Reading the Bible again for the First Time
Page 34
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13. Thus I reject the either-or choice that has marked a fair amount of Jesus and gospel scholarship: that only the historical Jesus matters or only the canonical Jesus matters. Both matter. For a vigorous presentation of the case for the primacy of the canonical Jesus, see Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). For my summary of the two positions in the history of scholarship, see Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994), chap. 9.
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14. My understanding of the historical Jesus is described most fully in the following books: Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teaching of Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998; first published in 1984); and, all published by HarperSanFrancisco: Jesus: A New Vision (1987), Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994), and, with N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (1998). The last one in particular also treats post-Easter perceptions of Jesus within the early Christian movement.
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15. Dating Mark to the late 60s or early 70s is widely accepted. I owe the phrase “wartime gospel” to Daryl Schmidt, The Gospel of Mark (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1990).
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16. Mark 13.1–2. A historical comment: I think it is likely that the historical Jesus did address threats to Jerusalem and the temple as the center of the native domination system, just as many of the classical prophets of the Hebrew Bible warned of the destruction of the kingdoms that they addressed. Thus my position is not that Mark has created these warnings but that Mark has composed his thirteenth chapter with the events of the Jewish war in mind. In short, Mark may be using historical material here, even as he applies it to his own time.
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17. Mark 13.4 and following. Quoted passage is 13.14, echoing Dan. 9.27, 11.31, and 12.11. In Daniel, the foreign empire is the Hellenistic Empire of Antiochus Epiphanes IV; his desecration of the temple around 165 BCE sparked the Maccabean revolt. Some scholars, including the well-known German scholar Gerd Theissen, have argued that elements of Mark 13 may have originated in connection with the crisis of 40 CE, when the Roman emperor Caligula planned to have a statue of himself erected in the temple in Jerusalem. See Theissen, The Gospels in Context, trans. Linda Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), pp. 125–65. I regard this as possible (maybe even plausible), even as I also think it is clear that Mark is applying this language to the events of 70.
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18. The first and longer quoted passage is Mark 13.24–27; the quoted phrase within it is taken from Dan. 7.13–14. The second quoted passage is Mark 13.30.
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19. When speaking about “apocalyptic” and “eschatology,” terminological problems abound. Here I use “eschatology” as a fairly broad umbrella term to refer to “the end of things”; adding the adjective “apocalyptic” refers to an eschatology that sees “the end” as imminent, dramatic, and brought about by divine intervention.
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20. Mark 9.1, immediately following the Son of Man saying in 8.38. Mark 9.1 occupies a strategic place in the gospel, either as the end of the first half or as the beginning of the second half. Note that it is followed immediately by the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, in which the same voice that declared Jesus to be God’s beloved Son at the beginning of the gospel in the story of Jesus’ baptism (Mark 1.11) is heard again: “This is my Son, the Beloved” (Mark 9.7, in the context of 9.2–8). Just as the first half of Mark begins with a declaration of Jesus’ identity at his baptism, so the second half begins with a declaration of his identity at his transfiguration.
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21. In addition to Mark 1.15 and 9.1, only eleven more times in words attributed to Jesus in Mark: 4.10–12 (the “mystery” of the kingdom); 4.26–29, 30–32 (two brief parables of the Kingdom); six sayings in Mark 9 and 10 (9.47; 10.14, 15, 23, 24, 25); 12.34; and 14.25. Comparisons: Matthew has thirty-six “kingdom of God” sayings attributed to Jesus, and Luke has thirty-two.
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22. Behind all three English words is the Greek word hodos, used frequently by Mark.
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23. Mark 1.3.
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24. The central section of Mark is 8.27–10.45 (or 8.22–10.52, if the two stories of blind men regaining their sight—stories that frame the section—are included). John Donahue, in Harper’s Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), p. 984, highlights the section’s centrality by comparing the construction of Mark’s gospel to the design of a Roman triumphal arch: the side panels point to what is most central, the panel in the middle of the arch. Mark’s central section is the middle panel. The three predictions of Jesus’ death and resurrection are Mark 8.31, 9.31, and 10.33–34.
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25. All of Mark’s sayings about entering or being in the kingdom of God are found in his central section: 9.47; 10.14, 15, 23, 24, 25.
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26. Shortly before Mark was written, the first persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire occurred. Instigated by the emperor Nero in 64, it happened in Rome itself, and apparently not elsewhere. Though we do not have any specific evidence of persecution and martyrdom of Christians in connection with the Jewish war of revolt against Rome, it is plausible to think that it happened.
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27. Matt. 4.23, 9.35. In 7.29, Matthew refers to “their” scribes. See also Matt. 6.2 and 6.5, where those in synagogues are called “hypocrites.”
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28. Matt. 23. The formula occurs in vv. 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29. “Blind guides,” “blind fools,” “blind men,” and “blind Pharisee”: vv. 16, 17, 19, 24, 26. “Serpents” and “brood of vipers”: v. 33. “Child of hell”: v. 15. Luke 11.37–52 contains some of the same material, and thus Matt. 23 is based on Q; but in Luke (and Q), the criticisms are specific indictments and not broadside invective.
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29. Matt. 21.43.
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30. Matt. 27.24–25. These verses are a Matthean editorial addition to Mark’s account of the trial. So also is Pilate’s wife’s dream in 27.19, which declares Jesus to be a righteous man.
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31. See the excellent excursus on Matthew as interpreter of scripture in Eugene Boring’s commentary on Matthew in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), vol. 8, pp. 151–54.
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32. Matt. 10.5; see also 15.24. Matthew is not against a mission to the Gentiles, but he attributes the command for such a mission to a post-Easter setting: Matt. 28.18–20.
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33. Matt. 5.17–18.
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34. The five blocks of teaching material are Matt. 5.1–7.27, 10.5–42, 13.1–52, 18.1–35, and 24.3–25.46. The formula is found in 7.28, 11.1, 13.53, 19.1, and 26.1.
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35. Matt. 4.17. Matthew’s use of “kingdom of heaven” instead of “kingdom of God” here and elsewhere in his gospel requires a brief comment. Whereas Mark and Luke consistently use the phrase “kingdom of God,” Matthew substitutes “heaven” for “God.” But Matthew does not mean a kingdom in another world after death, or heaven as afterlife. Rather, the substitution is another reflection of his continuity with Jewish tradition: out of reverence for God, he seeks to avoid using the name “God” and so substitutes “heaven” as an alternative (incidentally, he uses the plural: kingdom of the heavens). Matthew’s piety has unfortunately led centuries of Christians to think that the center of Jesus’ message was the kingdom of heaven understood as afterlife. But Jesus’ focus was on the kingdom of God, which is not at all the same as heaven.
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36. Ma
tthew’s nine beatitudes are in 5.3–12; Luke has four in Luke 6.20–23. The parable of the wise and foolish builders at the end of the Sermon on the Mount is in Matt. 7.24–27.
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37. The contrasts are called “the antitheses” of the Sermon on the Mount, and are in 5.21–48.
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38. Matt. 5.1–2. The Sermon on the Mount as a whole is in Matt. 5–7.
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39. Luke 6.17. The Sermon on the Plain is in Luke 6.20–47.
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40. For Matthew, Jesus is more than this. He is also, for example, the messiah and Son of God. My concern here is not to present Matthew’s christology as a whole, but simply to illustrate how Matthew’s Moses typology is reflected in Jesus’ inaugural address.
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41. A supercessionist is one who thinks that Israel and the Jewish people were the people of God until the time of Jesus but no longer are, and that Christians are now the people of God (in other words, that Christians have superseded Jews as God’s “chosen”). Much of conventional Christian belief throughout the centuries has been supercessionist, consciously or unconsciously, though most often without using that label. In our time, supercessionism has been explicitly rejected by the Catholic Church and by many mainline Christians, including most mainline Christian theologians.
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42. A “roadmap” of the spread of early Christianity in Acts is programmatically stated in Acts 1.8: the risen Christ just before his ascension says to his followers, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
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43. Luke 1.35, 41, 67; 2.25–27.
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44. Luke 4.14. References to the Spirit descending at Jesus’ baptism and leading him into the wilderness (both paralleled in Mark and Matthew) are found in 3.22 and 4.1.
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45. Luke 23.46. It is unclear whether we should understand the words to mean that the Spirit that had guided and empowered Jesus during his life now returns to God, or whether the statement is simply a confession of trust in God as Jesus dies. Both meanings are possible.
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46. Luke 24.49. Luke goes on to end his gospel with the story of Jesus’ ascension, which he speaks of as having occurred the night after Easter. Then Luke begins Acts with another story of Jesus’ ascension—this one some forty days later. The two ascension stories are a bit of a puzzle, especially since they are set forty days apart. Perhaps the contradiction suggests that Luke does not see the ascension story as reporting a literally factual event.
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47. Acts 1.5, 8. The Spirit is also mentioned in v. 3.
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48. Acts 2.1–4.
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49. Thus this is quite different from “speaking in tongues” (glossolalia) as reported in the churches of Paul, where what is heard is unintelligible language. In Acts, the gift is universally intelligible language.
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50. The story of the first Christian Pentecost continues through Acts 2.41. Quoted words are from 2.17, an approximate citation of Joel 2.28.
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51. Acts 8.29, 9.17, 10.19, 13.2, 16.6–7.
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52. Acts 15.28.
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53. Examples in addition to those already cited: Acts 2.38, 4.8, 4.31, 6.3, 7.55, 8.15–17, 9.31, 10.44, 11.15, 11.24, 13.9, 19.2–6, 19.21, 20.22–23, 21.11.
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54. Luke 4.16–30.
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55. Luke 4.18–19, quoting Isa. 61.1–2 and 58.6.
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56. To avoid a possible misunderstanding, let me add that to say that the inaugural addresses were constructed by the evangelists does not mean that the evangelists made them up out of nothing. Jesus really did proclaim the kingdom of God, and Jesus did say much of what is included in the Sermon on the Mount. But portraying “the kingdom of God is at hand” and the Sermon on the Mount as the inaugural addresses of Jesus is the product of Mark and Matthew. So also here in Luke: historically speaking, Jesus was a Spirit-anointed prophet who proclaimed good news to the poor, and so forth. But Luke 4.16–30 is a Lucan product.
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57. John 2.13–22; Mark 11.1–10, with parallels in Matt 21.1–9 and Luke 19.28–38.
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58. For an accessible and illuminating treatment of John’s contrasting symbols, see Robert Kysar, John: The Maverick Gospel, rev. ed. (Louisville: Westminster/Knox, 1993), pp. 58–77. For comments about John’s treatment of “the Jews,” see my section later in this chapter on John 9.
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59. John 2.1–11. Immediately preceding it is the preparation for Jesus’ public activity in the first chapter: the witness of John the Baptizer and Jesus’ call of his first disciples.
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60. John 2.3–4, 6. The “hour” in the phrase “My hour has not yet come” (v. 3) refers in John to the hour of Jesus’ death.
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61. In the Hebrew Bible, see Hos. 2.14–20, Isa. 54.5, Jer. 2.2. See also Song of Songs; its erotic love poetry has been understood from ancient times as a metaphor for the God-Israel and divine-human relationship.
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62. See, for example, Mark 2.19–20, John 3.29, II Cor. 11.2, Eph. 5.21–32.
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63. Rev. 19.7–9, 21.2.
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64. The story of the wedding at Cana may also have metaphorical associations with the wine of the Christian eucharist. Just as later in the gospel Jesus provides bread when there is no bread, here he provides wine.
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65. Because I am not aware of standard terminology for these two kinds of metaphorical meaning, these are my own terms.
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66. John Dominic Crossan, A Long Way from Tipperary (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000), pp. 136, 168. Crossan is thus using the word “parable” with a broader (but defensible) meaning than its normal meaning. Normally in gospel and Jesus scholarship, the word “parable” refers to an oral form of speech used by Jesus: a memorable short story that is not factually true whose purpose is to invite the hearer into the world of the story and then to see something in light of that story. In an important sense, parables are “fictions”; they do not report something that happened. But they are nonetheless “true” fictions. Crossan’s point is that the more spectacular “miracle stories” might be thought of the same way.
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67. From the published description of a lecture he gave on the feeding of the multitude at Trinity Cathedral in Portland, Oregon, in September of 2000.
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68. Mark 6.45–52, Matt. 14.22–33, John 6.15–21. The synoptics (but not John) also have a second “sea” story: the stilling of the storm in Mark 4.35–41 = Matt. 8.23–27 = Luke 8.22–25. In this story, Jesus is with the disciples in the boat, but asleep. When a storm comes up and the boat is in danger of sinking, they call out to him, “Do you not care if we are perishing?” He then stills the storm.
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69. Matt. 14.28–31; the full story in Matthew is found in 14.22–33.
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70. Ps. 89.9, 95.5.
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71. Job. 38.8, 11.
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72. Ps. 107.25–29.
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73. John 6.1–14; Mark 6.30–44 = Matt. 14.13–21 = Luke 9.10–17. Mark and Matthew also narrate a second bread miracle, though Luke and John do not: feeding four thou
sand people in Mark 8.1–10 and Matt. 15.32–39.
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74. A denarius was a unit of money (a coin) commonly understood to be a day’s wages. Hence the NRSV translates the phrase “six months’ wages.”
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75. Among the few variations: only John mentions that the five loaves and two fish are supplied by a boy. In John, Jesus himself distributes the food; in the synoptics, the disciples do. The striking similarities include the same numbers throughout: five loaves, two fish; five thousand people; two hundred denarii worth of bread; twelve baskets of food left over. Moreover, in both John and the synoptics, this story is followed immediately by the story of Jesus walking on water. These similarities have led some scholars to think that the author of John knew one of the synoptic gospels or, alternatively, that both John and the synoptics knew a common “signs source.” It is also possible that a common oral tradition used by both John and Mark may account for the similar details.