Jesus
The Reluctant Blasphemer
LM Barré
Copyright
LM Barré (c) 2008
Surely I am too
stupid to be human;
I do not have human understanding.
I have not learned wisdom,
nor have I knowledge of the holy ones.
Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered the wind in the hollow of the hand?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is the person's name?
And what is the name of the person's child?
Surely you know! (Prov 30:2-4)
This essay claims to provide an essential profile of the essential historical Jesus in informal, non-technical language. My thoughts on this essay produced several subtitles, each with a different focus. It is the latest title, however, Jesus: The Reluctant Blasphemer, that most essentially captures the essence of my preliminary results with regard to reconstructing and to profiling the historical Jesus. As such, one may regard this essay also as a "research report."
The term "historical Jesus" may require some explanation. With the work of New Testament scholar Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), it became working methodology to recognize the much of the sayings and actions of Jesus reported in the New Testament (and elsewhere) is fictional. Indeed, most of it is a non-historical, "Christianized" version of the life of Jesus. This working realization regarding the New Testament presentation of Jesus came to crystallization with a work of Albert Schweitzer, which he entitled, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, translated from German in 1906. Thus, the scholarly quest for the historical Jesus is in its fourth century and continues to this day unabated, largely unknown to the general population and, in my view, is at great odds with the Christian faith.
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It is not take long before a graduate student in New Testament studies encounters the formulation, "The Jesus of history verses the Christ of faith." This formulation acknowledges the long forgone conclusion by mainstream biblical scholarship that the actual identity of the historical Jesus is quite different from what later tradition made of him. Most notably, the apostle Paul was the primary formulator of a view of Jesus that came to be known as Christianity. Jesus himself came from and loved among a rural population and practiced a traditional, conservative and popular form of Judaism. Paul advocated a religion of urbane, Hellenistic Judaism with a decidedly cosmic perspective on Jesus. The historical Jesus would find Paul's teachings about himself odd at best.
Who then, was the historical Jesus of Nazareth and what did actually say and do? In what follows, I will create evidence for my particular reconstruction of his essential thinking of the historical Jesus. While this may sound like a presumptuous and virtually impossible task for a retired Old Testament scholar, I do think that reconstructing the essential historical Jesus may be less problematic than one may be initially moved to think, as I am dealing with primary data.
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Reconstructing the historical Jesus begins with his alleged words rather than alleged deeds of Jesus simply because as words are comparatively less ambiguous. Over the course of historical Jesus research, scholars have developed criteria by which to decide if a given saying goes back to Jesus or not. Among these is a certainly sound criterion known as "The Criterion of Embarrassment." It states that the later church would not invent statements of Jesus that prove to be self-embarrassing. Therefore, an embarrassing statement in the tradition is early and most likely goes back to Jesus. I suggest that the most embarrassing thing that Jesus allegedly said is found in Mark 15:34:
'eloi 'eloi lama sabachthani
"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
On the face of it, the question and its implication is most embarrassing, even scandalous, and many desperate Christian explanations rush to cover its embarrassing character. Even so, it remains an embarrassing item for the church and to the traditional story of Jesus to this day--Jesus thought his God forsook him!
The degree to which this statement is embarrassing is to the degree that it is certain that these words are indeed the actual (last) words of Jesus. Here is where my reconstruction begins. I hope that it will become clear below why I think my thesis is virtually certain. It is rendered "virtually" certainty by the fact that by the use of empirical methods, all of which is dependent upon data. It always remains a possibility that new data will arise or that new evidence will be created that may weaken or overturn any idea. With this restriction in mind, let us examine these words more closely.
The above text is actually a butchered, partial translation of Psalm 22:1. The word, 'eloi is neither Hebrew nor Aramaic. The psalm reads, 'eli while another form of "my god" in Hebrew is 'elohi with the Aramaic equivalent being 'alahi (eastern) or for Jesus' culture, 'alohi (western). It appears that Jesus failed to remember the correct Hebrew form of “My God.” He tried but failed to quote accurately. This is why the remainder of the quote is in good Aramaic, his native vernacular. Jesus knew that he butchered the Hebrew word for "My God" and so abandoned the attempt and resorted to a translation.
The form that Jesus came up with moments before he died not only proves to be embarrassing, but also satisfies another criterion used to isolate the authentic words of Jesus--Orality. If we seek to account for the unattested form, 'eloi, the conclusion is at hand that Jesus mistakenly conflated two Hebrew words, 'eli, which is the form in Ps 22:1, and 'elohi, a common form in Hebrew for "my god." Accordingly, Jesus took the holem (long o vowel in Hebrew) and unconsciously inserted it into 'eli, thereby producing and indeed inventing the form as we have it in Mark. Thus, it appears that we have here an oral expression since it is highly unlikely that some scribe would misquote Ps: 22:1 who would have had the correct form before him. That this is true is clinched by the fact that Matthew, working form Mark's written form, corrects Mark to the Psalm. Matthew was embarrassed by Mark's form. Note also that the text has Jesus making a partial Aramaic translation. Why is that? Because that is what he actually said. Furthermore, that the form 'eloi is a form is made obvious by the fact that the jeering hearers are portrayed as not being able to understand what he meant and a drink is offered in an attempt to obtain clearer pronunciations from the parched victim. Thus, it is not a case of our having an insufficient knowledge of Aramaic. (The only other form of 'eloi attested is found in a suspicious textual variant in the LXX of Judges 5:5.) This shows at least that if the form 'eloi is a valid form (which is most doubtful), then the word Jesus quoted was Hebrew, not Aramaic. Further, an underlying Aramiac form is not attested. And if we further ask about what is the literary function of the "Wrong Interpreter," and the "Drink Getter" characters, we would have to say that they are intended strongly and clearly to imply that when Jesus said, 'eloi," Jesus misspoke. He was not understood by these two parties explicitly and implicitly or by everybody else who heard his words."
There is a problem with GMark's story about the last words of Jesus that should be mentioned. According to GMark, it was the "Drink Getter" who said wished to wait to see if Elijah appeared to rescue Jesus:
One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said.
But according to Matthew's rendering, a different party made this suggestion:
Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him."
In Mark's version, for the "Drink Getter" to ask for a delay does not follow. Matthew's version, on the other hand, makes excellent sense.
What is going on here? I would argue that the hostile crowd did indeed understand Jesus' words, since there is no reason to think that they did not understand at least, lama sabachthani. Thus, the misinterpretation of 'eloi to be "Elijah" was deliberate and mocking in its intention. Here we can appeal to common human experience in which one is making an important, public statement and misspeaks. This is a humiliating experience in itself and one naturally hopes that no one has picked up on it. But how humiliating is it when someone in the audience seizes upon the mistake and broadcasts it? That is what we have described here. Further, Jesus' audience is portrayed as wishing to relish the mistake. Rather than giving Jesus something to drink to help him speak clearly to say something else, they insist that they wait so that they may relish in his verbal . . . faux pas. Thus, an amplified translation of the interpretation offered here would be:
When some of those standing there heard this, they said, "He's calling 'Elijah'.["Yeah, that's what he said, 'Elijah'"] Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, "Now leave him alone. Let's see if "Elijah" [tee hee"] comes to save him."
The crowd's dig was most cruel for Jesus, who not only misquoted his sacred scripture, but misspoke the name of God and further misspoke a personalized form of the name. Jesus could not have inadvertently distanced himself from his God more perfectly. Add to this that the mocking mention of Elijah would have evoked very disturbing memories of his admired colleague, the beheaded Baptizer, of whom he would have to conclude was also sorely mistaken. Just what Jesus thought of John is preserved in a passage from Matthew 11:
"What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces. Then why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: 'Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way before you.' Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist.
Therefore, the fact that these last words strongly satisfy two of the criteria for isolating the authentic words of Jesus, and that they adequately account for many salient features of the text, renders the thesis that these are indeed the historical last words of Jesus. That Jesus misspoke is "virtually certain."
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We may now proceed to the second stage of this reconstruction. Informally, we may describe the content of Jesus' last words as evincing extreme disappointment toward his deity for abandoning him, a conclusion which Jesus drew because he felt death coming on. In other words, Jesus experienced cognitive dissonance. This term is technically applied to apocalyptic groups whose cosmic expectations fail and to how they cope with their disturbing situation. What Jesus was expecting is made abundantly clear from the episode of his interrogation by the second question put before him by the high priest recorded in Mark 14:
Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?" 62 Jesus said, "I am; and "you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,' and "coming with the clouds of heaven.'" 63 Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "Why do we still need witnesses? 64 You have heard his blasphemy!
The high priest's question marks the climax of the story of Jesus. What does Jesus think about himself? The question implies that Jesus had never clearly spoken on the question as to whether he regards himself as the expect Messiah of God. Here he is now under formal circumstances and appears to be forced to make a statement that he has previously avoided. Most of all, he thought that his hour had finally come to mount an apocalyptically produced throne to rule over the entire world. His answer to the question is unequivocal--"I am." But what is more telling is that he claims that the high priest will [soon] see for himself that Jesus' fantastic claim is true. What is it that the high priest will soon see? Nothing less than the miraculous establishment of the promised messianic kingdom! This is made clear from the allusion that Jesus makes here to prophesy in Daniel 7:13-14:
13 I was gazing into the visions of the night, when I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, as it were a son of man. He came to the One most venerable and was led into his presence.
14 On him was conferred rule, honour and kingship, and all peoples, nations and languages became his servants. His rule is an everlasting rule which will never pass away, and his kingship will ever come to an end.
Here now is Jesus' expectation, an expectation that was so severely and painfully disappointed by his confusing and unexpected death. The Messianic Kingdom did not materialize as Jesus fully expected. This contradiction provided the basis for the cognitive dissonance of this disappointed, Messianic idealist.
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Two actions performed by Jesus during his fateful visit to the Passover confirm Jesus' apocalyptic expectations. These are the "Cleansing of the Temple" and the "Triumphal Entry" into
2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of
And also this prophecy from Haggai:
20 The word of Yahweh came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, 21 "Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22 and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders; and the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his fellow. 23 On that day, says Yahweh of Armies, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of She-al'ti-el, says Yahweh, and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the Yahweh of Armies."
Needless to say, the expectation of Zerubbabel's political Messianism did not materialize.
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It appears that we have a text that relates to the proto-apocalyptic movement discussed above in Isaiah 53:
1 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised and we held him of no account. 4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. 9 They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no , and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the will of Yahweh to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of Yahweh shall prosper. 11 Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my Servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to , and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he [actually] bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
A key observation I wish to make is that Zerubbabel is called, "my Servant," a term that is applied in Isaiah to several parties. I would identify this servant with Zerubbabel because the literary genre of this Isaiah text seems to be one of an official, state eulogy over the fallen ruler. Verse 8 most clearly indicates that the subject of the eulogy was arrested, tried and executed for sedition under the Persians just as Jesus was by the Romans. Thus, as with Jesus, we have an earlier instance of failed messianic proto-Apocalypticism that is remarkably similar. In both cases, the Temple played an important and necessary role. While for Zerubbabel, the building of the Second Temple signaled the fulfillment of his apocalyptic expectations, for Jesus the Temple did not need to be rebuilt but rather only cleansed. In both cases, the readiness of the Temple was a prerequisite for the coming Messianic rule.
The Isaiah eulogy not only provides a parallel experience to that of Jesus, it also significantly contributes to the Christian view of Jesus. According to Isaiah, the Messianic Age failed to materialize because of the sins of the people. As a result, Zerubbabel significance was not to be found ultimately in his life but in his death . The Isaiah text explains that he died to compensate for the sins of his people, and while these sins stopped the coming of the Messianic Kingdom, it removed an important obstacle, making the way clear for the coming of the Kingdom at some future time. The whole experience has left the author of 2 Isaiah with hope, although no longer an urgent hope. His emphasis was rather upon the certainty of the realization of that hope, rather than its imminence, a shift in thought that is entirely understandable in light of his historical circumstances.
From this perspective, it is understandable how the early disciples of Jesus utilized Isaiah's eulogy to formulate their understanding of Jesus. It is a small move to see the Messiah as a figure who removed the sins of the people as an obstacle to the coming of the apocalypse to one in who made expiation for the sins of the world, a concept taken from Israel''s cultic traditions.
We can understand how Jesus' life and death came to be interpreted in conjunction with Isaiah and cultic traditions and how he came to be regarded as the savior of the world. However, as we have seen, the historical Jesus did not want to die, nor did he expect to die. On the contrary, as he said to the high priest, he expected the Messianic Age to appear with him installed as the king of the world ruling from
1 Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh and his anointed, saying, 3 "Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us." 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; Yahweh has them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 "I have set my king on
The aggressive attitude that one detects in Jesus' answer to the high priest stems from his particular concept of what his Messianic Kingdom would be. According to the Psalm, it would be a rule of iron fist, an angry demonstration of divine, political rule. This is what Jesus expected and this is what failed to be materialized. He regarded himself as the "My Son" of the Psalm, in which his coronation would iterally beget a divine king.
My reconstruction of the last days of Jesus also includes and regards as historical the so-called "Triumphal Entry." While any story that relates to a prophetic scripture is suspect for obvious reasons, I think that in this case, the tradition of the
Triumphal Entry fits hand-in-glove with the other episodes that I have discussed:
1 When they were approaching , at Bethphage and Bethany, near the , he sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, "Why are you doing this?' just say this, "The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'” 4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5 some of the bystanders said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?" 6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
Regarding assessing the historicity of this alleged action of Jesus, we may point out that the expected event has been embarrassed by history. The last line of the story states the significance of Jesus' symbolic action: the Messianic Kingdom is being inaugurated by the coming of the Messiah. Since the Messiah has arrived, the miraculous establishment of his kingdom would soon follow. That there were "many people" who understood the significance of Jesus' action, tells us that they also to some degree suffered the same cognitive dissonance along with their hero. The prophesy implicitly alluded to by the peoples' enthusiastic response to Jesus' symbolic act is found in Zechariah 9:9-11:
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
Thus, we regard Jesus' last words, his Interrogation before the high priest, his Cleansing of the Temple and his Triumphal Entry as all realistic, historical, coherent events.
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Jesus' cleansing of the temple was obviously a very disturbing action. It is entirely realistic that the question of Jesus' authority to do such a thing should arise as he not only usurped the authority of the high priest and the Jerusalem priesthood, his actions must have also been regarded as very disturbing indeed by the many pious Jews who were celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem.
27 As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him 28 and said, "By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?" 29 Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me." 31 They argued with one another, "If we say, "From heaven,' he will say, "Why then did you not believe him?' 32 But shall we say, "Of human origin'?"—they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. 33 So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things." (Mark 11:27-33)
In this story about Jesus, we have Jesus evading the question of the authorities regarding his authority. According to my reconstruction, if we were able to ask Jesus to tell us straight out the basis of his authority, he would have responded that it was because he was indeed the Messiah of God (as he announced in his triumphal entry) and that his cleansing of the temple was a necessary task to inaugurate the Messianic
Age just as building the temple was a prerequisite for Zerubbabel and Haggai. Accordingly, I would not characterize Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet as others have, a tradition that is based on the Jewish Eschatology of the prophetic tradition rather than upon the Jewish Messianism of Haggai. The essential distinction here is that while Jewish Eschatology address a nation that is politically autonomou, apocalypticism emerges from dispossessed groups who have no political autonomy and regard themselves as deeply alienated from world society and politics.
Apocalypticism regards the world as so corrupt that it cannot be renovated but rather must be replaced by the divine introduction of a new world order. Similarly, political messianism expects a divine renovation of the world with a divine king, the Messiah, divinely begotten and transformed upon his divine coronation, ruling over a miraculously transformed world from
If we understand that writings from the Jewish apocalyptic tradition promised relief from oppression in one's lifetime, we also know that apocalypticism has a 100% failure rate to this day. This is because apocalypticism is actually a (false) mythological construct as clearly demonstrated by history.
From this perspective, Jesus' disappointed, Messianism is typical, even expected by those who are intellectually familiar this phenomenon. Furthermore, I would submit that Jewish Messianism is likewise mythic, unreal, and will not be realized for that reason. Jewish Messianism, based on the alleged promise of an eternal dynasty to David, smacks very much of being Davidic political propaganda, and does not in fact spring from a divine force. Nor has it been nor will it be realized by a miraculous intervention into human affairs.
If we can accept that both Apocalypticism and Messianism are entirely human constructs, then we can understand why Jesus' god allegedly "forsook" him. Jesus simply made the mistake of subscribing to a primitive, unreal religious mindset just as Zerubbabel had done before him and so also suffered the same deep disappointment. What strikes me as remarkable is that we have had two figures in history who would be the Messiah, who sought to fulfill a myth, and who expected the in-breaking and realization of a mythological, apocalyptic reality.
The essential thing to realize about the essential thinking of the historical Jesus is that he was essentially wrong about his identity and his mission. It turns out that he lived a blasphemous life. Increased knowledge and especially history itself renders the verdict that Jesus was not the Messiah, that he had no right to mount a donkey, that he had no authority to cleanse the temple, and that he was wrong to tell the high priest that the was imminent. He also wrongly quoted his Scriptures. All of this is true because we know from history that apocalypticism is a bogus, mythological, human construct. Jesus was wrong to subscribe to it.
From this perspective, Jesus emerges as a admirable but most pathetic figure, a man of high intelligence and of great moral conviction but who was caught up and betrayed by the primitive, mythological, non-historical thinking of his time. Just how pathetic the story of Jesus is lies indicated his last words quoted previously. The most pathetic thing was not only that he was convinced that he was inscrutably forsaken by his god, but that he "blotched" the name of his god with his last words . . . and knew it. Here I can only say that the more one might know about the historical Jesus, the more one will appreciate how mortifying it was for him to misquote not only Scripture, but the very word for God! In the form, 'eloi, we witness Jesus' greatest shame and despair, a shame and despair much greater than being crucified. He died knowing he was a blasphemer and his failed attempt to quote his Scriptures correctly, properly and reverently. This pierced him to the core as he exited this life in the deepest despair and in magnificent shame.
Yet it appears that Jesus did not immediately recognize the implications of his misquotation. After his self-realized error, some moments pass. And then this:
Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
It was at this moment that Jesus' formidable and massive intelligence all at once turned against him and forced the seemly absurd conclusion that he was indeed a vile, despicable blasphemer and an most evil deceiver of the people. In an instant, his world was forcibly deconstructed to nothing, his psychology incinerated, his soul virtually cremated. Hence, his cry of the most extreme anguish. With nothing left of him, he died.
If my reconstruction of the essential Jesus is anything, it is highly dramatic. I would also submit that it finds a better Jesus than the traditional, Christian Jesus. For according to this new understanding, the story of Jesus is still "good news" insofar as Jesus emerges as an ideal human being, revealed essentially in the reason that he died, and especially in the manner in which he died. Further, our reconstruction is at strong odds with the traditional version inasmuch as this story is not a Divine Comedy, but a searing Divine Tragedy that in effect permits a better, more sublime Jesus. A fully human Jesus. A Jesus for humanists. A Jesus for Everyman. A Messianic Pretender and a Seditionist. A Reluctant Blasphemer, self-convicted by his Aramaic, by his unholy last words, by the fact of his death and so by his god.
A historical Jesus. A Jesus incomparable.
'eloi (sic) 'eloi (sic)
lama sabachthani
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All this was a long time ago, I remember . . .
"Journey of the Magi"
T.S. Eliot