FINDINGS III By Harry T. Cook

By Harry T. Cook
3/26/12    

Harry T. Cook

For the parish minister, the time span from Palm Sunday through Easter Day offers unparalleled opportunities to engage intellectually attentive congregants in serious consideration of the biblical narratives that tradition holds to be accounts of Jesus' last days, his death and its aftermath.

I mean by "consideration" not so much a recounting of "events" for which historical attestation is notoriously thin, but for what the stories that reference such "events" may say about life in the last third of the first century C.E. among what I call "Jesus Jews." That is the probable context in which the gospels were composed and compiled.

The conventional approach to biblical literature is to view it in some sense as actual history -- an obvious example being the reading of Daniel as Israel's struggle with Babylon (ca. 587-545 BCE) instead as what it is: an apocalyptic take on how Israel-Judah was dealing at the time of its writing with the pogroms of Antiochus Epiphanes (ca. 167-164 B.C.E.).

In the same way, the canonical gospels are too generally taken uncritically as "the story of Jesus" but are, in fact, mostly about the times in which they were written (Mark: 70-72 C.E., Matthew: 75-85 CE Luke: 85-90 CE and John anywhere from 90-120 CE). For example, the whipping boys of the synoptic gospels are termed "scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees." By the time the Gospel according to John was written/edited, they had become simply "the Jews," i.e. the competition for the newer communities organized around the memories and myths of Jesus and his message. One could say, then, that the gospels are the first chapters of church history.

Not many of us who ply the trade of New Testament research are willing to say, as I am, that the first gospel, as such, may be the Gospel according to Thomas -- a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Thomas was among a number of manuscripts found in a cave in northern Eygpt near Nag Hammdi in 1945. It was written in Coptic but is thought by a number of scholars to be a transcription of an earlier Greek version. A number of those sayings occur in some form here and there in the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke). The Thomas collection may be related in that connection to what is known "Q" or "The Source," being a more or less free-floating collection of sayings and teachings attributed to Jesus, which appears in Matthew and Luke.

That Q and Thomas constitute the earliest oral and written traditions of Jesus Judaism is not an unreasonable hypothesis to pursue. The more common hypothesis is that the passion narratives in all four canonical gospels represent the first traditions. No less a monumental figure in New Testament scholarship, the late Raymond Brown, pursued that hypothesis very convincingly, though I am not among those thus convinced.

What follows, then, is founded on the proposition that Q and Thomas and other such saying traditions partially effaced by time and circumstance are what propelled the Jesus movement from its inception to the appearance of "According to Mark" some time soon after 70 C.E. That date, of course, is key to understanding the timing of Mark's appearance.

It is my hypothesis that the destruction of the Temple and the dismantlement of the cultic apparatus of Judaism was the 9/11 of Palestinian culture and had a shocking effect not only on those who followed some form of traditional Judaism but on those in such movements as Jesus Judaism that had aggressed against the Temple and its priesthood much as any break-off group aggresses against that from which it broke off.

Once the aggressed-against was gone for good, Jesus Judaism needed its own cultic apparatus and a story or stories to go with it. No longer would the mostly ethical teachings of a dead street speaker suffice to carry the new movement. The Temple cultus resembled in some ways the Graeco-Roman mystery religions that were very popular well into the first century C.E., suggesting that every religion needs a story and a rite or rites to go with it.

After 70 C.E., neither continuing Judaism on its way to becoming rabbinical-synagogue Judaism nor Jesus Judaism had a cultus or cultic site. And Jesus Judaism had no story, other than the ones it inherited from its parent religion.

Enter Mark with the first set of stories about Jesus, founded almost certainly on lore enhanced by the need to invent a more or less comprehensive story to complement the ones about Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Joshua, David, etc. Thus did a whole new cast of characters begin to appear in roles supporting that of "Jesus of Nazareth" in this new drama: Peter, Andrew, James and John, et al., Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate (two characters in the narrative for whom there is definite but scarce extra-biblical attestation, the other being John the Baptist. Jesus also gets a mention in connection with Pilate). /1

Mark, from which come the gospel readings that book-end Holy Week of Year-B is the briefest of the four canonical gospels with fewer narrative passages about the person of Jesus and his life than Matthew and Luke.

Mark begins with a brief 14-verse passage that has John the Baptist coming out of the wilderness to call Judea to repentance through his water baptism and to herald the coming of one who would baptize them with "the Holy Spirit." Mark says Jesus submitted to John's baptism and was immediately propelled (the Greek is έκβάλλει -- literally "thrown out") into the wilderness from which John had come. There, of course, Jesus is depicted as encountering "Satan" (Σατανας) from the Semitic root s-t-n meaning "to obstruct" or "oppose."

Mark's Passion gospel set the standard for Matthew and Luke, though Brown and others suggest that both of the latter had sources of their own or shared sources beyond Mark's more attenuated outline of "events." At the end of each, however, the event is death: Jesus'. There the resemblance ends, for Matthew, Luke as well as John depict dramatic occurrences that come close to but never succeed in being eye-witness accounts of Jesus' actual resurrection.

A hint as to why that was not possible is provided in the very last verse of the Easter gospel for Year-B (Mark 16:8) -- and of Mark itself -- which depicts the women who had come to the place of temporary burial to anoint the corpse for permanent burial. It is said that they found the tomb open and upon entering it encountered "a young man in a white robe, sitting on the right side" who told them Jesus was not there but had been raised. Their reaction? Mark says: "They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." It is worth pointing out that so abrupt is the actual ending of Mark (at 16:8) that it ends with the all-purpose Koine Greek connective γάρ, which may mean anything from "in truth," "indeed," "then." That γάρ is thought of as a conjunction like "and" has led some commentators to say that the sentence was cut-off in the writing. Such a connective is likely in the Greek to appear after the most important word in the sentence. In 16:8 the most important word obviously is έφοβοuντο, i.e. "they were afraid." We would then read the verse as "They were afraid indeed!"   

Yet, the resurrection is often believed with such breezy alacrity as to make its believers a study in abnormal psychology. More soberly then, perhaps Mark was attempting to convey in the image of the empty tomb the message that one can find signs of life or even life itself in a venue devoted to death, or that dying may be living (see Mark 8: 35).

Writing ca. 116 CE, Tacitus in his "Annals"/2 said Pontius Pilate engineered the execution of Jesus, which is not difficult to believe as the figure of Jesus, especially as depicted by Mark, stood in opposition to so much, e.g. certain Jewish traditions and the malign exercise of imperial power. /3 Mark was the first evangelist to depict Jesus processing into Jerusalem riding on a colt, perhaps a purposeful mockery of Caesar's well-known triumphal processions. Thus did Mark set up Jesus as a martyr to a cause. Why, then, did Mark leave the ending of the story in the hands of those who fled in "terror and amazement?"

Within that question lies the homiletic opportunity for the preacher on Palm Sunday, any time during Holy Week and most certainly on Easter itself, to wit: that the Jesus Judaism movement in the years immediately following the destruction of the Temple and its cultic apparatus was as much in disarray as the other branches of Judaism. The Roman persecution went on, culminating but not ceasing with the taking of Masada ca. 73 CE. It is doubtful that the Roman military much discriminated among the variously organized Jewish groups.

Thus what Mark and the other evangelists depict as happening to Jesus (but not right away to his followers, see Mark 14: 66-72) would have been happening to Jesus Jews at and after the cataclysm of 70 CE.

The so-called "resurrection narrative" of Mark 16: 1-8, as conflicted as it is, is the homiletic basis upon which preachers in 2012 can rally their congregations to fight the good fight while keeping the faith, i.e. to array themselves individually and as communities against useless or harmful religious tradition and intolerance; against the principalities and powers of imperious politics, hierarchical economics and malign social policy; against the making of war for war's sake; against that which robs individual human beings of their innate dignity.

The Good Friday reminder might be that such oppositional stands may result in social opprobrium or, in some nations, arrest and imprisonment, if not outright death. Mark was honest enough not to reiterate the promise of Daniel 12:2 /4 The only reward for emulating the Jesus of Mark's gospel is to have done it.   

/3 Myers, Ched. Binding the Strong Man. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988. 87

/4 The first clear mention of resurrection in the Bible. There it is said: "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." Many scholars believe this refers to those (maybe the troops of Judas Maccabaeus) who, it is said, battled against the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Appendix

Here follows a version of the Passion that may be used in Passion/Palm Sunday liturgies. It is set in the English of 21st-century America.

THE PASSION OF JESUS CALLED "THE CHRIST"

NARRATOR: Here begins a story of the death of Jesus: It was some days after Jesus came to Jerusalem for what turned out to be the last time. He was at a special supper with his friends. He took a piece of bread in his hands and intoned the traditional thanksgiving over it. Then he broke it and gave it to each of those present saying, "This loaf of bread I'm breaking is like my body which will be broken. Whenever you eat the bread on this kind of occasion, think of me." After supper was over, he picked up a cup of wine and said, "The wine in this cup that I am sharing with you is like my blood that will be shed. When you share a cup like this together, think of me." / That same night, he went off by himself. It was then that he was arrested and brought before the Jewish authorities to answer the charge that he had allowed himself to be thought of by some as a god and by others as a king. The charge could not be proved, so they took him to the Roman proconsul, hoping that he would be interested in charging Jesus with trying to take the place of Caesar, who, besides being the actual king, was believed by Rome to be a god. / Meanwhile, one of Jesus' close followers, a Galilean named Simon but called Peter, stayed behind outside of the courtroom where Jesus was being charged. One of the young women servants saw him and said to him:

YOUNG WOMAN: Aren't you one of the followers of that man Jesus?

NARRATOR: Peter, startled, replied:

PETER: I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know him.

NARRATOR: And the woman said;

YOUNG WOMAN: Oh, come on. You certainly do know him. You're one of those who followed him here from Galilee.

PETER: That's not true. I told you that I don't know him. Never saw him before in my life!

NARRATOR: Just then, a rooster crowed, as it was near dawn. When Peter heard it, he remembered that Jesus had told him that he would deny knowing him at least twice before dawn.. Peter broke down and cried, as he realized his cowardice. / Now that it was morning, the Jewish authorities decided it was not too early to bind Jesus over to the Roman court. So off they went to Pilate's office. / When Jesus stood before Pilate, Pilate asked him:

PILATE: So are you the King of the Jews?

NARRATOR: To which Jesus replied:

JESUS: You are saying so by using the words.

NARRATOR: The Jewish authorities then began to lay out before Pilate all the things of which they were accusing Jesus. But Jesus stood mute, refusing to come to his own defense. / This interested Pilate, who said to him:

PILATE: Why do you not answer these charges? They're serious enough. You could be executed, you know.

NARRATOR: Still Jesus remained silent, so much so that Pilate became angry and frustrated and said to his guards

PILATE: Get this rabble rouser out of my sight!

NARRATOR: Whether Pilate's soldiers took that as an order to put Jesus to death is not known. But eventually, Jesus was bound and taken off with a number of other criminals to a site outside the city gates known as "The Place of the Skull," because the remains of others who died after crucifixion there were a frequent and grisly sight. The Roman guards herded their prisoners, including Jesus, up to the place where each was bound, arms stretched out, to a cross-piece of wood which was then stood up and planted in the ground. [The effect was that whoever was hung that way would eventually tire to the degree that his head would drop down on his chest and thus the air supply would be cut off to his lungs. Death came by asphyxiation. It is said that Jesus was nailed rather than bound to the cross, which would have added extreme pain to the slow, torturous death.]  Some of Jesus' detractors mocked him in his suffering, calling out:

DETRACTOR: Hey, you up there. You trust God so much, why don't you have him come and save you now? Why don't you just jump right down off that cross right now?

NARRATOR: The Roman guards had started the crucifixions of the day around noon. By three o'clock, Jesus began to die. At one point, some heard him cry out:

JESUS: AY lee, AY lee; lama sob ack THON ee,

NARRATOR: Which for those who understood Aramaic, meant, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?" / One of those standing around decided to make a joke, thinking that Jesus had asked for a drink of water. So he filled a sponge with vinegar, put it on the end of a stick and held it up to Jesus' mouth, saying:

BYSTANDER: Wait and see. Maybe Elijah will come and take him down.

NARRATOR: [People in that time and place believed that the dead prophet Elijah would come at the end of time to herald salvation.] / At just about that time, Jesus heaved his last breath and died.

(After a time of silence, the people may be seated for the homily.)