One of the most interesting Christs I've encountered is
to be found in an exploratory book, "Rabbi Jesus", but Bruce Chilton. In
producing his book, Chilton was able to read original sources in Aramaic, the
common language of the Jewish people of the first century, and the language
Jesus would have spoken. The following is what I wrote after I finished
the book.
Ed
Who was Christ? There are many versions, many attempts to find the real
person underlying the Biblical myth. One of the most interesting I’ve come
across is contained in the book "Rabbi Jesus" by Bruce Chilton, a minister and
Professor of religion at Bard College. The book was published by Doubleday in
2000.
The Jesus Chilton presents us with was anything but the "gentle Jesus meek
and mild" we learned about in Sunday School. Chilton portrays him as a radical
activist, visionary and magician whose aim was the reformation of Judaism and
the fulfillment of the Zecharian prophesy of the coming of God: "The Lord will
be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name
the only name." (Zechariah, 14:9, NIV)
The world in which Chilton’s Jesus lived and worked was that of Judaism in
the thrall of Rome. It was a dark, malevolent world in which thieves and
murderers haunted the countryside through which people passed on their journeys,
and in which a powerful but sinister priesthood controlled major urban centres
under the watchful eye of Roman garrisons. It was traditional, irrational, and
steeped in magic and necromancy.
The Jesus of that world was one of the greatest of the magicians, able to
calm storms at sea, make cripples walk, and raise those who were supposedly
dead. It was these attributes which attracted the common mob to him. Yet he was
also a very learned man, a religious visionary in the full sense, who attracted
a following among well-to-do thinkers and intellectuals with whom he consorted
over an abundance of wine.
Though Jesus was born with formidable intellectual and visionary powers,
his raw talent was transformed into something huge and powerful by a five to six
year apprenticeship to another very great rabbi, John the Baptist. Chilton
presents John the Baptist as a highly disciplined visionary, a guru in the true
sense, who lived in the wilderness along the River Jordan, guiding people to
true understandings of Yahweh through preaching and immersion in the Jordan’s
waters. He was a thorn in the flesh of the establishment, and young people,
dissatisfied with the decadent state of Judaic practice and the priesthood’s
subservience to Rome, flocked to him. Jesus was among them, and became his
greatest disciple.
Many of John’s followers came from wealthy families. Jesus did not. He was
a poor Galilean, a mamzer of doubtful parentage, something of an
outcast among his own people. Mary, or Miriam in the Aramaic original, was his
mother but Jesus was conceived by her before she was married. Joseph was
probably his father, but this is not certain. Some held that the father may have
been a Roman soldier. Nobody at the time attributed his parentage to God, as
Christians did considerably later in forming and fortifying their own religion.
It is partly his somewhat unacceptable social status, but very largely his
perceptions of corruption in the holy of holies, the Temple itself, that drew
Jesus to John the Baptist, who saw him as an especially apt pupil. Upon John’s
execution, his disciples scattered and Jesus began his own career as a rabbi and
chasidim. During the next decade, he became a powerful force, threatening not
only the orthodoxy of the Temple, but the authority of Rome itself. His
crucifixion was engineered by Caiaphas, the High Priest, with permission from
Pilate, the Roman Governor, and support from Herod Antipas, king of Galilee.
So much for the story itself. Is it credible? Some of Chilton has to be
taken on faith. At times he seems to argue that "it must have been so" without
presenting plausible support. However, he has read extensively in ancient
languages, including Aramaic, and he does provide a large number of references.
Many of the things he says put him at odds with accepted Christian
doctrine. Here are some of them:
• While he does not go out of his way to deny the divinity of Christ’s birth, he very strongly suggests that Mary’s impregnation was a totally human thing, and a very commonplace thing at that.
• In conventional Christianity, John the Baptist is presented as preparing the way for Jesus and as baptizing him, but not really playing much of a role beyond that. In Chilton’s view, Christ’s relationship with John the Baptist is pivotal. Jesus could not have been what he was if he had not spent some five or six years in the wilderness as John’s apprentice.• As well, Chilton’s view of the purpose of baptism is very different from that of conventional Christianity. He appears to argue that, among the ancient Jews, the function of baptism was not to "wash away sins" but to correct one’s moral compass and point one more directly toward Yahweh. One could be baptized as many times as was needed to achieve a correct course.• The Eucharist is also explained quite differently. Jews at the time had to sacrifice living things at the Temple. To do so, they had to purchase animals whose body and blood comprised the sacrifice. It would seem that hundreds of animals were slaughtered daily. The poor could purchase only a bird or two, whereas the rich could afford animals as large as oxen. According to Chilton, Jesus did not agree that the Temple, where priests held a monopoly on the sale of sacrificial animals, was the only place at which sacrifices could be made. They could be made anywhere and did not necessarily require the killing of something living. Bread could serve as the body and wine could serve as the blood.• In the Gospels, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, his betrayal, his appearance before Pilate, his long walk along the Via Delorosa carrying the cross, and his crucifixion are presented in highly dramatic and even grand operatic form. Chilton suggests it did not happen this way. Christ was simply captured, held and viciously beaten, and then, already comatose, led out of town surreptitiously to Golgotha and crucified. Caiaphas engineered it. Pilate had very little to do with it other than permit it to happen. Christ never appeared before him.• While Chilton does not deny the possibility of the bodily resurrection of Christ, he leaves you guessing on the matter. Jesus was a powerful magician, able to plant huge illusions in peoples’ minds. That they encountered his image after his death is probable, but whether it was really him or something that was projected out of their own longing for their departed master cannot be known. To repeat a point made earlier, Christ and his followers lived in a pre-scientific, irrational world in which things we now deem impossible may have been possible as vision, projection or even reality. I have personally caught glimpses of this kind of world in my work with Indian people in northern Canada: shamen cured people of fatal illnesses that modern medicine could do nothing about; spectral images appeared above graveyards in times of crisis; and the dead were asked to advise the living on matters crucial to a community. That it makes no sense to us does not mean that it makes no sense.
I like the book, and intend to reread parts I did not understand very well.
What it does most effectively is put Jesus squarely into his Jewish context. He
worked within Judaism as it existed at the time. He was gregarious, animated,
social, charismatic and powerful, and not sweet, kind and gentle as Christians
have often depicted him. He hated the corruption of religion, and saw the
potential of God’s love in everyone. While he is the foundation of Christianity,
he did not found it. That accomplishment belongs to St. Paul and others who
metamorphosed a relatively simple story into something so grandiose that Jesus
himself would probably not have recognized it.
----- Original Message -----
From: "mcandreb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2003 6:58 AM
Subject: [Futurework] FWD: Pick Your Favorite Jesus
> human affairs.
>
> Happy Holidays(for those who have jobs)
> Brian
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Published on Friday, December 26, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
> Pick Your Favorite Jesus
> by Ira Chernus
>
> Who was this fellow Jesus, born, so they say, on December 25th?
> Christians have been disagreeing about it for nearly two thousand years.
> Here are just a few of the leading contenders:
>
> A supernatural son of God in human form, offering immortality to
> everyone.
>
> A truly human being filled with divinity, sent by God to pay off our
> debt of sin.
>
> A wise teacher who never claimed to be divine, but was deified by his
> followers.
>
> The head of a spiritual army committed to destroying every evildoer.
>
> History's greatest example of perfect love for others.
>
> The first nonviolent revolutionary, teaching us how to use love as a
> political tool to overthrow the system.
>
> Christians even disagree about Jesus' skin color. They have depicted him
> in every color imaginable (though it's a safe bet he was as brown as
> your average Palestinian or Oriental Jew).
>
> Jesus is the great Rorschach inkblot of Western civilization. Look at
> him and tell me what you see. Your answer won't tell me any objective
> truth about who Jesus really was. It will tell me a lot about who you
> are.
>
> It's no different in any other religion. Every religion is really a big
> debating society, an endless struggle to control the meaning of crucial
> symbols.
>
> But the Christian debate about Jesus has special importance for all of
> us here in the United States, even if we are not Christian. The
> Christians have tremendous influence in our political life. Across the
> political spectrum, they consult their own Jesus when they form their
> political views. How could they not? A Christian's Jesus is the
> embodiment of his or her deepest values.
>
> It gets more complicated when they publicly invoke their various Jesuses
> to justify their political positions. When they argue that our
> government should do this or that because Jesus was this or that, they
> breach the wall between church and state. To keep that wall high and
> strong, we should base our political arguments only on logic, not on our
> favorite religious images.
>
> When Jesus does enter the political arena, the result may not be so bad,
> if you are a progressive. Much of Christian politics is liberal or even
> leftist. Before the Iraq war, most Christian groups said very publicly
> that their Jesus would not send troops to attack Iraq. Some of them said
> that their Jesus taught them war is never the answer, no matter how
> dangerous the problem. Of course, some Christians think Jesus is smiling
> down on the U.S. troops who use guns to bring freedom to Iraq.
>
> No matter what positions Christians take, though, bringing Jesus into
> the public arena has the same effect: it makes him an important public
> figure for all of us. Whether or not we are Christian, our lives are
> directly influenced by the prevailing image of Jesus. We all have a
> stake in who Jesus is today. So we all have the right to get involved in
> the debate. Perhaps we even have the obligation. It's part of being a
> good citizen. Good citizens get involved in every debate that affects
> communal life. The debate about Jesus is a big one.
>
> If you haven't entered this arena yet, it's high time that you pick your
> favorite Jesus. Then get out there and start lobbying for him.
>
> As every good lobbyist knows, the first step is to get your facts
> straight. Everyone can invent their own Jesus because there are no
> definite facts about his life. Even expert historians of religion
> ultimately shape the data to fit their preferences. But some versions of
> Jesus are more plausible than others. So get yourself well educated
> about the facts that support your favorite Jesus. Then go out and
> campaign for him.
>
> You can do the same for the Maccabees, the heroes of the war
> commemorated in the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Jews have a big debate
> going about them, too. Some say they were the first Zionist soldiers,
> fighting to secure a Jewish homeland against anti-semites. One Jew I
> know recently praised them because they were right-wing extremists,
> war-mongers who supported an uncompromising violent nationalism. But
> another praised them as an indigenous band of committed and idealistic
> freedom fighters who defeated a mighty and oppressive empire.
>
> Were the Maccabees moderate nationalists, ultra-right religious zealots,
> or radical freedom fighters akin to today's Palestinians? You can take
> your pick. And you should. The story of Hanukkah always gets tangled up
> with people's views of Israel and the Middle East conflict, which costs
> U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars every year and plenty of worry about
> where our troops might take their guns next. So even if you aren't
> Jewish, you have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to lobby for
> your favorite Maccabees too.
>
> I bet your particular Jesus and your particular Maccabees would get
> along together just fine. Religion just seems to work that way.
>
> Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of
> Colorado at Boulder. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> ###
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