

FROM HISTORY TO MYSTERY

The Life and Teachings of the Historical Jesus

Rev. Dr. Lisa A Morris

This book is dedicated to Arietta McDougal;

My beloved Grandmother and spiritual role model.

Copyright 2009 by Rev. Dr. Lisa Morris. All rights reserved. No part of this lesson may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

ISBN: 978-0-557-25733-1

Introduction to Historical Jesus Studies/Sources and Gospel Synopsis

Welcome to your degree program in Jesus Studies. Jesus Studies is a new field of investigation whereby scholars try to reconstruct the original teachings of Jesus. There are many different theories as to who the man Jesus was, the historical man. Once we know the historical man and the context in which he lived in the ancient first century world, then we can begin to uncover his original teachings. In this course will we pay special attention to the parables and Jesus' message regarding the Kingdom of God. Let's briefly look at the different sources used to reconstruct the life of the historical Jesus.

A BRIEF LOOK AT SOURCES

Rather than focusing on the beliefs of the different authors of the gospels, let us begin with the historical study of the gospels. We want to know what Jesus actually said and did.

Most historians agree that in order to reconstruct the life of a person from antiquity, we need a number of sources that date back to that period of time in history. The sources should not contradict each other and should be independent of each other. Historians must look for internal consistency in the sources. This means that the sources are not theologically slanted toward the particular author's viewpoint.

THE NEW TESTAMENT GOSPELS AS A SOURCE

Of course we know that the gospel writers were biased in their writings. Their job was not to write about history therefore we need to be aware of this in our use of them for the purpose of reconstructing the life and teachings of the historical Jesus. We must be cautious when using them for historical accuracy. The gospel writers wanted to present Jesus in the way that suited their theology. Remember, the gospel writers were theologians not historians.

PAGAN SOURCES

In this course we are trying to discover the historical Jesus. In order to do that we need to look at some non Christian sources. Jesus is not mentioned by any pagan author of the first century. The first mention of Jesus in pagan sources comes in 112 C.E. by Pliny the younger who was the Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus. He asks Emperor Trajan how to go about dealing with the Christians in his province. This does not help us learn about what Jesus said and did. It only tells how far the Jesus movement had spread up to that time. Suetonius, a Roman historian mentions uprisings that were being caused by a man named "Chrestus" between 41-54 C.E. under the reign of Emperor Claudius. Chrestus could not have been Jesus because Jesus was executed before these uprisings. Around 115 C.E. pagan literature written by a historian by the name of Tacitus was discovered. Tacitus wrote about the history of Rome. He writes that during that time Nero torched Rome and put the blame on the Christians. "Christus, from whom their (the Christians) name is derived was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilot in the reign of Tiberius." That confirms that Jesus was executed under Pontius Pilot during the reign of Tiberius. This is all the information that we have from pagan sources so we must look elsewhere.

JEWISH SOURCES

As far as Jewish sources are concerned Jesus is mentioned by Josephus in "Antiquities of the Jews," a first century Jewish text. Josephus says that Jesus was a teacher and doer of startling deeds and that he had Jewish and Gentile followers. Josephus reports that Jewish leaders accused Jesus and Pilot condemned him to the cross. In this particular passage, Josephus also states that Jesus was the messiah. This is ironic because Josephus was a Jew and never converted to Christianity so why would he admit that Jesus was the messiah? The answer is an obvious later insertion by a Christian author as his works were copied and translated by Christian authors who had their own theological viewpoints. There are also references to Jesus in the Jewish Talmud. The Talmud is a collection of Jewish wisdom and folklore. The Talmud was preserved by rabbis of the first century C.E. The Mishnah which is a collection of teachings about the law was made two centuries after the death of Jesus and he is never directly mentioned in the Talmud. Mention of Jesus does appear however, in the commentaries of the Mishnah that were produced centuries later.

Please visit the link Ancient Jewish Accounts of Jesus for more Jewish Accounts of Jesus.

RETURNING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT GOSPELS AS SOURCES

Since the non Christian sources give us little information regarding the historical Jesus, we must take another look at the Christian canonical gospels. The reason that we have to rely on the canonical gospels is that the non canonical gospels are late and usually rely on earlier materials that are of little use in discovering the historical Jesus.

We might expect that Paul, the earliest New Testament author would be a good source about the historical Jesus. However, just the opposite is true. Paul says practically nothing about the life of Jesus. He is focused on the Jesus that he knows, the post- resurrection Christ. Paul's ministry was important and I believe that his vision was real and that he did see the risen Jesus otherwise he would have still been persecuting the Jewish Christians. Additionally, I feel comfortable with saying that due to the dramatic change in behavior of the disciples, from being cowards after Jesus' crucifixion to heroically proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom, that the resurrection happened. I know something happened to change all of these men. Beyond all of that let's get back to our historical quest. Now we are left with the New Testament gospels for our primary sources for discovering the historical Jesus.

CRITERION OF THE GOSPELS

Let us take a look at how we use our sources. Sources closer to the events that are narrated are probably historical. The reason for this is that they have undergone fewer revisions and transmit oral traditions. The earliest sources that we have are Mark, Q, M (Matthew) and L (Luke). Passages that are obvious theological constructs are not historically accurate. Additionally, passages that are slanted toward the author's bias are suspect.

Now we can take a look at the criterion for the use of our sources, Mark, Q, M (Matthew), and L (Luke).

The first criterion is the more the better.

It is preferable to have several independent witnesses to an event, two or three authors that did not know of each other's work. We can determine this when we look at the same event as narrated by the different authors. If they agree then the sources are more than likely historical.

The second criterion is the more the writing of the source goes against the bias of the author the better.

This is called the criterion of dissimilarity. To explain a bit further, if a tradition goes against what the Christian author was more than likely to believe then it is probably historical. The Christian authors certainly did not want to write against their beliefs.

The third criterion is the more contextually credible the better. If a story is so out of context that it cannot possibly be placed within the first century context in which Jesus lived then it is not historically reliable.

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

The language and literature of the New Testament must be studied in order to understand the context in which Jesus lived.

LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

Koine Greek was used in the Septuagint which was the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, so named because of a tradition that seventy (Latin: Septuagint) Jesus scholars had produced it. Kione Greek was the language of the Roman Empire and the language of the New Testament.

LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament. The four gospels were written between 64-95 C.E. The book of Acts was written around 85 C.E. The letters of Paul were written between 50-62 C.E. The general epistles were written between 85-150 C.E. The book of Revelation was written around 95 C.E.

These books are all "canonical." The word "canon" comes from the Greek word that originally meant "measuring rod." The biblical canon refers to the collection of books that were accepted as authoritative by the religious establishment. The purpose of the canon was to clarify what church leaders considered rooted in apostolic teaching and to provide a common basis for universal faith.

BOOKS THAT ALMOST DIDN'T MAKE IT INTO THE NEW TESTAMENT

It is interesting to know about the books that almost didn't make it into the New Testament. This list includes the Gospel of John, the Book of Revelation, Hebrews, and all the Epistles!

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

According to modern biblical scholarship, the gospel of Mark was written by a person of Jewish-Christian background in Rome around 70 C.E. Mark was based on Peter's (Petrine) oral tradition. Mark was probably a disciple of Peter and wrote down to the best of his knowledge what Peter had taught about Jesus. Jesus is portrayed as the crucified Christ. It is a narrative of the passion story. Jesus' teachings are grouped as:

Chapter 4: Parables

Chapter 13: Coming of the end of the age

In "The Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins" prominent Jesus scholar Burton Mack writes that neither Jesus nor Paul founded Christianity. Burton states that Mark founded Christianity. Mack postulates that the gospel of Mark was written after 70 C.E. which would be after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Apparently Marks writes to a community that has been expelled from the Hellenistic synagogues that were trying to establish their own identity outside of the Roman world. Mack says that through the adaptation and revisions by Matthew and Luke, and it's inclusion in the Christian gospels Mark's gospel contributed to "a myth of origin" that later on the church was able to develop after the conversion of Constantine in 313 C.E. and the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E.

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

The gospel of Matthew was written by a Jewish-Christian scribe in the 80's C.E. possibly in Syrian. Matthew uses Mark, "Q" and oral tradition to compose his gospel. We also have Aramaic and Hebrew versions of the gospel of Matthew. Matthew incorporates 90% of Mark's gospel into his writings and contains a birth narrative. Jesus is presented as the Teaching Christ. Matthew's gospel is distinctly Jewish and points to Jesus as the one who has come through the line of David to fulfill the prophecies concerning God's promised messiah who will save Israel from their sins.

The teachings are grouped as:

Chapters 5-7: Higher Righteousness
Chapter 10: Discipleship

Chapter 13: Kingdom Preaching

Chapter 18: Church

Chapters 24-26: End of the age

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

The gospel of Luke was written by a gentile Christian in Greek for mainly a Greek audience. Luke uses Mark and "Q" which is a sayings gospel that was reconstructed by scholars to explain the great number of similarities between Luke's gospel and the gospel of Matthew. Luke only uses 50% of Mark's gospel and includes a birth narrative. Jesus is presented as the Universal Christ. Jesus' teachings are for the Jews and the Gentiles. In fact both of Luke's writings including the Acts of the Apostles portray Jesus as the Christ to everyone who is willing to hear his message. Tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, and the poor all are included in this revolutionary inclusiveness of Jesus' ministry.

Scholars postulate that since Luke and Matthew have expanded upon Mark's gospel and even added things that were not in Mark's gospel that there had to be another source that both Matthew and Luke used besides Mark. This "gospel" called Q which is really not a gospel, is strictly sayings attributed to Jesus and is not concerned about Jesus' life or ministry. We will discuss the gospel of Q later on after we have looked at our canonical sources.

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

The gospel of John is definitely heavily influenced by Greek culture and was written as late as the 90's C.E. Scholars generally agree the gospel of John is heavily influenced by Gnostic thought. I will discuss more about the subject of Gnosticism later on in this course. John portrays Jesus as the Eternal Christ. Emphasis in made on "belief in Jesus" meaning believing and accepting Jesus as Son of God for salvation. In John's gospel the central theme is "life" rather than Jesus' Kingdom message.

In John's gospel Jesus' ministry is all about explaining who he is, the divine Son of God who is the Word of God and was pre-existent before the creation of the word. The famous "I AM" statements are attributed to Jesus but this is not likely because they are long discourses and not in Jesus' style of teaching in parables. Besides, Jesus did not want people telling others who he was. The sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospel of John were more than likely discourses written about Jesus that were used in teaching about him in the early church.

THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS VS THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

As stated before, the primary sources for trying to recover the historical Jesus are the synoptic gospels; Mark, Matthew and Luke. The synoptic gospels of these three authors present a common view of Jesus. The gospel of John is far removed from the synoptics and the most modern scholars generally agree that with John's highly developed Christology is more of a construct of the later church and therefore does not make it historically reliable source as far as reconstructing the actual life of Jesus and his ministry.

In the synoptic gospels Jesus' life begins with his baptism by John the Baptist. They also include accounts of his birth and childhood. The gospel of John makes Jesus into the eternal "Word" of God, who is God and it narrates no birth or childhood stories. In the synoptic gospels Jesus speaks in parables but in John he speaks in long involved tractates. In the synoptic gospels Jesus is a sage. The gospel of John portrays Jesus as a philosopher and mystic. The synoptic gospels present Jesus as an exorcist. John's Jesus never performs exorcisms. In the synoptics Jesus has little to say about himself. John's Jesus' main purpose is to present himself as the divine son of god who was sent to earth to die for the sins of humankind. The synoptic gospels present Jesus as being an outspoken advocate of the poor. John's Jesus practically has nothing to say about the poor and oppressed. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus' ministry only lasts for one year. John's Jesus has a three year ministry. In the synoptic gospels the temple incident where Jesus overthrows the money tables is placed at the very end of his ministry. The gospel of John places this incident in the beginning of Jesus' ministry. Jesus eats with his disciples at the last supper in the synoptic gospels. In John's gospel Jesus washes the disciples feet. This apparently replaces the last supper.

The following difference between the synoptic gospels and John's gospel is crucial to understanding the teachings of the historical Jesus and the rest of this course. So I urge you to pay attention to what I am about to say. Almost everywhere in the synoptic gospels Jesus is preaching the Kingdom of God. That this Kingdom is near, very near, and could arrive at any minute! This is the message of Jesus. The Gospel of John is the message of a highly developed Christology about Jesus as the divine Savior of the word.

THE MESSIANIC SECRET

In the synoptic gospels Jesus warns demons and disciples alike not to tell anyone about his identity. This is called the "messianic secret." During his lifetime and ministry Jesus did not want people to know that he was the messiah because he knew that Israel was expecting a warrior king who would come in military power and might to free Israel from foreign rule once and for all and establish a new Jerusalem where God's empire rather than the Roman empire would rule indefinitely.

In the gospels the people wanted to crown Jesus king but he would have nothing to do with that. He knew what kind of messiah they were expecting and it wasn't him. He was the suffering servant. Jesus' "Kingdom" was "not of this world." Thus the claims that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet may need to be re-examined in light of this statement.

CONCLUSION

This course is about recovering the original message of Jesus who by words and deeds brought the good news of the Kingdom of God (God's sovereign domain) to a spiritually impoverished world. I can only pray that taking this course will enrich your life as much as developing it did mine.

Religious Sects of Jesus' day

Jesus Studies is a new field of investigation whereby scholars try to reconstruct the original teachings of Jesus. There are many different theories as to who the man Jesus was, the historical man. Once we know the historical man and the context in which he lived in the ancient first century world, then we can begin to uncover his original teachings.

First of all, we know that Jesus spoke Aramaic, some Greek and he had to speak Hebrew because he quoted the Old testament which was written in Hebrew. Jesus as the man showed his proficiency in the scriptures (Torah) and taught ethical lessons from the Torah. He said, "I have not come to destroy the teachings of the prophets and the law. I have come to fulfill the prophets and the law." So Jesus said that the purpose of his presence and his ministry was to fulfill the prophecies about the coming messiah and we now know to give a more spiritual interpretation of the law.

Jesus probably began his ministry as a disciple of John the Baptist. We know that John the Baptist was to be the forerunner or the Elijah who would come to make way for the messiah. We know that John the Baptist was an eccentric fellow. He was out in the wilderness eating locusts and honey and dressed very modestly. He must have been quite a character to see! John the Baptist was considered by the Jewish people in his time to be THE prophet. At that time John the Baptist was as popular as Jesus would come to be. As a matter of fact, even at this time in Iran there is a sect called the Mandaeans that reveres John the Baptist and follow his teachings. Since we know that Jesus was a disciple of John, we should look into what John taught so that we can get an idea of where Jesus picked up after John in regards to his preaching of the Kingdom.

We know that while John was in prison that he sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the coming one or should they expect another. Jesus went on to tell them of his healings, the people who had been raised from the dead, the vastness of the crowds listening to his teachings, and the miracles he was performing. Jesus told John's disciples to go back and report these things to John.

Jesus continued John's message, "repent for the Kingdom of God is near!" There are a couple of interpretations of what was meant by the word "near. " It depends on how the Greek is translated into English. It could mean the Kingdom of God is near in vicinity (or already here with the arrival of Jesus) or the Kingdom of God in within you. Scholars believe that is a combination of the two.

The message that most Christians believe is not the gospel that Jesus taught. The gospel was not only Jesus' ministry, betrayal, crucifixion and subsequent resurrection! It was about the coming of the sovereign rule of God on earth. In this Kingdom, earthly kings would be replaced by the Lord of Lords.

Jesus' gospel in the beginning of his ministry was not, "I AM" the ONE from GOD, the suffering messiah who has come from heaven to atone for the sins of mankind. He did not assert his divinity. That was not his message. Jesus said that he was sent from his Father to preach the Kingdom of God. Jesus was commissioned by God to preach this Kingdom message!

Jesus went to the cross and died for his message of the Kingdom of God! That is why he died! But he resurrected! We can be relatively certain the Jesus was in fact resurrected do to the shear actions of the disciples. After Jesus was crucified they were hiding in an upper room fearful of their lives. We know they had fled when Jesus was taken to be crucified.

After the resurrection, Jesus appeared or materialized in the room where the disciples where hiding. He said before he died that he would not drink or eat with them until he had come into his Kingdom. A contradictory story appears when Jesus was resurrected and he was in his resurrected body, he told Mary Magdalene to not touch him as he had not yet ascended to his father. He told her to go and tell the disciples to wait for him and he would come to speak to them.

So Mary went and told the disciples that she had seen the risen Lord and that he was coming to meet with them. Initially, they did not believe Mary until Jesus actually materialized in his resurrected body. Jesus then continued sharing with them the mysteries of the Kingdom for forty days.

The disciples were so excited that they went from being cowards after his crucifixion to devoted followers who were willing to suffer the same fate (crucifixion, death, etc) for the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

But Jesus' message all the way to the cross and beyond the grave was the same message that John the Baptist preached, the Kingdom of God. The Gospel of John goes more into Jesus being the Divine Savior of the world but the Gospel of Mark is Kingdom preaching, the Gospel of Matthew especially chapter 13 is all about his Kingdom preaching too. Luke also includes his Kingdom preaching. In fact 30 chapters in the gospels are devoted to Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom of God!

So it is important to go forward and study exactly what Jesus' message regarding the Kingdom of God was all about. Jesus went to the cross for this message! Isn't it time followers and skeptics alike learn about the TRUE gospel?

Whether or not you consider yourself a Christian makes no difference in this study. As I have stated early, you must try to put your theology aside and begin to think historically.

The most important criterion used in reconstructing a person of antiquity is to keep everything in context with that particular period of time in history. We know Jesus was born in the first part of the first century into a Jewish family. He was deeply embedded in the Second Temple Judaism of his day and was surely aware of all the messianic movements that where popping up. Perhaps he felt the urge to join one of these movements. This feeling would have made John The Baptist's movement appealing. John came preaching the Kingdom of God and repentance for remission of sins. He baptized people who wanted to join in his Kingdom movement.

So Jesus went out to be baptized by John. This baptism from John was a sort of "rebirth," the washing away of the old self and a bringing forth the new self. Paul said "I am crucified with Christ yet I live." Paul was one of the earliest writers of the New Testament. He wrote even earlier than Mark. This points to the early Christian community's belief in this sort of metaphysical rebirth. Paul is saying that he has "died" to his old ways and has been "born again" into the life of the Christ. Adam being the first human who sinned and brought death into the world. Jesus was the second Adam who defeated death at the cross with his subsequent resurrection.

Why am I referring to Paul's writings when I am not using them for information on the historical Jesus? If you remember when I was discussing the reason for excluding Paul from the "historical" search for Jesus I did so because he had little to say about Jesus' life and earthly ministry. Paul's ministry began post-resurrection era. He only "saw" Jesus in Jesus' resurrected body. However, Paul claimed to know more about Jesus than the other disciples and even felt the need to defend his status as an apostle. With a gentleman's handshake, Peter, James along with most of Jesus' other disciples continued to be the apostles to the Jews but Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul even went so far as to say the he was pre-ordained in his mother's womb to become the apostle to the Gentiles.

John the Baptist and Paul were what you would call apocalyptic prophets. They preached the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God. It appears that both believed that they would see this take place in their lifetime. Who is the common factor between John the Baptist and Paul? Jesus of Nazareth. The fact that Jesus considered himself to be a prophet is recorded in the New Testament. Many scholars say that since Jesus probably started out as a disciple of John the Baptist that he continued John's message of the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God. Scholars also say that since Paul saw the risen Jesus and then he went on to preach an apocalyptic message that Jesus must have had an apocalyptic message too. This apocalyptic message was the impending, physical coming of God's judgment to Israel. This view is expressed in the Book of Revelation or the "Apocalypse."

Let us just consider this hypothetically. Jesus was preaching the imminent physical coming of God's reign (Kingdom of God) when Israel would at last be freed from it's domination by Roman rule and in place of this Israel would be under God's rule. Finally, Israel would be vindicated and the messiah would overthrow the powers and dominions of this world. This is what the Jewish people heard when anyone preached "Kingdom of God." It was a subversive message proclaiming Israel's God's rule instead of Caesar's rule.

In order to understand Jesus' message we must understand the political and historical context in which he lived. In first century Palestine there were different Jewish religious sects and each had a different social and political stance. Anyone preaching against the religious establishment as Jesus did was bound to raise eyebrows from the religious quarter. The main sects in Judaism in Jesus' day where the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the "Fourth Philosophy. I will now go into detail regarding each one of these sects.

PHARISEES

The Pharisees emerged in the Maccabean period. There is a misperception that the Pharisees carried major clout in Jesus' day. They were a devout group of Jews who stringently keep the laws of Torah. Their name literally means "separated ones." They shared meals together and only had fellowship with one another. They did not associate with people who did not maintain their level of purity in following the Torah. In this sense they would not eat with outsiders. They did not come into power until after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 C.E. Whether Jesus actually disputed with the Pharisees may be historically inconsistent with this evidence but the main point is that Jesus did not think that it was necessary to keep the laws of the Torah so stringently.

SADDUCEES

Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees carried major clout in Jesus' day. They were involved in the priesthood of the Temple. The Sadducees were apparently aristocratic and cooperated with the Roman government. The Sanhedrin which was the local Jewish council was made up of Sadducees. The Sadducees held as authoritative only the first five books of Moses. They did not believe in the resurrection or angels and they placed emphasis on the cultic practices of the Temple, sacrifices and so forth. The Sadducees were implicit in the eventual death of Jesus as Jesus raged against their temple establishment and predicted the destruction of their Temple.

ESSENES

The Essenes lived in Qumran and produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. Even though the Essenes are never directly mentioned in the New Testament, we know much about them due to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In 1947 a goat farmer was looking for his lost goat near the Northwest shore of the Dead Sea. He tossed a stone into the cave and heard it strike something. That something turned out to be an ancient jar containing the scrolls. The scrolls are written in Aramaic and Hebrew. Partial copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible were found with the exception of the book of Esther.

The Essenes began their community in the early Maccabean period around 150 B.C.E. They were pious Jews who were upset that the Hasmoneans appointed a non-Zadokite priest. They chose to start their own community keeping the Mosaic law stringently by living ascetically in the desert. They believed that the end of the age was coming soon. When it came there would be a battle between the sons of light (Essenes) and the sons of darkness (everyone else). They believed that the sons of light would defeat the sons of darkness when the end came and that they would enter God's kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of time.

The Essenes believed in the two messiah theory. The first messiah would be a priestly figure (such as Jesus) and the second would be a kingly figure (like king David) who would bring in the physical Kingdom and right all wrongs and make Israel a heaven on earth. Jesus was probably not an Essence but he did share some of their apocalyptic views.

THE FOURTH PHILOSOPHY

Josephus speaks about a number of different sects that promoted physical resistance to their Roman oppressors. This included violence if necessary because God gave Israel to them and they would take it by force if they had to. The Siccarii (dagger men) carried out assassinations and kidnappings of high Jewish officials in league with the Roman establishment. Later on in the second part of the first century a group emerged know as the Zealots. They are called so because they were "zealous" for the law and to take back the land God had given Israel. These Galilean Jews fled to Jerusalem during the Jewish revolt in 67 C.E. They were able to overthrow the priestly establishment violently and advocated opposition to Rome. This lead to the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple in 70 C.E. just as Jesus had predicted. Jesus was opposed to the Roman establishment but he did not advocate violence.

Quests-Period One Through Period Two

In this lesson we are going to take a look at the different quests for the historical Jesus that have taken place over the past two hundred years. We know that history concerns itself with reconstructing the past including the lives of historical figures. The best that they can do is to gain access to their lives through written documents. They do not have a telescope into the past. They can't step back into the past and experience what the people in ancient times experienced.

The authority belongs to the historian as to what is historical. The historian to the best of his/her ability tries to interpret what may have happened in the past with the documents that he/she has access to. History can therefore be subjective rather than objective. Historians have their own leanings. They must put that professionally aside if it is at all possible and work on an objective reconstruction of the past.

Consider that you are an attorney and you must go to court to present your case. You need good evidence. The strength of your case depends on your evidence. If you lack the necessary evidence or if the evidence seems unreliable, that will increase the chance that you will come up with a theory that will match what evidence that you have. This theory will be weak because you do not have enough evidence to even postulate your theory. Your theory of the case turns into fiction rather than fact.

A historian needs to consider the sequence of events that took place in the life of the person they are trying to reconstruct. They have to consider what this person may have been thinking. What where their innermost feelings and thoughts? According to W. Barnes Tatum, a biographer needs to "chronologize and psychologize" the life of the person they are reconstructing.

There are five periods in the quest for the historical Jesus. All use the historical critical method.

Below is a chart of the five quest periods for the historical Jesus and the historical critical methods used in each quest.

1. Historical Quest (Period 1)

a. Pre-quest (Before 1778)

b. Jesus of History = Jesus of Faith

c. Scholars had long noticed discrepancies in the gospel accounts but; considered them as "a test of faith" or allegorical.

2. Historical Quest (Period 2)

a.. Old Quest (1778-1906)

b. Hermann Samuel Reimarus' "Concerning the Intention of Jesus and His Teaching."

c. Postulates that Jesus never intended to suffer and die. Jesus' cry on the cross, "my god, my god why have you forsaken me?"

d. Postulates that the disciples stole Jesus' body and claimed he rose from the dead.

e. The Old Quest says that the quest is methodologically possible and theologically necessary.

f. Thus the rise of source criticism: What is the literary relationship between Matthew, Mark, and Luke that makes them so similar to each other and so different from John?

3. Historical Quest (Period 3) No Quest (1906-1953)

a. Albert Schweitzer's 1906 "In Quest of the Historical Jesus."

b. Postulated that historical methods simply reflected theological interests of 19th century authors.

c. Jesus was expecting an end of the world that never came.

d. History not needed about Jesus as he has spiritually risen.

e. Rudolf Bultmann postulates that the gospels need to be "demythologized" to get to the existential meaning.

f. Quest is methodologically impossible and theologically unnecessary.

g. Rise of form criticism: What communities, what situations in life, gave rise to various forms such as sayings, hymns, prayers, parables, that were incorporated into the gospels?

4. (Period 4) Second Quest

1953 Kasseman and other students of Bultmann call for a new quest.

a. Gospels are primarily kerugma (statements of faith)

b. Historical method is limited to verifying the sayings of Jesus.

c. The burden of proof that something is historical is on the historian.

d. Quest is methodologically possible and theologically necessary.

e. Rise of redaction criticism: How did the gospel writers "redact" or "spin" the forms and sources found in the gospels? What editorial perspective did each gospel writer bring to the gospel?

5. (Period 5) Third Quest 1985-present

Jesus Seminar formed by Funk and Crossan in 1985.

a. Extended the method of the second quest.

b. "Q" and "Thomas" main concentration.

c. Reaction to rise of fundamentalism.

d. Methodologically possible and theologically neutral or necessary

e. Rise of narrative criticism and social scientific criticism: Narrative criticism points out that however the stories came to be (oral forms and written sources) what we now have is a literary whole that needs to be interpreted as a whole. It is the discipline that studies the formal literary dimensions of the individual gospels. Social-scientific criticism looks at the social world presupposed by the text and asks how does the text reflect or contrast with that world.

Just as there were different "quests" for the historical Jesus so it is with the historical search criteria.

1. Criterion of independent attestation

a. When saying is found in multiple sources;

b. Mark, "Q", "M", "L", John and Thomas

c. E.g., Jesus know as miracle worker, worked among outcasts etc.

2. Criterion of Dissimilarity

a. When saying are dissimilar from sayings or emphasis of early church, on one hand, and Judaism

on the other.

b. E.g., Teaching in parable and referring to God as "Abba."

3. Criterion of Coherence

a. When saying, etc., is coherent or in keeping with results of previous criteria.

b. E.g., Jesus called God, "father."

4. Criterion of Language and Environment

a. A negative check of the results of previous findings--if a result could not fit into the language and environment of Jesus' context, then it is rejected; if a result does fit, then it is all the more likely to be authentic

b. E.g., Jesus spoke Aramaic, possibly Greek.

5. Criterion of Embarrassment

a. If a deed or saying attributed to Jesus is such that it would be embarrassing to early church, it is all the more likely to be authentic.

b. E.g., baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.

Now on to the quests!

PERIOD ONE: PRE-QUEST

Period one was the pre-quest. It was before 1778. Once the four gospels were canonized they went unquestioned. There was no substantial interest in the historical Jesus. The emphasis was on the Christ of faith. The historical Jesus and the Christ of faith were one in the same. Underlying the surface, the church leaders knew that there were obvious differences in the gospels and that they needed to find a way to harmonize the gospels.

During the middle of the second century a man by the name of Tatian from Mesopotamia took upon himself the task of harmonizing the gospels by combining them into one narrative story. His work was called "Diatessaron" meaning "Four-in-One." It was the Syriac version (not Greek) that gained notoriety. This "Diatessaron" was introduced to the Tigers-Euphrates area before the four gospels. It is generally considered that the "Diatessaron" was widely used by the early churches in this area up until the fourth century.

ENTER MARTIN LUTHER

Along comes the Protestant Reformation. There was a revolutionary feeling in the air. The father of the Protestant Reformation or actually one could call it "revolution" was Martin Luther who was a priest who broke ranks with the Roman Catholic Church after much personal Bible study. Luther discovered what the Church taught and what was written in the scriptures did not match up. His discovered that God's grace alone and not a person's works was sufficient for salvation. He called the Book of James, which was written by Jesus' brother, a "bed of straw" because James said that "faith without works is dead." In James' defense, he was saying that because of God's free gift of grace the individual would produce the fruit of good works. The good works were done as a result of God's grace. They were proof that God's grace was at work in the individual.

So began the movement away from Papal authority to Bibliology which was the authority of the scriptures alone. This doctrine was called "Sola Scripture" which states that the Bible and the Bible alone is the source for all matters of faith and right practice, not the Pope's decrees. The Church went from one extreme of the Pope having the authority of Christ on earth (actually the Pope is called "The Vicar of Christ" this literally means, according to Roman Catholic doctrine that the Pope is infallible) this is called the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. Luther went to the other extreme and set the Bible as the object of worship (this is called Bibliology this means that the Bible is infallible). So the Roman Catholics have the Pope and the Protestants have the Bible. What about the rest of us? Where does Jesus fit into all of this? How can this split have possibly helped in the spreading Jesus' message of the Kingdom of God? We are lost in the middle. The historical Jesus didn't fit into the equation of either the Catholics or the Protestants. Jesus' message of the Kingdom turned into a message about Jesus as the half man/half divine being who was also GOD incarnate. So we go from the message of the Kingdom of God, God's sovereign reign that is available immediately to anyone who has "ears to hear," to Jesus as the Anointed Christ who was also God (Jesus was God the Son) and who came to die for the sins of the world.

If the Father is God and Jesus is God, Christianity is no longer monotheistic. At the moment that the doctrine of Jesus as God in the flesh was established, Christianity became polytheistic. They now had two gods. Later on, after Jesus breathes the Spirit into the disciples to empower them to spread the message of the Kingdom, this Spirit becomes the person (male of course) named the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is GOD too! So now Christianity has three gods!

But enter the doctrine of the Trinity and as the song goes, "God in three persons, blessed Trinity." That is as far as I am going with this subject. I will refrain from any further comments for a different paper or dissertation.

On to the next quest for the historical Jesus.

ENTER THE ENLIGHTENMENT

The Enlightenment was a time when the quest for the historical Jesus started taking shape. There was a renewed interest in the literary relationship between the four gospels. The intellectual setting rather than the strictly dogmatic study of the historical Jesus and the gospels gave the scholar freedom to pursue their studies without regard to what the Church taught about Jesus. So the gospels and Jesus were viewed as different from what the church taught.

PERIOD TWO: OLD QUEST (1778-1906)

The father of this quest was Hermann Samuel Reimarus in 1778. He was from Hamburg, Germany and a professor of Oriental languages. During his lifetime, he never talked about his personal historical quest for Jesus. Even during the Enlightenment period there was still some censorship of freedom of speech by the religious hierarchy. He could have lost his academic post and perhaps been put in jail for his opinions on the historical Jesus.

In fear of retribution, Reimarus' views, which were mostly negative toward Christianity, did not become published until after his death. Between 1774-1778 some fragments of his work began to be discovered and were published. In 1778 the seventh fragment was published entitled "On the Intention of Jesus and His Disciples."

In this work, Reimarus distinctly drew a line between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. In his work Reimarus said that Jesus and his disciples were establishing a earthly kingdom with himself as the Messiah. Jesus' ministry was the proclamation of the Kingdom of God that was coming immediately within their lifetime. He points to when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, the people wanted to crown him as king. This was in fulfillment of the prophecy:

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation,

lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey." Zechariah 9:9

Jesus was executed and the sign over the cross stated what he was charged with and subsequently executed for, "King Of The Jews." When Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34), Reimarus concludes,

"It was clearly then not the intention or the object of Jesus to suffer or to die,but to build up a worldly kingdom, and to deliver the Israelites from bondage.It was in this that God had forsaken him, it was in this that his hopes had been frustrated."

As you can see, this is in direct contradiction to what the gospels teach according to Church doctrine. The gospels portray Jesus as a spiritual Messiah. Jesus' death and subsequent resurrection were to atone for the sins of mankind.

Reimarus said that the disciples invented this "suffering Messiah" concept:

"The new system of a suffering spiritual savior, which no one had ever known or thought before, was invented only because the first hopes failed."

Reimarus said that Jesus' disciples had stolen his body to make it look like Jesus had bodily resurrected from the dead and thus he had atoned for the sins of the world. Reimarus used Matthew 28:11-15 as historical:

"Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, "Tell them, 'His disciples came at night and stole him away while we slept.' And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him and make you secure." So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among Jews until this day."

Although Reimarus' historical reconstruction of Jesus was questionable, he did make an important contribution to the study of the historical Jesus. The spiritual Messiah and the Jesus taught by the Church in the gospels were not equivalent to each other. This discontinuity between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history was a major breakthrough for the quests in the nineteenth century. It was methodologically possible and theologically necessary to recover the historical teaching of the man Jesus.

As far as the examination of the four Gospels, they were considered important in the quest for the historical Jesus. The gospel of Mark emerged as the most reliable of the gospels because it was the earliest to be written and considered highly reliable in regards to the historicity of the mission of Jesus. The gospel of John was considered practically irrelevant. The gospel of Q, an early source of Jesus' teachings, was considered highly reliable in reconstructing the teachings of Jesus.

During this period there emerged the recognition that Jesus should be understood within the context of the first century, Second Temple Judaism in Palestinian culture. In other words, Jesus was historically embedded in the culture of his day. If you take Jesus out of his historical context of first century Judaism then you have misunderstood his message. We know that the Jewish people of the first century were expecting a Kingly messiah who would bring in the reign of God, defeat the oppressive Roman authorities and establish a Jewish nation.

Reimarus used his quest to discredit Christianity. But as a result of his work, many who believed in the doctrines of the Church sought the historical Jesus. This nineteenth century theological movement was called Protestant liberalism. It does not mean "liberalism" as is negatively referred to in modern day theological circles. These scholars wanted to establish a firm foundation for Christian belief and practice. They stressed the faith of Jesus rather than faith in Jesus. They did not look at the gospels or the creeds but at the historical personality and original teachings of Jesus. According to liberal theology, Jesus was a teacher and taught the "Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man." Liberal theology postulated that the Kingdom of God was attainable on earth by following Jesus' commandments, to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.

H.J. Holtzmann, a German scholar, exemplifies nineteenth century Jesus scholarship, liberal theology and gospel criticism. He was the postulator of the "two-document hypothesis," stating that Mark was the earliest gospel written.

In his study of the synoptic gospels in 1863, Holtzmann made a short description of the life of Jesus using Mark's gospel. By arranging Jesus' ministry into stages he showed how Jesus gradually became aware of his call by God to be the Messiah. His work of source analysis and development of the historical Jesus was highly esteemed among liberal theologians in the nineteenth century.

In conclusion, the "old quest" or the nineteenth century quest was characterized by great variety. It was also held that the search for the historical Jesus was theologically necessary. Many biographies of Jesus were written by historians, scholars, and amateurs alike. They told the story of Jesus by arranging his activities into distinct time periods and related that to how Jesus might have understood himself and his mission.

The most infamous of these writings was by German Protestant David Friedrich Strauss entitled, " Life of Jesus Critically Examined." 1846 (English Translation)

Another writing was by French Catholic Ernest Renan entitled, "Life of Jesus."

Strauss ended up forfeiting his chance for academic post as a result of his work and Renan did lose his academic post. So much for the Enlightenment!

Any story of the life of Jesus or a biography of Jesus that arranges his activities chronologically and tries to understand the thought world of Jesus during his ministry is an example of the "old quest" mentality

In our next lesson we will be looking at the work of Albert Schweitzer. But if you would like to look at a detailed account of this "old quest" that we have just studied, I would direct you to his remarkable and groundbreaking work entitled, "The Quest of the Historical Jesus."

Continuing the Quest

Period 3: No Quest (1906-1953)

Historical Quest (Period 3) No Quest (1906-1953)

a. Albert Schweitzer's 1906 "In Quest of the Historical Jesus."

b. Postulated that historical methods simply reflected theological interests of 19th century authors.

c. Jesus was expecting an end of the world that never came.

d. History not needed about Jesus as he has spiritually risen.

e. Rudolf Bultmann postulates that the gospels need to be "demythologized" to get to the existential meaning.

f. Quest is methodologically impossible and theologically unnecessary.

g. Rise of form criticism: What communities, what situations in life, gave rise to various forms such as sayings, hymns, prayers, parables, that were incorporated into the gospels?

I find it quite odd that this era is called the 'No Quest' as out of this period came the most prolific work by Albert Schweitzer. He was a missionary doctor in Africa. He was a missionary doctor up until his death in 1965. He was also a distinguished bible scholar at the University of Strasbourg.

Since Schweitzer felt that Holtzman failed to recover who Jesus was, he claimed that Holtzman had modernized Jesus and made him into their ideology and philosophy. Holtz fit into the category of liberal theology at that time.

Schweitzer had his own opinion of who Jesus was as indicated by the quote below:

"The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah,who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon the earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb."

Schweitzer was a rather pessimistic fellow and he had more to say about the liberal theologians of the nineteenth century quests. He said that the historical Jesus he found was insignificant for twentieth century faith and practice:

" The truth is, it is not Jesus as a historically known, but Jesus as spiritually risen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. Not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from Him and in the spirits of men strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world."

Schweitzer believed that during Jesus' lifetime he believed that God would bring in this supernatural kingdom through a certain supernatural person named the "son of man," as referenced in Daniel 7:13:

"As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being (Son of Man) coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him."

Schweitzer said that Jesus thought that God would designate him to be revealed as this kingdom's supernatural Messiah. So Jesus in his earthly ministry did everything he could to make this kingdom come about and hasten it's arrival.

Schweitzer described his viewpoint as "thoroughgoing or consistent eschatology."

Jesus proclaimed and acted out his apocalyptic beliefs. Schweitzer found support for that in Matthew 10:23. When Jesus had sent out his disciples two by two he said to them:

"When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes."

Up until this time in Jesus' ministry, Jesus figured that his disciples would suffer before the end until this messiah would come. Jesus thought that he would be revealed as this Son of Man figure even before they carried out his commission.

Schweitzer explained the meaning of Jesus' words in Matthew 10:23:

"He does not expect to see them back in the present age. The Parousia of the Son of Man, which is logically and temporally identical with the dawn of the Kingdom, will take place before they shall have completed a hasty journey through the cities of Israel to announce it."

Jesus' death did not usher in this kingdom or the Son of Man. Therefore Jesus had been wrong twice.

Remember that Reimarus considered Jesus against the Jewish background of the expectation for a political messiah and an earthly kingdom. Schweitzer considered Jesus against the Jewish background and expectation of a supernatural messiah and a supernatural kingdom. Both agreed that Jesus failed in these goals.

Thus the assumption about the discontinuity between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history was carried from the "old quest" into this "no quest" period. There was a growing realization that it was methodologically impossible to write a life of Jesus and theologically unnecessary to base Christian faith on historical research. So scholars and theologians started to emphasize the importance of the Christ of faith.

A major representative of the "no quest" attitude toward the historical Jesus was Rudolf Bultmann. He had a lengthy career as a biblical scholar, theologian, and preacher. He concluded that the quest for the historical Jesus was methodologically impossible and theologically unnecessary.

Bultmann maintained an existential theology. Existentialism refers to a theology or philosophy that emphasizes the human as the decision maker, not God. Bultmann's historical criticism stemmed from his use of form criticism. He published a small book on Jesus' teaching called, "Jesus and the Word," 1934 (English Translation) in which he had positive things to say about the teachings of Jesus.

Bultmann's lack of interest in a quest for the historical Jesus actually renewed scholarly interest in the Jesus of history. This interest sparked the "New Quest.

Period 4: New Quest (1953-1985)

(Period 4) Second Quest

1953 Kasseman and other students of Bultmann call for a new quest.

a. Gospels are primarily kerygma.

b. Historical method is limited to verifying the sayings of Jesus.

c. The burden of proof that something is historical is on the historian.

d. Quest is methodologically possible and theologically necessary.

e. Rise of redaction criticism: How did the gospel writers "redact" or "spin" the forms and sources found in the gospels? What editorial perspective did each gospel writer bring to the gospel?

A lecture given by Ernst Kasemann in 1953 to Rudolf Bultmann's former students sparked interest in the search for the historical Jesus even under the heavy influence of historical skepticism. Kasemann's lecture entitled, "The Problem of the Historical Jesus," firmly stated that a biography of Jesus was part of the "Old Quest" as the gospels did not allow for chronology of the events of Jesus' life nor did they allow for the psychological look into what Jesus may have been thinking while carrying out his ministry. Look at this quote from Kasemann:

"Have not some central points emerged, around which we might, if with the utmost caution and reserve, reconstruct something like a life of Jesus? I should reject such a view as being a misunderstanding. In writing a life of Jesus, we could not dispense with some account of his exterior and interior development. But we know nothing at all about the latter and next to nothing about the former, save only the way which led from Galilee to Jerusalem, from the preaching of the God who is near to us to the hatred of official Judaism and execution by the Romans. Only an uncontrolled imagination could have the self-confidence to weave out of these pitiful threads the fabric of a history in which cause and effect could be determined in detail."

Kasemann said that although a biography could not be written about Jesus from the gospel stories, he gospels do refer to a living person with flesh and blood.

"But, conversely, neither am I prepared to concede that, in the face of these facts, defeatism and skepticism must have the last word and lead us on to a complete disengagement of interest from the earthly Jesus. If this were to happen, we should either be failing to grasp the nature of the primitive Christian concern with the identity between the exalted and the humiliated Lord; or else we should be emptying that concern of any real content, as did the docetists.

We should also be overlooking the fact that there are still pieces of the Synoptic tradition which the historian has to acknowledge as authentic if he wishes to remain an historian at all. My own concern is to show that, out of the obscurity of the life story of Jesus, certain characteristic traits in his preaching stand out in relatively sharp relief, and that primitive Christianity united its own message with these."

This movement by Ernst Kasemann initiated the "new quest" of the historical Jesus. He and his followers determined never to seek the Jesus of history at the expense of the Christ of faith. This established the continuity between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history.

Gunther Bornkamm was author of "Jesus of Nazareth "(1960-English Translation) and stayed within the confines of Kasemann. The book was no a life or a biography of Jesus. It was not interested in the sequence of events in the ministry of Jesus and very little interest in Jesus' sense of self understanding. The book was written for general audiences and was the most widely read history of Jesus twenty-five years after its production.

The interest in Jesus was invigorated by Kasemann and Bornkamm in the 1950s and 1960s. James M. Robinson, an American scholar, published "A New Quest of the Historical Jesus" in 1959. Because of it's ties to the Bultmannian theological circles, this "new quest" for Jesus was a hodgepodge of things lacking in the 'old quest."

Three unifying characteristics should be noted.

1. "New Quest" recognized the faith nature (kerygmatic) nature of the gospels. Gospels were not modern biographies of Jesus but faith documents supported of the faith.

2. "New Quest" scholars recognized the importance of the "event" rather than a "sequence of facts." The gospels, however, do allow scholars to write about the life of Jesus. Concentration shifted to the sayings and stories that may have originated by Jesus.

3. "New Quest" scholars determined that the burden of proof rested upon those who claimed that material in the Gospels was authentic. These sayings would have originated with the earthly sayings of Jesus.

So certain criteria would be able to establish the authenticity of the Gospels. This criteria was passed on to the next generation of scholars.

PERIOD 5: THIRD QUEST/RENEWED QUEST/POST-QUEST (SINCE 1985)

(Period 5) Third Quest 1985-present

Jesus Seminar formed by Funk and Crossan in 1985.

a. Extended the method of the second quest.

b. "Q" and "Thomas" main concentration.

c. Reaction to rise of fundamentalism.

d. Methodologically possible and theologically neutral or necessary?

e. Rise of narrative criticism and social scientific criticism: Narrative criticism points out that however the stories came to be (oral forms and written sources) what we now have is a literary whole that needs to be interpreted as a whole. It is the discipline that studies the formal literary dimensions of the individual gospels. Social-scientific criticism looks at the social world presupposed by the text and asks how does the text reflect or contrast with that world.

To describe the eruption of interest in both the scholarly and general public the phrases, "third quest," renewed quest," and "post quest" are used to identify the modern quest for the historical Jesus.

The year 1985 marks the beginning of this "post quest" era. Two events in 1985 occurred that pointed to a transition in the historical Jesus quest.

In 1985 E.P. Sanders published "Jesus and Judaism." He had previously published works related to Paul. Now he was focused on Jesus. Sanders reviewed the most recent works on the historical Jesus up until his work and discovered that they shared characteristics similar to his own work. He states:

"In these and other works it is assumed or argued (usually assumed) that it is worthwhile to know and to state clearly whatever can be known about Jesus, and great effort is expended in establishing what can be known. The present work is written in the latter vein. To speak personally for a moment, I am interested in the debate about the significance of the historical Jesus for theology in the way that one is interested in something he once found fascinating. The present work is written without that question in mind, however, and those who wish an essay on that topic may put this book down and proceed farther along the shelf."

Sanders believes that the quest for the historical Jesus and the pursuit of Christology are independent of each other. The focus is on Jesus as a historical figure not on the Christ of faith.

In March of 1985 the Jesus Seminar convened in Berkeley, California. Robert Funk invited thirty scholars to the seminar. Funk was a scholar and teacher at Vanderbilt University and the University of Montana. Funk's goal was to reconstruct his own theory on the historical Jesus.

Funk tried to locate a list of "raw" sayings of Jesus within and without the New Testament. Two hundred years of scholarly investigation of the historical Jesus produced sayings and deeds to be authentic. In other words, Jesus more than likely said or did these things. The scholars of the seminar met twice a year for four days each.

Funk summed up the purpose of the scholars and the Jesus Seminar:

"The aims of the Seminar were two:

(1) We were to compile a raw list of all the words attributed to Jesus in the first three centuries (down to 300 C.E.). These sayings and parables were to be arranged as parallels, so that all versions of the same item would appear side by side on the page for close comparision and study. We decided to defer listing the deeds of Jesus until a second phase of the Seminar.

(2) We were then to sort through this list and determine, on the basis of scholarly consensus, which items probably echoed or mirrored the voice of Jesus, and which items belong to subsequent stages of the Jesus tradition."

Member Dominic Crossan, cochair of the Jesus Seminar edited the raw list of Jesus' words in "Sayings Parallels: A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition," (1986). Funk also wrote "The Five Gospels," (1993) and "The Acts of Jesus (1997).

The Jesus Seminar had a rather unique way on deciding which words of Jesus were authentic. They voted by dropping colored beads into a box! They relegated Jesus' sayings and deeds authentic based on the color of the beads. A red bead meant that the saying was "highly probable;" pink was "probable"; gray was "possible"; and black was "improbable".

This period of Jesus studies was theologically neutral. This post-quest was methodological possible but theologically neutral. This is not to say that some scholars were till not interested in the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history.

As a Catholic priest who teaches at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. writes from a Catholic perspective; John Meier comments on the concern of scholars who were compromising their faith commitments in their work as historians in Jesus studies. In order to not let his faith in Christ get in the way of the Jesus of history, he calls his position an "unpapal enclave." He is quoted below.

"Suppose that a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and an agnostic-

all honest historians cognizant of 1st century religious movements were locked up in the bowels of the Harvard Divinity School library,put on a Spartan diet, and not allowed to emerge until they had hammered out a consensus document on who Jesus of Nazareth was and what he intended in his own time and place. An essential requirement of this document would be that it be based on purely historical sources and arguments."

Recent scholarship in this quest has placed a great priority upon the fact that Jesus was a Jew in first century Palestine and should be kept in that context in any historical study of him. The following are the major works written by current Jesus scholars that acknowledge this fact.

John P. Meier "A Marginal Jew," (2 Volumes; 1991,1994)

E.P. Sanders "Jesus and Judaism," (1985)

James H. Charlesworth "Jesus Within Judaism," (1988)

John Dominic Crossan "The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant" (1991)

Geza Vermes wrote a trilogy:

"Jesus the Jew," (1973);

" Jesus and the World of Judaism" (1983);

"The Religion of Jesus the Jew," (1993)

The books listed above help us to understand three historical models for understanding Jesus as a first century Jew. Below is a breakdown of each scholar's portrayal of Jesus.

E.P. Sanders portrays Jesus as an eschatological prophet who announced the restoration of Israel.

Dominic Crossan portrays Jesus as a Galilean peasant sage and cynic philosopher.

Vermes portrays Jesus as a "hasid" or holy man, a charismatic rabbi that is steeped in the mystical Galilean school. He teaches Torah and performs miracles.

The differences in these portrayals are the effect of how the author views the social sciences, cultural anthropology, and archaeology among with other factors. Below is a list of factors affecting portrayals of Jesus as a first century Jew.

1. What literature does the historian admit as evidence? How is the interrelationship understood? Did he/she use the four gospels, the synoptic gospels, Q or Thomas, Gospel of Peter?

2. What kind of Judaism is the author using in his/her portrayal? Does he/she rely on apocalyptic eschatology?"

There are two kinds of apocalyptic eschatology.

1. The kind that projects the end of the world or age

2. The kind that talks about the end of the evil age and a new age within history when God would restore Israel

WISDOM TRADITIONS?

Did wisdom traditions written by Jewish sages (e.g. Book of Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon,etc.) that taught how to live in the here and now inspire Jesus? According to some scholars, Jesus' parables and aphorisms could be interpreted as expressions of wisdom that challenged the traditional ways of viewing God in the world. Although Jesus was Jewish, Galilee was a Hellenized territory. Perhaps Jesus really was a cynic philosopher.

LEGAL TRADITIONS?

Does the legal tradition of the Rabbi Jesus teaching the first five books of Moses (Torah) help to understand Jesus in context of first century Judaism? The gospels reflect Jesus' antagonism toward the Pharisees (which is quite incorrect as the Pharisees were not the major power players in the time of Jesus. The Sadducees were the major Jewish sect to be reckoned with.) These supposed conflicts were probably additions by the later church to reflect the controversies between the new church and the synagogue.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE CONTINUING QUEST

The quest can be viewed from two vantage points.

1. A series of quests during the last two hundred years with the ongoing history of trying to discover the Jesus of history.

2. Portrayals of Jesus based upon each period of the historical quest. These portrayals in each individual quest are used by modern day scholars, non professional scholars, clergy, and laity. Just because one period of the quest promotes certain viewpoints does not mean that more than one viewpoint or quest can't be combined to formulate their version of the historical Jesus.

Most people in the nonacademic sector are unaware of the quests for the historical Jesus even with the flood of books and television series about Jesus the man. Even biblical scholars shun the quests and go back to defending the historicity of the four gospels in spite of two hundred years of scholarship to the contrary!

Some people view Jesus from a strong biographical context. The Christians in this category end up viewing him as the object of faith. Although some may follow Jesus but not worship him.

Other "no quest" people portray Christ through creed and scripture and consider the quest for the historical Jesus to be irrelevant to their lives of faith.

People of the "new quest" seek to establish continuity between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith against all the historical difficulties of this task to support their doctrine and dogma.

THE MODERN WORLD AND THE POST QUEST

People are interested in the Jesus of history without a theological agenda. They are disillusioned with the churches answers or lack of answers to questions involving everyday life. With all the media and publishing success of literary works about the historical Jesus, many people who are interested in the life of Jesus have turned to the world of Jesus scholarship to discover for themselves the real message of the Jesus the man.

THE Q SOURCE: A HYPOTHETICAL DOCUMENT?

When we look at the gospels of Matthew and Luke we can see obvious parallels. That is because Matthew and Luke drew upon Mark for most of their gospels. Matthew's gospel contains 90% of Mark's work. Luke's gospel contains 50% of Mark's work. This seems to suggest that Mark was their common source. But what about the other 10% of Matthew's gospel and the other 50% of Luke's gospel that did not derive it's information from the Marcan Source (Mark's gospel)? Matthew and Luke agree word for word. How can this be? There has to be some other source to explain this.

Scholars have postulated that there is a second source that Matthew and Luke used to obtain the information to compose their gospels. The source is a hypothetical document called "Q." "Q" is the abbreviated form of the German word "Quelle" and means "source."

Keep in mind that the Q source is a hypothetical document that has been uncovered by scholars weaving together the similarities between the gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke that cannot be attributed to Mark. Scholars have meticulously constructed this document as a source in its own right attributing the accounts that Matthew and Luke use outside the Marcan source.

The "sayings" of Jesus that comprise Q appear to come from oral tradition keeping in context with the period of history in which Jesus and his early followers, who were probably responsible for writing down Jesus' sayings to preserve oral history. Jesus' message was so profound and prolific that the early followers would have wanted to write down his sayings and teachings for future generations.

Instead of identifying Q sayings by verses in both Matthew and Luke, (because the sayings in Q are direct parallels to Matthew and Luke) scholars identify the sayings with Luke only because Luke appears to preserve the order of the "original" document. In other words, identifying Q sayings with Luke makes more sense

.

For example, Q 3:7-9, 16-17 equals Luke 3:7-9, 16-17. The chart below for the content of Q is attributed to Q scholar, John Kloppenborg.

  1. John's preaching of the Coming One Q 3:7-9, 16-17

  2. The temptation of Jesus Q 4:1-13

  3. Jesus' inaugural sermon Q 6:20b-49

  4. John, Jesus, and "this generation" Q 7:1-10, 18-28;

(16:16); 7:31-35

  5. Discipleship and mission Q 9:57-62; 10:2-24

  6. On prayer Q 11:2-4, 9-13

  7. Controversies with Israel Q 11:14-52

  8. On fearless preaching Q 12:2-12

  9. On anxiety over material needs Q 12: (13-14, 16-21),22-31

33-34

  10. Preparedness for the end Q 12:39-59

  11. Two parables of growth Q 13:18-19, 20-21

  12. The Two Ways Q 13:24-30, 34-35; 14:16-24

;26-27; 17:33; 14:33-34

  13. Various Parables and sayings Q 15:3-7, 16:13, 17-18; 17:1-6

  14. Eschatological Discourse Q 17:23-37; 19:12-27; 22:28-30

The possibility of the existence of Q has been strengthened by the discovery in 1945 of the Gospel of Thomas, which is also collection of sayings without reference to the "story" of Jesus' life and works. The next lesson will go into depth on the gospel of Thomas. Thomas contains 47 parallels to Mark, 40 to Q, 17 to Matthew, four to Luke and five to John. Some conclude that both documents originated in communities of Jewish Christians in Judea and Galilee between the time of Jesus' death and the writing of the four main gospels.

There are only two narratives in Q: (1) Jesus' struggle with Satan (Luke 4.2-13; Matthew 4.1-11); and (2) the healing of the centurion's slave (Luke 7.2-3, 6-10; Matthew 8.5-13). But even these two stories focus more on what Jesus said than on the events concerned.

The Q community was interested in what they believed would be the coming of the Messiah in power and glory to set things right. As we know from Paul's letters, early Christians believed that God came to them through prophecy. This was in turn evidence that they were God's elect who would triumph when Jesus returned in the last days.

But care needs to be taken that modern interpretations are not merely projected onto the material. Just because we think in terms of early apocalyptic literature doesn't mean that it actually existed, or that early Christians thought in exactly those terms. The four main gospels seem to think less about Jesus coming again, and more about what they call the "Kingdom of God". There is a strong argument for supposing that by "Kingdom" they meant letting God's sovereign rule reign in their thinking about life and the context of the times of which they lived.

If this emphasis is given some weight, then much of Q has a social context, referring to a better way of running the world than the early Christians knew in their own lives.

The apocalyptic nature of Q suggests that it came into being in the first or second generations after Jesus died. As we know from Paul's later letters, by around the year 65 Christians had begun to wonder if Jesus would return as some had thought. This makes a date for Q of later than 65 less likely. Some think that the story of the struggle with Satan in Q refers to an incident in 39 when there was a mass demonstration against the erection of a statue of the Emperor Caligula in Jerusalem [1]. If so, the Q material probably came into being after that date.

The high degree of verbal agreement between Luke and Matthew, and some particular word formations, lead many to conclude that Q was a written source now long-lost, rather than an oral tradition. They think it unlikely that two oral traditions, one used by Matthew and one used by Luke, could have sustained such tight verbal similarity.

The Q material in Matthew and Luke is set in differing contexts, but in roughly the same sequence. This is a strong argument against those who (like Michael Goulder [2]) think that there was no Q source and that Matthew and Luke either derived this material from elsewhere or wrote it themselves. The very similar sequence reinforces the conclusion that Luke and Matthew were not using independent sources, but the same one.

Mark's Gospel contains no Q material but is used as a source by both Luke and Matthew. Strikingly, both Luke and Matthew also use Q versions of the sources used by Mark in his gospel. Two examples are:

[a] Mark 4.25 is used in Matthew 13.12 and Luke 8.18. A similar version from Q also occurs in Matthew 25.29 and Luke 19.26.

[b] So also Mark 8.34-35 is used in Matthew 16.24-25 and Luke 9.23-24. A Q version also occurs in Matthew 10.38-39 and Luke 14.27 & 17.33.

This is another strong confirmation that Q was a single source and that it was used by both Matthew and Luke independently of Mark.

Overall, many suggest, as I have before, that Luke's version of Q preserves the original better than Matthew's. A complete version of Q can be read by putting all the following sections together (from Luke) [3]:

3.7-9, 16b-17   
4.2b-12  
6.20-23  
6.27-36  
6.37-42  
6.43-46  
6.47-49  
7.2-3, 6-10  
7.18-23  
7.24-35  
9.57-58  
10.2-12  
10.13-15  
10.16  
10-21-22  
10.23-24  
11.2-4  
11.9-13  
11.14-20  
11.24-26  
11.29b-32  
11.33-36  
11.39-40; 42-43  
11.46-48, 52  
11.49-51  
12.2-3  
12.4-5  
12.6-7  
12.8-10  
12.11-12  
12.22-31  
12.33-34  
12.39-40  
12.42-46  
12.51-53  
12.54-56  
13.20-21  
13.24  
13.25-29  
13.34-35  
14.16-23  
14.26-27  
15-4-7  
16.13  
16.16  
16.17  
17.3-4  
17.5-6  
17.23-37  
19.12-13; 15-26  
22.28-30 | John's preaching  
Struggle with Satan  
Beatitudes  
Promised reward  
Rewards: discipleship  
Parables: morality  
Testing discipleship  
Centurion: healing  
John's question  
John's place  
Leaving home & family  
Commissioning  
Cities: doom  
Disciples: rejection  
God's wisdom a gift  
Beatitude: wisdom  
Prayer for kingdom  
God answers prayers  
Defeating demons a sign  
Unclean spirit returns  
Sign of Jonah  
Light & darkness  
Woe to Pharisees  
Woe to lawyers  
Martyrdom predicted  
What is hidden  
Do not fear  
God's care  
Confessing the Messiah  
God is with the persecuted  
Freedom from over-anxiety  
Freedom from possessions  
Parable: Be prepared  
The faithful steward  
Bringing conflict & division  
Coming judgement  
Parable of the leaven  
The narrow door  
Exclusion  
Killing prophets  
Parable: Great feast  
Cost of discipleship  
Lost sheep  
Two masters: a choice  
A new age dawns  
The Law remains  
Forgiving each other  
Faith  
The last days  
Parable: the talents  
Rewards in heaven

---|---

The conclusion that Q existed as a now-lost written source of some sayings of Jesus has withstood more than a century of testing with remarkable resilience. Scholars still emerge from the woodwork with reasons why it should be discounted. But their reasons are generally weak.

Some reasons why the discovery of Q is so important bear summarizing in the light both of conservatives continuing skepticism about the authenticity of the information we have about Jesus, and of fundamentalist assertions that everything in the Bible really happened just as it is recorded there.

If one accepts that Q is a now-lost written record of "what Jesus really said."

  * The form critical method of analyzing the gospel texts must also be accepted. We know about Q precisely because many hundreds of scholars have torn the gospels apart down to their bare bones. The details can and must be argued. But the overall approach has lasted the test of time. The Q material can be validly separated from the gospel text.

  * Many have discounted the possibility that we can know what Jesus really said. The gap between his life and the first of the gospels (probably Mark) is, they say, too long for oral material to keep its shape and accuracy. The distortions through time and distance of what Jesus really said would be considerable - perhaps fatally so if we're searching for a Jesus of history. The origins of Q are, in contrast, almost certainly quite early. There would have been a time during which what Jesus actually said would have been remembered and passed on by word of mouth. But written material was assembled much sooner than the skeptics suppose.

  * Some propose that the gospels contain the verbatim words of Jesus. The nature of Q renders this unlikely. First, it shows clear signs of having been restructured into a written version from the loose way people usually speak. Generally, (most-not all) people don't speak grammatically unless they are reading a written script. Second, the gospel writers have inserted the Q material into their own theological schemes. There is no way of showing that the writer or editor of Q did not do the same. We must suppose he did.

A number of further assumptions can be validly drawn from the evidence [4]:

  1. Not only was Q originally a written source but it was written in Greek. Attempts to find Aramaic in the text have failed.

  2. The content of Q indicates that it had considerable status in the early Jewish-Christian communities centered around Northern Galilee. They looked to it for guidance in life-issues.

  3. Q wasn't written as a single piece. Rather, it was a collection which was added to from time to time. Some changes may have been made by later, non-Galilean sources - though the evidence for this is not that strong.

  4. Each of the four gospels (excluding Thomas) were designed to get across a particular theological theme. Q is not like that. It is a collection without coherence. It lacks literary design and is fundamentally un-edited.

  5. Because Q is a collection, any signs we can pick up from it about the conditions and concerns of the community which gave birth to it are likely to closely reflect the social context of the Q community.

  6. Those who are not familiar with the scholarship of the past 20 years may react to Q with some dismay. This is understandable. We have in the gospels not a magically-created hand-me-down from God via a mysterious process of revelation, but a truly human impression (rather than a record) compiled in a normal way for those times.

What we know today about Jesus is therefore subject to all the strengths of weaknesses of ordinary human processes by which knowledge is conveyed from person to person.  
_____________________________________________________  
[1] _The Historical Jesus_ , G Theissen & A Merz, SCM Press, 1998 _  
_[2] _Midrash and Lection in Matthew_ , SPCK, 1974.  
[3] _The New Testament_ , N Perrin & D C Duling, Harcourt, 1974  
[4] After _Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus_ , J L Reed, Trinity Press, 2002

THE NAG HAMMADI TEXTS/GNOSTICISM AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS

THE DISCOVERY OF THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS

In December of 1945 Mohammed Ali, an Egyptian farmer, and his brother were searching for a type of fertilizer in the area of Upper Egypt around a town called Nag Hammadi. They were searching for the fertilizer so it could be spread on their fields.

During this search, the brothers discovered an earthenware jar that apparently looked like it could be very ancient in origin. Obviously the brothers were intrigued and wondered what was inside of the jar, so they opened it. The jar contained thirteen leather-bound codices. These codices were books made of papyrus and contained over fifty unique tractates.

Mohammed Ali and his brother thought that they might be able to sell their find to a merchant in Upper Egypt and make a profit. What he did not know was that he had just uncovered perhaps the greatest archeological treasures in New Testament history. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi library (of which this discovery has been named) was revolutionary in that it opened up an otherwise unknown field of New Testament study that would turn conventional Christianity on its head!

In 1948 Jean Doresse, a French antiquities dealer and scholar was working in Cairo was taking inventory of the newly discovered papyrus codices. Doresse found previously unknown treatises of Gnostic origins. He also found treatises that were only known by reference to them of different authors from ancient times. One of these treatises was a short text from Plato's "Republic."

In what is called the Codex II tractate the "Peuaggelion Pkata Thomas," a text that had been missing for over one thousand years was discovered. Translated into English, the "Peuaggelion Pkata Thomas" is "The Gospel According To Thomas." This copy of the "Gospel According To Thomas" was in Coptic form. Coptic was the language of Egypt during the era of the writing. Scholars observe that the Coptic version was a translation of the original version which was written in Greek.

The Coptic version of Thomas was probably written around 350 C.E. and the Greek fragments of Thomas (which three of them had been discovered forty-five years before) can be dated around 200 C.E. due to the writing style. The Thomas that we have today can probably be dated 100 C.E. Scholars even speculate that an earlier edition may have been written as early as 50 C.E. The Nag Hammadi library contained codices that promoted Gnostic thought. Before we can study the Gospel of Thomas, which is Gnostic in character, we must understand Gnosticism. Following the illustrations, we will take up the subject of Gnosticism.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS

ILLUSTRATION # 1

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The library comprises 13 books, known as codices according to the scientific name given to any collection of sheets folded in two and sown together. These books represent the oldest known specimens to date. | |

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CODEX I |

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(JUNG CODEX) | 1. THE PRAYER OF THE APOSTLE PAUL

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2. THE APOCRYPHON OF JAMES

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3. THE GOSPEL OF TRUTH

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4. THE TREATISE ON THE RESURRECTION

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5. THE TRIPARTITE TRACTATE

CODEX II | 6. THE APOCRYPHON OF JOHN

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7. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS

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8. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PHILIP

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9. THE HYPOSTASIS OF THE ARCHONS

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10. ON THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD

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11. THE EXEGESIS ON THE SOUL

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12. THE BOOK OF THOMAS THE CONTENDER

CODEX III | 13. THE APOCRYPHON OF JOHN

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14. THE GOSPEL OF THE EGYPTIANS

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15. EUGNOSTOS THE BLESSED

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16. THE SOPHIA OF JESUS CHRIST

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17. THE DIALOGUE OF THE SAVIOUR

CODEX IV | 18. THE APOCRYPHON OF JOHN

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19. THE GOSPEL OF THE EGYPTIANS

CODEX V | 20. EUGNOSTOS THE BLESSED

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21. THE APOCALYPSE OF PAUL

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22. THE APOCALYPSE OF JAMES

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23. THE APOCALYPSE OF JAMES

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24. THE APOCALYPSE OF ADAM

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32. FRAGMENT OF THE PERFECT DISCOURSE

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CODEX VII |   | 33. THE PARAPHRASE OF SHEM

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34. THE SECOND TREATISE OF THE GREAT SETH

CODEX VI | 25. THE ACTS OF PETER AND THE TWELVE APOSTLES

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26. THE THUNDER, PERFECT MIND

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27. AUTHORITATIVE TEACHING

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28. THE CONCEPT OF OUR GREAT POWER

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29. PLATO'S REPUBLIC 588A-589B

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30. THE DISCOURSE ON THE EIGHTH AND NINTH

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31. THE PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

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35. THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER

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36. THE TEACHINGS OF SILVANUS

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37. THE THREE STELES OF SETH

CODEX VIII | 38. ZOSTRIANOS

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39. THE LETTER OF PETER TO PHILIP

CODEX IX | 40. MELCHIZEDEK

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41. THE THOUGHT OF NOREA

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42. THE TESTIMONY OF TRUTH

CODEX X | 43. MARSANES

CODEX XI | 44. THE INTERPRETATION OF KNOWLEDGE

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45. A VALENTINIAN EXPOSITION

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46. ALLOGENES

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47. HYPSIPHRONE

CODEX XII | 48. THE SENTENCES OF SEXTUS

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49. THE GOSPEL OF TRUTH

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50. UNIDENTIFIED FRAGMENTS

CODEX XIII | 51. TRIMORPHIC PROTENNOIA

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52. ON THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD

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SOURCE: http://www.nag-hammadi.com/manuscripts.html

ILLUSTRATION # 2

CODICES FOUND AT NAG HAMMADI

ILLUSTRATION # 3

THE COPTIC GOSPEL OF THOMAS FIGURE # 1

ILLUSTRATION # 4

COPTIC GOSPEL OF THOMAS FIGURE # 2

ILLUSTRATION # 5

AREA WHERE CODICES WERE FOUND

ILLUSTRATION # 6

ST THOMAS OF INDIA

GNOSTICISM

With the discovery of the codices at Nag Hammadi, Egypt; historians are able to put together a working definition of Gnosticism. Before the discovery all that they knew about Gnosticism was from the Christian texts denouncing the Gnostics and their teachings as heretical.

Between 180 B.C.E. and 185 B.C.E., Irenaeus of Lyons composed "The So-Called Gnosis Unmasked and Overthrown" in which he wrote against the teachers and leaders of the Gnostic sects. It is obvious that Irenaeus had knowledge of the Gnostic text otherwise he would have no basis on which to base his counter argument.

Up until the discovery at Nag Hammadi the only sources that we have for defining Gnosticism comes from its adversaries in the orthodox Christian Church. These writings were from the early church fathers of the second, third, and fourth centuries. Church fathers such as Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian did everything to suppress Gnosticism as it was perceived as a threat to the orthodox Christian Church.

The writings that were discovered do not always share the same theology and they do not describe the Gnostic doctrines because they were written for communities who were already practicing them. The writings are quite hard to interpret because the texts could be taken literally, as Irenaeus did when he read Gnostic poetry about the origins of the universe. He interpreted the text literally instead of metaphorically. It seems that nothing has changed in orthodox Christianity as most fundamentalists view the Bible as the literal, infallible word of God and miss the more spiritual, metaphorical interpretation of the text.

Irenaeus wrote, "Since they (The Gnostics) differ so widely among themselves both as respects doctrine and tradition, and since those of them who are recognized as being most modern make it their effort daily to invent some new opinion, and to bring out what no one ever before thought of, it is a difficult matter to describe all the opinions." (Against the Heresies, 1.21.5).

Irenaeus also recognized that it was difficult to pick out a Gnostic from an orthodox Christian because the Gnostics had infiltrated many of the early churches. "Such persons are to outward appearance sheep; for they appear to be like us, by what they say in public, repeating the same words as we do; but inwardly they are wolves" (Against the Heresies, 3.16.8).

What this means is that these Gnostics who had infiltrated the churches agreed with everything the orthodox Christians did and participated in the same rituals, but they understood everything in a deeper way that was more mystical and symbolic in meaning.

So to give a definition of Gnosticism, we can say that it was a religious philosophy that was in existence at the end of the first century up until the middle of the second century that was diverse in its views, some of them related to Christianity. The best evidence for the existence of this group originated from their opponents (the early church fathers) who wrote passionately against them in the second century along with the codices found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt which was written by the Gnostics themselves in the early part of the second century.

GNOSTIC BELIEF SYSTEMS

THE WORLD: DUALISM

Gnostics believed that the world was composed of two realities, matter and spirit. They believed that these two worlds (the material world and the spiritual world) were diametrically opposed to one another. The world of matter was bad and the world of the spirit was good.

Gnostics did not believe that the material world had always existed. They believed that it came into existence at a point in time. Unlike the Jews and orthodox Christians, they did not believe in the one true God who had created the material world. Since the material world was evil, how could God have created evil?

The answer that the Gnostics gave was that creation was a cosmic disaster. Before the creation of the material world there was only the pure realm of spirit inhabited by the true God.

THE DIVINE REALM: THE UNKNOWABLE GOD AND HIS AEONS

According to the Gnostics, in the beginning was only the one true God who was pure, divine spirit and all powerful. This God is unknown and is unknowable.

This divine being emanated offspring, lower divine beings called aeons. These aeons emanated or brought forth offspring. Eventually, all these offspring and their offspring inhabited the divine realms. This realm of the divine aeons and the true God is called the Pleroma or fullness of the divine realm compared to the earthly realm which is empty. The aeons were all spiritual beings and formed a sort of spiritual hierarchy according to the order of their emanation (birth) and according to Gnostic myth, are intermediaries between the one true God and humans.

One aeon, Sophia (which literally means "wisdom" in Greek) emanated from herself a flawed being and this being created the material, flawed world. This being is called the Demiurge and was unaware of his divine origins and therefore all of his emanations (created beings) were imperfect. These malformed beings were responsible for the creation of the material world.

The Demiurge (the Maker) otherwise known as Ialdabaoth and the other imperfect aeons wanted to capture Sophia and take away her divine power. They succeeded in dividing her into numerous parts so she would not be able to have the strength to enter the divine realm. The material world was created as a prison where Sophia or her parts are confined. In other words, the divine is entrapped in human bodies.

THE HUMAN RACE: THE DIVINE SPARK

Gnostics believe that they are entrapped in their physical bodies. They feel alienated from this world. This holds true to their belief system that within them is a spark of the divine and this divinity is being held captive to their material body.

The divine spark however, does not reside in every human being, only in the elect few. Most human beings are just part of the material world and do not possess the divine spark. These human beings are destined right along with the animals to be destroyed with the other works of the corrupt creation.

The Gnostics believe that they are the elect few that will escape this material world. This is because the divine spark within them can be liberated from their material body and escape this corrupt material world. The divine spark or the spirit within can only be set free to go back to the divine realm by acquiring Gnosis (Greek for knowledge) necessary for salvation.

As the scholar G. Quispel wrote: "The world-spirit in exile must go through the Inferno of matter and the Purgatory of morals to arrive at the spiritual Paradise."

SALVATION: LIBERATION OF THE DIVINE SPARK WITHIN

Gnostics believed that the only way a person could be saved from this world was through a special kind of knowledge or "gnosis." Thus derives the word Gnostic. Since they believed that they were part of a corrupt material world, salvation meant the discovery of where one really came from. What was their purpose in this life? These are questions that are still in the minds of modern spiritual seekers. Gnostics needed to know how they came to be imprisoned on this material realm and how to escape it. The knowledge or "gnosis" was saving. Knowledge of one's true identity as part of the divine realm or oneness with the true God was the way of salvation. However, this knowledge was only for the elect. Only certain people were able to obtain this knowledge.

We do not know what this knowledge was that the Gnostics attained because it was kept secret. There were certain stories or myths that different sects told for initiation purposes. The myths were to be interpreted esoterically. Included in the teachings regarding salvation were stories of how the gods required secret passwords in order for the initiate to pass through to the divine realm. This is just one example. Basically, the concept of salvation meant that in order for a person to be saved they must know where they came from and where they were ultimately going.

This kind of knowledge cannot come from the intellect as the intellect is part of this evil material world. Saving knowledge must come from outside of this world. It must come from the divine realm or God.

Gnostics believed that a divine aeon must come down from the heavenly realm in order to impart this knowledge to the entrapped souls on this material realm. Many believed Yeshua, Jesus to be this divine being or the Redeemer.

CHRIST: THE DIVINE REDEEMER

From our discussion of how the Gnostics viewed this earthly existence, the divine savior could not have come from this earth or any of its elements. This would mean that the savior could not be born, be made of flesh and blood, could not bleed, and could not die. According to the Gnostics, Christ was this divine redeemer.

There were two different views of the Christ. The first was the Christ who came from the divine realm and was not human. Christ, in this view, was not a real human being. He only appeared to be human. For these Gnostics Christ looked like a human but really was not.

In the above view Jesus was a spiritual being imparting to his disciples the saving knowledge required for liberation. Then his disciples would impart the same knowledge to their followers. This knowledge was eventually committed to writing but was written in veiled language so that the profane (uninitiated) would not be able to access this liberating teaching.

The other view of Jesus was that he was a real flesh and blood human but not the same of the divine Christ. The Christ only inhabited Jesus' body temporarily. In this view Jesus was a holy man who was chosen to be the dwelling place of the divine Christ. The Christ came to inhabit the body of Jesus at his baptism in the form of a dove, empowering him to teach the gnosis necessary for salvation. Once this knowledge was delivered to his disciples the Christ left Jesus' body. It was believed that this happened before Jesus' death because the Christ could not experience suffering or death. Thus Jesus' cry on the cross, "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?"

The Gnostics believed that after Jesus died, the Christ came to raise him from the dead. Jesus was then able to appear to his disciples and teach them the gnosis that would allow them to reach the divine realm and survive death.

THE CHURCH: THE BODY OF THE ELECT

According to the Gnostics, humankind could be divided up into three classes:

  1. The possessors of the gnosis (saving knowledge) who were the Gnostics themselves who would use this knowledge to escape this earthly plane and return to the divine realm.

  2. Other Christians who only knew superficial truths but believed that their truth was the only truth like the orthodox church or evangelicals of our day. These people only have a literal understanding of the writings of the apostles. To these people, doctrines were strictly adhered to. According to the Gnostics, these people would receive salvation for their good works but they would not experience the glorious salvation that they, the Gnostics would.

  3. The third group is all the other people who were never part of the divine realm to begin with and therefore would be destroyed with the rest of the earthly realm when the liberation of the divine sparks within the real possessors of gnosis was complete. Perhaps this could be called "the end of the aeon" or age, literally translated as "world."

ETHICS: THE ASCETIC IDEAL

For the Gnostics, one should not submit to physical desires because the body was evil and part of this material world. The Gnostics embraced an ascetic lifestyle that condemned drunkenness, gluttony, and sexual promiscuity of every kind.

THE ENVIRONMENT IN FIRST CENTURY PALESTINE (JEWISH,CHRISTIAN)

One complicated problem when studying or teaching the New Testament is the difference between modern and ancient worldviews. In order to understand the stories in the New Testament, readers must familiarize themselves with culture, society, and assumptions of the Greco-Roman world.

In order to understand the teachings of Jesus, we must place them within their first century context. How would first century Jews and Pagans make sense of these stories?

The term "Greco-Roman World" designates lands surrounding the Mediterranean from the time of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.E.) throughout the first three or four centuries of the Roman Empire. Alexander the Great spread Greek culture and language, a process known as "Hellenization" through his empire.

The Roman Empire rose in the context of the Hellenistic world. It took advantage of the cultural unity of language and custom established through Hellenization.

RELIGIONS IN THE EARLY GRECO ROMAN WORLD

Greco Roman religions differ significantly from modern notions of religion. Among pagan religions there were no empire wide organizations that supervised worship of the gods. Creedal statements were unnecessary because it was not belief but worship and acts, such as animal sacrifice, that pleased the gods. Additionally, ethical demands played a very limited role in religious practice. The afterlife was of little concern for the residents of the Greco Roman Empire.

Worship of the gods was based on day to day survival and was not focused on otherworldly existence. There was no separation between church and state. The gods contingent on proper worship protected the empire and the state promoted the proper care of the gods.

Although most ancient religions were polytheistic, some philosophers believed in one supreme god, Zeus, Jupiter, or an Unknowable God. Below this on god were great gods of the ancient Mediterranean world such as Poseidon, Hera, Aphrodite, Armetus, and others.

The next tier of divine beings was the dynomia, a group of lesser deities who had limited power but were in direct contact with humans. Included in this group were deities of parts of towns and families. The gap between divine beings and humans was bridged by the great men, philosophers or warriors whose lives had been so extraordinary that at their death the gods made them immortal. Related to this last group were demi-gods. These were individuals who were born by a mortal and a god.

Because stories of the supernatural births and parental ties to the gods were more or less commonplace in stories of extraordinary men, the story of Jesus as God's son would not have been incomprehensible to an ancient audience.

THE WORLD OF ANCIENT JUDAISM

Judaism was one of the religions of the Greco Roman world. It is perhaps the most important for our studies because Jesus and his early followers were Jews. They read Jewish scriptures, worshipped the Jewish god and kept Jewish customs. To understand Jesus we must first understand first century Judaism.

Like pagans, Jews believed in the existence of a higher realm and a powerful deity. This deity provided benefits for those who worship him or her properly. Proper worship included prayer and sacrifice. In addition there were temple priests who oversaw the sacred space and ritual acts.

MONOTHEISM

As opposed to pagans who believed in many gods (polytheism) Jews believed in the one true god. Belief in one god is called monotheism. Although the Jews believed in a hierarchy of supernatural beings, they advocated worship of the supreme creator god. About 550 years before Jesus most Jews were exiled from the Promised Land when the Babylonians defeated the Southern Kingdom of Judea.

This exile is known as the Diaspora, literally the dispersion of the Jews from Palestine. By the time of Jesus, more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in Palestine. Most Jews in the Diaspora however, knew Greek but not Hebrew. So the Jewish scriptures were translated into Greek. This translation is known as the Septuagint (LXX).

THE COVENENT

Israel had a pact with its god. The Jews believed that the one supreme god had established a special relationship with the Jewish people. The covenant entailed God's protection of His chosen people and their proper response to this protection was the observance of his laws.

THE LAW AND ISRAEL'S CONVENENTIAL RELATIONS

God's law is contained in the Torah. A term that can mean the law Moses received on Mount Sinai or the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Pentateuch. These books tell the story of the acts of creation and primeval history, Jewish patriarch and matriarchs and the entry into the promised land.

The laws were not considered burdensome to the Jews. Jews did not believe that one had to keep every law to keep God's favor. On the contrary, they followed the law because they had already received God's favor. The law then was considered a gift not a burden.

THE TEMPLE AND THE SYNAGOGUE

In addition to being monotheistic, the Jews were unique in the ancient world because they worshipped a god of a distant land, not a local god. Although Jewish ritual worship was similar to the worship of Pagan gods, the sacrificial worship of the Jewish god took place only in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem temple was the only temple for the Jewish god. He or She received sacrifices only in Jerusalem, not like the temples of the other deities throughout the Roman Empire, because he dwelled in the inner sanctum of the temple; the Holy of Holies.

Since most Jews could not worship in the Jerusalem temple because they lived in the Diaspora, they worshipped in synagogues (houses of prayer and study) arose.

POLITICAL CRISIS IN PALESTINE

The prominent Jewish historian, Josephus described four philosophies or groups of Judaism that arose around the time of the Maccabean revolt around 167 B.C.E. These groups were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the "Fourth Philosophy."

The Maccabean revolt in the sects of Judaism was largely the result of the political history of the Jews in Palestine. For around eight hundred years the Jews and their land had been ruled by foreign powers. In 721 B.C.E. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians.

From 587-886 B.C.E. the Southern Kingdom of Israel (Judah) was conquered by the Babylonians. It was at this time that many Jews were forced to leave the land.

THE BEGINNING OF THE DIASPORA

Fifty years later the Persians defeated Babylonia and the Jews were allowed to return to the land. Eventually, Alexander the Great defeated the Persian Empire and began the movement of Greek culture into the Mediterranean word, a process knows a Hellenization. After Alexander the Great died, Ptolemy ruled Palestine. During this time the Jewish High Priest was the local ruler. This state of affairs did not change when Syria gained control of the region.

Under Syrian rule Hellenization was pushed more violently onto the Jews. One ruler Antiochus Epithanus made circumcision illegal and turned the Jewish temple into a Pagan sanctuary and required the Jews to offer Pagan sacrifices to the Pagan gods.

In response to this, a revolt broke out lead by Judas Maccabeus. The Jewish revolt was successful and the Jews ruled themselves for almost a century until the Romans conquered Palestine.

FOUR SECTS OF JUDAISM ARRISING OUT OF THIS POLITICAL CLIMATE

Formation of the Jewish Sects:

The Pharisees were a group of devout Jews who were above all else, intent on keeping the law in its entirety. Since the laws given to Moses were often vague, the Pharisees debated what was and what was not allowed if one was to keep the laws. These decisions were known as the oral law. The written form of these oral traditions was known as the Mishnah, the heart of the Talmud. Pharisees held very little political power until after the Jewish revolt that culminated in the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E.

The Sadducees were political players in Jesus' lifetime. They were the priestly aristocratic Jews whose main affiliation was with the Jerusalem temple. They did not subscribe to the Pharisaic oral laws. They did not believe in an afterlife as opposed to the Pharisees. And they deemed authoritive only the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch.

The Essenes were a separatist group that believed that the Pharisees were too lax in their religious observances and that the Sadducees were corrupt and had defiled the temple largely because of the non-zadokite priest who was appointed by the Hasmodeans. Some Essenes left Jerusalem and settled in the desert near the Dead Sea.

In 1947 a collection of their texts were discovered known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition to community rules and several other kinds of texts, these scrolls contain portions of all the books of the Hebrew Bible except Esther. This is the only sect (Essenes) not mentioned in the New Testament. Why?

THE FOURTH PHILOSOPHY

The Fourth Philosophy can be referred to any number of individual groups whose common goal was to overthrow the foreign powers that ruled the land of Israel. These groups favored armed rebellion against foreign authorities even kidnapping and murdering prominent officials. Among these groups were the Sicarri (the dagger men) and the Zealots. One of Jesus' disciples was a Zealot.

JEWISH CONTEXT FOR THE TRADITIONS OF JESUS

Like their pagan counterparts, the Jews believed that divine beings sometimes appeared in human form. Jews who stood in a special relationship to God were known as "Sons of God." These men performed miracles such as healing the sick and calming the storms. Thus, stories about Jesus' miracles were intelligible to both the Jews and pagans in the ancient world.

APOCALYPTIC THINKING

One of the worldviews held by some Jews in the first century was apocalyptic, literally a revealing or unveiling and in first century context, the Jewish people expected the messiah to overthrow the Roman government so that the Jewish people would finally be in control of Israel.

There was a great sense that the Kingdom of God was coming. This Kingdom was coming in a physical way and the Jews believed that they would be liberated from their Roman oppressors. They believed that the Messiah would come down and take over the world and Israel would have their land back. There would be heaven on earth and all would come to worship in the holy city of Jerusalem.

The Jews had a long history of foreign rule. This was a history that raised many questions. If god had given the land of Israel to the Jews then why would a chain of foreign peoples continue to rule over them? One explanation was that the Jews were suffering punishment for wrongdoing. For apocalyticists this answer did not reflect the Jews circumstances. The answer of the apocalypticists was that there were evil forces bent on destroying god's faithful people. They affirmed that God was ultimately in control and that he had temporarily relinquished power to the evil forces. However, the times were coming when their God would reward the righteous and punish the wicked.

Jewish apocalypticists were dualists. They believed in good and evil, god and satan, death and life. These were cosmic powers with which humans had to align themselves. They believed that the suffering of the righteous would not subside until God intervened in history and established his Kingdom. For those who remained faithful, there was a promise of vindication. Most importantly, all of this would happen soon! So if that was a form of thought back in Jesus' day let's look at his ministry in light of apocalyptic thought.

Many of the earliest sources we have from Jesus' life depict him as a Jewish apocalyptic. He proclaimed that the imminent end of the present age would come and entail the judgment of the world by the "Son of Man", the destruction of evil, and the coming of the Kingdom of God. In addition, he taught that the Jews must repent and turn to God.

Whether or not these historical sources record a historical accurate picture of Jesus is the subject of much scholarly debate. Most scholars agree however, that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet.

If we analyze the Jesus traditions according to the criteria for determining the historical accuracy:

1. The age and number of the sources

2. Their independence

3. Their coherence with Christian belief

4. Their contextual credibility

We see that this picture of Jesus matches our criteria. In other words it is more than likely that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet.

The earliest sources for Jesus' life teaching and death are Mark, Q, M (Matthew), L (Luke), show him as an apocalyptic. These sources are independent of each other. Many other stories show Jesus as an apocalyptic and pass the criterion of dissimilarity and all of them are contextually credible.

The most compelling reason to view Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet is the line of apocalyptic that proceeds and follows him. Remember, Jesus associated with John the Baptist and John the Baptist's ministry was apocalyptic. We know that Christian churches were formed on the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God because of the preaching of the ecstatic Paul who was an apocalyptic, among other things. The only connection between John and the later Christian community was Jesus.

However, in light of all this I do not believe that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet in the ancient sense of the word. I believe that he disengaged himself from John the Baptist's asceticism and ate and drank with tax collectors and prostitutes. He was even called a wine bibber.

But when John's disciples were sent to ask Jesus if he was the one to come or if John could expect someone else, Jesus explained all his miraculous healings, exorcisms, and so on and sent word back to John. Even John the Baptist did not know what to think of Jesus. He was so different from all the other prophets of doom and gloom. The apostle Paul founded the early church on an ecstatic vision of Jesus thus basing his vision in the context of this ancient apocalyptic belief. This explains why Jesus' metaphysical message of an inner kingdom was so difficult to comprehend even by his closest followers!

The Kingdom is in their midst. It is in us and among us. Jesus' kingdom is not of this world. So why then, are all his apostles and Paul expecting this visible return of this "Son of Man" (literally-human being) figure?

I believe that God shut up the eyes and ears of the ancient disciples who did not comprehend his message including Paul. Jesus did not come preaching asceticism. He did not ask someone to "believe" anything and he certainly did not want people to worship him as god. He was made into this demi-god image by the later gentile church where there were many pagan traditions about a great person being born through intercourse between a god and a human. By the way, this concept was disgusting to the Jews who considered sexual union with a God the most blasphemous act imaginable. Jesus as a devote Jew would have cringed at the thought of this story (and it was a story) about his "miraculous" birth.

I postulate that Jesus was successful in offering the Kingdom of God in his time to all who had ears to hear. This kingdom message is set in first century Palestine but invites us in the present time to seek and watch (vigil) as the kingdom of God is within and among us. This was the message of the Gospel of Thomas in Lesson 8 and we will continue to learn more about this throughout the course.

THE SECRET GOSPEL OF MARK

INTRODUCTION

The Secret Gospel of Mark differs from the canonical Gospel of Mark in that it has additional passages. These passages were esoteric. They were intended only for individuals who had attained a higher degree of initiation than the exoteric teachings to the masses. Esoteric teachings were secret or "hidden" teachings. For this reason, it is thought that the Secret Gospel of Mark was meant only for the inner circle of followers who were "in the know."

DISCOVERY

The Secret Gospel of Mark was discovered in 1958. A scholar by the name of Morton Smith, while at the Mar Saba monastery near the city of Jerusalem, discovered a fragment of an unknown letter of Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215 C.E.). This fragment contained only two excerpts from the Secret Gospel of Mark. Without such a discovery, this gospel would still remain lost. Morton Smith comes up with the theory that Jesus was a homosexual. Believe it or not, Smith was a scholar of some repute but you can imagine the reception that he received from his theory!

Here is a look at his theory in his own words:

"... _[F]rom the scattered indications in the canonical Gospels and the secret Gospel or Mark, we can put together a picture of Jesus' baptism, "the mystery of the kingdom of God." It was a water baptism administered by Jesus to chosen disciples, singly and by night. The costume, for the disciple, was a linen cloth worn over the naked body. This cloth was probably removed for the baptism proper, the immersion in water, which was now reduced to a preparatory purification. After that, by unknown ceremonies, the disciple was possessed by Jesus' spirit and so united with Jesus. One with him, he participated by hallucination in Jesus' ascent into the heavens, he entered the kingdom of God, and was thereby set free from the laws ordained for and in the lower world. Freedom from the law may have resulted in completion of the spiritual union by physical union. This certainly occurred in many forms of Gnostic Christianity; how early it began there is no telling."_ (As quoted in Eyre, 1995).

THE CLEMENTINE FRAGMENT

The Clementine fragment was found in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch copied on the inside of the back cover of the book. It also appears that this letter was written hastily. This was not unusual for that period of time as traveling monks would often record unexpected discoveries on unused pages of a book when traveling to monasteries and libraries on their way home. Later they would study them carefully. The accusations of forgery and fraud were initially prevalent due to its controversial contents. But modern Clementine scholars generally agree that the letter is authentic. The handwriting can be date around 1750 and Morton Smith published the letter in 1973.

This letter is addressed to "Theodore," a man not mentioned in the canonical gospels. Theodore has apparently come across a Secret Gospel of Mark by way of the Carpocratians. He has many questions related to the controversial contents of this book as he has read a copy.

Clementine attempts to explain to Theodore his questions regarding the Secret Gospel of Mark. He writes that following the death of Peter, Mark embarked upon a journey from Rome to Alexandria. It was at this time, Clementine claims, that Mark revised his gospel to include "whatever would be appropriate for those who are advancing with respect to knowledge (gnosis), and "of which he knew that the interpretation would initiate the hearers into the shrine of the truth which is hidden by seven veils." We know about these statements from the writings of Papias and local traditions about this secret gospel.

It is important to understand from all this that the Alexandrian church had two versions of Mark's gospel; an exoteric or outer gospel for the masses and an esoteric for those who were being initiated into this secret knowledge or gnosis.

Clement explains to Theodore that not all of what he has read in the Secret Gospel of Mark, which comes from the Carpocratians, comes from the Secret Gospel of Mark used in Clement's church. He accuses the Carpocratians of adding material of their own to the account. As Clement puts it, they are "mixing the immaculate and sacred word with the most shameless lies." Clement does a very interesting thing in convincing Theodore of this by citing two passages from his version of the Secret Gospel of Mark. Clement does this so Theodore can compare the two passages with the controversial version that he is in possession of.

THE SECRET GOSPEL FRAGMENTS

FRAGRANT ONE

The first fragment is a story of how Jesus raises a young man from the dead. This story, according to Clement was added to Mark between verses 10:34-10:35. This story brings to mind the canonical account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in the Gospel of John (John 11:1-44). The difference between the canonical account and the account in the Secret Gospel of Mark is that the young man is initiated into the "mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven." But the story probably derives from the miracles stories in canonical Mark and John.

Fragment 1 reads:

" _And they came to Bethany. And there was a woman there, whose brother was dead. And she came and fell down before Jesus and said to him: Son of David, have mercy on me. But the disciples rebuked her. And in anger Jesus went away with her into the garden where the tomb was; and immediately a loud voice was heard from the tomb; and Jesus went forward and rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And immediately he went in where the young man was, stretched out his hand and raised him up, grasping him by the hand. But the young man looked upon him and loved him, and began to entreat him that he might remain with him. And when they had gone out from the tomb, they went into the young man's house; for he was rich. And after six days Jesus commissioned him; and in the evening the young man came to him, clothed only in linen cloth upon his naked body. And he remained with him that night; for Jesus was teaching him the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. And from there he went away and returned to the other bank of the Jordan."_

FRAGMENT TWO:

The second fragment mentions Salome, who appear in the canonical version of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 15:40; 16:1). Clement claims that this passage should be placed in Secret Mark between 10:46a: "Then they came to Jericho," and 10:46b: "As he was leaving Jericho..." This fills a void in the canonical Gospel of Mark were the stop in Jericho seems futile.

Fragment 2 reads:

" _He came to Jericho. And there were there the sisters of the young man whom Jesus loved, and his mother and Salome; and Jesus did not receive them."_

Obviously, these two fragments offer little in providing the overall story of the entire Secret Gospel of Mark. Perhaps the Secret Gospel of Mark contained more than what was retrieved in Clement's letter. But for now, the rest of Clement's letter is still lost. Maybe in the future it will be discovered and we can learn more about this controversial gospel.

For the record, the Carpocratians were a homosexual sect that Clement accused of adding falsehoods about Jesus' sexual orientation. So they question arises, Was Jesus a homosexual? Let's take a look what Clementine actually wrote to Theodore:

THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSLATION OF THE LETTER BY ANDREW BERNHARD:

Page 1

01 From the letters of the most holy Clement of the Stomateis. To Theodore:  
02 You did well silencing the unspeakable teachings of the Carpocratians.  
03 For they are the prophesied wandering stars. From the narrow road of the commandments  
04 they are wandering into a boundless abyss of carnal and bodily sins.  
05 for having been puffed up in knowledge - as they call it - of the depths of Satan, they fail to notice  
06 that they are throwing themselves down into the darkness of dark lies. And having boasted  
07 that they are free, they have become slaves of servile desires. With these people, then, it is  
08 necessary to check them constantly and in everything. For even if they say something true, still  
09 the lover of the truth should not agree with them. For not all true things are truth.  
10 One must not value what human opinion considers truth more than the  
11 true truth, which is recognized through faith. Now, concerning their babblings about the divinely  
12 inspired Gospel according to Mark: some are wholly false while others, even if partly true,  
13 are still not completely true. The true parts, because they have been mixed  
14 with invented stories are debased so that, as the saying goes, even the  
15 salt loses its flavor. As for Mark then, during the time when Peter was in Rome,  
16 he wrote up the deeds of the Lord, not actually recording everything, nor  
17 hinting at the mysteries, but instead picking out the things he thought would  
18 increase the faith of those being taught. Then, when Peter was martyred, Mark went  
19 to Alexandria, bringing both his knowledge and the things he remembered hearing from Peter.  
20 From what he brought, he supplemented his first book with the appropriate items  
21 about knowledge for those who are making progress. He arranged a more spiritual  
22 gospel for the use of those being perfected. Nevertheless, he did not reveal the things  
23 which are not to be discussed. He did not write out the hierophantic instruction of the  
24 Lord, but added other deeds to the ones he had already written. Then, he  
25 added certain sayings, the interpretation of which he knew would initiate the hearers  
26 into the innermost sanctuary of the truth which has been hidden seven times. This is the way  
27 he prepared them, in my opinion, not ungrudgingly or unguardedly. And  
28 when he died, he left his writing to the church in

Page 2

01 Alexandria, where it is even now still extremely carefully guarded, being read  
02 only to those who have been initiated into the greatest mysteries. The miserable  
03 demons, however, are always devising destruction for the human race.  
04 after being taught by them and using their deceptive arts, Carpocrates  
05 was able to enslave some elder from the church in Alexandria  
06 and get the written part of the secret gospel from him. And he  
07 interpreted it according to his blasphemous and carnal opinion. Still  
08 he defiles it, mixing with the most undefiled and holy narratives the most  
09 shameless lies. The teaching of the Carpocratians is derived from this mixture.  
10 Therefore, one must never yield to them, just as I said before. Also, one must not concede  
11 to them that the secret gospel is from Mark, when they put forth their lies.  
12 Rather one must deny it, even with an oath. For one does not have to speak  
13 the whole truth to everyone. For this reason the wisdom of God declares through Solomon,  
14 "Answer the fool from his folly," teaching that, from people whose minds are blinded,  
15 the light of the truth must be concealed. At once, she (Wisdom)  
16 says, "From the one who has not, it will be taken," and, "Let the fool go in darkness."  
17 But we are the children of light, who have been illuminated in the rising of the heights of the  
18 spirit of the Lord. "Where the spirit of the Lord is," she says, "there is freedom." For all  
19 things are pure to those who are pure. So I will not hesitate to answer the questions for you,  
20 exposing their lies from the actual words of the gospel.  
21 At any rate, after the part, "They were going up on the road to Jerusalem" and the following things  
22 until, "after three days he will arise," it takes up according to the text:  
23 "And they went to Bethany and there was a woman whose brother had died.  
24 And coming up to him, she prostrated herself before Jesus and said to him, 'Son of David,  
25 have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And becoming angry,  
26 Jesus went with her to the garden where the tomb was. And

Page 3

01 immediately a great sound was heard from the tomb, and Jesus, going toward it  
02 rolled away the stone from the entrance to the tomb. And going in immediately where  
03 the young man was, he stretched out a hand and raised him up, holding  
04 his hand. Then, the man looked at him and loved him and  
05 he began to call him to his side that he might be with him. And going from  
06 the tomb, they went to the house of the young man. For he was rich. And after  
07 six days, Jesus instructed him. And when it was late, the young man went  
08 to him. He had put a linen around his naked body, and  
09 he remained with him through that night. For Jesus taught him  
10 the mystery of the kingdom of God. After he got up from there,  
11 he turned to the region of the Jordan." And after these things, this follows:  
12 "James and John go to him," and that whole section.  
13 But the "naked man with naked man" and the other things you wrote about are  
14 not found. After, "and he goes to Jericho," it adds only, "And the  
15 brother of the young man whom Jesus loved was there, as well as  
16 his mother and Salome. And Jesus did not welcome them."  
17 But the many other things which you wrote both seem, and are, most false. So,  
18 the truth according to the right interpretation. . .

Given this information, you can formulate your own assumptions regarding the sexuality of Jesus.

Kingdom of God Teachings: The Parables
INTRODUCTION

1. During His earthly ministry, as Jesus went about preaching and teaching, He frequently used parables. cf. Mt 13:1-3, 13:34-35

a. It has been estimated that at least one-third of Jesus' recorded

teaching is found in the parables.

b. Certainly many of the most often remembered sayings of Jesus are his parables.

2. It is therefore proper today to ask such questions as:

a. What is a "parable"?

b. Why did Jesus teach in parables?

c. What are they about?

d. How should we interpret them?

3. With this lesson, we begin a study "The Parables Of Jesus" which are all about the Kingdom of Heaven.

a. This first lesson will serve as an introduction to the parables

in general.

b. Succeeding lessons will examine the parables in particular.

  1. THE DEFINITION OF "PARABLE"

  1. THE WORD "PARABLE"

1. It is s a transliteration of the Greek "parabole"

(parabow-LAY).

2. It means "to place beside, to cast alongside."

3. As defined by Vine's Expository Dictionary of N.T. Words, it "signifies a placing of one thing beside another with a view to comparison."

4. Wiersbe's description of a parable...

a. As "a story that places one thing beside another for the purpose of teaching."

b. "It puts the known next to the unknown so that we may learn."

5. A parable can usually be identified by the use of the word

"like." cf. Mt 13:31,

B. AS USED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, A PARABLE...

1. Is usually a story or narrative drawn from nature or human

circumstances.

2. From which spiritual lessons can be made by comparison.

A common definition of a parable is "an earthly story with a

heavenly meaning."

3.The next question often raised is "Why did Jesus teach in parables?"

In other words, why did he not simply speak straightforward when he was teaching?

II. THE PURPOSE OF THE PARABLES OF JESUS

  1. THE PRIMARY PURPOSE WAS TO "CONCEAL"

1. Jesus began speaking in parables because of the hardness of many people's hearts. cf. Mt 13:10-17

a. The disciples' attitude was such that they were honored to learn "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." Mt 13:

10-12, 16-17.

b. Because of the hard hearts of many in the multitude,

Jesus began speaking to them in parables. Mt 13:13-15;

cf. Mk 4:10-12

c. Jesus would then explain the parables in private to his

disciples. Mk 4:33-34

2. By resorting to parables, Jesus effectively separated the

truth-seekers from the people who could not or were not yet able to understand the truth.

a. Those seeking the truth would say "Explain to us the

parable." - Mt 13:36

b. The simple (or people not really interested in the secret meaning of the parable) would leave after hearing such "hard sayings."

3. Jesus used parables to carry describe the consequences of understanding.

\- cf. Mt 13:12

a. "For whoever has (a good heart, listening ears), to him more will be given, and he will have abundance (by virtue of the parable being explained)."

b. "But whoever does not have (a good heart, listening ears), even what he has will be taken away from him (by virtue of being sent away with the multitude)."

BUT ANOTHER PURPOSE WAS TO "REVEAL"

1. Even though the primary purpose in telling parables was to

conceal the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" from the multitude, their purpose was also to reveal the mysteries to those who had ears to hear.

a. For once the disciples understood the basic meaning of the parables.

b. The comparison of the "known" (earthly) truths with the

"unknown" (heavenly) truths would shed further light on the unknown.

2. Therefore, with the help of the Jesus' explanation of his

parables we can learn more about "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." cf. Mt 13:34-35

III. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE PARABLES OF JESUS

A. THE GENERAL THEME IS "THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN"

1. As suggested by Mt 13:11

2. As illustrated with several parables, which all start with

"The kingdom of heaven is like..." - Mt 13:24,,,,,

3. "The kingdom of heaven" was the theme of:

a. Jesus' itinerant ministry. Mt 4:17,

b. His sermon on the mount. Mt 5:3,,19-20; 6:10,; 7:21

B. THREE "SUB-THEMES" ARE STRESSED IN THE PARABLES

1. The character of the KINGDOM

a. The Parable of the Mustard Seed

b. The Parable of the Leaven

c. The Parable of the Hidden Treasure

d. The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price

2. The character of the KING

a. The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

b. The Parable of the Lost Son

3. The character of the KING'S SUBJECTS

a. The Parable of the Good Samaritan

b. The Parable of the Persistent Widow

The sub-themes often overlap but they

clearly demonstrate that the overall theme of the parables was "the

kingdom of heaven."

IV. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PARABLES OF JESUS

A. THERE ARE TWO EXTREMES TO AVOID

1. Seeking to find some spiritual truth in every little detail

2. Saying that there is only ONE spiritual truth in each parable

B. SOME GUIDELINES FOR PROPER INTERPRETATION

1. To learn from the explanations Jesus gave in those parables he explained.

a. To understand the parable of the sower helps to

understand the other parables. Mk 4:13

b. Jesus therefore went on to explain that parable.

2. Look for the CENTRAL truth of the parable, making sure that other truths gleaned from the parable are in harmony with

it.

3. Consider carefully the CONTEXT of Jesus words.

a. Look for an introduction or an application which may

give insight to the meaning of the parable.

b. This would be supplied by either the Jesus or the gospel writers.

4. Don't use the parables to formulate new doctrine.

a. Parables were originally told to conceal, so they

are not always that clear in their meaning.

b. Don't try to build a case for a doctrine based

solely on a parable.

CONCLUSION

1.By following these sensible guidelines to interpreting the Parables of

Jesus, we can look forward to understanding more fully

"the mysteries" or revealed truths of the kingdom of heaven.

2. As we get into the parables themselves, perhaps we will

appreciate how fortunate we are to live in an age when people have a desire to learn about the Kingdom of God teachings of Jesus.

"But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous

men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it." - Mt 13:16-17

3. What we are about to study in these parables concern things which Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others looked forward to hear but did not fully understand in their lifetime.

4. These "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 13:11),

containing "things kept secret from the foundation of the world"

(Mt 13:35), are now being made known through the preaching of the

Jesus:

"Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began."

"but now has been made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith;"

- Ro 16:25-26

THE KINGDOM OF GOD TEACHINGS PART TWO: THE CONCEPT OF TIME IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF JESUS

 The Persistence of Memory Salvador Dali 1931

Salvador Dali introduces the melted watches in this painting. He said that they are "nothing else but the Camembert cheese of space and time; tender, outlandish, solitary and critical-paranoiac."

UNDERSTANDING THE PARABLES AND KINGDOM TEACHINGS IN TERMS OF THE ANCIENT JEWISH CONCEPT OF TIME.

In the previous lesson, I simply outlined the parables of Jesus and had you look up the correlating verses in the Bible. In this lesson we will look at how people in Jesus' day would have understood the concept of "time" in the parables. Since the main component of the parables is that the "kingdom" is near or the "kingdom" is here and now, let us delve into what the vast majority of scholars ignore or do not understand, the concept of time in ancient Jewish culture during the time of Jesus. This lesson should put to rest some outrageous theories that have been postulated throughout the centuries regarding when the end of the world will come. In other words, let us take a look at how the ancient Jewish people viewed eschatology (the study of last things).

Before we go into the parables or the "kingdom" teachings of Jesus in detail we must understand the concept of "time" in Jesus' day.

Thus begins our discussion of the "kingdom" teachings of Jesus. As you may well know, theologians have tried to determine whether his teachings were concurrent with his generation or for generations to come after him. This is a much overlooked concept by scholars who have struggled to make some sense out of this "kingdom" and whether or not the "kingdom" had arrived with Jesus or was the "kingdom" yet to come. Most conservative Christian scholars promote the later, progressive Christian scholars tend to promote the former. Some scholars conclude the "kingdom" came with Jesus but that it will also come sometime in the future. The lack of clarity on this subject has fostered vigorous debates assigned to the term, "eschatology" or study of last things such as the end of the world. I would prefer to exchange the word "world" for "age." As we move further along in this lesson, you will come to understand why.

In our Western culture, time is something that can be measured. This is called quantitative time. We use clocks and calendars to guide our life. There is a concept of past, present, and future. Thus you have the linear concept of time. In Western culture, time is something that we can mark off on our calendars or set our clocks by. We see events as already past (history), happening now (present), or will happen (future).

However, people in Jesus' time approached time in a very different way. The ancients measured time as quality. To explain a bit further, follow this quote from the book of Ecclesiastes (3:1-8):

"There is a time for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven:

A time for giving birth,

A time for dying;

A time for planting,

A time for uprooting what has been planted.

A time for killing,

A time for healing;

A time for knocking down,

A time for building.

A time for tears,

A time for laughter;

A time for mourning,

A time for dancing...

A time for loving,

A time for hating;

A time for war,

A time for peace.

For the people in Jesus' day, it was not a matter of what day it was on a calendar or what time it was on a clock. It was a matter of what kind of time it was. Was it a time for mourning or a time for dancing? Was it a time for war or a time of peace? Was it a time of tearing down or a time for building? If one misjudged what kind of time it was, it could spell disaster!

This concept is really not all that foreign to those of us living in the Western world. We speak of "remember whens." These are times in the past that have remained in our consciousness throughout our lives. These were our experiences albeit good or bad. We speak of "can't wait untils." These are times that we look forward to in the future. So as you can see, we have our times and seasons under the sun.

When we designate something that happened in the past, we call it "history." As soon as we do that, we locate ourselves on an imaginary linear line where history is behind us and the future is ahead of us! In ancient Jesus' time events were located according to sacred events. Some examples of this were Creation, the Exodus, and the Covenant with Moses. The Jewish people would make pilgrimages to sacred places such as Sinai, Jerusalem and other places of important festivals that were fixed points in time.

According to the ancient Jewish concept of time, people who had celebrated these festivals before them, i.e. previous generations, had attended these festivals before them and were therefore ahead of them. Each time one of these holy days or festivals occurred, the people who participated in these events felt at one with their ancestors who preceded them. Additionally, the next generation of Jewish people that would participate in these events in the future was therefore coming behind them! The current generation, past generation, and future generation all experienced the same time no matter the length of time that separated them.

THE SAVINGS ACTS OF GOD IN DETERMINING TIME: THE PROPHETS

The Prophet Jonah, as depicted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel

1471 - 1484

Most of us are familiar with the story of the Prophet Jonah. For those of you that are not, here is a brief account of the prophet's plight according to Old Testament.

THE STORY OF JONAH THE PROPHET

Most of you would not consider the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale a literal interpretation of the text. The only reason that I am using this example is because Jesus alludes to the story in the New Testament of the Christian Canon. Jesus compared what was to befall him, three days and nights in the grave along with his subsequent resurrection, to Jonah's three days and three nights in the belly of a fish. I am not sure if most Jewish people at that time believed it either. Anymore than some of them believed that the Red Sea ("red" is mistranslated and really means "Reed Sea,") literally separated for the Israelites to cross into the Promised Land.

Here is the story of Jonah in a nutshell. And yes, I do have a historical point to make. The point of lesson is to illustrate how the ancient prophets and Hebrews viewed "time" or "times" as compared to our Western linear, calendar, clocking watching concept of it.

From the NKJV Study Bible Notes: (Page 1409) Thomas Nelson copyright 1982, 2007 version.

"This high-profile book has been described as a parable, an allegory, and a satire. The story of the 'great fish' (often erroneously thought of as a whale) has led many to dismiss the book as merely a biblical 'fish story.'

It is a mistake (based in part on the difficulty some readers have in coming to terms with the miraculous character of the story line) to assume that the events and actions of the book are not historical in nature. While the story line is unusual, it is presented as normal history. Further, Jesus used the story of Jonah as an analogy of his own impending death and resurrection (see Matt. 12:39-41). Jesus' analogy depends on the recognition of two historical realities: (1) the historical experience of Jonah in the belly of the great fish, and (2) the historical experience of repentance of the people of Nineveh based on the preaching of Jonah (see also Luke 11:29-32). Indeed, the phrase "the sign of the prophet Jonah" must have been a recurring phrase in the teaching of Christ, as it is found on more than one occasion in Matthew's account of Christ's ministry (see Matt. 16:4). Thus any view of the Book of Jonah that does not assume it describes historical events is obliged to explain away the clear words of Jesus on the contrary."

Now let us get into the crux of this lesson, the nature of time in Jesus' day and how this "fish story" ties into it.

To the ancient Hebrews, the present time was either dependent upon a saving act of God in the past (Exodus) or a saving act of God in the future. The prophets were focused on the saving act of God in the future. It was the prophet's job to explain the present time in light of some future divine act of God that would soon take place. The prophets came to tell the people that since they did not understand the environment of the present times not to look to the past for the answers to solve their problems. They needed to look toward a future action from God for salvation rather than looking back to the past and repeating the same old actions.

The prophets preached that the future act of God would radically change their life by giving new meaning to their life by telling them what they should be doing to prepare for this future act of God.

It was the prophet's job to compel people to make a decision. It forced them into a corner so that they had to change and get with the new program, or risk missing the opportunity of God's liberating future action.

This future event that the prophets spoke about was the eschaton, the ultimate event that would be a new age in which the old way of doing things (past) were about to radically change. This event would affect everything in their lives at the present moment. Since this present time is qualitative in nature and not based on our Western linear conception of time, it was beyond measurement or quantitative.

The prophet was able to see the future through the lens of the present. Remember, we are not talking about our Western concept of time. We are talking about the fact that the prophet was able to look at the current times and make a prediction through that lens. The prophet looked for "the signs of the times." They interpreted the word of God in light of what was going on in the present time.

It is very important to understand that the message of the prophet was for a particular people, at a particular time and was not meant to be a timeless message for future generations, including us! However, people could look back on the prophet's message in later generations if they found themselves in a situation similar to the one the prophet spoke. Make no mistake about it; the value of the prophet's message was for the people he singled out or people of his generation. The concept that we in the Western world can take the message of the prophets as directly and timelessly aimed toward us in modern times is thoroughly a Western concept of quantitative or linear concept of time and is wrong.

In the ancient Hebrew world, the eschaton was a real event to take place in the future. This time would be qualitatively different than any other event in previous times (or history). This future event was real and would give the ancients ultimate meaning to their present circumstances or situation. Although the eschaton was a future event that would make sense out of what was happening in the present to the ancients, it was also a contemporary event. This event was determined by the prophet who could see "the signs of the times."

THE CONCEPT OF TIME IN JESUS' DAY (PART TWO)

It is very important to note that the Jewish people did in fact have a sense of what we call history. However, they had a completely different view in light of our own Western modern civilization. As I stated in lesson 12, the Jewish people did not view time on a linear level. This means that they did not sequence events according to the past, to the present, or to the future. Since the Jews believed that they were the chosen people of God, they ordered events according to the acts of God. To them God was the ruler of time.

As the book of Ecclesiastes states; there was a time for loving and a time for hating. There was a time for planting and a time for uprooting what had been planted. The change from one time to the other was interpreted by the divine intervention of God. Any event in history was not a quantitative measurement. Rather, it was a decree from God. Since God was God, He/She could change His/Her mind. So with that you have the seasons and times. The bottom line was that there were no lapses in time between one event and another. God ruled over all times and sequences thereof.

This is quite different from our modern Western concept of time. As was stated before, the Jews believed that they were God's chosen people so they were obligated to act accordingly. They believed that God was involved in every facet of their lives. It only made sense to them to let God be the progenitor of history.

If the Jews did not have this theocentric view of time, what would have made them any different from the other nations? How would the God of the Jews have been any different from the pagan gods? The answer to these questions is quite clear; there would have been no difference between the Jews and the pagans.

The Jews recognized that their God ordained history as a purely unique and divine interaction. This interaction put them head and shoulders above all the other nations in regards to their commitment to their God and His/Her decrees. They were willing to surrender the matter of time and history to the God of Israel.

THE TIME HAS COME!

In this lesson and the previous one, we learned about how Jesus and his followers would have understood the concept of time. Knowing and remembering this understanding of the ancient concept of time is crucial in understanding the rest of this course, especially the teachings of Jesus. Let us now move on.

"The time has come; the Kingdom of God is near." (Mark 1:15)

The above statement was made by Jesus announcing a new age, the "time" of the "Kingdom of God." This new "time" or "kingdom" was not a time for repentance, which was John the Baptist's message. This "time" was for celebrating, for drinking wine, for wedding banquets! Jesus' first miracle was turning the water into wine at a wedding banquet. What a glorious "time!"

Jesus was announcing through his words and deeds the "time" for the "Kingdom of God." Jesus even told people that this "Kingdom" was within their midst and was near. Let us move on to learn more about this "time" or "kingdom" that Jesus was proclaiming.

JOHN'S TIME VERSUS JESUS' TIME

It is important not to confuse John the Baptist's "time" with Jesus' "time." In the gospel of Mark, the author makes a special effort to point out that Jesus did not start his own ministry in Galilee until "after John was arrested." (Mark 1:14)

In the gospel of Luke, the author correlates Jesus' baptism by John as the beginning of his (Jesus') ministry. But Luke only gives the account of Jesus' baptism after writing about John's imprisonment!

We know that John and his disciples baptized people in the river Jordan for the "remission of sins." We also know that he and his disciples lived ascetic lifestyles. They fasted, lived in the desert, isolated themselves, and did not indulge in wine or many other so-called vices.

But Jesus came drinking and feasting. He attended wedding banquets. This is quite a difference between the "time" of John the Baptist and the "time" of Jesus' ministry. Which "time" would you prefer? I know my answer to that question.

John's "time" and message was of doom and gloom. If you would digress a bit and try to recall in lesson 11 we quoted some versus from the book of Ecclesiastes referring to the different "times" of life in the ancient world. One of those versus was "a time for mourning" (which was John's "time") and a "time" for celebrating (which would be Jesus' "time").

For John the Baptist, being ascetic, fasting, doing penance and becoming baptized produced conversion or "metanoia." On the other hand, "metanoia" or conversion to Jesus was to be compared to being invited to a huge feast or discovering a "priceless pearl."

However, this does not mean that John's "time" and Jesus' "time" were any better or more accurate than the other. It simply meant that their "times" were different.

JESUS' VERSUS JOHN'S CONCEPTS OF CONVERSION

The conversion of John would come in the future. The conversion of Jesus was "here and now!" The conversion of Jesus was a present reality for those who had "ears to hear." The baptism of John was no longer necessary for conversion (salvation).

John prophesied the judgment of God and Jesus prophesied the salvation of God. John looked forward to a future cosmic disaster. Jesus looked forward to a beautiful new "time" or "kingdom" where salvation was freely bestowed upon all by God!

READING THE SIGNS

First and foremost, Jesus was a prophet and prophets were able to read the "signs of the times." So what were the signs that Jesus was reading that convinced him that this new "age" or "kingdom" was coming soon and was actually near and amongst him and his contemporaries?

I believe that Jesus saw in the success of his own activities such healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, etc. as a confirmation that God was about to intervene in history and establish a new "time." Jesus referred to this "time" as being the "Kingdom of God." Jesus probably felt that God was empowering him to demonstrate the coming of this new "time."

Jesus said:

"If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then know that the Kingdom of God has come upon you." (Luke 11:20 RSV)

THE KINGDOM DRAWS NEAR

This is where understanding the concept of time in Jesus' day is very important. By virtue of the success that Jesus was having in his ministry, healings, etc., it would have seemed clear to Jesus that God's "time" (or divine intervention to initiate another season under the sun) for liberation had indeed drawn near. In Jesus' mind the "time" of salvation had arrived. God was initiating a new age of liberation and forgiveness. This was the "kingdom" that Jesus was referring to in his preaching.

Jesus may have believed that he was witnessing good overcoming evil. In other words the "kingdom" or "time" of Satan and his power over the world was losing ground. It would not be long before the "kingdom" or "time" of God's liberation and salvation would overcome Satan's "kingdom."

For Jesus, God's "kingdom" or "time" had arrived! It was God's "time" and He was initiating a revolutionary new "time" where He would rule over the world in righteousness and compassion. This is the "Kingdom of God" that Jesus spoke about.

God was coming to liberate those held captive to Satan's influence. The power that was working through Jesus was influencing all future events and precipitating the coming of God's kingdom. You might say that the power Jesus had was "kingdom power!"

Jesus' miracles, healings and preaching of this incredible "time" to come was actually being brought into fruition with the ministry of Jesus. Jesus was affecting changes to come in the future!

"THE KINGDOM IS COMING!"

Picture of the Heavenly Jerusalem (artist unknown) Could this be the vision of Jesus' "Kingdom?"

Jesus believed that because of the success of his ministry that God's "kingdom" (liberation/compassion/salvation) was very near. You could say that Jesus had an utopist vision and that the arrival of this utopia or "kingdom" would be nothing short of miraculous.

Worldly power could not manifest this 'kingdom." The highly elevated moral values that would accompany this "kingdom" could not be achieved by human effort alone. No. This "kingdom" that Jesus spoke about could not be "brought in" by sheer willpower.

This kingdom could not be initiated by any good works or deeds no matter the noble intentions of humankind. This utopist society that Jesus envisioned could only be established by divine intervention or "kingdom power." This "kingdom" was the "pearl of great price" and it would come as a gift from God. It would be a miraculous act of God's compassion for humankind.

THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN VIEW OR DEFINITION OF FAITH

Martin Luther---Father of the Protestant Movement/Revolution

You are probably familiar with the saying, "faith without works is dead." In the Christian New Testament the Book of James speaks of this. Theologians down through the centuries have struggled with this concept. Let us examine this saying a bit further.

According to Jesus, faith is an action. Faith is decisive. "Active faith" can manifest drastic and miraculous changes in one's own life. It can even affect changes in society at large. Faith can make a difference and "active faith," according to Jesus; "can move mountains."

According to Jesus, faith can take a tiny mustard seed and turn it into the largest of all trees (or a huge bush) and provide sanctuary for birds and other living creatures!

The "faith" (active faith) that Jesus taught was not the same "faith" that the orthodox Christian doctrine espouses. Orthodox Christians will tell you that "if you just have enough faith (i.e. believe the Jesus died for the sins of the world, was resurrected and will come back again to judge the living and the dead) that you can handle anything life has to throw at you." I will add here life's proverbial curveball! So their definition of "faith" was the acceptance that Jesus' sole purpose was to die for the sins of the world.

Ok. So what is this "faith" that the orthodox Christian clerics are referring to? For one thing, they are not referring to Jesus' conception of "active faith." Most orthodox Christian theologians have trouble themselves with the saying. The Catholics embrace it. The Protestants (beginning with the Lutherans) hate it. Their (the Lutherans) forefather was Martin Luther who could not stand the saying because he believed that salvation was not achieved through works but only through the gift of God. Perhaps he had good intentions and was on the right track. But the consequences of his actions destroyed any of the authentic teachings of Jesus on "active" or "true" faith.

In fact, Luther went so far as to call the Book of James (in which the saying "faith without works" originated) a "book of straw." His apparent meaning of this was that the book of James had no substance. Of course we need to understand where Luther was coming from and why he was so against this saying of James.

Martin Luther was a former, disgruntled Roman Catholic Priest who was disgusted with all the "works" that the Church was piling on the Faithful in order for them to either achieve or maintain salvation (perhaps both).

This is why Luther broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and unbeknownst to him at the time, started the "Protestant Revolution." The word "protestant" literally means "one who protests." So the great divide between Catholics and Protestants ensued even up to the time of this writing.

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN JESUS' HEALING AND FAITH ON THE PART OF THE PERSON BEING HEALED.

This Image is of Jesus Christ healing a kneeling man. This color clipart picture shows Jesus, laying his hands upon a man who is kneeling before him.

When Jesus was healing the sick and curing the people who were following him of their various and sundry affliction, it was the "faith" of the person being healed that enabled him/her to be cured of their afflictions. It was their "faith" (reliance on the divine healing power working through Jesus) that enabled Jesus to affect the cure. If the person seeking healing did not have enough "faith" (belief that regardless of the circumstances that there would be a positive outcome), the healing would not come. You could say that the "kingdom" would come upon them by their faith in the divine power working through Jesus and that they would be healed!

In was God working through Jesus that effected the healings. Jesus was the "divine container" of "kingdom power." In the New Testament, Jesus never took the credit for healings. He said that he could do nothing without the Father. Jesus even made it a point to deny that he was the messiah! In theological circles this denial by Christ is called the Messianic Secret.

JESUS' HEALING VERUS MODERN DAY HEALING

Reiki Practitioner Practicing "Laying On Of Hands."

As a Reiki Master, I was taught that the healing that was affected by my modalities was not by my power but the power of the Divine working through me. Sound familiar?

If any of you are familiar with holistic healing, you may be able to understand how Jesus' healing practices were so very successful.

Reiki is a practice whereby the Reiki practitioner places his/her hands on various parts of the human body. The healing that transpires from this modality does not come from the healer. Rather it comes from the power of God/Universal Source/Primal Energy pulsating through the practitioner. In other words, God/Universal Source/Primal Energy is conducted through the healer to the client. The same could describe certain Christian ministers who by virtue of being filled with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Universal Source/Primal Energy)

facilitate healing of the sick by "the laying on of hands."

This is the very same process that Jesus used when healing the sick. Jesus practiced laying on of hands in his healing ministry. Remember that previously we talked about how Jesus never took the credit for the healing. He attributed his power was strictly effected through the power of the Father!

This power, just as in the practice of Reiki was passed along to his disciples of Jesus so that they could go out and heal the sick. But notice that in the Christian Bible that the disciples were sometime unsuccessful in their attempts to heal the sick. Jesus told them that this was their lack of faith. In other words, they did not believe enough in themselves and/or the power that Jesus bestowed upon them (through the work of the Holy Spirit/Primal Energy) to facilitate their attempts at healing the sick. The bottom line was that they did not have enough faith!

FAITH AND THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM

In the previous lesson we concentrated on how important faith was in the healing ministry of Jesus. In this lesson we will discuss how important faith was in his "kingdom" teachings. In this lesson we will learn about the correlation between Jesus' concept of this faith and the coming of what he called the "Kingdom of God."

Jesus tirelessly preached the coming of the "kingdom" and that people needed to awaken and reorient their life in favor of towards the "kingdom" life. This "kingdom" life, as Jesus taught, was inviting God's Sovereign Reign or "Kingdom" into their life rather than being so attached to earthly concerns of "kingdoms" of this world.

Jesus said:

"Render to Caesar what is Caesar's. Render to God what is God's."

Note the dualistic nature of the above saying. Jesus was not just talking about taxes. He was stating a profound truth. According to Jesus, the truth was that life was dualistic. There was God's way or one's own way. Therefore it could be safe to say that a "kingdom" choice would be either for the earthly rule over one's life or accept God's reign or "kingdom" over one's life.

Jesus could only cover so much ground on his own so he sent out his disciples to preach the "kingdom" message. The disciples believed that they would live to see the "kingdom" arrive in their generation/lifetime. There was a supreme sense of urgency in both Jesus' and his disciples' message. The message of course was one and the same.

Jesus and his disciples taught that the key to attaining the "kingdom" was a strong "active faith." Active faith can be described as knowing that what you hope for will manifest or come to be.

CHANGE NOW FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOUR REACH!

Once again let me assure you that faith is not some ambiguous occult power that magically manifests what you want and hope for in life. No. The faith that Jesus spoke of is a straight forward, logical decision to pursue God's "kingdom" and let God reign supreme in your life.

When Jesus preached "repent for the kingdom of God is near," he meant for one to totally reorient one's life and change one's allegiance from "earthly" matters to "heavenly" matters.

The repentance that Jesus preached was for a complete metanoia or change in one's life.

The following are examples of Jesus' preaching the "kingdom" where he directed people to reorient their lives in favor of God's "kingdom." Notice how he points out how precious and majestic, yet elusive this "kingdom" will be.

Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

Matthew 6:4 "...that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly."

Matthew 6:6 "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."

Matthew 6:18 "...so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."

## Luke 6:20-25 (New King James Version)

20 Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said:  
"Blessed are you poor,  
For yours is the kingdom of God.  
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,  
For you shall be filled.  
Blessed are you who weep now,  
For you shall laugh.  
22 Blessed are you when men hate you,  
And when they exclude you,  
And revile you, and cast out your name as evil,  
For the Son of Man's sake.

23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!  
For indeed your reward is great in heaven,  
For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.

24 "But woe to you who are rich,  
For you have received your consolation.  
25 Woe to you who are full,  
For you shall hunger.  
Woe to you who laugh now,  
For you shall mourn and weep.

##### Matthew 6:19-21

19 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

In the above examples, Jesus is telling us to seek the "kingdom" with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Rely on the "kingdom" to sustain you. Treasure the "kingdom" as it is a "pearl of great price." Jesus also warns that this "kingdom" can be elusive and that it is hard for someone who is attached to worldly goods/riches to enter. Jesus tells us to "enter the straight gate," meaning there are no shortcuts to entering this "kingdom." One must make a decision to either serve the earthly "kingdom" or serve God's "kingdom." To serve God's "kingdom" involves radically reorienting your life towards God's will/way. You cannot serve both.

Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and money." Jesus tells us to either accept and embrace this divine intervention or not. One cannot have it both ways.

Jesus said that if you have enough "active faith" and do not waiver by lack of decisiveness then the "kingdom" has come upon you. In His/Her compassion, God will liberate you from this earthly "kingdom" and empower you to live a prosperous, more abundant, "kingdom" life.

Jesus said: "I have come so that they might have life and have it to the abundance."

Jesus also said that in order for God's "kingdom" to come upon you, your faith has to be based in truth. You must "believe" that this "kingdom" exists; otherwise your faith is useless. Why would Jesus bother to preach and go to his death for something that he believed did not exist? The logical answer is that he would not.

So you must believe that you together with all of humankind can have such a "kingdom" on earth. This "kingdom" is nothing short of Utopia. As the old Hermetic philosophers would say: "As above, so below." The Hermetic philosophers portrayed the material realm as a reflection of the heavenly realm. This conformed to Jesus' teaching of the "kingdom." This utopist vision of Jesus' that he so urgently preached was the only way that the "kingdom" would come. The "kingdom" would bring "heaven to earth" by virtue of "active faith." The "kingdom" that Jesus preached, as far as he was concerned, was the only way humankind could possess enough compassion and truth to make this earth a mirror of the heavenly realms. In other words, the earth would be full of love and compassion. You would have a "brotherhood of man" that would be a society working together to mirror God's "kingdom" on earth. Of course we know that Jesus was not speaking of a physical "kingdom" per se, it would be a transformed humanity living in oneness, compassion and truth. Jesus said: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." The truth was that this "kingdom" and brotherhood of man was indeed attainable if one had enough "active faith." With enough "active faith" this "kingdom" could spread out upon the entire earth.

COMPASSION AND THE KINGDOM

Jesus through his words and deed expressed the importance of compassion. When Jesus spoke of God, he spoke of a God of compassion. This is best illustrated in his parable of the" Lost Son."

The Parable of the Lost Son

11 Then He said: "A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.' So he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land and he began to be in want. 15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.  
17 "But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants."'  
20 "And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.'  
22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Bring[b] out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry.  
25 "Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.'  
28 "But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, 'Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.'  
31 "And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. 32 It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.'"

 New King James Version **(NKJV)**

Jesus believed that God was no longer the God of wrath (as in the "times" of the Old Testament). Refer back in your previous lessons concerning "times" and the concept of "time" in Jesus' day. Jesus believed that God had changed! God was now a God of compassion. A new "time" or "age" was being initiated by God's intervention. This is the exact definition of a new "time" or "season" according to the ancients. This was the "time of God's compassion." Compassion and active faith equals the power that enables the "kingdom" to come.

Compassion and faith are the proverbial "mustard seed" that sows the "kingdom." The "kingdom" begins with the decisive act of the individual to turn from their way of doing things and turn toward God's way or "kingdom." Remember, "kingdom" means God's sovereignty in one's life. This small "seed" of faith and compassion can spread throughout all of humanity. It only takes a tiny bit of "faith" or "seed" to grow the "kingdom" into the brotherhood of man. It would be Jesus' vision of the "kingdom." Notice how Jesus speaks of natural things, such as a mustard seed(rooted in the earth or earthly) to faith (rooted in God's "kingdom"). The parables almost always compare the wonders of nature to the wonders of the heavens. Jesus believed that the earth could be as the heavens. "As above so below."

THE KINGDOM OR THE CATASTROPHE

It may seem obvious at this point to ask if Jesus was being realistic about the coming of this "kingdom." After all, Jesus said that one must have an "active faith" (a radical change in one's life from one's own way toward God's way). How could everyone in Israel, much less the world have enough faith for the "kingdom" to come?

Jesus was a dualist and as such believed that there was a power for good and that there was a power for evil. Jesus was adamant in his belief that the "kingdom" would come because he believed that good would eventually triumph over evil.

In Jesus' day there was a looming catastrophe. The political environment was extremely unstable as the great Roman Empire was on the decline. The religious environment of that day, Judaism specifically, was beseeched with doctrines and dogmas that enslaved believers. There was a feeling in the air that an imminent and profound change was coming and it would not be for the good.

This was John the Baptist's message. He preached a message of repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins. In other words John's message was; Brace yourself; you are in for a rocky ride. God's vengeance is about to be unleashed. John believed that it was time to try to avert the catastrophe by baptism and escaping into the wilderness.

The Essenes were of the same mindset and most scholars believe that John the Baptist was part of the Essene sect. This sect believed that a battle was coming between the "sons of light" (them) and the "sons of darkness" (everybody else). The "sons of light" (Essenes) would overcome the "sons of darkness." These Essenes fled to the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. They made their home in the desert and lived a very ascetic lifestyle. The Essenes believed in a literal and physical end of the age.

Most of the religious sects in Jesus' day were of the belief that God would intervene to liberate the Jewish people from their Roman oppressors and hand them back their own land. But they were mistaken. Jesus predicted that God was about to intervene in history in a radical way. God was, in Jesus' view about to intervene in history in a radical way. Jesus believed that God was no longer a God of wrath but a God of compassion. Jesus did teach that the catastrophe was coming, he never denied that assertion. John the Baptist's message was correct but Jesus taught that God's intervention would be in the form of a "spiritual kingdom." Jesus said that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the "Kingdom of God." So therefore, why not take this looming catastrophe and turn it into an opportunity to radically reorient one's life and turn back to God's "way" or "kingdom."

With Jesus the proverbial glass was half-full. With John the glass was half-empty. John's followers tried to escape the wrath to come. Jesus, on the other hand, proclaimed that this coming divine intervention of God was a great opportunity for people to get their lives oriented toward God's "kingdom" or "way." He compared the "kingdom" several times to a wedding banquet. His very first miracle was to turn the water into wine at the feast! I believe that there is great symbolic significance in this story whether or not it is historical. The host was running out of wine and the guests at the banquet were obviously intoxicated.

According to the story, Jesus' mother Mary asked him to perform the miracle. Jesus protested and told his Mother that it was not his "time" yet. (Please refer to the lesson on the concept of time in Jesus' day if you are unsure what Jesus meant by the word, "time.") According to the story, Jesus told the servants to bring containers to him filled to the brim with water. The Biblical account tells us that Jesus turned this water into wine. Something has always struck me as curious about what happens next in the story.

The host marvels at the fact that the wine was of the most superior quality and even told Jesus that usually the best wine is served first and then the inferior wine is given once the guest had drunk enough so as not to notice the difference. He is amazed that Jesus has brought out the best wine for last! The Bible explicitly states that the host did not know where the wine had come from but the servants who fetched the pots of water "knew" from where the wine had come but "kept silent." The bottom line is this could be an allegory for the "kingdom of God." Jesus told his disciples in secret the mysteries, yet the disciples did not reveal the secrets to the profane or people outside the circle.

WHEN WILL THE KINGDOM COME?

Jesus believed that the "kingdom" would definitely come but there was no promise that it would come soon. In fact, Jesus warned of trying to calculate when the "kingdom" would come because even he was not privy to this information. Jesus said that only God knew when the "kingdom" would come.

Think about all the people throughout the ages who have tried to figure out when the end of the world/age would come. Look at all the catastrophes that have befallen those who have tried to predict exact dates and ended up scaring their followers into selling all their possessions, retreating to desolate living areas, performing strange rituals. One of the most horrific examples of this escapism and belief in the imminent coming of the end of the world was the Jim Jones, Guainía tragedy where hundreds of people took part of a mass suicide under the direction of their twisted self-proclaimed, messiah.

Sadly, today's mainline Protestant denominations believe in the "rapture." A loony idea that states that Christians must stay ever vigilant because only those believers who have accepted Jesus as the "savior" will be sucked up into the heavens at anytime. Of course they believe (not unlike the Essenes in the "time" of John the Baptist), that the "unbelievers" will have to deal with the wrath of God while on earth. Fundamental fringes of the Protestant denominations like the Grace Baptist Movement, Seventh Day Adventists, and even the Pentecostals believe this doctrine of the "rapture." Inside the Christian church, just as in the "time" of Jesus there was an "us versus them" mentality. And this is among "believers!" The rest of society is really in deep trouble if they are not Christians. In my personal opinion, this is nothing short of barbaric and ignorant. So when the "kingdom" comes, the literalists who interpret the Bible this way have chosen the way of John the Baptist, not Jesus!

DO CHRISTIANS TODAY REALLY "GET IT?"

From what we have learned so far, is this vigilance or watchfulness Jesus spoke about waiting for signs of the rapture? I don't think so! Was Jesus speaking of God as a God of wrath? No. Didn't Jesus teach that God was no longer the wrathful God of the Old Testament? Did not Jesus say that God's "kingdom" meaning salvation, liberation and compassion was near and that God was a God of compassion? I will rewrite these questions again in the "Points to Ponder" section. So start to think of how you will answer them.

THE DANGER OF "NOT REALLY GETTING IT."

If the real teachings of Jesus are not disseminated soon, I am fearful for the consequences for mankind. The "kingdom" is being delayed because the modern day Pharisees have shut up the keys to the kingdom and neither do they nor their proselytes enter. It is time for Jesus' message of the "Kingdom of God" to be made manifest. God is no longer angry at mankind. God wants to liberate mankind. God wants to show compassion on mankind.

Jesus taught that the "kingdom" was near, was amongst, and was within us.

But Jesus' followers in his time did not really understand Jesus' "kingdom" message. Jesus taught them the "mysteries of the kingdom of God." But I believe that most of them were looking for a literal "kingdom." Jesus was not their idea of what a messiah should be. The messiah was supposed to come in clouds of glory and physically take the Jewish homeland back from the Romans. Then the messiah would set up and earthly "kingdom." The Jewish people would finally have the land that their god had promised them.

Take for example the fact that the "kingdom" did not come in the "time" of Jesus. The catastrophe came instead and the temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. Did Jesus fail his people or did his people fail him? Perhaps the answer to the question was a little bit of both. But we do know one thing. We know that in Jesus' mind the "kingdom" was near, among and within us. Is it possible that Jesus "kingdom" message was "not of this world?"

Of course it was. Jesus told Pilate two things;

1. "My kingdom is not of this world."

2. Jesus told Pilate, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Pilate then said, "Truth, what is the truth?"

Are we any closer to the truth that Jesus spoke about in our day than Pilate was in Jesus' day? For once let us pull off the blinders on our eyes and take a deep hard look at the real meaning of the "kingdom" teachings of Jesus. Let us abandon all preconceptions and ingrained so called orthodoxy. Let us go together on a journey for this great spiritual truth that Jesus called "The Kingdom of God." Perhaps if we seek hard enough we too will discover that this "kingdom" is in fact a part of our very being. It is within us and infinitely beyond us.

### SOME THINGS TO LOOK UP TO PREPARE FOR THE NEXT LESSON

The following verses are crucial to understanding the elusive and sometimes obtuse concept of the "kingdom" that Jesus heralds in the Christian gospels. Please look them up and contemplate upon them in preparation for your next lesson.

Luke 17:20 "KOG cometh not with observation."

Luke 17:21 "the Kingdom is within you."

Mt 12:28 "KOG has come."

Jn 3:3 "cannot see the KOG"

Jn 3:5 "cannot enter into the KOG"

Ro 14:17 "KOG not meat" (of substance/fleshly/of this world)

1 Co 4:20 "KOG is not in word"

Re 12:10 "now is come the K of Lord"

Mt 3:2 "K O H is at hand"

Re 11:15 "K of world are K of Lord"

Jn 18:36 "my K is not of this world"

He 12:28 "K, that cannot be moved"

THE KINGDOM SAYINGS INCLUDING THE NON SYNOPTIC GOSPELS

Last week I had you look up several verses mentioning the "kingdom." Below is a list of the verses so that you do not need to refer to the previous lesson. The verses are given to you here for easy reference. Here is the list of "kingdom" sayings that I had you review:

The following verses are crucial to understanding the elusive and sometimes obtuse concept of the "kingdom" that Jesus heralds in the Christian gospels.

1) Luke 17:20 "KOG cometh not with observation."---Synoptic

2) Luke 17:21 "the Kingdom is within you."---Synoptic

3) Mt 12:28 "KOG has come."---Synoptic

4) Jn 3:3 "cannot see the KOG"---Non-synoptic

5) Jn 3:5 "cannot enter into the KOG"---Non-synoptic

6) Ro 14:17 "KOG not meat" (of substance/fleshly/of this world)---Non-synoptic

7) 1 Co 4:20 "KOG is not in word"---Non-synoptic

8) Re 12:10 "now is come the K of Lord"---Non-synoptic

9) Mt 3:2 "K O H is at hand"---Synoptic

10) Re 11:15 "K of world are K of Lord"---Non-synoptic

11) Jn 18:36 "my K is not of this world"---Non-synoptic

12) He 12:28 "K, that cannot be moved"---Non-synoptic

Let us examine each of these sayings in context to get the full picture of the circumstances of which Jesus spoke. You may ask why we are even looking at the non-synoptic books of the New Testament if we only deem the synoptic books as pseudo-historical. The reason for this is that it is a historical fact that Jesus main message was the "kingdom of heaven/God." We also know as historians that Jesus spoke his message of the "kingdom" by using parables and aphorisms. For these reasons, we need to explore Jesus' "kingdom" teachings wherever they appear as they are more likely than not, historical and authentic sayings of Jesus.

SAYING NUMBER ONE

Luke 17:20 "KOG cometh not with observation."---Synoptic

Jesus was being asked by the Pharisees when the "kingdom" would come. Jesus told them that they would not be able physically see the "kingdom" with their outer senses. In this case they would not be able to "see" the "kingdom" with their physical sight. From this we can safely draw the conclusion that the "kingdom" is invisible.

This was not welcome news to the Pharisees who expected physical cosmic signs to come before the consummation of the end of the age. In ancient times, it was generally believed that the "kingdom" would be a grand physical entrance of the messiah who would lead to Jewish people to take back their homeland from the Romans.

SAYING NUMBER TWO

Luke 17:21 "the Kingdom is within you."---Synoptic

The entire verse is;

"nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."

There is no other way, at least in my estimation, than to render this verse literally. Verse one tells us that the "kingdom" is invisible to the human eye. Verse two tells us that the "kingdom" is "within you." What other meaning could this have than a spiritual "kingdom?" One cannot "see" inside their own physical body. So if the "kingdom" is within a person or a person's physical body, it only makes sense to interpret this verse as a spiritual state of being ("kingdom") rather than a physical state of being. It is clear that Jesus was speaking once again of this invisible "kingdom" that resides within owns spiritual body.

SAYING NUMBER THREE

Mt 12:28 "KOG has come."---Synoptic

The entire verse is;

"But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you."

The Pharisees were accusing Jesus of being some kind of black magician, using the power of devils to work his healings. Some background is needed for a better explanation of this verse.

There was a man who was blind, and mute; who was brought to Jesus for the purpose of exorcism. Jesus healed all the man's affliction so that he could hear and speak. The multitudes were amazed. The Pharisees were jealous. They accused Jesus, like I previously mentioned, of casting out the demons (in ancient times if anyone was sick it was thought to be because of some demon possession or punishment for their sin or even the sins of their ancestors) by the power of Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.

Of course, Jesus anticipated this response from the Pharisees and told them that every "kingdom" divided against itself will not stand. He goes on to ask if Satan is casting out Satan (in other words, if Jesus is using Satan's power then he, Jesus would be a representative or part of the house of Satan) then Satan is divided against himself. So then Jesus asks; how can Satan's "kingdom" stand if he is thus divided? Jesus then asks the Pharisees by whom do they cast out demons? (Of course the answer they would give was that they were casting out demons by the power of God). So Jesus responds that if he, Jesus is casting out demons by the power of God (doing the same as they are doing) then the "kingdom" of God has come upon them.

So if the Pharisees are tapping into the power of God to cure people and Jesus is tapping into that same Source (power of God---Holy Spirit), the "kingdom" power that Jesus refers to has come upon them too! The Pharisees are tapping into that same Universal healing power which is God's spirit working through them. We would say in modern terms that they were both on the same page so why be a "house divided." The Pharisees and Jesus were part of the same "house."

Perhaps Jesus could have said, hey guys, we are all working together for the glory of God. Let's glorify God and help people together, enough with all the division. We have things to do that are much more important that squabbling about who is of Satan and who is of God. Let's get it together. The time is of the essence!"

SAYING NUMBER FOUR

4) Jn 3:3 "cannot see the KOG"---Non-synoptic

The entire verse is;

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

How does one "see" a kingdom of God which as we have already concluded is invisible to the human eye, is not a physical kingdom, is a kingdom that cannot be divided against itself, and in addition to all this, one must to be "born again" in order to "see" this kingdom? What in the world was Jesus talking about? Nicodemus had the same question and he was a Pharisee well versed in the scriptures and a prominent religious leader of the Jewish people.

The term "born again" is translated in different versions of the Bible as "born from above" or "born anew." This "new birth" is obviously a spiritual experience. This is a personal experience. It is ridiculous to take this saying as literal. Not anyone, including Christian fundamentalists, take this literally. However, they do twist this into some strange doctrine about "accepting Jesus as you lord and personal savior." How they ever come up with this interpretation is beyond all logic. Jesus never said anything about accepting him! Jesus urged people to accept his message!

To take this a bit further, look at Nicodemus's reaction to the answer Jesus gave him.

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Here is the conversation that ensued: My commentaries are in italics.

4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

Nicodemus must have not been thinking too clearly that night. After all, he was a Pharisee seeking instruction from Jesus, who was generally not well liked by the Pharisees. Nicodemus may have been nervous that someone might see him talking to this controversial minister. The Bible does say that Nicodemus "came by night" which points to the fact that he may have secretly been drawn in by Jesus' "kingdom" message. I do believe that Nicodemus's question may have resulted from nervousness. He was taking a risk to see Jesus. And he was sincerely seeking a word of wisdom from Jesus. I think that after Nicodemus asked this question, he, as in modern times we would say, could have kicked himself for sounding so foolish!

5 Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

The term "water" could be described as the "physical birth." Contrast this to the "spiritual birth" that Jesus talks about and proclaims as a condition for entering into the "kingdom" of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

This statement verifies what I have said in regards to the previous verse.

7 Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'

Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, 'Why is this news to you? You teach these things or at least should know a little about what I am talking about!'

8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

In this verse, Jesus is comparing the "wind" to the "spirit." Just like the wind, you know it is there but you do not know from where it comes. I am not making a directional reference. Everyone knows that the wind can come from the north, south, east, or west. Take the example of gravity. You know that it is there, you feel its effects but you do not "know" from "where" it comes. The same can be said of the spirit. You know that it is there and hopefully you can "feel" it. But you do not "know" from where it comes. However, we could safely conclude that it comes from God or the Supreme Intelligence.

9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?"  
10 Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?

According to the Bible, Nicodemus was a teacher of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus is amazed that someone who supposedly is a teacher does not have a clue about the "spiritual" aspects of the scriptures.

11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.

In this verse, "you" is plural. Jesus is rebuking not only Nicodemus but all of the teachers of the Hebrew Scriptures for not understanding the "spirit" of the scriptures that they are teaching.

12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

This statement is pretty clear. If a teacher of the law cannot understand the "spirit" of the scriptures, they are in no position to grasp Jesus' "kingdom" message, which is spiritual in nature. Jesus may have been asking himself, 'Am I ever going to be able to get through to these people if the teachers haven't a clue of what I am talking about?'

SAYING NUMBER FIVE

5 Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

The term "water" could be described as the "physical birth." Contrast this to the "spiritual birth" that Jesus talks about and proclaims as a condition for entering into the "kingdom" of God.

SAYING NUMBER SIX

6) Ro 14:17 "KOG not meat" (of substance/fleshly/of this world)---Non-synoptic

Once again, this verse is self-explanatory. Our physical bodies are not part of the "kingdom" of God. Our spiritual bodies, which are not of flesh and blood, can inherit the "kingdom" of God.

SAYING NUMBER SEVEN

7) 1 Co 4:20 "KOG is not in word"---Non-synoptic

The saying that the word (literal interpretation) kills but the spirit (spiritual interpretation) is life giving or gives eternal life is apropo for this verse. If one is so involved trying to understand the literal meaning of the scriptures, then they will come away from the scriptures confused and with several different interpretations of the same verse. That is why there is over 30,000 denominations in the Christian religion! Everyone has there own version of the truth. Of course, they are the ones who are right and anyone else with a different interpretation is wrong. This causes infighting within the different denominations which turn prospective members off. Perhaps that is a good thing. A person that is seeking true spirituality does not need to join some organization stating that their truth is the only truth. This attitude can be and has been psychologically detrimental to earnest seekers of the truth, people seeking inner peace and contact with the Divine.

I hope that you have enjoyed this lesson. I will go over the rest of the sayings in our next lesson.

For your convenience, I will list the verses that will be covered in lesson eighteen.

8) Re 12:10 "now is come the K of Lord"---Non-synoptic

9) Mt 3:2 "K O H is at hand"---Synoptic

10) Re 11:15 "K of world are K of Lord"---Non-synoptic

11) Jn 18:36 "my K is not of this world"---Non-synoptic

12) He 12:28 "K, that cannot be moved"---Non-synoptic

Be sure to take some time to reflect on the above verses to prepare for lesson eighteen.

THE KINGDOM SAYINGS INCLUDING THE NON SYNOPTIC GOSPELS

Last week I had you look up several verses mentioning the "kingdom." Below is a list of the verses so that you do not need to refer to the previous lesson. The verses are given to you here for easy reference. Here is the list of "kingdom" sayings that I had you review:

8) Re 12:10 "now is come the K of Lord"---Non-synoptic

9) Mt 3:2 "K O H is at hand"---Synoptic

10) Re 11:15 "K of world are K of Lord"---Non-synoptic

11) Jn 18:36 "my K is not of this world"---Non-synoptic

12) He 12:28 "K, that cannot be moved"---Non-synoptic

SAYING NUMBER EIGHT

8) Re 12:10 "now is come the K of Lord"---Non-synoptic

This verse is pointing to the time when the gospel of the "kingdom" will be spread throughout the world and that people have realized that the "kingdom of God" is part of their very being. This could also refer to the pleroma, which is when the "fullness of the Gentiles" is accomplished by the preaching of this spiritual "kingdom." The worldly matters of this world will no longer be of significance to humankind as humankind will have advanced beyond the worldly into the otherworldly (spiritual kingdom).

SAYING NUMBER NINE

9) Mt 3:2 "K O H is at hand"---Synoptic

This saying was spoken by John the Baptist immediately preceding the arrival and initiation of Jesus. John tells the people who are coming to him to become baptized to repent and change their way of thinking towards God's way or "kingdom." So John is announcing that with the arrival of Jesus, the "kingdom" will be at hand (amongst them).

SAYING NUMBER TEN

10) Re 11:15 "K of world are K of Lord"---Non-synoptic

This verse needs some elaboration, so let's take a look at the full verse;

The seventh angel then blew [his] trumpet, and there were mighty voices in heaven, shouting, the dominion (kingdom, sovereignty, rule) of the world has now come into the possession and become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ (the messiah), and He shall reign forever and ever (for the eternities of the eternities)! [Amplified Version]

Seven is the number of wholeness or completeness in the Bible. The fact that the angel is portrayed as the seventh angel lends one to believe that this is a final act. This makes complete sense because Jesus spoke of his utopist vision of heaven on earth. In the end days, the earthly realm will reflect the heavenly realms. This is the consummation of the enlightenment of the entire human race. Every sentient being will have realized their true divine nature that resides in each and every one of them. Thus the saying "the kingdoms of the world are (=) the Kingdom of the Lord (heavenly realms--God).

SAYING NUMBER ELEVEN

11) Jn 18:36 "my K is not of this world"---Non-synoptic

I have always found this such a beautiful verse. Here is Jesus given a chance to redeem himself from imminent crucifixion and he says that his kingdom is not of this world. It is obvious (to me anyways) that Jesus realizes that he is about to enter into a better, shall we call it, "place." Jesus knows that he will be shedding his earthly body and will be "putting on" a heavenly body (Or the Mind Of God).

SAYING NUMBER TWELVE

12) He 12:28 "K, that cannot be moved"---Non-synoptic

This verse needs some elaboration. For some scholars (and non-scholars alike) the book of Hebrews is the hardest book in the Christian Bible to understand, much less interpret. I am giving you an assignment right now. I will even stop right now and do the assignment myself. So we are in this together. We are going to take time to read the entire book of Hebrews and try to put this verse (which is of major significance) into its proper context. Give yourself a couple of hours alone and read it with your spirit. Academic understanding can only go so far. I am saying this as an academic. It doesn't do us much good if we cannot gain some words of wisdom that can be applied to our lives. You can be an atheist and still appreciate this.

The reason that we are taking a time out to read Hebrews is because it is all about types and shadows. The author (who is still unknown) compares the heavenly realms with the earthly realms. This is important to the message of Jesus was always speaking in parables that dealt with comparing natural things to spiritual things. Having this in mind, take time now to read the book with the concept of comparison of the heavenly to the earthly in your consciousness. Try to bring to mind all that you have learned about Jesus' kingdom message.

Now that you have read the book of Hebrews, as I have done, this verse begins to make more sense. The "kingdom" that cannot be removed is compared to what can be removed, i.e. the earthly realm. The heavenly, spiritual "kingdom" of which your body houses you immortal soul, can never be destroyed. Once you attain the high spiritual development, you are a temple unto yourself. You do not need religion or churches because you have a direct link to God.

The things of God are spiritual and cannot be shaken or removed.

CONDITIONS OF ENTERING THE KINGDOM OF GOD—WITH BIBLICAL SUPPORT

Now we will finish up Jesus' "kingdom" teachings and the next two lessons will be for the purposes of helping to prepare you for your final essay.

HUMILITY

Mt. 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

SYMPATHETIC SERVICE

Mt. 23:24 "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

Mt. 25:35 "For I was hungry, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in."

PERSEVERANCE

Lu. 9:62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

NEW BIRTH

Jn. 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

ENDURANCE

Ac. 14:22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

FAITH AND LOVE

Ja. 2:5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

COMING WITH POWER

Da. 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

Mk. 9:1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.

Ac. 2:2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

Ac. 2:3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

Ac. 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

1 Co. 4:20 For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

Re. 11:17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and was, and art to come; because thou has taken to thee they great power, and hast reigned.

NEAR AT HAND

Mt. 3:2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Mt. 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Mt. 10:7 As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is and hand.

Lu. 21:31 So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.

PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM

Mk. 1:14 Now after that John was put in prison; Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.

Lu. 8:1 And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and sowing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him.

Lu. 9:2 And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.

Lu. 16:16 The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.

Ac. 1:3 To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

Ac. 8:12 But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Ac. 20:25 And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.

Ac. 28:23 And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.

THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST

Mt. 16:48 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste death, till they see the Son of man coming into his kingdom.

Lu. 22:30 That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Lu. 23:42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

Jn. 18: 36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence (here).

Re. 17:14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

FINAL REVIEW PART ONE

Historical Quest for Jesus

THE PROBLEM

• Purpose of Gospels is faith not history in 20th century sense

• Inconsistencies in details in Gospels from birth narratives to resurrection accounts

• 2000 years separate us from events

Jesus of History vs. Christ of Faith

Historical Search (Period 1)

• Period 1: Pre-Quest (Before 1778)

• Jesus of History = Christ of Faith

Scholars had long noted discrepancies among the gospels, but saw those as either

• Test of faith

• Having allegorical significance

Historical Search (Period 2)

• Old Quest (1778-1906)

• Hermann Samuel Reimarus' 1778 posthumous publication, "Concerning the Intention of Jesus

and His Teaching" starts it off; he argues: Jesus never intended to suffer and die, illustrated by

cry on cross of 'why have you forsaken me? 'Disappointed disciples stole body and claimed Jesus rose from dead

• Old Quest says the quest is methodologically possible and theologically necessary

Psychologizing and chronologizing

Rise of source criticism

Period 3: No Quest Period 3: No Quest (1906--1953)

• Albert Schweitzer's 1906 "In Quest of the Historical Jesus"

historical methods merely reflected theological interests of 19th century authors

history would show Jesus was expecting an end to world that never came

faith does not need history for Jesus is spiritually risen

• Rudolf Bultmann argues for need to "demythologize" gospels to get to existential

meaning

Quest is methodologically impossible and theologically unnecessary

Rise of form criticism

Period 4: New Quest (Second Quest) 1953—1985

• 1953 Kässeman and other students of Bultmann call for a "new quest"

• Gospels are primarily kerygma historical method is limited to verifying individual sayings

no psychologizing and chronologizing

burden of proof that something is historical is upon historian

• quest is methodologically possible and theologically important

rise of redaction criticism

Period 5: Third Quest (1985-present)

• Jesus Seminar formed in 1985 by Funk and Crossan

extending method of Second Quest

importance of "Q" and Thomas

reaction to rise of fundamentalism

• methodologically possible and theologically – neutral or necessary?

rise of narrative criticism and social scientific criticism

Historical Search—Criteria

• Criterion of Independent Attestation

when saying, etc., is found in multiple sources, i.e., Mark, "Q," "M," "L," John, and Thomas

e.g., Jesus known as miracle worker, worked among outcasts, etc.

Historical Search Criteria

• Criterion of Dissimilarity

when sayings, etc. are dissimilar from sayings or emphases of early church, on one hand, and ancient Judaism, on the other e.g., teaching in parables and referring to God as "Abba"

• Criterion of Coherence

• when saying, etc., is coherent or in keeping with results of previous criteria

• e.g., Jesus called God "father"

Historical Search \--Criteria

• Criterion of Language and Environment

a negative check of the results of previous findings--if a result could not fit into the language and environment of Jesus' context, then it is rejected; if a result does fit, then it is all the more likely to be authentic e.g., Jesus spoke Aramaic, possibly Greek

Historical Search Criteria

• Criterion of Embarrassment

If a deed or saying attributed to Jesus is such that it would be embarrassing to early church, it is

all the more likely to be authentic e.g., baptism by John the Baptist

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1) Be able to define source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism.

2) What is the synoptic problem?

3) What is Q?

4) When was Mark's gospel probably written?

5) Whom do scholars generally think that Mark's gospel was written for?

6) When was Mark's gospel probably written?

7) What is the "messianic secret"?

8) When do scholars generally think that the Gospel of Matthew was written? For whom? Where?

9) When do scholars generally think that the Gospel of Luke was written? For whom? Where?

10) When do scholars generally think the Gospel of John was written? By whom? For whom?

11) What is Gnosticism? What are some of their major beliefs?

12) In what ways does the Gospel of Thomas show Gnostic influences?

13) What is the major difference between the Gospel of Thomas and the canonical gospels?

14) Why do scholars think the Gospel of Thomas is as old, if not older, than the Gospel of Mark?

15) What is the relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and "Q"?

16) What is eschatology? How do Mark, Matthew, and Luke differ on their views of the kingdom of heaven/God?

17) What is a parable? How does it differ from a simile, metaphor and allegory?

18) What world view tends to underlie most modern people's view of miracles?

19) What is meant by distinguishing the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith?

20) What are the differences among the pre-quest, old-quest, no-quest, second quest, and third quest for the historical Jesus?

21) Who were some of the pivotal figures associated with each quest?

PARABLES IN THE GOSPELS

• No parables in Gospel of John

• Approximately 45 parables found in synoptic gospels from all four sources

• Approximately 16 parables found in Gospel of Thomas

NATURE OF A PARABLE

• Greek word parabole, Hebrew word mashal,Aramaic word mathla

• not a metaphor - a comparison made by substituting one object for another (my love is

a red, red rose)

• not an allegory- a narrative that involves comparison, where each detail symbolizes something else, thus making several points

• not a simile - a comparison between one object and another linked by words such as "like" or "as" (my love is like a rose)

DEFINITION OF A PARABLE

• Parable is like a simile extended into a narrative, but unlike an allegory, a parable makes a single point comparing a commonplace object, event, or person, with some less common

theological reality as the kingdom of God.

PURPOSE OF PARABLES

• Make teaching more understandable

• Make teaching more difficult to understand (Mark 4:10 ff.)

• Transform life of hearer (e.g., reversal of values)

HOW PARABLES HAVE BEEN INTERPRETED

• Allegorically - parables are primarily for instruction

• As extended similes, making a single instructional point

• As a form of eschatological proclamation (assurance, repentance, how to live in kingdom, etc.)

• As literary works that are primarily metaphorical, not aimed at instruction but transformation, a call to decision, by reversing values and expectations; part of Jesus' kingdom preaching

• Recent scholarship has also pointed to the parables 'relationship to aphorisms – short pithy sayings or proverbs

• In light of aphorisms, many scholars are looking at Jesus' teaching as part of Jewish wisdom tradition – Jesus the sage

END OF REVIEW ONE

It is very important that you know the material in this lesson. Your final essay should take into account all the factors as written above. By answering these questions you will really be able to write a good essay.

In the final lesson, I am going to quote some very important people regarding their view of the making of the gospels and the teachings of Jesus. This will give you some extremely important insight into how the greatest minds of our time have come to their own conclusions regarding Jesus.

In your essay, I am asking you to do the same thing. I want you to write about your own personal view of who Jesus was and what he taught.

I wish you the best of success.

FINAL REVIEW/END OF COURSE

In this final lesson, which is a review for your essay, I will quote some very famous people. These people put forth their unique interpretation of the life and teachings of Jesus. This will help you with your essay because you might gain some insight or perhaps agree with one of them. I have not given my own point of view as to who Jesus was up until now. Jesus was a wisdom sage, possibly the suffering Messiah, who taught that the "Kingdom of God" was a spiritual completeness within oneself. If we seek with our body, mind, and spirit we will eventually gain the gnosis (knowledge) of how to attain inner peace in our mortal lifetime. Jesus said, "I came to bring you life and life to the abundance!" I look forward to society coming together to finally make Jesus' vision come true!

Thank you for taking this course. I wish you the very best of happiness and abundance.

Dr. Lisa Morris

Here are the quotes for your reading pleasure.

BARUCH SPINOZA

A correspondent wrote to Spinoza: "People say that you conceal your opinion concerning Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, the only Mediator for mankind, and concerning His incarnation and redemption: they would like you to give a clear explanations of what your think." Spinoza answered:

I do not think it necessary for salvation to know Christ according to the flesh: but with regard to the eternal Son of God, that is, the eternal Wisdom of God, which has manifested itself in all things, and especially in the human mind, and above all in Jesus Christ, the case is far otherwise. For without this no one can come to a state of blessedness, inasmuch as it alone teaches what is true or false, good or evil. And inasmuch as this wisdom was made especially manifest through Jesus Christ, as I have said, his disciples preached it, insofar as it was revealed to them through him, and thus showed that they could rejoice in that spirit of Christ more than the rest of mankind. The doctrines added by certain churches, such as that God took upon himself human nature, I have expressly said that I do not understand; in fact, to speak the truth, they seem to me no less absurd than would a statement that a circle had taken upon itself the nature of a square.

The resurrection of Christ from the dead was in reality spiritual; and to the faithful alone, according to their understanding, it was revealed that Christ was endowed with eternity and had risen from the dead (using "dead" in the sense in which Christ said, "Let the dead bury their dead"), giving by his life and death a matchless example of holiness. Moreover, he to this extent raises his disciples from the dead, insofar as they follow the example of his own life and death.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and in me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his World. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, "I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me, or see thee, when thou thinkest as I now think." But what a distortion did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the next, and the following ages! There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the Understanding. The Understanding caught this high chant from the poet's lips, and said, in the next age, "This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you, if you say he was a man." The idioms of his language and the figures of his rhetoric have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not built on his principles, but on his tropes. Christianity became a Mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece and of Egypt, before. He spoke of miracles; for he felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this daily miracle shines as the character ascends. But the Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.

Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it has appeared for ages, it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual. It has dwelt, it dwells, with the noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The soul knows no persons. It invites every man to the full circle of the universe, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love.

I cannot but think that Jesus Christ will be better loved by being less adored. He has had an unnatural, an artificial place for ages in human opinions – a place too high for love. There is a recoil of the affections from all authority and force. In the barbarous state of society it was thought to add to the dignity of Christ to make him king, to make him God. Now that the scriptures are read with purged eyes, it is seen that he is only to be loved for so much goodness and wisdom as was in him, which are the only things for which a sound human mind can love any person.

Is it not time to present this matter of Christianity exactly as it is, to take away all false reverence for Jesus, and not mistake the stream for the source? God is in every man. God is in Jesus, but let us not magnify any of the vehicles as we magnify the Infinite Law itself. We have defrauded him of his claim of love on all noble hearts by our superstitious mouth-honor.

If Jesus came now into the world, he would say- You, YOU! He said to his age, I.

The fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing him as a man indicates with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our theology. The inexhaustible soul is insulted by this low, paltering superstition, no more commendable in us than in the mythology of other heathens.

We think so meanly of man that 'tis thought a profanity to call Jesus one.

Christ preaches the greatness of Man, but we hear only the greatness of Christ.

The world is divided on the fame of the Virgin Mary. The Catholics call her "Mother of God," the skeptics thinks her the natural mother of an admirable child. But the last agree with the first in hailing the moral perfections of his character, and the immense benefit his life has exerted and exerts.

[The publisher James] Munroe seriously asked me what I believed of Jesus and the prophets. I said, as so often, that is seemed to me an impiety to be listening to one and another, when the pure Heaven was pouring itself into each of us, on the simple condition of obedience. To listen to any second-hand gospel is perdition of the First Gospel. Jesus was Jesus because he refused to listen to another, and listened at home.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

It is remarkable that the highest intellectual mood which the world tolerates is the perception of the truth of the most ancient revelations, now in some respects out of date; but any direct revelation, any original thoughts, it hates like virtue. The fathers and the mothers of the town would rather hear the young man or young woman at their tables express reverence for some old statement of truth than utter a direct revelation themselves. They don't want to have any prophets born into their families, - damn them! So far as thinking is concerned, surely original thinking is the divinest thing. Rather we should reverently watch for the least motions, the least scintillations, of thought in this sluggish world, and men should run to and from on occasion more than at an earthquake. We check and repress the divinity that stirs within us, to fall down and worship the divinity that is dead without us. I go to see many a good man or good woman, so called, and utter freely that thought which alone it was given to me to utter; but there was a man who lived a long, long time ago, and his name was Moses, and another whose name was Christ, and if your thought does not, or does not appear to, coincide with what they said, the good man or the good woman has no ears to hear you. They think they love God! It is only his old clothes, of which they make scarecrows for the children. Where will they come nearer to God than in those very children?

It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him too.

FRIEDRICH NIETZCHE

What is "the good news"? That true life, eternal life, has been found-it is not something promised, it is already here, it is within you: as life lived in love, in love without subtraction or exclusion, without distance. Everyone is a child of God-Jesus definitely claims nothing for himself alone-and as a child of God everyone is equal to everyone else.

Jesus' faith doesn't prove itself, either by miracles or by rewards and promises, and least of all "by scripture": it is, at every moment, its own miracle, its own reward, its own proof, its own "kingdom of God."

In the whole psychology of the "Gospel" the concept of guilt and punishment is lacking; also the concept of reward. "Sin"- any distance that separates God and man-is abolished: precisely this is the "good news." Blessedness is not promised, is not tied to any conditions: it is the only reality.

The deep instinct for how one would have to live in order to feel oneself "in heaven," to feel "eternal," while in every other condition one certainly does not feel oneself "in heaven": this alone is the psychological reality of "redemption." - A new way of living, not a new belief.

The word "son" expresses the entrance into the feeling of the total transfiguration of all things (blessedness); the word "father" expresses this feeling itself, the feeling of eternity, of perfection.

The kingdom of heaven is a condition of the heart-not something that come "above the earth" or "after death." The whole concept of natural death is lacking in the Gospel: death is not a bridge, not a transition; it is lacking because it belongs to an entirely different, a merely apparent world, useful only insofar as it furnishes symbols. The "hour of death" is not a Christian concept- an "hour," time, physical life and its crises simply don't exist for the teacher of the "good news." The "kingdom of God" isn't something that one waits for; it has no yesterday and no tomorrow, it doesn't come in "a thousand years"- it is an experience that takes place inside the heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

I must now make a serious draft on the reader's attention by facing the question whether, if and when the medieval and Methodist will-to-believe the Salvationist and miraculous side of the gospel narratives fails us, as it plainly has failed the leaders of modern thought, there will be anything left of the mission of Jesus: whether, in short, we may not throw the gospels into the waste-paper basket, or put them away on the fiction shelf of our libraries. I venture to reply that we shall be, on the contrary, in the position of the man in Bunyan's riddle who found that "the more he threw away, the more he had." We get rid to begin with, of the idolatrous or iconographic worship of Christ. By this I mean literally that worship which is given to pictures and statues of him, and to finished and unalterable stories about him. The test of prevalence of this is that if you speak or write of Jesus as a real live person, or even as a still active God, such worshippers are more horrified than Don Juan was when the statue stepped from its pedestal and came to supper with him. You may deny the divinity of Jesus; you may doubt whether he ever existed; you may reject Christianity for Judaism, Mahometanism, Shintoism, or Fire Worship; the iconolaters, placidly contemptuous, will only classify you as a freethinker or a heathen. But if you venture to wonder how Christ would have look if he had shaved and had his hair cut, or what size in shoes he took, or whether he swore when he stood on a nail in the carpenter's shop, or could not button his robe when he was in a hurry, or whether he laughed over the repartees by which he baffled the priest when they tried to trap him into sedition and blasphemy, or even if you tell any part of his story in the vivid terms of modern colloquial slang, you will produce an extraordinary dismay and horror among the iconolaters. You will have made the picture come out of its frame, the statue descend from its pedestal, the story become real, with all the incalculable consequences that may flow from this terrifying miracle. It is at such moments that you realize that they iconolater have never for a moment conceived Christ as a real person who meant what he said, as a fact, as a force like electricity.

WILLIAM BLAKE

The diarist Henry Crabb Robinson put to Blake "the popular question, concerning the imputed Divinity of Jesus Christ." "He is the only God!" -but then he added- "And so am I and so are you." He had before said – and that led me to put the question- that Christ ought not to have suffered himself to be crucified. "He should not have attacked the Government. He had no business with such matters." On my representing this to be inconsistent with the sanctity of divine qualities, he said Christ was not yet become the Father.

Christ, he said, took much after his mother, and in so far was one of the worst of men. On my asking him for an instance, he referred to his turning the money-changers out of the Temple-he had no right to do that. He digressed into a condemnation of those who sit in judgment on others.

"I have never known a very bad man who had not something very good about him."

Speaking of the Atonement in the ordinary Calvinistic sense, he said, "It is a horrible doctrine; if another pay your debt, I do not forgive it."

There is not one moral virtue that Jesus inculcated but Plato and Cicero did inculcate before him. What then did Christ inculcate? Forgiveness of sins. This alone is the gospel and this is the life and immortality brought to light by Jesus, even the covenant of Jehovah, which is this: if your forgive one another your trespasses, so shall Jehovah forgive you so that he himself may dwell among you.

MOHANDAS K. GANDHI

It was more than I could believe that Jesus was the only incarnate son of God, and that only he who believed in him would have everlasting life. If God could have sons, all of us were his sons. If Jesus was like God, or God Himself, then all men were like God and could be God Himself. My reason could not believe literally that Jesus, by his death and by his blood, redeemed the sins of the world. Metaphorically, there might be some truth in it. Again, according to Christianity, only human beings had souls, and not other living beings, for whom death meant complete extinction; while I held a contrary belief. I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it, my heart could not accept.

My Christian friends have told me on more than a few occasions that because I do not accept Christ as the only son of God, it is impossible for me to understand the profound significance of his teachings. I believe that this is an erroneous point of view, and that such an estimate is incompatible with the message that Jesus gave to the world. For he was certainly the highest example of one who wished to give everything, asking nothing in return, and not caring what creed might happen to be professed by the recipient. I am sure that if he were living here now among men, he would bless the lives of many who perhaps have never even heard his name, if only their lives embodied the virtues of which he was a living example on earth: the virtues of loving one's neighbor as oneself and of doing good and charitable works among one's fellow men.

What then does Jesus mean to me? To me he was one of the greatest teacher humanity has ever had. To his believers he was God's only-begotten Son. Could the fact that I do or do not accept this belief make Jesus have any more or less influence in my life? Is all the grandeur of his teaching and of his doctrine to be forbidden to me? I cannot believe so.

To me it implies a spiritual birth. My interpretation, in other words, is that in Jesus' own life is the key to his nearness to God; that he expressed, as no other could, the spirit and will of God. It is in this sense that I see him and recognize him as the son of God.

RAMANA MAHARSHI

When Jesus worked his miracles and spoke his wonderful words, he was utterly unconscious of being a separate, finite personality. He was pure light, pure life, cause and effect working in perfect concert. "The Father and I are one." He had given up all ideas of "I" and "mine." Can the body possess anything? Can the mind possess anything Both of them are lifeless, unless the light of God shines through.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Morris has researched this subject for over 6 years and is a respected independent scholar in historical Christianity. She holds a Th.D. and several honorary degrees for her work in the field of theology. She is the host of the top-rated Theology Talk Podcast on the Podomatic podcasting network. Theology Talk has consistently ranked in the top 100 in the Spirituality genre for 4 years and counting. She also is host to the Theology Talk radio station on the Live365 internet radio network.

Copyright Notice

Copyright 2009 by Rev. Dr. Lisa Morris. All rights reserved. No part of this lesson may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

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