Jesus wasn't killed for blasphemy but for challenging Jewish complicity with Roman economic tyranny

 

I'm glad to see this argument gaining wider circulation, even if it appears in an essay which more broadly is mistaken to think that Jesus imagined that terrestrial injustice could be overcome by anyone or anything short of the coming of God's celestial kingdom to earth. Not even the resurrection has done that.

The argument was first made by St. Luke.

And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.  

-- Luke 23:1f.

Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession

 ... The next day, Jesus walked into the Temple, the heart of Jerusalem’s religious and economic life, and flipped the tables in the marketplace, which he described as “a den of robbers.” The Temple wasn’t just a house of prayer. It was a financial engine, operated by complicit leaders under the constraints and demands of the occupying empire. Jesus shuts it down. This is what gets him killed.

Jesus wasn’t killed for preaching love, or healing the sick, or discussing theology routinely debated in the Temple’s courtyards, or blasphemy (the punishment for which was stoning). Rome didn’t crucify philosophers or miracle workers. Rome crucified insurrectionists. The sign nailed above his head — “King of the Jews” — was a political indictment and public warning. ...

Palm Sunday in Mark ended as an anticlimactic reconnoitering event without a Temple cleansing until the morrow

And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve. 

-- Mark 11:11

I despise your feast days

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

-- Amos 5:21ff.

N. T. Wright tells an existential whopper about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem

 

 

 Here's N. T. Wrong telling us Jesus was weeping as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, for all manner of reasons except for what the text says:

The crowd went wild as they got nearer. This was the moment they had been waiting for. All the old songs came flooding back, and they were singing, chanting, cheering and laughing. At last, their dreams were going to come true. But in the middle of it all, their leader wasn't singing. He was in tears. Yes, their dreams were indeed coming true. But not in the way they had imagined. He was not the king they expected. Not like the monarchs of old, who sat on their jewelled and ivory thrones, dispensing their justice and wisdom. Nor was he the great warrior-king some had wanted. He didn't raise an army and ride to battle at its head. He was riding on a donkey. And he was weeping - weeping for the dream that had to die, weeping for the sword that would pierce his supporters to the soul. Weeping for the kingdom that wasn't coming as well as the kingdom that was. What was it all about? What did Jesus think he was doing?

What a gooey mess this is, which is fitting I suppose for a part of the tradition which is itself utterly confused and self-contradictory.

The weeping is only Luke's. Matthew, Mark and John do not know it in the triumphal entry.

Luke for his part nevertheless explains quite clearly that Jesus wept for a good and sober reason, namely the coming judgment of Jerusalem, which he believed was the consequence of the imminent coming of the kingdom:

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

-- Luke 19:41ff.

This is no dream dying. This is a nightmare being expressed, the bad news part of the good news. It's Luke's Jesus at his eschatological best.

This is what Jesus expected, that many would be called, but only few chosen. Not even his father's house would survive in its current form.

And he went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. 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 13:22ff.

Luke says Jesus believed this bad dream to the bitter end, even while being led to crucifixion:

And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

-- Luke 23:27f.

Bart Ehrman Is Mistaken To Think Jesus Thought The Son Of Man Was Someone Other Than Himself

Here is Bart Ehrman most recently on this subject:

And [Jesus] talked about someone else, rather than himself, as the coming Son of Man. ... His message is about the coming kingdom to be brought by the Son of Man. He always keeps himself out of it. ... I have already argued that he did not consider himself to be the Son of Man, and so he did not consider himself to be the heavenly angelic being who would be the judge of the earth. 

Against this Mark 2:10f is plain enough:

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.

Of course, Ehrman evidently discounts the authenticity of this and similar sayings on the grounds of their character as miracle stories, but as Albert Schweitzer taught us long ago, the thorough-going eschatological interpretation means that we can accept the presentations of both Matthew and Mark pretty much as they are without doing serious violence to them.

 

Of course, there are other self-referential examples which are not miracle stories.

 

And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. 

 

-- Luke 9:57f.

To be clear, Ehrman is right to stress that it was God who would initiate the events of the heavenly appearance of the Son of Man to execute judgment on the world, not Jesus. Indeed, Jesus is completely passive in this regard throughout the Gospels (which incidentally completely nullifies the zealot hypothesis), and even right up to the bitter end, only giving up it seems on the cross: "My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46/Mark 15:34). The problem of how Jesus still imagined himself in this role of Son of Man even as he tells the high priest at his trial that the high priest would see the Son of Man coming on the clouds remains nearly insoluble, not to mention that the subsequent Johannine interpretation and the presentation of the exalted Jesus in Acts performing the comparatively most trivial, even superstitious, divine interventions completely reject it. But the value of Schweitzer's original conceptualization is that Jesus thought this way at several points during his ministry but remained undeterred by events which showed him that he was mistaken, especially early on in Matthew 10 when he thought the end would come before the disciples had finished going throughout Israel on their mission trip (an expectation by the way which is completely incompatible with a suffering servant of the later passion narrative and for that reason absolutely remarkable for its survival as witness to Jesus' original self-conception). And then it seems Jesus expected it again on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, only to be disappointed again, and then in the Garden of Gethsemane when he boasts that he could call down the heavenly legions, and then finally at his trial. But in all instances Jesus holds himself back as it were, dare we say it, the way only a crazed fanatic does when faced with the immediate improbability of his own false expectation.

There is more than a hint of mental illness in all of this, which many people suffering from bipolar disorder will instantly recognize. And we can see Jesus' progeny in the many end-time enthusiasts of our own time, whose message often attracts a certain sort of personality.

It is not meant as an insult to someone worshipped as a god, nor to his worshippers.

Desperate times produce extremes of their own, for which we should above all show compassionate understanding. 

Some Historical Problems Of The Palm Sunday Accounts

• Mark 10-11 has the healing of the blind Bartimaeus at Jericho immediately precede the Palm Sunday event, otherwise known as the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Matthew 20-21 has the healing of two unnamed blind men at Jericho precede it, while Luke 18-19 has the healing of a single unnamed blind man at Jericho precede the assembling of crowds hailing Jesus riding into Jerusalem. But John 11-12 has no such healing of anyone blind at Jericho at all. Rather John has the presence of the previously raised from the dead Lazarus now back at Bethany, not mentioned by the other Gospels. It is Lazarus arisen the crowds are there to see in John, and his miracle worker Jesus.

• Mark has a single colt for Jesus to ride in procession, found by two disciples, Matthew has an ass and a colt, and Luke has one colt, whereas John has Jesus find a single young ass for himself without the aid of disciples.

• Mark has both garments and branches strewn in the way before Jesus as does Matthew, but Luke has only garments and knows no branches of any kind, whereas John knows no garments but only palm branches.

• Mark says the crowds blessed the Kingdom of David that comes in the name of the Lord as Jesus proceeded on his way, in addition to blessing He that comes in the name of the Lord. But Matthew has only the latter, while Luke has the crowds explicitly bless the King who comes in the name of the Lord, as does John who expands that to the King "of Israel". In Luke the additional intruding narrative about Zacchaeus at Jericho also includes the expectation of the people that the Kingdom of God would appear forthwith.

• The Synoptics agree that Jesus enters Jerusalem after the procession, and heads straight for the Temple. In Mark however it is an anticlimactic reconnoitering mission only, with Jesus entering, having a look around, and retreating overnight to Bethany. Jesus cleanses the Temple only on his return the next day. In Matthew, however, Jesus cleanses the Temple immediately on the same day as the triumphal entry, and hangs around also to perform healings, which elicit Hosannas from the children there, to which the scribes and chief priests object, only after which he retreats to overnight in the safety of Bethany. In Luke the objection is from the Pharisees, to the earlier procession pronouncement Blessed Be The King, not to the Temple healings and acclamations per se, which Luke does not mention. For now Jesus is found in Luke daily teaching in the Temple, where the chief priests and scribes engage him in debate but are frustrated in their attempts to destroy him because he was too popular with the people, a sentiment also expressed in Mark. Matthew includes the Pharisees with the chief priests in fearing the multitude supporting Jesus, which kept him ring fenced and out of their reach. Still by night, Jesus in Luke is said to be retreating to the Mount of Olives.

• John, of course, locates the cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, not at the end of it as in the Synoptics, right after the first of his miracles, the changing of water into wine at the wedding at Cana. Instead, at this point in John's narrative the hubbub producing the Palm Sunday event crowds is the presence of Lazarus at Bethany, and Jesus' public return there after having gone into hiding after raising him from the dead. It is this Lazarus event which the Pharisees see as the cause of the whole world going after him, not the Jericho miracle, and preventing them from prevailing against him. The subsequent entry into Jerusalem, however, is inconclusive in John, if he ever really makes it on this try. A voice thunders from heaven during an interlude in the procession, after which Jesus again goes back into hiding. We next meet him, all of a sudden, days later at a Passover meal in Jerusalem.

Both the Synoptic accounts and John's portray a Jesus who looks less certain of what he's supposed to be doing next than is often admitted. The inconsistency of the more minor details of the narratives suggests there was trouble with this part of the tradition which was not susceptible of easy resolution. It is noteworthy that quite apart from the cleansing of the Temple, the people's acclamation of Jesus as their King, and his refusal to disown it, can stand alone as the reason for his eventual arrest, trial and execution. It is not necessary to make the Temple cleansing the straw which somehow broke the camel's back.

In the Synoptic accounts Jesus is more or less retreating from Jerusalem to Bethany or its vicinity nightly, the cleansing of the Temple having accomplished nothing in the way of ushering in the Kingdom of God. As earlier in the sending out of the disciples to proclaim the gospel in Matthew 10, the failure of the Kingdom to materialize meant to regroup and move forward, not give up. Accordingly Jesus appears to use willingly the protective curtain of the multitudes for safety by day, and hiding out of town under cover of darkness by night. In Mark you almost get the impression that he is nonplussed on arrival at the Temple after all the fuss made over him, says what now, and retreats to Bethany to figure out what to do next. The events in Gethsamene a few days later with armed disciples under cover of darkness suggest further indecisiveness, not purpose. He does not go willingly to slaughter. He has not yet surrendered all. Perhaps just the opposite of the what the text says, he really did call on his father's legions of angels, but they did not come. And from there it was not far to My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

In John the picture of a Jesus hiding out from the authorities is more thoroughgoing. He has to flee, for example, after raising Lazarus, and does so again on Palm Sunday itself, not reappearing until the night in which he was betrayed (nevermind the problem that his attempted entry into Jerusalem appears to be a day later than in the Synoptics). That is all the more remarkable because at least in this part of John's narrative Jesus' pretensions to being the coming King of Israel smack more of an earthly than of the heavenly one of the rest of the narrative. The explicit reference to the palm branches strewn in the procession as opposed to the more generic parts of trees as in the Synoptics must have signified the end of the present earthly conflict with Rome and the commencement of a new era of peace.

It was not to be.