Answers that Tempt You to Say
“You’re Kidding.”
In this message we will look at some of the interpretations of Jesus that have gotten media attention during the past few years. We can’t assume people will ignore these views, so we won’t.
Matthew 20:13-16
I’ve decided to begin this series on “Who is Jesus?” with some answers that are popular enough to get media attention and maybe be on TV but don’t quite ring true. These notions are appearing so quickly that I’m sure I’ve missed some and will have to amend the list sometime in the future. It’s hard to know just what new interpretation will capture the public’s attention. However, I’m quite sure that in the week or so before Easter we won’t see a Time or Newsweek cover declaring, “The Orthodox Jesus—Christians Right All Along.”
So, let’s consider just some of these attempts which have appeared in the past decades or so.’
Let’s begin by showing that this game isn’t really all that new. Going back to Nicholas Notovitch in The Unknown Life of Jesus, first published in 1894 and Elizabeth Claire Prophet's 1984 book The Lost Years of Jesus several writers have attempted to prove Jesus traveled to India as a young man and learned from Hindus and Buddhists. That he incorporated these thoughts into his teachings. Some even claim That Jesus survived the crucifixion and later died in India.
There is no historical or textual evidence to support these claims. Jesus did not teach reformed Buddhism.
Who was Jesus? A vegetarian, holistic healer.
In 1937 Edmond Szekety published a manuscript called The Essene Gospel of Peace which he said he found in secret archive of The Vatican library in the mid-1920s. This Gospel presents a r different picture of Jesus than we find in The New Testament. Just consider these points:
--Jesus healed primarily by teaching people how to use natural medicines. As this “gospel” says: “…many unclean and sick followed Jesus' words and sought the banks of the murmuring streams. They put off their clothing [in a kind of early nudist camps], they fasted, and they gave up their bodies to the angels of the air, of water, and of sunshine.”
--Jesus called people to respect “the Earthly Mother” and “the Heavenly Father.” He was a bi-theist.
--Jesus called people to vegetarianism.
--He did not save mankind, but showed mankind the path to salvation because each must save himself; no one else can save him.
It’s been concluded that Szekely had totally forged the document, that he maintained the fraud for years, even adding embellishment from his so-called additional researches.
Yet, his portrait of Jesus is attractive to many. For example, Shirley MacLaine mentions it in her book Going Within.
Who was Jesus? The man who never was.
Of course, there are others who deal with Jesus by saying he never lived. I hadn’t planned on mentioning this but, at a local book store, I found a volume published by a Canadian author who said Jesus was a myth. A few years ago, a Dispatch article reported on a Columbus resident who planned a book making the same claim. Suffice it to say these writers are in a clear minority. Even radical thinkers like John Hick, author of The Myth of God Incarnate, and Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus, refuse to say the man Jesus of Nazareth never lived.
Most historians—believer and non-believer—accept that Jesus was truly a historical figure in the first century.
Indeed, in the early centuries of the church’s history, none of the opponents of Christianity seemed to have denied Jesus’ existence.
In fact, Josephus (who died in 100) and a handful of other ancient non-Christian writers make reference to Jesus very early on. From their writings we can draw this sketch of Jesus.
· Jesus lived during the rule of Tiberius Caesar.
· He lived a virtuous life.
· He was reputed to be a wonder-worker.
· He had a brother named James.
· He was acclaimed to be the Messiah (of course, none of these non-Christian writers would have agreed, if they understood who the Messiah was.).
· He was crucified on the order of Pilate.
· He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover.
· Darkness and an earthquake reputedly happened when he died.
· His disciples believed he rose from the dead.
· His disciples were willing to die for their beliefs.
· Christianity spread rapidly to Rome.
· His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshipped Jesus as God.
The claim that Jesus never lived is just wrong, probably inspired by wishful thinking.
Who was Jesus? Rival of John the Baptist
Back in 1992, Australian writer Barbara Thiering, in her best-selling book Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls, presented an amazing picture of Jesus and his life. She claims Jesus was an opponent of The Teacher of Righteousness (whom we know as John The Baptist) at Qumran (the community which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls); eventually the community split into two factions one led by Jesus, the other by John. In time, John's faction prevailed and Jesus was crucified at Qumran.
According to Thiering, Jesus was crucified along with Judas Iscariot and Simon Magus (the magician who appears in Acts). Although the perpetrators were convinced all three had died on their crosses, in fact, each survived. After being placed in their tombs Simon and Judas revived; Simon used his medical knowledge to help Jesus revive.
Now, picture this. Thiering imagines a radically Jewish sect, using a Roman method of execution. And, while it might be possible that one crucified person might survive the ordeal; Jesus’ enemies so botched the job that all three survived.
Jesus then left Palestine and went to Rome where he died at an advanced age. Thiering even suggests Jesus had fathered three children with his wife Mary Magdalene, whom he would later divorce.
Thiering claims she was able to discover this because she found that The New Testament was written as pesher document. That is, it was written in code, using the interpretive scheme popular with the Essenes. As a result, nothing in the text is what it seems. She says, for example, that the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000 were stories of early Christian ordinations told in graphic style.
While The Essenes and others used the pesher method to interpret existing texts there is no evidence they ever used the method to create a text.
Did I mention this was a best-selling book? N. T. Wright says, the only scholar who takes Thiering's theory with any seriousness is Thiering herself. It's amazing that some would prefer this account to the biblical story.
Who was Jesus? A nice guy who finished last
About the same time as Thiering was publishing her book, A. N. Wilson published Jesus: A Life. Wilson’s treatment of Jesus has been described as “simultaneously sympathetic to and critical of religious belief.” While Wilson is a well-known biographer and journalist in the UK, he is also a novelist. Those skills came in handy. Wilson’s Jesus attempted to call people to a higher way of life and ended up crucified for his efforts. Back in Galilee, James attempted to comfort his brother’s devastated followers by reminding them that this tragedy was foreseen by God and written about in the Prophets. Apparently not everyone knew who James was and, seeing the family resemblance, assumed Jesus had risen from the dead. They then began to tell the Easter story.
Earlier in his life, Wilson had become an atheist. The author of a popular biography of C. S. Lewis, Wilson says that reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity led him to atheism (you heard that correctly). He became a powerful mocker of Christianity and religion in general.
Interestingly, in 2009 British newspapers began reporting that Wilson had been converted. He had embraced the account of Jesus’ resurrection as the Bible presents it. I’m always hesitant to report stories like this but some very reputable sources are telling it. So, I offer it in the spirit of hoping for the best.
How did he go from believer to non-believer to believer? I’m sure the story is multilayered but here’s a partial explanation.
Part of the reason was that atheism and atheists in his words, “[miss] out on some very basic experiences of life.” He described listening to Bach or reading the works of Christian authors and realizing that their “perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than [his] own.” seeing the world through the eyes of faith is “much more interesting” he said, than the alternatives.
Then there was the low esteem in which Darwinism holds man. The people who insist that we are “simply anthropoid apes” can’t account for something as basic as language. The “existence of language,” love and music, to name but a few, convinced Wilson that we are “spiritual beings.”
Then there’s what he regards the “an even stronger argument”: “the way that Christian faith transforms individual lives.” From “Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged” to the person next to you at church, Christians bear witness to the truth of Christianity and that as a “working blueprint for life” and “template against which to measure experience, it fits.”
I haven’t seen a revised version of Jesus: A Life but maybe he’s working on it. In any case, Wison’s story reminds us of C. S. Lewis’ warning that “A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”
Who was Jesus? Anyone we say except the Son of God
More recently The scholars of the so-called Jesus Seminar have tried to rewrite the story of Jesus..
If you read about the seminar in Time or Newsweek you know that it is comprised of a group of scholars who have sliced and diced the gospel accounts in order to get to what they consider to be an accurate portrait of Jesus and what he said.
These scholars study the various sayings of and stories about Jesus and Then meet to vote on their authenticity. Each scholar votes by dropping a colored bend into a box. Red or pink if They believe The account is genuine or nearly genuine, black if they doubt its validity, and gray if they just aren't sure.
One of The reasons The Jesus Seminar is attracting so much attention is the fact that its conclusions are associated with the names of individuals reputed to be scholars. But, in this case, what does that really mean
Theoretically, a scholar participating in the seminar could lose every vote and still put his endorsement upon a conclusion with which he had disagreed five minutes before. How's that for intellectual integrity?
The Jesus Seminar is just the latest—and perhaps beet publicized—example of an approach to the Bible which begins with the assumption that it cannot be accurate.
What to those who doubt The New Testament account of Jesus' life believe. Members of The Jesus Seminar, along with other scholars, can't accept the story of the resurrection. So They try to come up with alternative explanations. The best-known of these says the body of Jesus was placed in a shallow grave where it was quickly eaten by dogs. Upon returning to the grave and finding it empty, the disciples assumed Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Needless to say, if they can't accept the story of the first Easter, They're not going to accept The story of the first Christmas.
Even among those who don’t go as far as the seminar does in discounting the New Testament portrayal of the life of Jesus, there is great skepticism about the Christmas story. They argue not only that Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem but that he was most likely the illegitimate offspring of an affair between Mary and a Roman soldier.
It’s amazing the people who have been taken in by this account. In an ABC news report, aired in June 2000, the late Peter Jennings stated that the Gospel of John says 'no one knows who His father was and an anti- Christian writer in the second century mentions a rumor that a Roman soldier made Mary pregnant.' The truth is John says the very opposite. Amazed at his teaching, the crowd said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? (John 6:42 (ESV))
The only other verse Jesus could conceivably be referring to has nothing to do with Jesus earthly parentage.
And depending upon an enemy of Christianity for reliable reports about Jesus is about as fair as depending solely on Ann Coulter for your information about Barack Obama or depending solely on Michael Moore for your information about …well anything.
The same report, Marcus Borg argued against Jesus having been born in Bethlehem. Part of the evidence Borg cited was the fact that Matthew says Jesus was born at home. Matthew's gospel, while not mentioning Bethlehem, certainty does not say Jesus was born at home. As Hank Honegraaf says, 'Borg simply fabricates this statement.'
Who is Jesus? The lottery winner.
Recently we’ve been hearing a lot about the work of Bart Ehrman. A prolific writer, Ehrman attacks orthodox Christianity relentlessly. Perhaps his most persistent claim is that Christianity as we know it was simply the winner in a furious contest of orthodoxies or perspectives on Jesus popular in the early centuries following Jesus’ death. Orthodoxy won when the newly converted Emperor Constantine, early in the fourth century, endorsed is as the official position.
Perhaps I should point out that Ehrman was raised in a traditional Christian church and attended a fundamentalist college where the discover that there were debated readings in some New Testament texts, ultimately led to his rejection of his faith.
Like many of the modern critics of the orthodox Jesus, Ehrman is fascinated with the many alternative “gospels” that were circulating in the early years of the church. He claims there is no reaon why these gospels shouldn’t be as acceptable as the so-called canonical gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
For example, Ehrman (like Elaine Pagels) is very interested in the Gospel of Thomas, claiming it was probably written about AD 50, making it one of the earliest Christian writings. That is a fantastic claim. Thomas quotes almost every book in the New Testament and cites a Syriac version of the Gospels was not published until the middle of the second century! It simply isn’t a gospel written less than a generation after Jesus lived. At the same time, many early Christian writers mentioned the existence of a gospel of Thomas but none of them believed it was really written by the apostle.
I’m not familiar with all that Ehrman has written but I’ll offer two generalizations.
First, a lot of what he says isn’t new or original. Some of the same arguments were made years ago. Made and refuted.
Second, his suggestions that the church has tried to hide the alternative gospels or the problems with the New Testament text simply isn’t true. For at least as long as I’ve been studying theology, you could go into any seminary library and find copies of some of these alternative gospels. Yes, some of them were not found until the last century of so. But that’s not because they were suppressed, as Ehrman claims. Within just a few centuries, copies of the New Testament gospels were to be found wherever the church had found. By the way, wherever they were found, the gospels were always attributed to the same four writers—never to anyone else. This, even though the gospels are anonymous.
By the way, the existence of textual problems has been known for centuries. In the sixteenth century, Erasmus wrestled with the variant texts to try to discover the authentic text. As a result of his work and that of countless other scholars, we believe are about 99% certain of the original text. None of the remaining discrepancies impact any Christian doctrine. Has the church tried to hide these issues? Most Bibles, including editions of the King James Version, have footnotes announcing that there are questions about some texts.
Not everything Ehrman says is wrong. He’s right about some things. But the problems occur when he combines those facts with specious claims to paint a questionable picture of Jesus and the church.
Conclusion
There is probably a variety of reasons why people reject the New Testament portrait of Jesus. Two may be most important.
I) These notions are often rooted in a rejection of supernaturalism. Those who say that miracles can't take place must reject the reports of the New Testament. This prejudice leads them to treat The New Testament as they would treat no other book. The authors of one book which presented a radical new iife' of Jesus said as much. They explained that in order to support their conclusions they were “obliged to read between the lines, fill in certain gaps....”
Other writers, no less imaginative, simply reject the New Testament version. For example, the writers who prefer The Gospel of Thomas to The Gospel of John.
2) A desire to escape the consequences of acknowledging the real Jesus What Doug Groothius has to say about the work of Szekely probably applies to many
Szekely’s Essene Jesus is attractive to many, Shirley MacLaine among them, because the sting of the biblical Jesus is entirely lacking. The Essene Jesus provokes no controversy, makes no enemies, issues no ethical demands, and never divides the world into Those who are for him and those who we against him. He…bears no cross, sheds no blood, and startles no disciples as the resurrected Lord.
Many would prefer a Jesus who loves them but doesn’t interfere with their lives, a Jesus who taught people to just get along rather than a Jesus who called on them to repent ,whose crucifixion reminds them of the depth of their sin and rebellion. This is not the New Testament Jesus.
In the weeks to come, we are going to look further at that New Testrament Jesus. That’s the best place to find the answer to the question, Who is Jesus?
For the most part, we’ll stick with the Biblical materials with only an occasional look at historical and creedal material.
The Jesus of the New Testament is the Jesus who will make a difference in our lives. But as long as men and women deny their need for a Redeemer they will continue to diminish and attack him.
As long as men and women see their need for a Redeemer they may have their spiritual needs met by the one who was born in Bethlehem.
