Bible Books: Peeling Back the Layers

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How did a man from Nazareth come to be hailed as divine? This question lies at the heart of the latest book by Geza Vermes, professor emeritus of Jewish studies at Oxford University. In his earlier works, Jesus the Jew (1973), Jesus and the World of Judaism (1983) and The Religion of Jesus the Jew (1993), Vermes focused on situating Jesus within his vibrant Jewish culture. This time, the eminent translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and authority on postbiblical and rabbinic Judaism turns directly to the New Testament.

But unlike most biographers of the historical Jesus, who invariably begin with a discussion of the early portraits of Jesus found in the Gospel of Mark and the so-called Q source,^a Vermes turns immediately to the most elevated depiction of Jesus in Christian scripture—the Gospel of John. Chapter by chapter, he strips away later theological layers to reveal the same Jesus familiar from his earlier studies: an entirely human, entirely Jewish, “unmarried, thirtyish, small-town tekton, carpenter or builder.” At the same time, he demonstrates how the evangelists and Paul contributed to the development of Christian thought.

Vermes’s Jesus is no Hellenized, Greek-speaking Cynic-sage, as other scholars have suggested. Nor is his Galilee a fully Hellenized environment, but rather a place rife with fervent Jewish nationalism—and home to the occasional Jewish wonder-worker. His Jesus stands in the long line of biblical prophets with their concern for social justice and their artistry at teaching by story and example.

Vermes accepts Jesus as both exorcist and healer, but he does not see these gifts as signs of divinity. Rather, he compares Jesus’ deeds (and his popularity) to those of contemporaneous healers and exorcists as well as to more recent miracle-working Hasidic masters (Wunderrebbe) who deviate from the practices and beliefs of the religious majority. Thus the volume will certainly challenge both those Christians who insist on Jesus’ divinity as well as those Jews who find anathema any positive assessment of Jesus’ abilities to teach and heal.

Vermes’s comments on the Fourth Gospel are especially insightful. For example, he demonstrates how the proclamation of Jesus as the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) recollects early Jewish interpretations of Exodus 1:15. In these Aramaic retellings of Moses’ infancy, Pharaoh dreams that a lamb placed on a balance outweighs all of Egypt. His court interpreters proclaim the lamb will be a Jewish liberator. Hence, John’s “lamb” imagery not only evokes the Passover offering, whose blood wards off the angel of death, but also associates Jesus with that earlier savior, Moses.

Vermes turns next not to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) but to material that antedates them: the Pauline letters. His explanation for this arrangement is that Paul, like John, is more interested in the proclamation of Jesus as Christ than he is in the Jew from Nazareth. Indeed, as Vermes puts it, for Paul “the history of Christ began with ‘the night of his betrayal’ (1 Corinthians 11:23) and ended three days later with his resurrection.”

These chapters are the least successful in the book, although they still offer several valuable insights. Vermes emphasizes that the apostle’s prayers and blessings are addressed to God and not to Jesus—though they are often conveyed through Jesus. In other words, Paul the Jew preserves monotheistic integrity by distinguishing Jesus from God and by insisting that Jesus was elevated to divinity only on Easter morning (Romans 1:4). Yet to make his case, Vermes is forced to regard the so-called Christ Hymn in Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians—a hymn that claims Jesus Christ was “in the form of God” until he “emptied himself” in order to be born “in the likeness of man” (Philippians 2:6–11)—as a late, gentile interpolation. The earliest extant manuscript evidence offers no support for Vermes’s thesis, however. That the Christ Hymn can be removed from its literary context without doing noticeable harm to the 054integrity of the surrounding text need not signal that it is a late addition; it could instead be a pre-Pauline hymn that Paul himself imported. If Paul can change from being the church’s persecutor to its most ardent evangelist, surely he could recognize in Jesus of Nazareth a preexistent divine being who (like Sophia, or Lady Wisdom) descends from heaven and returns to it.

Vermes forthrightly addresses questions of Christian sexuality. Beginning with 1 Corinthians, he notes of Paul that “as is well known [he] was rather neurotic in matters relating to sex.” This is somewhat uncharitable, given both the apostle’s view that celibacy is a “particular gift” (1 Corinthians 7:7) and his eschatological expectations. While he does advise that it is better to marry than to burn with passion (1 Corinthians 7:9), which is hardly a rousing endorsement of connubiality, he also notes, “I think that, in view of the present [or impending] crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are” (1 Corinthians 7:26). Paul’s remark that he wishes all were celibate like himself (1 Corinthians 7:7) is, I would say, less a sign of neurosis than pastoral example. Paul is no ardent ascetic supporting the Corinthian platform of “it is well for man not to touch a woman” (1 Corinthians 7:1); nor do his comments on women wearing veils “because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:10) indicate an unhealthy mental state. Not only is the translation of 055the verse uncertain, it follows Paul’s quite salubrious comments on male and female mutuality. More secure, however, are Vermes’s comments on Jesus’ celibacy, which distinguished him from the Jewish majority who celebrated marriage and procreation.

Turning to the Gospels, Vermes takes unflinching aim at anti-Jewish comments (whether intentional or inadvertent) found in classic works of New Testament scholarship, both Protestant (Käsemann, Bultmann, Kittel) and Catholic (Vatican II), and hits his mark every time. Many of his observations are well known to those in the guild of biblical studies—for example, the tendency of Christian scholars and clergy to presume a qualitative distinction between early Jewish (bad, incomplete) and early Christian (good, perfected) writings, the tendency to regard Jewish texts merely as background to Christian origins and/or the tendency to allow Christian issues to determine the topics of inquiry. Vermes insists passionately that we recognize these as ongoing problems. He demonstrates how the Gospels promote anti-Jewish views and detach Jesus from Judaism, and how rigorous historical inquiry can correct these tendencies.

Vermes argues against a substantial Pharisaic presence in early first-century Galilee and so deflates the view of Pharisaic persecution of Jesus. He finds the gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial to conflict completely 056with any known Jewish law; rather than shatter the letter of Torah, Vermes’s Jesus firmly upholds it. Vermes also reminds those who find Jesus’ attitudes toward the enemy innovative that Josephus (Contra Apion 2:211) ascribes to Moses the comment: “We must show consideration even to declared enemies.”

Not all readers will be convinced by Vermes’s approach or happy with his conclusions. Some may find untenable his claims to be “detached” from his subject and therefore to be offering an objective approach. That he is a Jew who became a Roman Catholic priest, was laicized and has subsequently recovered his Judaism,^b and that the volume is dedicated to his parents—Hungarian Jews who, although baptized, were victims of the Nazis—will likely prompt some to see his work as personal apologetic rather than grounded history. Nevertheless, even if one were to conclude Vermes is biased, to be biased does not necessarily make him wrong. Historians never approach their topics without presuppositions.

Others will find precious if not disrespectful Vermes’s occasionally wicked 058phrasings. For example, he compares the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel to “E.T.” in his descent from and return to heaven—such that I could not shake the thought of a bat qol (voice from heaven) telling Jesus to “phone home.” According to Vermes, Stephen’s speech in Acts 7—a speech that resulted in his martyrdom—“bored his learned audience to death.” He describes the Pauline church as a “kind of cross…between a Pentecostal service and a Quaker meeting.”

It is often said that the job of the historian is to make strange what has become too familiar, and to make familiar what is strange. Vermes, the consummate historian, succeeds on both counts.

The volume ends with a personal reverie: In a dream, Vermes is about to learn Jesus’ views from the man himself, when he is awakened by a phone call from someone offering to install new windows in his home. It is difficult to know why Vermes included this dream, but a few ideas come to mind: First, studies of the historical Jesus are often described as less like looking through a window into the past than like looking into a mirror at oneself. Could it be that Vermes’s construction—his very Jewish Jesus—offers the best view? Or is he limited by his old windows, which allow him to see only through the glass, darkly? Or is Vermes taking a cue from the Gospel of Matthew’s appreciation for dreams: Like Joseph warned in a dream to protect his wife and child from evil authorities, we are warned by Vermes of the dangers that arise when Jesus is denied his Jewish roots, even as he shows us what may blossom when those roots are recognized and cultivated.

How did a man from Nazareth come to be hailed as divine? This question lies at the heart of the latest book by Geza Vermes, professor emeritus of Jewish studies at Oxford University. In his earlier works, Jesus the Jew (1973), Jesus and the World of Judaism (1983) and The Religion of Jesus the Jew (1993), Vermes focused on situating Jesus within his vibrant Jewish culture. This time, the eminent translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and authority on postbiblical and rabbinic Judaism turns directly to the New Testament. But unlike most biographers of the historical Jesus, who invariably […]