, he picked up his severed head and walked several miles to his church where, still holding his severed head under his arm, he sang the mass. Do things like that happen? “With God all things are possible,” one might say; but does that mean all things are possible to or through a Spirit-filled mediator? To express historical skepticism about such accounts does not imply doubting the power of God.

  38. The recognition that some of the miracle stories may be wholly symbolic and not historical is usually credited to David Friedrich Strauss whose two-volume Life of Jesus was published in 1835 when Strauss was only twenty-seven. Prior to Strauss, scholars generally agreed that the miracle stories were to be read as historical narratives, and differed on the question of whether a supernatural or natural explanation of the story was to be sought. An example of a “natural explanation” offered by one of Strauss’s contemporaries (and which I once heard in a sermon) argues that the feeding of the five thousand is to be explained as follows. Many in the crowd
actually had brought food, and the action of the boy in “sharing” his five loaves and two fishes moved the rest of the crowd to act in a similarly generous fashion. Ironically, the explanation preserves the “happenedness” of the story, but destroys the miracle. Strauss cut through this preoccupation with treating the miracle stories as historical and suggested instead that many of the miracle stories are to be understood as literary creations of the early church which draw upon the rich imagery of the Old Testament: their meaning lies in their symbolism. Strauss’s book was radical in his day; a review called it the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the bowels of hell, and he was blackballed from the universities of Europe. With modification, his approach has now become the position of mainstream scholarship.

  39. Psalm 95:5, 89:9.

  40. Job 38:8, 11, part of the dramatic divine speech known as “the voice from the whirlwind.”

  41. Psalm 107:25-29. The psalm as a whole describes different categories of people who turned to God for help: those wandering in desert wastes, in prison and darkness, sick unto death, and those threatened by the sea.

  42. The words are quoted from Matthew’s version of the stilling of the storm: Matthew 8:25.

  43. From the account of walking on the water in Mark 6:50.

  44. John 11:1-44; for the nonhistorical character of John, see chapter 1, pages 00-00.

  45. Mark 5:38-39.

  46. Luke 10:19. The same theme appears in the longer ending to Mark’s gospel added some time in the second century, which almost certainly does not report actual words of Jesus, but does report what some early Christians believed he had said to his followers: “They will pick up deadly serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them” (Mark 16:18; in the judgment of most scholars, Mark’s gospel originally ended with 16:8). These verses are taken literally by a few Christians and are the scriptural basis for handling poisonous snakes in the context of Christian worship.