Readers Reply
004
Enough, Already!
Please, please, we have had enough. You have already proved that you are fair, evenhanded and not overly sensitive to criticism. Please don’t print any more letters from those whose sole intent is to express their disapproval of BR and to request that you cancel their subscription.
BR and Biblical Archaeology Review have opened up a new world of spiritual thought and experience for me, but, while Readers Reply is an important factor in this, the cancellation letters have been nothing but a real irritation. In contrast, the letters that comment on articals, books, trends or other relevant subjects are frequently the most interesting and thought-provoking part of BR, whether in agreement or intense disagreement.
Also, don’t print letters that have no real message. I won’t be hurt if you don’t print this one.
Like other letter writers, I feel I speak for the large majority of your readers.
Little Rock, Arkansas
Our Base Motives
I agree with those correspondents who suggest that you should not publish any letters whose writers ask you to cancel their subscriptions, not because the latter’s opinions are obnoxious, but because I suspect that your motive for publishing the letters is uncharitable: Putting them in print enables you to look down on the poor boobs with Olympian disdain.
Such letters are usually written in ill-considered haste and at the height of emotion, and are probably not representative of the writers’ better natures. It is unkind to print them. I often find myself in sympathy with the writers of such misguided missives.
Seaside, California
Scholars Won’t Go to Heaven
Please cancel my subscription immediately!!! To your writers: You can analyze the word of God to death, but you cannot make it say what you want or hear only what you want. You cannot serve both God and mammon. What kind of answer will you give to Almighty God when you are standing at the judgment throne? Your degrees will not get you into heaven, friend.
For those of you who wish to scoff: One day you’ll be left behind. Then you may remember that fancy words and education don’t help you one bit!
Marble, North Carolina
Satan’s Deceit
As I was looking at a long list of magazines, I saw the title Bible Review. I thought that sounded very interesting, but when I received my first magazine, I opened it to a page that was Satan’s deceit and not God’s word.
Please stop my subscription.
Hoxie, Kansas
BR a Stumbling Block
Please cancel my subscription now! Your magazine could be a stumbling block to those who seek the truth.
Who approves your articles, anyway?
Raleigh, North Carolina
Drivel
Cancel my subscription. What drivel!
Pratt, Kansas
Disappointed
Please cancel my subscription. BR is not at all what I’d hoped it would be.
005
I’m not a scholar, just an ordinary housewife who loves the Lord. I have a long way to go in my growth as a Christian, but I know I’m on the right path. Jesus will soon return and I want to be doing his service when He comes.
Stoystown, Pennsylvania
BR Is an Adult Christian Magazine
I find BR to be an adult Christian magazine. Both BR and Biblical Archaeology Review have added an informative, intellectual dimension to my faith.
Bellingham, Washington
Stands In-Between
My position does not seem to square well with the bulk of those readers whose letters you choose to publish. It seems they are either irate believers canceling their subscriptions or smug non-believers demeaning the intelligence of anyone who would claim to find God in the Bible. But I stand in-between, praising the God of the Bible and continuing my subscription to BR.
I place myself among those naive types who believe that the Almighty revealed himself to man through men, and that the revelation was, of necessity, progressive, until “in the fullness of time” He appeared as man.
My point is this: I can benefit from reading BR articles even though I don’t share the ideologies of the authors. It’s true I would prefer that they keep their bias out of sight, but must I reject their scholarship in order to avoid some spiritual virus? No, I believe my own God-given immune system is up to the challenge and I will emerge a winner.
Please don’t cancel my subscription.
Warrenton, Virginia
She Knew It
I knew it! I always knew it! Now I’m sure! The reason for your Readers Reply column is to ensure readership. I always turn to that column immediately to see what new ridiculous reasoning your readers have invented to criticize the authors of your articles.
Coffeyville, Kansas
Dante Used Virgil as a Spiritual Guide
Consider the thin line between scholars searching for truth and Athenian philosophers worshiping an unknown god. Dante, a Catholic, uses Virgil as his guide through Hell and Purgatory (for a long time, Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue was considered a religious document portending the birth of Christ), but he is stopped at the Garden of Eden because intellect can go no further, only faith can. The individuals in Limbo are there because they were born before Christ could redeem their souls.
Those of us who continually search for answers to what God said, what Christ preached and how mankind has interpreted those messages are engaged in an intellectual process. Those of us who believe that there is a single omniscient power, however, do not lose sight of what really matters: our faith.
Thank you for being intellectually stimulating.
Long Beach, California
A Chinese Parable May Help
As a student of mysticism, and a practicing mystic, I enjoy the continuing debate and controversy in Readers Reply over BR’s content. I am reminded of the fable about a young Chinese man who left his village to make a pilgrimage to the site where Buddha was born. The young man’s mother, far too old to make the journey, was forced to stay home. Yet her great faith and love of the Buddha required that she charge her son with finding a relic of Buddha that she could worship. The young man made his journey and was much affected by the holy site and spirit—so much so that he forgot to seek a relic for his mother. He did not remember until he was well on his way home. Dismayed, the young man sat upon the road side and pondered what to do. He saw a gleaming object in the dust of the road. It was a dog’s tooth! With much reverence and wonder, the young man presented the dog’s tooth to his mother as a tooth of the Buddha himself! His mother was overwhelmed. She immediately constructed a beautiful shrine to hold the sacred object. For many years, the venerated relic brought prosperity and health to the village. Many were healed in its presence, and blessings poured forth upon all who worshiped there.
How much more powerful are our heart and spirit than a thing worshiped.
So it is with the Scriptures, or any holy writing. Apart from the heart and spirit of Man, they have no meaning. They are but stains upon paper, grooves in clay, stone and metal. The active life of Man bestows upon them their sanctity. Man is the portal through which the Holy Spirit enters the world to become active in it. The Scriptures describe Man’s concepts of God at the time they were written. Once written they became still in the river of time, sitting solidly as a polished rock, as time and Man flow past them. It is vital to understand the time in which the Scriptures were written, to understand their meaning in the context of that time. But only we can resonate with the beauty and power expressed in these treasured writings. We search in these sacred pages for our inner selves.
I am banking on intellect overcoming ignorance, and I welcome intellectual challenges to my spirituality as the way to add depth of consciousness and sense of purpose. BR provides just such a challenge and is a valued component of my practice.
Redwood City, California
The Tablets of the Law
Education and Belief
Three cheers for Alan R. Millard’s article on the Ten Commandments (“Re-creating the Tablets of the Law,” BR 10:01). It was interesting and intelligent—and it appears Mr. Millard’s education hasn’t interfered with his beliefs in God. I can use his ideas in my teaching.
Houston, Texas
A Really Uplifting Text
Alan R. Millard’s article, “Re-creating the Tablets of the Law,” BR 10:01, raises some interesting questions, but also tends to ignore the obvious detail that the weight of the tablets is essentially irrelevant, as is Moses’ physical ability to lift them. In fact, the Torah sh‘ba‘al pe (Oral Torah, without which it is impossible to understand the written Torah) makes it quite clear that Moses could not lift the tablets by his own strength.
006
According to the oral tradition, it was the writing on the tablets that made them portable. When Moses came down from Sinai and found the orgiastic goings-on in the camp, the lettering fled back to heaven. The tablets reverted to their natural weight once the uplifting force of the divine inscription was taken away, and Moses was forced to drop them.
Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the irrelevance of physical weight is found, not in the tablets, but in the Aron Ha‘kodesh, or Holy Ark, in which they were kept. The physical dimensions of the Ark, and the amount of gold used in its construction, suggest that the Ark weighed several tons. Yet four men carried it easily. Again, the oral tradition provides the explanation. The Ark only appeared to be carried by the Levite porters, but in reality the porters were uplifted by the Ark. God’s presence, manifested both in the tablets and the Ark, allowed them to be moved.
Because of this, there is no need to resort to light clay tablets or limestone flakes. It makes as little sense as the modern desire to apply physical laws to metaphysical events.
Tree of Life Synagogue
Uniontown, Pennsylvania
The Geology of the Tablets
Alan R. Millard’s article was rightly critical of Giovanni Garbini’s conclusion that Moses’ tablets were made of baked clay rather than stone. Unlike the mud-filled lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, the lower reaches of most Sinai stream beds are remarkably sandy and stony.
Before and during Moses’ time, ancient people used naturally occurring impure quartz (commonly called flint) as weapons and tools. Flint is found not only in limestone strata in Egypt, Sinai, Canaan and elsewhere, but in streambeds as products of erosion. Joshua’s arsenal of weapons would have included flint arrowheads. Flint arrowheads can also be used to carve letters deeply into relatively soft limestones and cemented sandstones.
Limestone slabs 1 foot long and wide and at least 1 inch thick are readily obtained from stratified, Sinai limestone formations. Such a slab weighs about ten pounds and can be demolished easily, thus making limestone eligible for use as a Tablet of the Law, with flint or quartz as the engraving tool. However, 007limestone is a very soft and generally dirty rock.
At St. Catherine’s Monastery, the traditional Mt. Sinai, the mountain is underlain principally by red granite, which consists of feldspar minerals and quartz. Large, flattened slabs of granite frequently fall along the steep slopes. Granite slabs of 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 inch thick could have served as the tablets. Such a slab weighs about 15 pounds and can be shattered with some difficulty.
Other rock candidates exist within the red granite massif. One is granite pegmatite. Light-colored intrusions into the reddish granites, granite pegmatites contain very large, cream-colored, feldspar (orthoclase) crystals. Since orthoclase cleaves naturally, one can hammer and chisel a large exposure so as to extract flat slabs sufficiently long and wide and thin to serve as the Tablets of the Law.
Also, within the granite pegmatites are pockets of hard, gem-quality, smoky quartz crystals. Most of the smaller crystals are terminated by a pyramid and thus are ready for immediate use as engraving tools.
Given the minerals and rock types available in Sinai, a cream-colored, cleavable and clean orthoclase slab from pegmatite rocks would be my choice for the Tablets of the Law. Because orthoclase is a hard mineral, these tablets can be polished attractively after words are written on them—either with a smoky quartz “pen” or with a heavenly laser beam à la Cecil B. de Mille’s film.
Geologist
Mt. Shasta, California
The Arian Controversy
Supports Arius
I thought I would not live to see another article on the Arian controversy (Dennis Groh, “The Arian Controversy—How It Divided Early Christianity,” BR 10:01), having seen only one or two in my lifetime. It is one controversy that seems to carry with it the religious taboo of the ages, having been made anathema by several convocations of the Catholic Church so early in the history of Christianity. Many people were put to death for espousing the ideas of Arius or his followers. I imagine that before the Reformation, the subject was entirely suppressed among lay people. To this day, in my experience, trying to find anybody conversant with the Arian controversy—let alone attempting to have a wide open discussion of its merits—is difficult if not impossible. It still is taboo and a heresy to the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church. To many Protestants, mainly of the Fundamentalist brand, anybody who would venture to say that Jesus Christ was not actually God himself is committing blasphemy. I was once told by an old-time preacher that I was right on the direct path to hell after I suggested that Jesus never claimed to be God nor did he claim to be equal to him. The preacher was livid with rage. You can imagine what the Arians of the fourth and fifth century went through, since under the bans of anathema they could be hunted down and either consigned to the rack for torture or just simply tied to a stake and burnt alive for their ideas.
I should also point out that the separation of church and state here in the United States has contributed negatively to the open and free discussion of religious subjects. How many times have you heard “I never discuss my religion”? Compare that to 17th-century England, where religious subjects were talked about from noon to midnight and dozens of new sects were formed. Are we returning to the closed-door taboos of the dark ages?
Having said all that, I would criticize Mr. Groh for avoiding a few details about Arius in his otherwise provocative piece. Arius is known to have cited Scripture in claiming that Jesus was not equal to God at any time during his pre-human or human life. Among them was “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Another text I like is John 20:17, where Jesus says, “Go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” If ever a text supported the Arian side of the issue, this one does, I once extracted every text in the New Testament that seemed to me to support the Arian opinion, and they formed a 20-page treatise. The only passage that seems to deliberately assert the Athanasian view is 1 John 5:7: “There are three that testify in heaven: The Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.” But I know that this text is apparently a fraudulent insertion from the fifth century, for it does not appear in earlier collections 008and is not in Vatican MS. 1209.
The Arian Controversy was solved only by political intrigue, manipulated by the power of Constantine, who was not a Christian by any means.
Inglewood, California
Biased Translations
Thank you for Dennis Groh’s article on “the Arian Controversy” (“The Arian Controversy—How It Divided Early Christianity,” BR 10:01). I only wish that this article dealt not just with interesting historical sidelights but with the theological debate and the scriptures themselves. In many ways the church of today is still bound to doctrines developed in the Dark Ages. Politics and power rather than persistent scholarship and honest evaluation of biblical texts have shaped our theology on some fundamental issues. The Reformation only began to scratch the surface; we have assumed wrongly that the right track has been regained on all teachings of the scripture.
The finality of the conquerors’ victory over Arianism remains decisive 1,400 years after Justinian’s removal of the mosaics of King Theodoric and his court. Arguments for the trinity and for the deity of Christ are even today among the most difficult to make from the Greek scriptures themselves. However, beliefs institutionalized by centuries of dogmatism have constrained churches, seminaries and even Bible translators to “toe the party line” or to be branded as heretics, regardless of what the scriptures really say.
The best example may be the translation of harpagmos in the classic passage regarding Christ’s humbling of himself (Philippians 2:6–10). The Greek says that Christ did not regard equality with God as something to be seized. Interestingly, modern translators almost unanimously choose grasp for seize. Grasp can mean “to hold onto firmly,” like a sloth grasping his branch, as well as “to reach for with eagerness or greed, as to seize.” The use of grasp, with its ambiguity of meaning, rather than the clear seize for harpagmos, allows the reader of the English translation to support a view of “the deity of Christ” not held by Paul, who wrote that “there is but one God [deus/deity], the Father” (1 Corinthians 8:6).
It is fascinating to see how “scholars” have justified their ambiguous and misleading translations of the Greek on this point. This is only one illustration of how political trinitarianism has affected Bible translations so that lay readers cannot make an unbiased appraisal of what is taught as doctrine. Clear distinctions between Father and Son such as those made in John 17:3, 1 Timothy 2:5, 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10, and 1 Corinthians 8:4–6 are forgotten after arguments are made from other texts that have been deliberately and unfairly translated to allow misinterpretation.
Ulysses, Pennsylvania
Not a Left-Handed Blessing
I read Dennis Groh’s article on the Arian controversy (“The Arian Controversy—How It Divided Early Christianity,” BR 10:01) with considerable interest. I thought the article was well written, but I feel compelled to make a few comments about the illustrations, which, by the way, are of the high quality one has come to expect in BR.
Having taught Byzantine art for many years, I was naturally drawn to the photographs. The church shown on page 22, I am afraid, has been misidentified. Instead of being Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Theodoric’s church in Ravenna, it is Sant’Apollinare in Classe, just outside Ravenna. The common dedication, I am sure, accounts for the confusion. The detail of the mosaics from the southwall of Sant’Appollinare Nuovo on page 24, showing Christ enthroned flanked by angels, was unfortunately reversed, so that Christ appears to be blessing with his left hand, the hand commonly used for condemnation!
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
Professor McKenzie is correct.—Ed.
Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness
The Last Straw
I recently renewed my subscription to BR. Even though I didn’t always see eye-to-eye with many of your contributors, I felt they had the right to express their own “views.”
Lately, however, I find myself becoming more aware of your biased approach to New Testament Christianity. More and more of your articles attempt to denigrate my Jesus and cast 009Him aside as anything you want to label Him on that given day, except as the Messiah.
The article by Hartmut Stegemann is most appalling to me (“Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness—Similarities and Differences,” BR 10:01). Evidently Professor Stegemann is so wrapped up in the Dead Sea Scrolls that he places more substance in the Teacher of Righteousness than in Jesus of Nazareth.
I am inclined to believe he has never read or understood the New Testament since his account of Jesus doesn’t correlate with my reading of the New Testament.
Professor Stegemann’s claims about what Jesus thought or didn’t think are akin to some sports announcer telling me what a baseball pitcher or football quarterback is thinking.
He emphatically informs me Jesus was a follower of his “master” John the Baptist. Has he found a Bible that none of us know about? I won’t comment further on this statement since I’m sure your Christian readers are aghast at this news.
Consider this statement by Stegemann: “Later, his adherents, or the Christian communities, considered him to be a mediator of the kingdom of God, the royal Messiah, the ‘Son of God’ and so on. To Jesus himself, however, such views were quite strange; he was witness to and involved in God’s actions, but did not feel that he alone had the leading role or function in this cosmic drama.” Where does the learned Stegemann get this (false) knowledge? When Jesus met the Samarian woman at the well in John 4:7–26, she said to him that she knew the Messiah—he who is called Christ—was coming and that, when he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus replied, “I that speak unto thee am he.”
Professor Stegemann is under the impression that unless a religious leader has written with his own hand for history’s sake or has been born in a priestly family, he should be disregarded as having no religious authority or standing in the community. It almost makes you feel sorry for an insignificant baby born in a simple manger two thousand years ago.
Please cancel my subscription to BR and Biblical Archaeology Review. Having your publications in my home would signify a compromise of my religious values, and I have no intention of denying my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jacksonville, Alabama
Hartmut Stegemann replies:
My article was written not to appall readers of BR, but to illuminate some characteristic factors of Jesus’ religious leadership by a comparison with the Teacher of Righteousness. I am sorry that I disappointed you. My answers to your three criticisms are:
1. By baptizing another person, you will always become, so to speak, her or his “master.” According to Matthew 3:14, John the Baptist refused to become the “master” of Jesus by baptizing him. But Jesus nevertheless claimed to receive John’s baptism, and therefore John became in a sense his “master.” Notice that I always put the term “master,” if related to John the Baptist, in quotation marks: The true “master” behind and above him is clearly God himself.
2. In Jesus’ time, people longed for the future coming of a royal messiah. Like his ancestor King David, he should become the mighty military leader of all Israel, killing in battle all its pagan enemies. At the same time, the messiah should be the political ruler within Israel, governing God’s people more wisely and justly than any of his forerunners (see, for example, Odes of Solomon 17, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth [New York: Doubleday, 1985], vol. 2, pp. 750–751).
Jesus never claimed to be this messiah. At least, nowhere in the Gospels do we find him confessing or claiming, “I am the messiah.” Only if other people suggested him to be this messiah, he agreed with some limitations (see, for example, Mark 8:29–33/Luke 9:20–22; Mark 14:61–62/Matthew 26:63–64/Luke 22:67–70). He clearly hoped that the people should understand his agreement in a sense different from the traditional concept of the royal messiah (see his answers to Pontius Pilate, John 18:36–37). This is also the deeper sense of his plain agreements in Matthew 16:17, or John 4:26; see the broader context in both Gospels.
My statement that Jesus never considered himself the royal messiah is clearly related to the traditional concept of this title, not to its modified understanding in the Gospels. I, like you, believe in our saviour Jesus Christ. But I don’t regard Jesus as a future killer of all pagan enemies of Israel or of Christianity for that matter, and he is also much more than a political ruler. Indeed, the true understanding of his messianic office became known to his disciples only after his resurrection (see Mark 9:9 or John 2:22).
3. Jesus’ birth as “an insignificant baby born in a simple manger” should tell us that our saviour did not win through any personal power within himself, but by the power of God’s own Spirit, or “finger” (see Matthew 12:28/Luke 11:20).
010
Stegemann Ignored Contrary Evidence
While I often find myself in disagreement with some of what your writers have to say, I am not one of those who say: “Cancel my subscription! I can’t stand such heresy (or whatever).” As a Sunday School teacher for over 40 years and a lay supply preacher for 25 years, I know that the average layperson has no idea how diverse religious and theological thinking is.
If BR is to be understood by those laypersons who lack a good religious education, your writers need to explain more fully or justify some of their ideas. A good example is Hartmut Stegemann’s article (“Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness—Similarities and Differences,” BR 10:01). While he quotes certain Dead Sea Scroll and Scripture passages to justify some statements, he makes other statements directly contrary to Scripture. At least he could insert a footnote to show why he ignores certain New Testament passages that are in opposition to his ideas. For brevity, I will cite only one example.
On page 47, we find the statement, “Jesus did not believe in the coming of a ‘messiah,’ or even conceive of himself as such.” In contrast, in Matthew 16:15–17, 20 (NIV), Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is, and Peter responds that he is the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the living God. Jesus tells Peter that this was revealed to him (Peter) by “my Father in heaven,” and “then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone he was the Christ (Messiah).”
Stegemann should have explained the basis for his statement in the light of passages to the contrary. His failure to do so, I suggest, will cause some readers to reject the entire basis of his article.
Verona, Virginia
Hartmut Stegemann replies:
I know very well the evidence in the Gospels that seems contrary to my statements. You are right to suggest at least a footnote for its explanation. See now my reply to Mr. Fulford, above.
Jesus Wasn’t a Modern Pop-Counselor
Hartmut Stegemann has clearly laid out both the similarities and the differences between Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness. His arguments, I hope, have put to rest forever the old ideas of their identification. In doing so, however, Stegemann has resorted to the even older critical methodology that essentially strips the Gospels of any event or statement that does not fit into one’s presuppositions about Jesus’ words and works.
How can anyone confidently assert that Jesus did not teach with authority and only “conveyed his observations to others”? The only way to make this conclusion is to eliminate vast sections of the words attributed to Jesus. Matthew 7:28–29 states: “Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.” If Jesus conducted his ministry by simply “sharing his thoughts,” in the terms of some modern pop-counselor, how could He have made the lasting impact that He did?
How can Stegemann affirm that Jesus “did not perform miracles to convince others of his own religious power”? Whether or not one accepts these signs as divine authentication of His ministry, it is simply going against the evidence to deny that they took place. While some Jewish leaders attributed the source of these miracles to Satan (Matthew 12:24), they did not deny that they happened! This is evident also from the references to Jesus’ miracles in the Talmudic writings. These later rabbis also denied the divine source of the miracles, but they did not deny that they took place!
It appears that Stegemann and some other modern “reconstructors” of Jesus’ life claim to know more than the Jewish witnesses to Jesus. In my opinion, Stegemann’s statements tell us far more about the author’s personal philosophical views than about Jesus’ life and teachings.
Institute of Biblical Studies
Bellmawr, New Jersey
Hartmut Stegemann replies:
Jesus was indeed the opposite of a modern pop-counselor. He did not try to convince people by empty talk. Instead, Jesus was the primary mediator of God’s own power, by his acts as well as by his efficacious words.
I am not inclined to strip the Gospels. I only try to detect their innermost truth, the core of all the many words and works of Jesus, the central reality that he himself called the Kingdom of God. Even if the Gospel of John does not mention it (except in 3:3, 5), the other Gospels tell us enough to understand the importance of this orientation. God’s own Kingdom started on earth with the acting of Jesus. This basic orientation is the historical progenitor of all its further explanations in the Gospels by Jesus himself and by others (such as the reports on his miracles). The Gospels are not arbitrary collections of religiously more or less important materials, but are centered around the Kingdom of God. If necessary, you may in a first step “strip” them to detect their core. But by the second step, you should again relate all the evidence in the Gospels to their central message. My article was mainly concerned with the first step, but it should not be very difficult for BR readers to add the second step by themselves.
The special authority of Jesus’ teaching was the fact that what he taught really happened. The scribes taught a lot of theoretical orientations. But if Jesus urged by his command a demon to leave a sick person, the demon disappeared at once by the power of His word. This was His new kind of teaching (see Mark 1:21–28, esp. 1:22, 27).
I never denied the miracles of Jesus, which were stated by other Jews also in the Gospels, (see, for example, Mark 3:22–27/Matthew 12:24–29/Luke 11:15–22). The special intention of my article was only to point to the fact that the power within those miracles was not the power of a human being, but power from Heaven, or the power of God himself. This heavenly power became effective in the works and in the words of Jesus. He always pointed to His Father in Heaven as the real source of His power (see Matthew 12:28/Luke 11:20). The Teacher of Righteousness never executed miracles of this kind, but Jesus became famous because of them.
Jesus Refutes Stegemann
I can only hope that Hartmut Stegemann understands the biblical writings about Jesus. Otherwise the whole article is faulty!
Mr. Stegemann makes statements that show that (a) he has not read the four Gospels, or (b) he didn’t understand what he read, or (c) he forgot what he read, or (d) he has some pipeline to historical knowledge about Jesus in which he places more credence than the Bible or (most likely in my opinion) (e) he made statements about Jesus that would have been true about most religious leaders such as Buddha and Muhammed, who claimed nothing special about themselves but had special characteristics including divinity posthumously attributed to them by their followers. Here are Mr. Stegemann’s 011statements followed by Jesus’ own words that refute him.
Stegemann: “To Jesus himself, however, such views [that he was the Messiah and the Son of God] were quite strange …”; “Jesus, however, did not consider himself to be such a priestly mediator. All his authority came from the acting God and from Jesus’ own followers”; “Jesus did not consider himself to be a religious ‘leader’ or the royal ‘messiah.’”
Jesus: Claim of divine origin: “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man” (John 3:13). Claim of being the messiah: “The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’ Then Jesus declared, ‘I who speak to you am he’” (John 4:25–26). Claim of being God: “‘You are not yet fifty years old,’ the Jews said to him, ‘and you have seen Abraham!’ ‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). (This last expression used by Jesus to designate Himself—“I am”—is the same designation given by God to Moses when Moses asked who he should tell the Israelites in Egypt had sent him—“I am that I am.”) Claim of being the only mediator: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6). Claim that His omnipotence came from God and not from His followers: “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’” (Matthew 28:18).
Perhaps Mr. Stegemann has another, more authoritative source from which he derives his understanding of how Jesus thought of Himself. Perhaps it is an original manuscript of Q, in which several of your recent “scholars” place so much credence.
I speak facetiously, but look, the books of the Bible have been around for at least 2,000 years and some for a millennium longer! If they could be “broken,” it would have already occurred long ago.
Acworth, Georgia
Hartmut Stegemann replies:
If Jesus himself seemingly refutes some statements of my article, it is the risen Jesus Christ after Easter, not Jesus in the 049time before his crucifixion as discussed in my article.
This fact is at once evident in the case of Matthew 28:18, where the risen Jesus Christ commanded his disciples to baptize and to teach the gentiles. But his different “claims” in the Gospel of John—to be of divine origin (John 3:13), to be the true messiah (John 4:25–26), to be himself God (John 8:85) and to be the only mediator on the way which leads to God (John 14:6)—were formulated only after the Easter events.
All these “claims” in John demonstrate the real importance of Jesus for his believers in another manner than the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke had done it before. These “claims” spring from a much deeper understanding of Jesus’ importance than what we find in the other Gospels. But they are not at the same time historical in the sense that Jesus uttered those “claims” before his crucifixion. In the Gospels Jesus speaks to us not only with words that he formulated before his crucifixion, but also with words from heaven, afterwards.
These later words should have the very same value as the former ones. Therefore, the Gospels included them in their picture of the period before Jesus’ crucifixion. There are not two Christs, but the very same Jesus Christ before and after his crucifixion, every time with the same importance and value. But to compare Jesus to the Teacher of Righteousness and the aspect of religious leadership during their lifetimes, I must reduce the evidence from the Gospels to its historical core. This view is not wrong, but one-sided from the point of view of belief. One should not refute it, but respect its limited importance.
Potpourri
Jesus Seminar Flawed
As a community college professor who started out as a chemist and ended up teaching New Testament as well (after several sabbaticals and enough units for a master’s in religious studies), I have always enjoyed your magazine. I have particularly enjoyed Marcus Borg’s column, as well as his book, Jesus: A New Vision (Harper & Row, 1987).
However, I attended a couple sessions of the Jesus Seminar, and I would like to suggest that their work is flawed in several ways. For one, they studied the Gospels in isolation from the works of Paul, and this is a false paradigm. Scholars agree that Paul is the earliest writer of the New Testament, writing his major and uncontested letters sometime between 47 and 56 C.E. In a number of those letters—Romans, Galatians, the Corinthian correspondence—Paul makes several claims that we have no reason to dispute. He claims to be in contact with the apostolic community (Galatians 1 and 2), and he claims that his Christianity has been fleshed out by them (1 Corinthians 15:3–8). He also claims that his Christianity is their Christianity. All would agree that Paul speaks of an atonement as in Romans 3, Galatians 3, etc. This means that the concept of atonement is in the earliest stratum of the Church. While that is no guarantee that it was not invented by the apostolic community, it would seem to be a very quick creative act if that was the case. And wouldn’t Paul’s converts, some of whom did travel, question Paul’s theology if their community taught something different? This means that if it is an invention of the Gospel writers, we have no way of knowing it, since it is found in the earliest strata of biblical materials.
Another flaw of the seminar is in its composition. As indicated, fundamentalists’ scholarship was welcomed, but none became members. This means that its composition was analogous to a meeting of the creationists society. The members were all of a self-selected liberal stripe. Bright as those scholars are, such meetings change few minds, since the interaction that is needed to change those minds does not take place. Difficult as it is, interaction must take place between these two groups. Comparable difficult exchanges do take place in the sciences—for example, Bohr and Einstein struggled fiercely over how quantum mechanics should be viewed. The outcome of these kinds of battles—and they are just that—is a much higher degree of agreement among scientists than among biblical scholars.
A third flaw of the seminar lies in the efforts of Robert Funk, its organizer, who wants to educate the American public as to where biblical scholarship stands in order to move Americans away from their biblical literalism. The problem with this noble endeavor, as with so many efforts of this kind, is a weakness in learning theory. The view is that all one has to do is to present logical arguments and everyone will be convinced. But it doesn’t work that way. People are fundamentalists for a variety of reasons, including the need for absolutes. I find just as many people on the left who are dogmatic in their ideas as I do in church. Some people are fundamentalists because their friends, family and fellow workers are. Consequently, we must be aware of the need for a support system when asking people to make such a fundamental change in viewpoint. These social forces are very strong. Generally, books and arguments are not enough. Fundamentalism is wrong, of course, because it is a biblical heresy. That is, it treats the Bible in a way that would have shocked the Bible’s writers. Everyone who studies the Gospels can see the freedom that each author used in selecting, omitting, arranging and modifying sources. Those writers were not fundamentalists.
La Mesa, California
Marcus J. Borg replies:
The Jesus Seminar did include Paul’s letters; wherever Paul appears to refer to a saying of Jesus, we considered it. However, Paul does not do this very often. Moreover, though Paul provides evidence that understanding Jesus’ death as an atonement is early, it is not evidence that Jesus himself spoke about his death this way. In our judgment, texts about the meaning of Jesus’ death are best understood as post-Easter developments. There was no need to interpret the death of Jesus until after it had happened.
The fact that fundamentalists did not become part of the Seminar does not mean that all of us were like-minded. There were (and are) significant disagreements among Seminar members. For example, was Jesus primarily an individualistic wisdom teacher? Was he also a social prophet? Was he also a religious ecstatic and healer? Was he more of a Hellenistic Cynic-type sage, or a deeply Jewish figure? To use the analogy that Jappe uses, I think we did have disagreements like those between Einstein and Bohr. However, it would be unfair to criticize Einstein or Bohr because they were not in regular dialogue with people who reject modern science.
I agree with Jappe’s third point, that logical arguments (especially those based on a different understanding of the nature of the Gospels) are not going to change persons who are strongly fundamentalist. However, changing the minds of fundamentalists was not a primary goal of Robert Funk or the Jesus Seminar. Rather, our goal was to make the broader public 050aware that there is a way of understanding the Gospels quite different from the fundamentalist option. To put that differently, our intended audience was not people committed to the inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible, but people for whom the fundamentalist approach doesn’t work. There are many in our culture who stay away from the church because they assume that to be Christian means believing that the Gospels are literally and infallibly true. Our intention was to make this group aware of the alternative approach offered by mainline biblical scholarship.
Finally, I agree with Jappe’s perceptive concluding comment that the Gospel writers themselves were clearly not fundamentalists. As Jappe points out, one of the most powerful antidotes to the notion that the Gospels are inerrant is the careful comparative study of the texts themselves.
Put John First
If one is seeking for New Testament symmetry (“The Undiscovered Symmetry of the Bible—An Interview with David Noel Freedman—Part II,” BR 10:01), the logical location for the Gospel of John ought to be before Matthew, Mark and Luke-Acts. That way, John and Revelation form an envelope for the entire New Testament. And John’s “In the beginning…” neatly parallels that of Genesis.
This whole discussion of symmetry is definitely intriguing. But it strikes me as also quite tenuous. If David Noel Freedman’s suggestion that the New Testament symmetry was consciously modeled after that of the Old Testament so as “to establish the New Testament as authoritative scripture” has any validity—well, since no one seems to have discovered that proof till now, the attempt has surely been a failure.
Fort Washington, Pennsylvania
David Noel Freedman replies:
The proposal made by Mr. Delancy is “definitely intriguing” and may also be “tenuous,” which may be part of the writer’s intention. As he could go on to point out, we have no evidence that the Gospel of John was ever placed first in any codex of the New Testament or on anyone’s list. Its designation as the “Fourth Gospel,” was made early and apparently stuck with the Gospel from early times until the present. Nevertheless, the placement between the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts is surely anomalous, since Luke and Acts are continuous and belong together. So Mr. Delancy should go on with his idea and show how the symmetry of the New Testament is enhanced and sharpened by this keen observation. Offhand, I think he could show that by placing John first (and certainly the author of the Gospel had the Book of Genesis in mind when he wrote the opening verses, while, just as clearly, the author of the Apocalypse considered his book the last and a fitting closure as the latest revelation of Jesus Christ) he would divide the fourth section (as indicated in my analysis) roughly in half, with the first half at the very beginning, followed by the matching section (Matthew and Mark) which is just about twice as long as the Gospel of John. The Luke//Paul corpus would be left as is, and then the closing section would be balanced out with the Epistles and Revelation, as previously noted. While I might not regard the symmetry demonstrated here as quite perfect, it has some appealing qualities. Mr. Delancy should be encouraged to carry out his plan in more detail and with due regard for the numbers, which are essential if symmetry is to be more than a slogan. I suspect, 051however, that his real intention is not to advance the cause of symmetry, but to dismiss the findings as fantasy. My own view is that whether or not the original compiler was able to convey his intention to others, he succeeded admirably in producing a structure in the New Testament that matches up very well with its model, the Hebrew Bible.
Q Hypothesis Ends in Tautology
While I accept (provisionally) the Q-hypothesis (Stephen J. Patterson, “Q—The Lost Gospel,” BR 09:05), I must ask how Jesus can appear as anything other than a teacher if the hypothetical document upon which said portrait is based is supposed to have been a collection of teachings. Of course there aren’t any accounts of miracles or the resurrection, as they are excluded by definition from such a document. To assert the prior existence of such a document as a good working hypothesis and then to claim that this demonstrates that its authors did not believe in any miraculous events is to me the height of tautology.
All of which begs the question: Have the redactional critics ever considered as a working hypothesis a common source for miracle accounts found in two or more of the synoptics? Or is such an enterprise deemed unworthy of consideration as a record of superstition? Note that I am not demanding that redactional critics accept the supernaturalism or even the historicity of these accounts, only that they not be treated as being of lesser worth than the sayings traditions.
The reason I ask is that it seems to me that Mack, Patterson and the bulk of the Jesus Seminar are retreating to Strauss and Renan. Such portraits of Jesus are purged of any apocalyptic elements, such as the Son of Man or the Kingdom of God—indeed, of anything that makes Jesus a Palestinian Jew of the first-century. Instead we get a cynic philosopher who seems more Hellenistic than Jewish, one more attractive and fashionable to the post-hippie baby-boomers who make up the bulk of faculty in schools of theology and departments of religious studies.
Houston, Texas
Stephen J. Patterson replies:
One of my criticisms of Mack’s book was that he seems in my view to conclude too much about early Christianity on the basis of Q. Q is only a small piece of the puzzle of Christian origins. To have a more comprehensive view of Christian beginnings, one must look at a variety of early Christian documents, including early miracle collections. The author of John most certainly had such a collection at his disposal. Scholars commonly refer to it as the Signs Gospels. In an earlier book (A Myth of Innocence, 1988), Mack was indeed more attentive to various kinds of documents in earliest Christianity and the theologies that correlate to each. I can recommend it as a masterful survey of the diversity of interpretation present in earliest Christianity.
Mr. Martin is right to notice that much of the new research on Jesus represents a departure from the consensus that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, which held sway for almost a century, beginning with Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer at the turn of the century. Mack and others are not unaware of this. The evidence is simply leading in another direction today. Recent research on Q and the Gospel of Thomas has played a role in this shift. But scholars are also working today with a different understanding of Judaism and Jewish culture in the first century. It was 052not a monolithic, one-dimensional society focused on apocalyptic hope. Rather, Palestine was the meeting place of diverse cultures, Jewish and gentile, east and west, old and new. One may no longer choose either a Jewish or a Hellenistic view of Jesus. Any Jewish thinker of the first century would have been at home in a very Hellenized Jewish culture. To speak of Jesus as a Jewish Cynic is not at all incongruous with the cultural realities of first-century Galilee.
How Accurate Is Oral Tradition?
In Stephen J. Patterson’s defense of the Q hypothesis (Readers Reply, BR 10:01), he says: “This is why scholars are so skeptical of the historical accuracy of the Gospels: They are built upon 35 years of ever-changing oral tradition….”
I happen to have recently read the Anchor Bible edition of Matthew, and in their introduction William F. Albright and Stephen Mann cite evidence for the unchanging nature of the oral tradition:
“We do have, as it happens, an important and almost entirely neglected body of evidence for the tenacity with which the oral tradition about Jesus was preserved during this extremely difficult period of almost complete discontinuity in the life of Palestinian Christians. This consists of the proper names, including both personal and place names, found in the four gospels and preserved in the Syriac version…. If we examine the Syriac recensions of the gospels carefully, we find that the most important recensions—the Vetus Syra (second or third century), the Peshitta (about fourth century), and the Syro-Palestinian lectionaries (about fifth century)—agree almost throughout in the form of proper names…. We may therefore reasonably suppose that Jewish Christians fleeing from Palestine took with them firmly fixed oral traditions, especially those underlying the so-called “Q” material, and put them into Greek as soon as they could, realizing that they might otherwise be lost.”
San Diego, California
Stephen J. Patterson replies:
I have reviewed the argument by Albright and Mann. The argument, as I understand it, is this: The Syriac version of the New 053Testament is a translation from a Greek onginal, but it contains personal and place names that are Aramaic in form. They suggest that these names cannot have come from the Greek, but must derive from a living oral tradition in Syria that came originally from Palestine. Albright and Mann wonder at the tenacity with which these names survived in oral tradition, such that they could have been substituted for their Greek counterparts in the Vetus Syra (third century) or the Peshitta (fifth century).
Of their examples, however, very few could not be otherwise accounted for. Seldom does the Syriac correspond exactly to an original Palestinian name. The similarities between them could simply derive from the linguistic base common to Syriac and Aramaic. Where such a solution is ruled out, one must reckon with Syrian familiarity with Palestinian places and names. In the end, there may be a few cases in which the oral tradition has preserved a name over a long period of time. But the occasional preservation of a name in the telling of a story is not very remarkable; it certainly does not guarantee that such stories were repeated verbatim or with historical accuracy. Studies by Albert Lord (The Singer of Tales, [Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960]) and Milman Parry (The Making of Homeric Verse, [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971]) and more recently by Walter Ong (Orality and Literacy, [London/New York: Methuen, 1981]), show that persons living in primarily oral cultures do not share our valuation of verbatim accuracy.
The Source of Q—Revisited
Fernando C. Viesca’s letter on “The Source of Q” (Readers Reply, BR 10:01) repeats the theory that the Q symbol grew out of Joseph Armitage Robinson’s lectures at Cambridge University during the 1890s. The Dictionary of National Biography (1931–1940) states that Robinson was Norrisian Professor of Divinity at Cambridge from 1893 to 1899. But the Q symbol appeared before those lectures!
In 1890, Johannes Weiss used Q in an article published in Theologisches Studien und Kritiken (vol. 63, pp. 557ff). He used it again in articles in each of the two subsequent years. Also, in his 1892 Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (p. 8), he stated that Mark provided the basic structure for both Matthew and Luke. He then added the following statement, which I quote from the 1971 English edition:
“In addition, one may venture to acknowledge a source [Quelle] (Q) which contained predominantly sayings and which can be—though it has admittedly not yet been—reconstructed from Matthew and Luke. And one may also posit a special source [Quelle] for Luke “LQ” containing narrative, parables, and sayings.”
I have added the two “Quelle”s in square brackets to the English text to establish the connection.
It must be remembered that before the emergence of the Q symbol no clear and consistent designation of the assumed document had emerged. Half a dozen English and German words or combinations appeared in the literature. The Q symbol provided a neutral symbol and a convenient brief designation. It has begun its second century.
South Hadley, Massachusetts
Does God Have One?
I am puzzled. Those who complain about art showing the penis (Readers Reply, BR 10:01) are invariably the same people who staunchly maintain that God has one.
I do not want my name and address published. I know from sad experience that controversial statements in print lead to harassment.
Name and address withheld on request
Is Pornography in the Eye of the Beholder?
I note with amusement the letter (Readers Reply, BR 10:01) that takes exception to the October 1993 issue’s reproductions of paintings by El Greco and others.
Please accept this reader’s strong support for including good art in your magazine. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; perhaps pornography is as well! I am pleased that you do not feel embarrassed about reproducing appropriate classic artistic representations.
The Agencies of Martin Luther Home Society Inc.
Lincoln, Nebraska
From the Ram’s Viewpoint
I just finished reading the February “Readers Reply,” fascinating as always. All the characters in the Akedah (the Binding of Isaac) have been analyzed from their viewpoints except one, the victim’s. I thought the ram should have his say too:
A Ram Caught in the Thicket
(Genesis 22)I watched horrified as he bound the boy
and lay him on the altar.
I watched as he shoved the child’s head back
with his left hand under his chin,
and took the knife in his right hand
as my horns got caught in the thicket.
I bleated and struggled
as the Voice called out from Heaven,
Do not lay your hand on the boy
and do not do anything to him;
for now I know that you fear me:
you did not withhold your beloved son.
And I struggled and he saw me
his face aglow his son unbound
and he came to release me on this joyous day.
But he took the cord and bound me and lay me on the altar
and he shoved my head back
with his left hand under my chin,
and he took the knife in his right hand.
I bleated and struggled
awaiting the Voice from Heaven
but it did not come.
His face was aglow as he brought down the knife
And his son watched…
Santa Monica, California
Enough, Already!
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.