Myths Christians tell themselves: In Christianity, humanity was not disposable ... In this way, the Christian God was radically different

 

Luke, the Greek

On the Nativity and Greek Myths

Andrew Fowler

 

Here was not only a god, but the God who loved humanity, rather than one who toyed with them as pawns like the Greek gods and goddesses. In Christianity, humanity was not disposable; and Jesus died for creation, as opposed to the people dying to please the gods. In this way, the Christian God was radically different.

 

If only it were so simple.

 

As myths telling tales of disposable humanity go, the reality has been that since the time of Christ a staggering number of human beings, roughly 50 billion, have died on planet Earth.

 

What has been the purpose of all those lives and of all those deaths? Have those been radically different in comparison with the more than 50 billion who lived and died before Jesus ever arrived on the scene?

 

One can argue convincingly that our lives have been better on balance, but hundreds of millions have come and gone in the Christian era itself who have suffered just as miserably as those who had come and gone before. And in the world right now the leading cause of death is abortion, some 70 million every year. None of them will ever be impressed by our home decor, and we will be disposed of as surely as they have been, but not soon enough for our crimes.

 

 

People recoil from reality and tell themselves tales to explain it and cope with it. Christians have been no exception, and have done the very same thing with their own religion. They have shunned the real content of their own scriptures which tell a different tale from the one encapsulated by the simple promise of everlasting life in John 3:16.

That was the tale of the good news for the few and the bad news for the many.

 

Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. ... Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. ... Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ... There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.

 

-- Luke 13:3,5,24,28

 

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

 

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

 

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. 

 

-- Luke 17:26ff.

 

This exclusive tale failed, and the world went on living and dying as before.

 

To cope with the failure, the Christians themselves replaced the way of the few with the inclusive way for the many which we now hear everywhere at Christmas since the first century. The former was falsified by events, but the latter is unfalsifiable because it is by definition beyond our ken. Some die and go to heaven. Some die and go to hell. It cannot be proven, but it also cannot be disproven. It is therefore the best of myths. It is durable. It helps people cope with the ugly facts of life and death. It gives hope to one third of the world's population, 2.38 billion people, the world's largest and most widespread religion, or so Artificial Intelligence tells me.

 

And if somehow I am wrong and this tale is in fact found to be falsifiable in some way some day, I am confident we will replace it again, because we are nothing if not myth-makers. We are not radically different, even if our God is. We are deceitful above all things.

 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-- John 3:16

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 

 

-- Galatians 2:20

 

 

Jesus' trial: Why Luke omits "Ye shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven"

 

Luke omits Jesus' prediction at his trial that his Jewish judges would see the Son of Man coming in the clouds. Luke also omits that they would see him seated at the right hand.

 

These predictions are made at Jesus' trial as found in Mark and in Matthew but not in Luke:

 

And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.  

-- Mark 14:62

 

Jesus said to him, "You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on [ἀπ᾽ ἄρτι] you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven." 

-- Matthew 26:64

 

But from now on [ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν] the Son of man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.

-- Luke 22:69

 

Of course, some commentators get around the omissions by positing that Luke simply used a different, independent source from Mark and Matthew at this point, but that simply leaves us with two competing versions of what Jesus said.

Luke, however, is not unaware of the main idea and has Jesus say it elsewhere, and therefore it is not necessary to posit a different source but that he has simply made a different editorial decision about where and when to put it. To Luke it doesn't belong at the trial.

Like Mark 13:26 and Matthew 24:30, who thus have the conception uttered twice by Jesus, Luke reserves it to his version of the Little Apocalypse about the end of the world, where "they" refers to humanity in general:

 

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  

-- Luke 21:27

 

This makes more sense to Luke, and removes what looks like a difficulty for him if Matthew and Mark are insisting what they appear to be insisting.

 

For Luke the kingdom is already here because Jesus is present and working (Luke 17:20f.), but it will never really be "at hand" as it is in Matthew (3:2; 4:17; 10:7) and Mark (1:15) until a little later, when the trees shoot forth in the summer (Luke 21:30f.).  For Luke's apocalyptic Jesus, the appearance of such leaves is analogous to the emergence of the signs of the end of the world in sun, moon, and stars: chaos on land and sea and the powers of heaven rocked (Luke 21:25f.).

 

In Luke's hands Jesus now states perfunctorily at his trial that the Son of Man will sit at God's right hand, dropping the coming on the clouds and the prediction that his Jewish judges will see that or the enthronement. For good reason. Presumably he knows that Annas and Caiaphas died in the 40s and lived to see nothing, and Luke as he is writing has not witnessed the fulfillment of such predictions either.

 

It is little appreciated how Luke's editorial activity in the trial scene is connected to his larger theological project.

 

It is designed to agree with Luke's understanding of Jesus exalted at God's right hand in Acts, continuing his presence on earth by directing the missionary activities of the church through the Spirit, especially those of Paul among the Gentiles. 

 

Jesus' Jewish judges are now completely beside the point. God has bypassed them, just has Paul and Barnabas shook off the dust from their own feet against the Jews at Pisidian Antioch and turned to the Gentiles instead (Acts 13).

 

For Luke, the judgment of the Jews is postponed temporarily until the still imminent but delayed end of the world, when Jesus will then bring vengeance upon Judea (Luke 21:22, 31).

 

God's focus is turning elsewhere in the meantime. Jesus' objective is no longer his immediate return for the judgment of Israel, but rather a  near-term future of reigning at the right hand of power in order that the whole world might repent and be saved (Acts 2:39; John 3:17; Romans 4:16; 16:26; I Corinthians 9:22; I Timothy 2:4; Titus 2:11; II Peter 3:9).

 

Luke clearly thinks Mark and Matthew have the trial details wrong, just as they have wrong the reason for Jesus' trial (Jesus' call to discipleship required radical poverty, a direct threat to the revenue of the Jewish temple, and so to the Roman treasury). Jesus is no longer returning immediately to turn the tables on his Jewish judges, to become the judge instead of the judged. He is remaining at God's right hand to do something else: extend God's offer of mercy to all of mankind.

 

Consequently the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven for Luke is now a matter of a future second coming, conforming to a more or less structured apocalyptic narrative, unfolding at an undetermined but still imminent point in the near future, in agreement with the apocalyptic parallel narratives of both Mark and Matthew.

 

And then (καὶ τότε) shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

-- Luke 21:27

 

And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 

-- Mark 13:26

 

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 

-- Matthew 24:30

 

The imminently coming eschatological Son of Man without signs still front and center in Jesus' mind at his trial according to Mark and Matthew has been relegated to a future second coming narrative of his followers creation.

 

It is easier to explain the development of the Little Apocalypses of the gospels as derivative from an original, simple, and straightforward eschatological belief than it is the other way around. The former was developed in an elaborate manner to explain the failure of the latter.   

 

Those narratives notably all have Jesus condescend to address an apocalyptic timetable which was anathema to the original eschatological message, supplying a second coming replete with signs in the heavens above and the earth below which indicate that the ensuing end of the world can indeed be said to be observable to a certain extent, despite the fact that Jesus had in no uncertain terms eschewed any such observable signs, most notably in Mark 8:12:

 

 There shall no sign be given unto this generation.

 

Luke is not unaware of this tradition, either:

 

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you [plural Pharisees].

-- Luke 17:20f.

 

The kingdom was already there among them, in the person of Jesus, and they had already missed it. It did not need Jesus to die and rise to be present. There would be no apocalyptic signs. It had already come as a surprise without them. Repent and follow him or perish!

 

But as both Luke and Matthew hedge Mark on Jesus' trial statements (Matthew followed by Luke already extenuate by adding "from now on", see above), they both hedge Mark about the signs as well, supplementing Mark 8:12 in their parallels with "no sign but the sign of the prophet Jonah" who was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, about whom Mark knows . . .  nothing (Matthew 12:39; 16:4; Luke 11:29f.).

It is clear what is going on here.

 

Matthew and Luke reinterpret what is ostensibly the earliest tradition from the point of view of the resurrection wherever they can, freely tampering, dare we say it, with the word of God (II Corinthians 4:2) just as much as Mark had done (for example, by making Jesus' predict his rising on the third day in Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; 14:28). They are, all of them, to one degree or another, with one degree of success or another, the new scribes of the kingdom of heaven (conveniently provided for by the kingdom-as-net story in Matthew 13:52 to justify their activity) who bring out of their treasure things new and old, discarding the bad and keeping the good.

The death of Jesus required as much. This bad thing that happened to Jesus had to be explained. They thought he would bring the kingdom and he did not.

 

In the case of the NT apocalyptic narratives, which portray Jesus willingly and volubly engaging in talk of signs of the end of the world with the disciples,  Jesus' future return as the Son of Man is now predicated on the gospel first being published among all the nations (Mark 13:10), until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:24), so that all nations hear and come to hate the elect, original disciples (Matthew 24:9, 14). At which point all the tribes of the earth shall mourn when they see the Son of Man return in the clouds of heaven because judgment is finally nigh. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations while there is still time (Matthew 28:19f.).

 

In this the gospels overwhelmingly evidence the new point of view of the church, especially championed by Luke in Acts, which ends with Paul's arrival in Rome, the center of the world (The epistles still teem with apocalyptic expectation because with that achievement, it's mission accomplished).

Gone is the high dudgeon of the Jesus who said only an "evil generation" seeks after a sign (Matthew 12:39; Matthew 16:4; Luke 11:29).

 

All of it flies in the face of Jesus' command to go not into the way of the Gentiles (Matthew 10:5f.), and of a host of other awkward eruptions of the original, simple eschatology in the halfway houses of the evangelists:

 

that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Matthew 15:24),

 

that his followers would judge the twelve tribes of Israel, not Gentiles (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30),

 

that those followers will not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come (Matthew 10:23),

 

that the kingdom is at hand (Matthew 3:2; Matthew 4:17; Matthew 10:7; Matthew 26:18, 45; Mark 1:15; Luke 10:9, 11), 

 

that the kingdom is already present in exorcisms (Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:20),

 

that the Son of Man would come in his kingdom before the deaths of some of the disciples (Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27; John 21:23),

 

that the kingdom is already in their midst but is unobserved (Luke 17:20-21),

 

and that there was a general buzz of expectation around Jesus that the kingdom was coming immediately in Jerusalem for some reason (Luke 19:11), an expectation most especially embraced by Jesus' own disciples even until the very last when Jesus ascended into heaven (Acts 1:6).

 

But the resurrection? They were supposedly blind to the very idea of it to the end and beyond. The resurrection "they yet believed not . . ." (Luke 24:41)! But a kingdom restored to Israel, that they most certainly did believe to the end and beyond, but wrongly!

 

Where oh where did they get that idea, if not from Jesus? The historical Jesus preached the imminently coming kingdom, an idea they did have, not the resurrection, an idea they did not.

 

The apocalyptic narratives are a mixture of the complicated, rationalized new and the simple, enthusiastic old. They contain at the same time 1) a thought out timetable with signs for the end of the world which was anathema to Jesus and 2) a memory of the unpredictable in-breaking of the kingdom which has no timetable, the message he actually preached.

 

It was the latter which otherwise and everywhere occasioned all this urgency and expectation swirling about Jesus in the first place.

 

His simple conception of the unpredictable end of the world, without apocalyptic adornment, is best remembered only by Matthew:

 

Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.  He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

 

-- Matthew 13:36ff.

 

Mark and Matthew tell us that Jesus believed this even to his fateful end:

 

"Ye shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven".

LOL, Christianity Today features female contributor who simply ignores the slave language of the New Testament, saying she's no servant

 Human Beings Are Stewards, Not Slaves to God

I’m not merely an inglorious servant to the divine . . .. 

 

She also ignores The Fall in the Christian origin story, which is her topic, and Eve's role in it.

 

What a shock, right?

None is able to serve two lords, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one, and despise the other; ye are not able to serve God and Mammon.

 

-- Matthew 6:24

So you too, when you do all the things which were commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'

 

-- Luke 17:10

 

Truly, truly I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.

 

-- John 13:16

 

No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

 

-- John 15:15

 

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.

-- Galatians 1:10

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, having been set apart for the gospel of God.

-- Romans 1:1

For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave, is the Lord's freed person; likewise the one who was called as free, is Christ's slave.

-- I Corinthians 7:22

For though I am free from all people, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may gain more. 

 

-- I Corinthians 9:19

 

. . . just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow slave, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf.

 

-- Colossians 1:7

Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow slave in the Lord, will make known to you all my affairs.

-- Colossians 4:7

Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ . . ..

-- Titus 1:1

James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are in the Dispersion: Greetings.

 -- James 1:1

Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:

-- Jude 1:1

And a white robe was given to each of them; and it was told to them that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

-- Revelation 6:11

And they sang the song of Moses, the slave of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying . . ..

-- Revelation 15:3

And a voice came from the throne, saying, 'Give praise to our God, all you His slaves, you who fear Him, the small and the great.'

-- Revelation 19:5

Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, 'Do not do that! I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers who have the witness of Jesus. Worship God! For the witness of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.'

-- Revelation 19:10

I, John, am the one who was hearing and seeing these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, 'Do not do that! I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers the prophets and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!'

-- Revelation 22:8f.

The descending and ascending Divine Logos of John 1 is but one iota and yet a whole world away from Divine Loigos (mass death)

λοιγός

And let no murderous havoc come upon the realm to ravage it.
(μηδέ τις ἀνδροκμὴς λοιγὸς ἐπελθέτω τάνδε πόλιν δαΐζων) -- Aeschylus, Suppliant Women, 678-679 (from the chorus' prayer for Argos)

While both Aeschylus and Sophocles also additionally specifically attribute such ruination to Ares, god of war, the New Testament doesn't know the actual term. But Luke especially has the idea come out of Jesus' own mouth.

that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechari'ah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be required of this generation.
(... ναί λέγω ὑμῖν ἐκζητηθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς γενεᾶς ταύτης) -- Luke 11:50f.

I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.
(οὐχί λέγω ὑμῖν ἀλλ᾽ ἐὰν μὴ μετανοῆτε πάντες ὁμοίως ἀπολεῖσθε) -- Luke 13:3

I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.
(οὐχί λέγω ὑμῖν ἀλλ᾽ ἐὰν μὴ μετανοῆτε πάντες ὡσαύτως ἀπολεῖσθε) -- Luke 13:5

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
(... καὶ ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμὸς καὶ ἀπώλεσεν ἅπαντας) -- Luke 17:26f.

You don't go to the kingdom, the kingdom comes to you

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. -- Matthew 16:27f.

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. 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. -- Mark 8:38f.

And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them in the way. And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest. -- Mark 11:8ff.

And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. -- Luke 19:37f.

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: -- Luke 17:20

For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.  -- Luke 22:18

And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just: (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. -- Luke 23:50f.

Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. -- Mark 15:43

And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. -- Luke 11:2

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. -- Matthew 6:9f.

The fate of the damned: Taken where, Lord? Wherever the corpse is, there the eagles will be gathered together

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

-- Matthew 24:27f.

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.

-- Luke 17:33ff.

Perhaps Jesus' worst legacy is the trail of "heroic" but really mentally ill "self-sacrificial" suicides he encouraged, starting with Paul

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. -- Matthew 10:39

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. -- Matthew 16:25

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. -- Mark 8:35

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. -- Luke 9:24

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. -- Luke 17:33

He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. -- John 12:25 (!)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. -- Philippians 1:21

In Matthew the useless servant is cut off, in Luke to be such is almost a badge of honor

And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. -- Matthew 25:30

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. -- Luke 17:10

Big thinker Michael Novak, 83, has passed away after a battle with cancer

Michael Novak was an important Roman Catholic advocate for not just the compatibility of free market capitalism with Christianity, but for the idea that free market capitalism actually advanced the aims of Christianity, particularly the alleviation of poverty.

This made Novak an odd duck more among Catholics than among Protestants because Catholics had more generally posed as prophets like Jesus, ridiculing wealth, hoping they could inspire voluntary redistribution of it, whereas Protestants thought human beings should prove God's blessing by becoming, if not wealthy, at least self-sustaining members of society. Their shared error from the point of view of Jesus, however, is their mutual belief in human action.

I remember hearing Novak speak at the University of Colorado in Boulder in the days surrounding the release of his 1982 book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, his most influential work. Already then it seemed to me he misunderstood the aims of Jesus, if not the aims of Jesus' heirs. As recently as 2014 he misunderstood them still, not appreciating that the Carpenter's Son turned his back on small business capitalism by giving up his job, which was in keeping with his requirement that his followers do the same, in the belief that God was about to intervene decisively in Jewish history. Jewish history, not world history.

Like many contemporary self-styled conservatives, Novak had formerly been a leftist. I maintain that his interpretation of Jesus shows that he remained a leftist, the essence of which is to introduce utopia through human action. The phenomenon is not uniquely left, however, but human, a form of rebellion. Christians, like the Pharisees before them, made the same mistake, believing that they could extend the kingdom of God among men by acting as God's agents through the democratization of holiness through the universal availability of his Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ.

Both misunderstood the liminal setting for the ideas of Jesus, who above all else eschewed human action, whether by the Tea Party of his time, the Zealots, or by the liberals of his time, the Pharisees, who sought to extend the particular holiness of the Temple's priestly class to all the people through the synagogue system. Through the genius of the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus, Christianity ended up making Pharisaism safe for the whole world, minus the food restrictions and the mutilation.

As the eschatological prophet of promise, however, Jesus did not believe that the eternal verities would or could come by such human action, but only by divine action, divine intervention. This implied judgment, the two sides of which were impending salvation and imminent doom. Jesus was fundamentally a pessimistic thinker from the human point of view who did not believe that most of his contemporaries would be "saved" in this advent of judgment.

There was only one way to escape, and that involved radical repentance, of which few were capable.

No man, he said, can be my disciple who does not say goodbye to everything that he owns.

In the final analysis, every individual says goodbye to everything that he owns, as Michael Novak has just done. The tragedy of human life is that most of us simply spend our lives imagining that we won't have to.

"Likewise as it was in the days of Lot--they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built . . .."

Jesus was no more comprehensible in his time than Noah was in his

From a disciple of NT Wright, here:

  The real Jesus must have been ... comprehensible. Jesus was a first-century Jew from Galilee, and so we should expect his words and deeds to fit within this historical and geographical context. His message must have been understandable and on some level plausible to first-century Jews in order to have gained a hearing among them. This is why it’s so hard to see Jesus as a pagan myth or a Cynic philosopher; these portraits simply don’t make sense in Jesus’s Jewish context.

On the contrary, Jesus' frame of reference came entirely from the last episode of worldwide judgment in Jewish mythology.

 

Did Noah's warning of impending doom "make sense in Noah's 'Jewish' context"? No. Did he "gain a hearing among" his peers? No, they all perished. And with what social convention did Noah comply in building and entering the ark? None. He was by all accounts crazy.

As it was in the days of Noah . . ..

-- Luke 17:26

They don't call him NT Wrong for nothing.

Luke's Jesus says that in a real sense God's kingdom has already come like a thief in the night

The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.

-- Luke 17:20f.

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The individualistic interpretation which says "within you", that is inside of the individual in some mystical sense, instead of "in your midst" is excluded by the plural. Luke has Jesus claiming that the kingdom is present wherever Jesus happens to be at the moment.

Jesus' "Son Of Man" Comes To Wipe Out The World As In The Days Of Noah, Not Save It

As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man.

-- Matthew 24:37ff.

As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

-- Luke 17:26f.

The Rapture of the Unjust

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat [in his field], and went his way. ... Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

 

-- Matthew 13:25, 30

The tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

 

-- Matthew 13:38ff.

So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

 

-- Matthew 13:49f.

And [they] knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

 

-- Matthew 24:39ff.

 

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

 

-- Luke 17:34ff.

The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 

-- Matthew 24: 50f.

Pick Your Poison

Sunday's sermon was based on 2 Corinthians 12:1 ff., but what caught my attention was the Gospel appointed for the day, from Mark 6:1 ff., where Jesus sends out the disciples "by two and two," commanding them to take "nothing for their journey, save a staff only" and to "be shod with sandals."

The parallel in Matthew 10 contradicts these details, where Jesus says "provide . . . neither shoes, nor yet staves . . ." (vss.9-10), whereas Luke fails to mention the staves altogether, but agrees with Matthew about the footwear (10:4).

Neither Mark nor Luke represent the episode in the explicit eschatological terms which thoroughly infuse Matthew's parallel account. Indeed, Matthew transfers much of the eschatological imagery and language which Mark reserves for the yet somewhat distant time of his "little apocalypse" in Mark 13 into a much earlier period of the ministry of Jesus. In Matthew 10:23 Jesus says, "For verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." This latter is the startling saying which so preoccupied the imagination of Albert Schweitzer's Quest of the Historical Jesus. As such these differences are a reminder of how the author of Matthew is at pains to correct the record of Mark. Luke also does this in his own way and at a later date, and openly states it as his aim in providing his own orderly and accurate account, the existence of other similar declarations of the gospel (presumably Mark and Matthew) notwithstanding (Luke 1:1 ff.). The Synoptics thus represent a stream of tradition worked and reworked because of perceived but unstated deficiencies, the fact of which underscores the importance of the work of redaction criticism and of the need to let the individual compositions speak for themselves and be understood on their own terms as much as is possible.

Every critic will have his favorite problem texts from the Bible. One of mine is from 2 Peter 2:6-8 where the reader is reminded about righteous Lot, who "vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds" in Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus is made to recount this story of Lot's escape from God's judgment on those cities in Luke 17:28 ff. But neither author seems to be in the least bothered by the seamy conclusion of the story in Genesis 19 whereby "both the daughters of Lot" were "with child by their father" (vs. 36). Having lost their husbands (!) to the fire from heaven and being unable to find new ones in their mountain hideaway, they got their father senseless drunk (on successive evenings, at least) to get children by him without his knowledge. The apples don't fall far from the pillar of salt, so to speak. What a family.

And never mind the internal problems with the story in Genesis 19. Are the daughters virgins (vs. 8) even though they have husbands (vs. 14)? Or has some considerable but unstated period of time intervened? Lot at length finds himself in difficult straights, barricaded in his house, but does a righteous man offer to throw his own flesh and blood to a mob of rapists in the street to protect the messengers of God within? It's as if none of this is known, or matters, to the authors of 2 Peter and Luke.

Another wonder is the famous example from Titus 1:12 f., which approvingly quotes the ancient maxim "The Cretans are alway liars." If you need a proof text for stereotyping an ethnic group, there you have it. Some say such reputations were justly deserved, however politically incorrect it may be today to say so openly. But it is hard to imagine the Paul of the Epistle to the Romans saying such a thing: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (12:18).

Some problems are more serious than others, for example, the difficulty with identifying Cyrenius the governor of Syria from Luke 2:1 f. It bears repeating, however, that such problems are not unique to the Bible. Tacitus' understanding of the Jews in his Histories is riddled with mistakes, but we don't give up in despair of learning from him about matters nearer to Rome because of it. It should more often be considered that the weaknesses we discover on the page are more nearly a reflection of our own, and tell us more about the human condition than we care to admit, the theme of the sermon, had I been paying better attention.