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Tom
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ARTICLE
NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 2.1 In this first of the more detailed excerpts from his book "The Invention of Christianity and the Papacy – the First 500 Years" we look at what we might discern of Jesus' self perception of his role and the perceptions of those around him… The
Ministry of Jesus A vision of peace… During the Sabbatical Year John the Baptist had his greatest audience. He had revived the old prophetic tradition after a long interval about 29. The function of the prophets had been to preach moral and social reform, to denounce idolatry and oppression, to warn their countrymen that national vices must lead to national disasters, and to spiritualize and moralize religion, which was always in danger of becoming external and formal under the domination of the priests and legalists. These were the main topics of John the Baptist's preaching.
Immersion in flowing water, the mikvah, was an ancient Jewish tradition. The word mikvah is Hebrew for a "gathering" of mayim chayim, or "living water." In accordance with Jewish law, women immersed themselves before their weddings and monthly thereafter, seven days after their menstrual periods ended. Only then did they resume physical contact with their husbands. Jewish men immersed themselves, sometimes as part of their daily spiritual practice and, in other cases, before Jewish high holy days. Jesus proclaimed to his disciples the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but we know too little to be able to say exactly what the Holy Spirit meant for the apostles. It seems to have been something they actually experienced, but it was not until much later that the Holy Spirit became a theological problem as the third person of the Trinity. As we learn from the Acts and from Paul, it was the custom to baptize, not in the name of the Trinity (not yet formulated, or even imagined), but in the name of Jesus, the Messiah, and that was twenty years after Jesus' death. There is no record of Jesus baptizing at all, or of his commanding any of his converts to be baptized until the post-crucifixion appearances. In truth, apart from the stories of John the Baptist, there is no certainty as to when it became a part of Christian practice, but we can be sure of its meaning. Originally Christian Baptism in the name of Jesus simply signified that one had accepted Jesus as the Messiah. The belief in Original Sin and the necessity to wash it away developed slowly from late in the third to the fourth century. It was never a part of Jesus' message, or of any of his contemporaries.
As Rabbi Isidore Epstein wrote: "Judaism denies the existence of original sin, needing a superhuman counterweight, and allows only the free choice to sin, as inevitable concomitant of free will. True, the idea that the sin of Adam had brought death on all mankind is not unknown in Jewish teaching, but the reference is invariably to physical death, and is not to be confused with the spiritual death from which in Christian doctrine none can be saved except through faith in the risen Savior. Man can therefore achieve his own redemption by penitence, being assured that God himself is ever-ready in His abundance of loving-kindness to receive the penitent sinner and purge him of all iniquity." This sounds suspiciously like what Jesus taught. Jesus appeared to be, to the disciples he gathered around him, first and foremost a man: a remarkable and charismatic man, and a man in whom God was at work. It was only with the benefit of hindsight, in the course of reflecting on what they thought God had done in and through this man Jesus, whom they came to believe God had raised from the dead, that the first Christians reached the conviction that the man whose life and resurrection they had been privileged to experience was uniquely and definitively God's ultimate revelation of himself. But Jesus never claimed to be the eternal Son of God, nor did his early followers regard him as such. Son of God was an honorific title applied figuratively to many Jewish kings, Prophets, holy rabbis and spiritual teachers. Jesus sent his disciples into the world with the barest necessities and, following his death, we do not know what they might have picked up along the way. As a church, down through the centuries, Christianity has gathered a lot of baggage in its forays into the world. A backdrop of "Greek cultural dominance and Roman commercial exploitation"… Jewish resistance to both Greek cultural dominance and Roman commercial exploitation is the backdrop to Jesus' way of life in Galilee and his ultimate death in Jerusalem. Jesus' solidarity was with his fellow Jews, who were being pushed into destitution by the extractive economic pyramid being forcibly extended over the empire. He preached that justice is about basic equality and fundamental rights to share the world's resources, to eat, be healthy, receive and contribute within community through celebration and meaningful work. He urged people to work for the common good and not just selfish ideas of what was good for the individual. Justice is always about here and now. No individual or group is to accrue wealth at the expense of others. Such an ethic, backed by the God of justice and righteousness, lay at the fault-line between Jewish faith, Greek culture and the exploitative commercialism of Rome. Resistance was necessary and inevitable. Jesus' injunctions could be seen as essentially political. The message was pitched to humble agrarian folk, often brutalized by the Roman conquerors, and Jesus' sermons were probably the equivalent of dinner and a show. Most remarkably, he reached out to the morally marginalized, consorting with those the religious establishment declared beyond the pale: prostitutes and adulterers, extortionist tax collectors who were collaborators with the oppressor government, and even military enforcers of that government, as well as heretics and schismatics and pagans, to say nothing of gluttons and drunks. Refusing to condemn or blame, Jesus saw people as certainly having faults and problems, but more as the wounded who are in need of a healer. He looked at the needs of his society, but also at the needs of individuals, and he didn't separate the two. Jesus let these people touch him and he touched them. But, perhaps even more shocking, he also forgave their sins without requiring humiliating and detailed confessions of guilt or even firm promises of amendment. For this he was roundly castigated by the religious authorities, the guardians of public morality. Everything Jesus did and said was politically provocative. To the Romans, weary of Jewish religious sensitivities and nervous about mounting political tension, Jesus was an agitator from Galilee preaching of a New Kingdom; a troublemaker unwelcomed by Jewish authorities, who felt that he did not deserve any tolerance. The original Aramaic of the Lord's Prayer is "forgive us our debts" not "trespasses". It would have been seen as an attack on exorbitant Roman taxes. "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" was ambiguous. While appearing neutral, it could be seen by fellow Jews as a veiled implication that Caesar had no rights in the Jewish homeland. Jesus was not in a position to repeal either the Law of Moses or the laws of the Roman Empire, nor did he ever think of doing so. He was not legislating even for the Church, since there was no Church to legislate for; none of his disciples had any suspicion that the Church was anything more than a brief stop-gap sect within Judaism till the Messianic Kingdom of God should come. ARTICLE
NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 2.1
What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum. ©2008 Tom Lee (Star Concepts LLC) 15633 N. 17* Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85023-3409 |
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