Clueless Rod Dreher: If young people demand a sign, by golly Christians should give it to them (buy my new book all about it!)

 

 The number of ex-Christians continues to grow, especially among the young, but there has been a significant and unexpected change. Atheism is mostly dead among the young — but they aren’t coming back to Christianity. They are going to various forms of the occult, as well as taking up using psychedelic drugs.

Why? Because they are desperate to have an experience of transcendence, of mysticism. They need to have an experience that tells them that there is more to life than mere materialism. As concerned as we should be about this development, it also offers us Christians an opportunity. It will continue to be hard — harder than ever, maybe — to convert people by using reason. But [we can make inroads] if we talk about the miracles of Padre Pio and others, if we talk about approved Marian apparitions, if we talk about the reality of spiritual warfare in the stories of people like the late exorcist Gabriele Amorth, and Father Carlos Martins, the popular American exorcist whose podcast The Exorcist Files is not only entertaining, but has lots of strong practical advice. 

-- The shameless grifter, quoted here

 

And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. ... 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.

-- Mark 8:11-12, 38      

An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it ...

-- Matthew 12:39

A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it ...

-- Matthew 16:4

This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it ...

-- Luke 11:29

 

Eschatological prophets don't leave gospels behind

 

p52, a 2nd century fragment of John from a codex

Jesus trying to keep his miracles quiet is in the news, by Father John Perricone, Ph.D., who alas in "Is Christ a Magician?" can't even get Matthew 16:4 right:

But, to our more serious question above. We should preface these words by God’s: “It is a wicked and perverse generation that asks for signs and wonders” (Matthew 16:4). 

The verse says nothing about wonders, which is a technical term most familiar to us from the Book of Acts, but also from the little apocalypses found in the gospels. The verse in question goes like this:

A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.

The father is right that we observe a Jesus who does occasionally try to keep his miracles quiet. They are "often accompanied by a stern admonition to tell no one". The thing is, not all the time. And the Christian gospels are replete with them nevertheless. 

Mark's Jesus is even more emphatic about this than is Matthew's. Mark's Jesus was unequivocally against signs of any kind, not even the sign of the prophet Jonah, and not just to the Pharisees, but to his entire evil generation.

It's a downright odd thing for someone to say who is supposedly leaving a trail of them in his wake in exorcisms, healings, and nature miracles. The gospels proclaim a miracle worker who wanted the miracles kept quiet? This is akin to the problem known as the Messianic Secret. "I'm the Messiah, but don't tell anyone".

The eschatological context of this sign business is preserved by Mark, although at a distance, as it is by Matthew in like manner in his doublet of the saying (Matthew 16:1ff., 27):

And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign [σημεῖον] from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. ... 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.

-- Mark 8:11f., 38 (cf. Matthew 12:38f.; Matthew 16:1ff., 27; Luke 11:16, 29f.).

The emphasis of the eschatological Jesus is on his message of repentance, not on his deeds.

Vincent Taylor recognized long ago that the eschatological Mark 8:38 was quite out of place where it is.

A lot of things seem loosely connected together in Mark, not just this. Just read the form critics.

In Mark's unskilled hands, signs likewise aren't yet quite exactly the same thing as miracles either. Miracle in Mark is instead typically referred to, when it is referred to at all, as the palpable expression of divine authority [ἐξουσία] (Mark 1:27; 2:10; 3:15; 6:7), or of divine power [δύναμις] (Mark 5:30; 6:2, 5, 14; 9:39).

And from the start, Mark presents Jesus as more than willing to demonstrate to the Scribes his divine authority to forgive sins by performing a miracle to prove it (this despite later noteworthy teaching requiring mutual forgiveness between men if there is to be forgiveness of men by God, in Mark 11:26, which is rather different; is that blasphemy, too?):

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.  

-- Mark 2:10ff., Matthew 9:6ff., Luke 5:24ff. (similarly John 10:37f., 14:11).

We go back again the other way, though, in Mark 11:27-33, where Mark presents a Jesus who will NOT condescend to the chief priests, the Scribes, and the elders to demonstrate by what authority he had cast out of the temple the buyers and the sellers, the money-changers, and specifically the sellers of doves:

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.

So which is it?

 

In the same willy-nilly fashion, Mark has Jesus do an exorcism, a resurrection, and a healing of a deaf/dumb man in Galilee, one which Jesus wants declaimed, but the others which Jesus wants kept quiet:

Howbeit Jesus suffered him not [to follow him], but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel. 

-- Mark 5:19f.

And he charged them straitly that no man should know it; and commanded that something should be given her to eat. 

-- Mark 5:43

And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it; 

-- Mark 7:36.

So which is it?

  

Eventually Mark inexplicably makes Jesus actually respond positively and at great length to the question from Peter, James, John, and Andrew "what shall be the sign" of the coming of the destruction of the temple, in Mark 13:4, the beginning of the infamous Apocalyptic Discourse.

But why would Jesus do that, all of a sudden, and condescend to a question about signs  if "no sign shall be given"?

Obviously the Apocalyptic Discourse is post-resurrection re-interpretation of Jesus' original eschatological message that judgment was imminent. The warning had been the man and the message, but he got himself crucified, and with the man now gone they are in a new situation which is under pressure to explain itself. Like the supplied endings to Mark, the Apocalyptic Discourse bears all the marks of another time and other hands. But that is another matter.

As quickly, however, as Jesus deigns to entertain such talk of the sign of the end, Jesus warns in 13:22 that it is false Christs and false prophets who will come and do "signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect".

And with that we're right back to negativity about signs, which shows just how much that view was the original, dominant view going back to the historical Jesus and persisting beyond him in their memory.

So no sign it is.

(The positive embrace of miraculous signs in the supplied long ending in Mark 16:17, 20 may be dismissed as unoriginal to Mark on stylistic grounds, and not in the least because it conforms to the later ideas expressed for example by Luke in Acts).

 

This picture painted by Mark shows overall that he is confused and indecisive about what exactly to present as the actual content of Jesus' message, which Matthew and then Luke in their turn attempt to smooth over and remedy. It is one reason why Mark was not that popular in early Christianity. The relative paucity of witnesses to Mark, and the missing ending, if it really is missing, after 16:8 as late as Codex Vaticanus is . . . kind of a sign.

In the case of Mark 8, Matthew and Luke retain the harsh, negative evaluation of sign-seeking, but they augment the unequivocal "no sign shall be given" with "except the sign of Jonah", i.e. that the resurrection of Jesus after three days in the belly of the earth is the ultimate sign to this generation.

So the miracle of the resurrection is THE ONE legitimate sign, but none of the other miracles are signs? What are they then? Or were there no other such signs? Matthew and Luke haven't really thought this through. But of their post-resurrection re-interpretation of the original saying Mark knew absolutely nothing.

This is yet more evidence that the tradition is not solid, to put it mildly, and that the evangelists are willing, shall we say, to tamper with the word of God for theological reasons.

The solution of Matthew and Luke does little, either, to alleviate the wider problem involved, which is the failure of this evil generation to have faced the final judgment of the coming Son of Man predicted by Jesus.

But it is evidence of a trajectory of re-interpretation we see running through the Synoptics culminating in John, where we come to the explicit development of the completely different, positive understanding of sign as miracle.

And whereas the Synoptic witness is full of miracles by other names, and against signs more than not, miracles are now routinely called signs in the Fourth Gospel:

Turning water into wine at Cana of Galilee (John 2:11);

Destroying the "temple" "of his body" and rebuilding it in three days (John 2:18f);

Nondescript miracles which Jesus did in Jerusalem (John 2:23) which impressed Nicodemus (John 3:2); 

Healing a boy who was near death (John 4:48), Jesus' second miracle in Galilee (John 4:54);

Healing many who were sick (John 6:2);

Feeding the five thousand with five barley loaves and two fish (John 6:14, 26, 30);

Jesus' miracles generally (John 7:31);

Healing the man born blind (John 9:16);

John the Baptist performed no miracles but was right about Jesus (John 10:41);

The Pharisees are beside themselves what to do with Jesus, who does so many miracles, after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (John 11:47);

Some of the people hailed Jesus (triumphal entry into Jerusalem) as if he were king because of the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, as did also some of the authorities (John 12:18, 37); 

The appearance of Jesus in his crucified body to doubting Thomas was one of many miracles Jesus did after his resurrection (John 20:30). 

This last example in John rings the composition with the 2:18 allusion to Jesus' resurrection and echoes the re-interpretation of Mark 8 observed in both Matthew and Luke, who feel compelled to supplement Mark's "no sign, period" with "no sign but the sign of the prophet Jonah . . . who was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale" (Matthew 12:39f.; cf. Luke 11:29f.), which they put forward as a type of the resurrection.

The resurrection itself has now become a tool for proof of the truth of a different gospel, whereas Jesus as eschatological prophet had nothing to prove. Jesus insisted on the imminent end for this, his evil generation because "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15).

"Repent ye and believe the gospel".

That Jesus, the historical Jesus, was not interested in vindication by miracles and heavenly portents, but in actual demonstrations of repentance by his hearers, so that a few at least would be saved from that imminent judgment. Without those demonstrations there isn't any belief, and no salvation.

The new Jesus emphasizes the believing, which many can now get indefinitely into the future, even from a book:

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. 

-- John 20:30f.

The miracles are now constitutive of the message, so much so that John's Jesus can say:

. . . though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. 

-- John 10:38.

Whereas one may aver that to the final eschatological prophet who followed John the Baptist, the palsied fruit of repentance was a good thing (Matthew 3:8), not something to be healed from:

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

-- Mark 9:45.

Things for which Jesus said there is no forgiveness and for which dying on the cross would have been therefore beside the point

 

The religious ideas in the following stand in sharp contrast to the idea that Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45), which is the idea which won thanks to Paul's "other gospel" (I Corinthians 15:3 "Christ died for our sins"): 

Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

-- Mark 3:28ff.

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

-- Matthew 6:15

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. 

-- Matthew 12:31f.

And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

-- Matthew 18:34f. 

But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. 

-- Mark 11:26

And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.  

-- Luke 12:10

This priest could have thought about a single verse to make his point, but apparently knows not the Scriptures

 

Jesus Did Not Die to Appease an Angry God

Terrance Klein, America 

 

I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. 

 

-- Matthew 12:6f.

All kidding aside, it's stunning that a believing Catholic like Ross Douthat thinks morality is a secondary aspect of religion

 Here:

But the challenge does run a little deeper if the only parts of church that Dad believes in are the secondary goods of religion (community and morality and solidarity and choral music), while the primary good — communion with God and the integration of human life with divine purposes — is assumed to probably be so much wishful thinking even before the specific dogmatic questions get involved.

 

 

Stunning because Douthat elsewhere recognized, in 2011, that the unique human characteristic of passing moral judgment is demonstrative of the way human beings strangely stand outside nature, just like God:

Second, the idea that human beings are fashioned, in some way, in the image of the universe’s creator explained why your own relationship to the world was particularly strange. Your fourth- or 14th-century self was obviously part of nature, an embodied creature with an animal form, and yet your consciousness also seemed to stand outside it, with a peculiar sense of immaterial objectivity, an almost God’s-eye view — constantly analyzing, tinkering, appreciating, passing moral judgment.

God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13; 12:7):

Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:  Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.  

-- Matthew 18:32ff.

Douthat, like much of Christianity and the West, suffers from too much vertically-oriented individualism, at least this year, for which we'll just have to forgive him.

Cancel culture isn't so different from religion in that, sometimes, religion also offers no chance of reconciliation

 Cancel culture looks a lot like old-fashioned church discipline  

The story is good, as far as it goes, and makes many useful points. At the end the author discusses an interesting religious example of reconciliation where mutual listening and reconciliation occurs, but stops short of providing a secular example of same. 

Admittedly, it is difficult to think of any in these polarized times.

An astute commenter grasps the salient points:

The key difference is Southern Baptists only disciplined members…free to leave and join rest of society if you want…today’s cancel culture cancels you from society as a whole, not a small group which you are free to leave if you like. 

Exactly.

The true analogy from the secular side is e.g. to Greek ostracism and exile. But even there exile was temporary by law and carried no stigma on expiry, and required a significantly sized quorum to be legal.

Some Biblical examples seem downright Draconian by contrast:

And the LORD said unto Cain ... a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
 

-- Genesis 4:9ff.

Offenders against the Holy Ghost are irredeemable:

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

-- Matthew 12:31

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

-- Hebrews 6:4ff.

Paul, on the other hand, is all about reconciliation:

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

-- Galatians 6:1

But he recognizes that this is more of a vertical business than a horizontal one, dependent as it is on the divine action in Christ, not human initiative:

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 

-- II Corinthians 5:19

And then we have Matthew's Jesus swinging back in the other direction again. Jesus is more sanguine about the appropriateness, necessity, and efficacy of human action in reconciliation than Paul is:

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

-- Matthew 5:24

And why is that?

Because Jesus isn't planning on dying for anyone's sins, let alone rising from the dead. He's planning, instead, on the imminent end of everything and God's final judgment, and it's up to his hearers to repent.

The cancel culture warriors probably have more in common with this flinty Jesus than we'd like to admit, and are about as unpopular.

Jesus posits but one singular good transcendent above the world, including above himself

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

-- Matthew 7:11

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

-- Matthew 12:34

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

-- Luke 11:13

And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet.

-- Luke 11:29

And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

-- Matthew 19:17

And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

-- Mark 10:18

And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.

-- Luke 18:19

Neither a ram, a lamb, or a man: If there is no sacrifice, there will be nothing for the parasites to eat at dinner

And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the LORD for his sin which he hath done: and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him. -- Leviticus 19:22

And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin. And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the LORD; one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering. -- Leviticus 5:6f.

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. -- John 1:29

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; -- Hebrews 10:12

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. -- Psalm 51:14ff.

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. -- Hosea 6:6

But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. -- Matthew 9:13

But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. -- Matthew 12:7

Like Luke's Jesus, Matthew's also taught that his generation would pay for sin in apocalyptic judgment

There is no dying sacrificially for the sins of his generation in any of this.

It would make little sense for the gospels to persist in this prediction of imminent final judgment, settling scores from the foundation of the world, when Paul's gospel of Christ dying for sins had already won the day, unless the gospels are not as late as many suppose. Paul's interpretation had penetrated mainly the thinking of the passion narratives of the gospels. So the coexistence of the two interpretations of the teaching of Jesus speaks to a date before 70, before the destruction of the temple.

Jesus' is obsessed throughout the gospels with "this generation" as the focal point for God's final intervention in human history. What matters to Jesus is true repentance, not sacrifice.

The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

-- Matthew 12:41f.

Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets . . . Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

-- Matthew 23:32ff.

The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.

-- Luke 11:31ff.

Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

-- Luke 11:48ff.

What if the Jesus Movement wasn't originally a resurrection cult at all?

For a resurrection cult which came to believe in Jesus' resurrection, Jesus' closest followers seem like the biggest bunch of dimwits about it despite all of Jesus' "predictions" that he would rise on the third day.

One begins in Matthew 12:40 with the prediction that the Son of Man would be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth".

Then follow all the rising-on-the-third-day predictions in Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19 and 26:32.

Mark has these in 8:31, 9:31, 10:34 and 14:28.

Luke in 9:22, 44, 18:33, and ex post facto 24:6ff., 21, 26, 46.

Yet there is unaccountable bewilderment on the part of the disciples about Jesus' prediction: "what the rising from the dead should mean" (Mark 9:10).

There is even fear to inquire: "But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him" (Mark 9:32).

You have to wonder about such dumbfoundedness given the ubiquity of the topic in the gospels otherwise.

In Matthew 10:8 Jesus sent out these same disciples to "raise the dead"! Well, did they?

Resurrections are proof of Jesus' ministry (Matthew 11:5, Luke 7:14, 22 and 8:54).

And speculation existed that Jesus himself was John the Baptist risen from the dead (Matthew 14:2), or one of the prophets (Luke 9:8, 19). Like they hadn't heard that.

You also have to wonder about other perplexing behavior.

Why would the women followers of Jesus bother to prepare spices for the burial of his body and bring them on the third day if he actually predicted that he would die and rise, and they believed this? (Mark 16:1, Luke 23: 56, Luke 24:1)

Even the authorities knew of this prediction, we are led to understand, and took measures to secure against it. (Matthew 27:63f. "that deceiver said 'After three days I will rise again'") The unbelievers knew, but Jesus' own followers did not? (John 20:9 "For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead")

None of this is satisfactory.

The predictions of Jesus' death and rising on the third day all look to be revisionist history, imported into the narrative from the future when reflection had settled on a resurrection narrative.

That narrative was largely Pauline. It made resurrection the centerpiece of the religion, replacing Jesus' original message of the imminent coming of the kingdom of God. As such the narrative was a Christian form of Pharisaism, in which Paul's genius as a theologian invented the new availability of individual holiness apart from the temple cult, secured through the once for all sacrifice of God's own son.

Jesus meanwhile had intended none of this, not to die for the sins of Israel let alone the whole world. If he intended the replacement of the temple cult, it was with individual repentance and mercy, prayer, and delight in the law of the Lord, bringing an end to the shedding of blood in preparation for the descent of the heavenly temple when God himself would establish justice and peace once and for all, and remove everything from Israel which offended. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done . . .."

The historical kernel on which was built a religion wholly different from this was simply Jesus' own conviction that as a prophet he would likely be killed.

Out of the molehill of this sober expectation and its unfortunate realization was made the historical accident, the mountain we call Christianity.

Judas had the bag: How poor were Jesus and the Twelve?

 

 

 The Fourth Gospel is the only evidence we have that Jesus and the Twelve had a common kitty.

This "bag" was presumably the equivalent of the small box such as might store and protect the reeds/mouthpieces used by musicians in their wind instruments.

This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

 

-- John 12:6

For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor.

 

-- John 13:29

Otherwise in the Synoptics we have references to the personal belt, which was hollow and could store money (Mt. 10:9, Mk. 6:8), personal money bags for coins (Lk. 10:4, 12:33ff.) and provision sacks in which to carry a variety of travel supplies, generally understood, analogous to backpacks or saddlebags (Mt. 10:10, Mk. 6:8, Lk. 9:3, 10:4, 22:35f.). All these feature in Jesus' missionary instructions to his disciples where we learn that they are to carry no money and no supplies whatsoever. This is in keeping generally with the call to discipleship in the first place, to say goodbye to one's possessions (Luke 14:33) and follow Jesus.

Presumably, however, Jesus and the Twelve, being thus poor and preaching poverty, were recipients of charity, and it had to be someone's job to thus be the banker. But such money as there was can't have gone very far and did not amount to very much.

The story of the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 provides a ceiling limit for what Jesus and the Twelve might have imagined to be a lot of money. In it the disciples express incredulity at Jesus' expectation that they come up with the cash to feed so many, knowing as he must have that coming up with such a sum was pure fantasy.

He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?

 

-- Mark 6:37

The penny here is the denarius, in Matthew 20 famously considered fair pay for a full day's labor or for even much less than a day's labor, which seems rather over generous (see below).

The parallel in John 6:7 indicates that 200 denarii would allow 5,000 to eat only a little and not be satisfied:

Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

It should be stated that not even a Roman soldier would have this kind of walking around money.

At the time of Jesus, a Roman legionary received base pay of about 0.6 denarius per day (10 asses), from which the soldier had to provide for his own arms and food. That's 224 denarii per year, from the time of Julius Caesar. So try to imagine that sum in the bag Judas had, and it is not at all credible.

A soldier received other intermittent pay, boosting the base pay on average to as much as 1 denarius a day, and of course out on the perimeters of the Empire he had a reputation for intimidating the locals for additional gain, which would make sense in Palestine given the poor agricultural conditions which drove up the price of daily bread.

And the soldiers likewise demanded of him [John the Baptist], saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.

 

-- Luke 3:14

Content with your wages.

 

Theoretically, the cost of a one pound to one and half pound loaf of bread at this time could be as high as 2 asses or as little as 1, but double this on the poor soil of Palestine. So 200 denarii would feed at the outside 1,600, or as few as 800, with say 1,400 calories each. The conundrum with even 200 denarii means the 5,000 would have to get by on 224 to 448 calories each. While the problem in the story sounds about correctly imagined, the prospect of the availability for purchase of such a great quantity of bread as well as of solving the logistical and distributional problems implied seems as utterly fanciful as the notion that they might have had the means to purchase so much bread in the first place.     

On the other end of the scale it makes sense that the bag which Judas had could often be quite empty, necessitating scrounging operations on the part of Jesus and the Twelve themselves just to survive.

At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.

 

-- Matthew 12:1

And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn.

 

-- Mark 2:23

And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.

 

-- Luke 6:1

The needs of Jesus and the Twelve at a minimum subsistence level of 1,400 calories daily would mean in the hardest of times requiring as much as 3.25 denarii a day (4 asses for one loaf of bread X 13 = 52 / 16). Charity must have played an outsized role in the ministry of Jesus and his disciples.

Hence the centrality of daily bread to the Lord's Prayer, and the fame and survival of the bread sayings generally throughout the Gospels.

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

 

-- Matthew 6:25

I desire mercy not sacrifice

But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

-- Matthew 9:13

But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.

-- Matthew 12:7

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

-- Hosea 6:6

The historical Jesus did not teach justification by faith

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. -- Matthew 5:16

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. -- Matthew 7:21

And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. -- Matthew 12:49f.

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. -- Matthew 13:41f.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. 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 13:47ff.

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. -- Matthew 16:27

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. -- Matthew 19:21

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

And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. -- Luke 18:13f.

For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. -- John 5:26ff.

A Brief Catechism of the Copula

In which no questions are posed, and no answers required of thee:

Ye are the salt of the earth (Mt. 5:13);

Heaven is God's throne (Mt. 5:34);

Earth is His footstool (Mt. 5:35);

Wide is the gate that leadeth to destruction (Mt. 7:13);

Narrow is the gate which leadeth unto life (Mt. 7:14);

John is Elias (Mt. 11:14);

Whoever shall do the will of my Father is my brother and sister and mother (Mt. 12:50);

The tares are the children of the wicked one (Mt. 13:38);

This (bread) is my body (Mt. 26:26);

This (cup) is my blood (Mt. 26:28);

My meat is to do the will of him that sent me (John 4:34);

John was a burning and a shining light (John 5:35);

For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven (John 6:33);

I am the bread of life (John 6:35);

The bread that I will give is my flesh (John 6:51);

My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed (John 6:55);

The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life (John 6:63);

One of you is a devil (John 6:70);

I am the light of the world (John 8:12);

I am the door of the sheep (John 10:7);

I am the true vine (John 15:1);

Ye are the branches (John 15:5);

Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia (Gal. 4:25);

The church is his body (Eph. 1:22-23).

Now reach up with both hands and touch your ears, and feel that they are the long furry ears of an ass.