Archive for September, 2006

We know nothing about the circumstances of Mary’s pregnancy other than the two accounts in Matthew 1 and Luke 2, and the traditions that Jesus was called “Yeshu ben Pantera,” son of a Roman soldier named Pantera. If Jesus had a human father, and Joseph, who later married his mother Mary/Miriam, was not responsible for the pregnancy, which even the Gospel accounts insist upon, then we are left with nothing but imagination.

In other words, we simply do not know the circumstances of the pregnancy. I say this in my book, The Jesus Dynasty, but I have been utterly amazed at the ugliness of some readers who can only imagine the worse when it comes to such a scenario. But why imagine the worse? Why join the slanderers? Why use words like “bastard” and “illegitimacy.” Why imagine rape and violence, or sexual looseness? One has to ask, illegitimate in whose eyes? Bastard according to whom? Matthew hints to the reader that one should be careful in judging those of the past, even those of this holy lineage of David of the tribe of Judah. What about Tamar and Rahab and Ruth and Bathsheba, each presumably the subject of slander and evil tongues in their own times? And even if the name Pantera does represent a real person, the father of Jesus, we know nothing of his life at the time he met Mary, at what age he might have joined the Roman army, or really anything at all about him–unless the German tombstone tells us a bit–and there is no way to link that Pantera to the one spoken of in Sepphoris in the 2nd century A.D.

I am a Romanticist, so I am keen on imagining the best. My reading of ancient literature convinces me that the passion of love between a man and a woman is ubiquitous in every culture in the ancient Mediterranean world. Despite societal expectations and strictures the heart has always had its ways. Why not imagine, since we are imagining, Mary and Jesus’ father deeply in love? I had someone tell me after a lecture that such ideas were anachronistic projections into the past–Marriages were arranged, individual love between couples simply did not exist as an ideal to be sought. I had to wonder what literature from antiquity this person had been reading. Why not imagine honorable motives and pure intentions? Perhaps the family objected to the whole thing? Perhaps Mary was forced to flee to her relatives? I like to imagine her firmly standing her ground and honoring the child growing within her as a gift of God.

How Joseph comes into the picture we don’t know, whether he was indeed older, or the pick of the family, or what, but he appears to be a “good man” and he can be honored for that. The father, whoever he might have been, disappears. But who knows what Mary might have told Jesus about it all, if she chose to relate to him the circumstances? He seems to have grown up under the stigma of being called “son of Mary,” with no father named, in our earliest text. But again, I prefer to imagine Mary standing firm for her choice of his father and telling him that his father was a good and holy man in the eyes of God–no matter what the wagging tongues, ancient or even modern, might imply to the contrary. Only a woman knows the inner secrets of her heart, and who and why she decides to share her bed. Maybe Mary believed in destiny, in chosenness. Maybe she raised Jesus with a sense of his specialness, his uniqueness. All of this could be the case without angels appearing and pregnancies coming from on high, like some pagan Greco-Roman tale of the god Zeus or Jupiter impregnating a woman with a “son of God.”

Because of the extraordinary character of Jesus, of James his brother, and the others in the family, I choose to imagine the best about Mary and the unnamed father of Jesus, and I am convinced, even though we can only imagine in this case, that such imagination is in the direction of the truth.

I continue to hear from hundreds of readers of The Jesus Dynasty and by far the majority of the messages (letters and e-mails) are very positive. Some of these messages are profoundly moving, for example, the one I got earlier this month that began, “Dear Dr. Tabor, I waited almost 90 years for The Jesus Dynasty, thank you for leading me out of darkness into light. You verified many things I had long suspected without any substantiating evidence…” This reader goes on to relate growing up in a rather repressive religious environment where certain dogmas were promoted through fear and in the name of “Christ,” none of which it is likely the historical Jesus would have endorsed. I do not see myself in any role as a spiritual guide to others. I want to maintain my academic stance as an historian of religions. But if I my book contributes towards a better understanding of Jesus as he actually was, and a partial recovery of his teachings within his Jewish world, then I consider such a step forward.

However, I have received some very negative responses, even if comparatively few. It seems the most oft voiced objection to my presentation of things in The Jesus Dynasty is the charge that I “reject the supernatural.” For example, one reviewer at Amazon.com recently offered the following analysis:

By concluding that Jesus died, and stayed dead before examining the resurrection appearances, Tabor has not been a true scholar and his conclusions are suspect. Anyone making eternal decisions in their own life based on Tabor’s book would be foolish…All in all Tabor gives bizarre reasons for his views based on naturalistic thinking. Unfortunately, discounting the supernatural is like discounting God…. something they would not even dare to do at K-Mart during a blue light special.

I am not aware of a single competent historian of early Christianity at any major non-denominational college or university who would share the view that our historical evidence demands such theological conclusions. That is not so say that people who hold such faith are stupid or uninformed, but rather that faith and history are separate ways of looking at religion. Other than a few clerics, every major scholar of whom I am aware in the field of “studies of the historical Jesus” (Crossan, Ehrman, Sanders, Vermes, Fredriksen), shares my basic historical methods and presuppositions. This is not to say we all agree on conclusions, but we are clear on the methods of historical research and what counts for evidence.

I find it regrettable that some readers could so confuse things in terms of the academic historical study of religion as compared to Christian faith or theology, but alas, such confusion is quite common. I teach at a state university and serve as chair of the Dept. of Religious Studies. We cover a range of religious traditions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, and so forth. In considering the history, development, and practice of these faiths in all their manifold variety it is absolutely essential that we take an objective academic approach–the very opposite to that of some readers, who obviously think that Christianity and the “truth” of Jesus’ resurrection, virgin birth, divinity, and redemptive role as Savior of humankind are historical facts, self-evident to any “true scholar.” Of course similar claims of other traditions to valid supernatural experiences are viewed as false, or perhaps “demonic.” And if this reader is correct that would mean that there are no “true scholars” outside the evangelical Christian camp.

What such critics fail to understand is that historical descriptive work in the area of religions is not in the business of evaluating truth claims, but in honestly and objectively tracing and reporting the rise and development of such views. In other words, it is not my role as an historian to say “Yes, Jesus rose from the dead, and those testimonies in Paul’s letter to 1st Corinthians and at the end of Matthew, Luke, and John are verifiable historical truth and I urge others to believe them so they can have eternal life.” Such personal testimony of faith would surely not make me a “true scholar,” in fact it would be quite the opposite. Imagine if a professor teaching the history of Islam began a class by endorsing Allah as the one God, Mohammed as his infallible Prophet, and the many “undeniable proofs” of the Koran’s perfection. One could hardly call such an approach “history” and any good university would fire such a teacher, and rightly so. The historical investigation of Christianity, or any religion for that matter, should be no different.

There are many places and situations in which such faith affirmations are appropriate but certainly not in the academic study of religion. My book, The Jesus Dynasty reflects the methods and assumptions with which historians commonly operate as they describe and trace the history and development of a religious tradition. Our job is not to evaluate and endorse spiritual truth, but rather to offer the best possible account we can of the history and development of a given tradition.

In point of fact, I do not “reject the supernatural,” but such personal views have nothing to do with my work as an historian. The guiding question of my book is–what can be responsibly said about the historical Jesus? Affirming the belief that Jesus had no human father, and that he rose bodily up to heaven in the clouds following his death, would take one totally out of the realm of what can be investigated historically. In my book I wanted to “come clean” with the reader in this regard and be clear about the differences between history and faith.

I also find it remarkable that the incredibly inspiring portrait that I present of the human Jesus who sacrifices his life for the cause of the Kingdom of God is given no value by such readers. Equally inspiring are the ways in which we can resurrect the forgotten role of John the Baptizer and James the brother of Jesus, as well as put a human face on his mother Mary and her extraordinary family. There is plenty to celebrate about Jesus other than seeing him as God in the flesh, guaranteer of eternal life.

What is rather frightening is to imagine such views of the supernatural becoming a part of the wider academic world, where Christian faith and dogma are treated as historical fact, and thus “required” as part of every curriculum. Thank God for Thomas Jefferson and the wisdom of our founding fathers and mothers in formulating the 1st Amendment–one of the most precious truths we should all hold as self evident.

One of the most intriguing subjects in our New Testament Gospels is the near silence about Joseph, husband of Mary. If one reads the Gospels in the order in which we think they were written, that is Mark first, then Matthew, then Luke, then John, the case of the “missing Joseph” is even more obvious. It is very helpful to just set forth what is said about Joseph in each Gospel, as all of us as readers of the Bible tend to conflate and combine the various accounts in our memory. Let’s begin with Mark.
Mark
Mark contains no record of the birth of Jesus whatsoever. His narrative begins with Jesus as an adult going to the Jordan River to be baptised by John. In the entire Gospel of Mark we have only this line:

Mark 6:3 “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary”

This is the famous scene when Jesus comes back to his hometown Nazareth and the locals question him for what he has been doing.

It would be difficult to overemphasize the “silence” here and what it implies about the birth of Jesus.

Joseph is never named and no father of Jesus is alluded to at all–whether human or divine.

With no father named or even alluded to, the birth not even mentioned, and Jesus simply called the “son of Mary,” we seem to have the bare facts that hint of some kind of irregularity in terms of the paternity of Jesus.

Matthew
Matthew does have a “birth story” in which he relates the pregnant Mary, is taken nonetheless as wife by her betrothed husband to be, Jospeh.

Matt. 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was like this : When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. [v. 24b-25] And Joseph . . . took unto him his wife; and knew her not till she had brought forth a son: and he called his name Jesus.

Then the ONLY other reference to Joseph is as “the carpenter,” but he is not named, in the rejection at Nazareth scene.
Matt. 13:55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary?

Joseph never shows up again.

Luke
Like Matthew Luke includes a “birth story” in which Joseph is named as Mary’s fiancee. Their marriage is not mentioned but perhaps can be assumed to have followed the birth of Jesus:

Luke 1: 26-27 …the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

Luke 2:4-5 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David; to enroll himself with Mary, who was betrothed to him, being great with child.

Luke also gives us a geneology in which he says Jesus was the “son as was supposed of Joseph,” but clearly wanting the reader to know that Joseph was not the father. He then mentions Joseph, but not by name, in the story of Jesus at age 12 traveling to Jerusalem for Passover with his parents:

Luke 2:41, 48 Now every year his parents whent to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old they went up as usual for the festival…Your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety…[Jesus] Why? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house.

Like Mark and Matthew he has the scene at Nazareth where Jesus is rejected, and he is called “Joseph’s son.”

Luke 4:16, 22 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day…and they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?

No more references to Joseph

John
Finally in John there is no birth account, and two references to Jesus as “son of Joseph,” one by Nathanael, which seems to function in John as a prelude to the grand confession in 1:49; and again when some listeners began to question his right to Messianic claims since his common origins are well known:

John 1:44 We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, “Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

John 6:42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

That is it, no other references to Joseph whatsoever and with no birth account.

This kind of evidence surely demands some kind of verdict. It is startling and noteworthy. Other than the scene at Nazareth that Mark records (and Matthew and Luke repeats, and John echoes) we have Joseph mentioned by name only in the two birth stories. Joseph is either ignored totally (Mark and John) or disappears from the scene so early on with no part in the Jesus story at all.

In my book I offer a couple of theories that build upon this phenomenon of the missing Joseph, including the common idea that Joseph died early on and was “replaced” by his brother Clophas/Alphaeus. This is only a theory and it may or may not be the case, but it does seem to satisfy some of the evidence we have regarding the references to “Mary wife of Clophas” and the brothers of Jesus beings “sons of Alphaeus.”

In the end we are left very much with the mystery of the missing Joseph and laying out the texts in this fashion I think really helps to pinpoint the problem in terms of evidence and data. I think that many Christians just assume, from the place later given to the pious Joseph in Christian tradition, that we have a lot about him, but the silence seems to me to be deafening, and indicative of something very irregular about the birth of Jesus and the paternity of the seven children that Mary bore.

Today is the Jewish Festival popularly known as Rosh HaShanah, literally “head of the year.” I am in Chicago this weekend, looking out this morning over Lake Michigan from the 30th floor of a hotel and I have been thinking of the significance of this day. Around the world Jews are gathering in Synagogues, as this day begins the coundown of the Ten Days of Awe, leading to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement or literally “Covering.” Yet, Rosh HaShannah is the 1st day of the SEVENTH month, not the first day of the first month. Judaism really has two “years.” The biblical New Year is of course the first day of the first month, in the Spring, as Exodus 12: 1 plainly says: This Moon/month shall be to you the beginning of months.” That day is very significant in biblical and Jewish history and many things have taken place on Nisan 1st–the biblical New Year. It signals “new beginnings.”

But the 7th month/moon is also the first of a kind of “civil year,” that had to do in ancient times with certain calculations regarding the Jubilee, the redemption of bond-servants, and so forth. It is more of a societal New Year, much like our July and Oct “fiscal years” in our world today. And within later Jewish tradition the 1st day of the 7th month came to be remembered as a kind of “birthday of the world,” in that the Rabbis passed on the tradition that Adam was created on the 1st day of the 7th month, in the Fall, on this very day (September 22nd)–the Autumnal Equinox (though a minority view still held to Nisan 1st in the Spring).

In the Torah itself, this holy day is never called Rosh HaShanah. Rather it gets a different name–Yom Teru’ah, that is “day of the blast.” Teru’ah in Hebrew refers to raising up a loud noise, whether a shout or the blast of the trumpet or Shofar. The meaning of the day is never specified in the Bible but the blowing of the Shofar seems to function as a kind of herald or clarion call, announcing the end of one period and the beginning of another.

What is all the more interesting about this day is that by some calculations (see Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology) Jesus was born on or very near the 1st day of the 7th month–based on the chronology given in the book of Luke. The calculations are complex but have to do with the time in which Zechariah, father of John the Baptizer, served in the Temple (Luke 1:8), as the “section” of priests in which he was part went on duty at a specific time of year. From that window calculations can be made as to the birth of John, followed by the birth of Jesus six months later. My own calculations based on a computer program I use puts the birth of Jesus in 5 B.C. very close to Rosh HaShanah, or September 22nd on the Gregorian Calendar, corresponding to the Autumnal Equinox. It just so happens that today, in 2006, the 1st day of the 7th month, Rosh HaShanah, also corresponds to the Equinox–that is today, September 22nd/23rd (Rosh HaShanah began at sunet last night, Sept 22nd).

There is a fascinating Roman civic inscription dating to the year 9 B.C. that was passed by the cities of Asia to celebrate the birthday of the Emperor Augustus. It reads in part: “Whereas, finally, that the birthday of the god (i.e. Augustus) has been for the whole world the beginning of the gospel (euangelion) concerning him, therefore, let all reckon a new era beginning from the date of his birth, and let his birthday mark the beginning of the new year.”

It is surely more than ironic that the birth of Jesus, an insignificant Galilean peasant, living under the brutal boot of Roman occupation, just a few years later, did indeed lead to a new era, a kind of “birthday of the world,” that has paled into insignificance the birth of the celebrated Emperor Augustus.

So today in particular it seems has a double meaning, as the “birthday of the world” within Rabbinic Judaism, but for Christians, and really our entire society, the birthday of a new era, in that Jesus himself was born on or very near this day.