Jesus Dynasty / James Tabor

According to the Coptic Gospel of Philip, found in Egypt in 1945 as part of the Nag Hammadi collection, Jesus had three intimate woman named “Mary,” or Mariam, in his life, namely, his mother, his sister, and his “companion,” Mary Magdalene. However the passage that lists these three Marys is confusing, in that Jesus’ sister Mary is first called his mother’s sister–obviously an impossibility. Marvin Meyer and other translators have actually amended the Coptic text at this point, but I received this most thoughtful treatment of the passage from Jennifer Duba-Scanlan and pass it on with her permission. The Gospel of Philip, is the text that also contains the passage about Jesus loving Mary Magdalene more than the other disciples and kissing her often (Gospel of Philip 59). Several English translations are available on the Web, see the every helpful ECW site.
James Tabor

From Jennifer Duba-Scanlan:

“There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.” Gospel of Philip 36

I was always confused about it, because it first states that the three who always traveled with Jesus were “his mother and her sister” and Mary Magdalene. But the next sentence claims that Jesus’ “sister” (not his mother’s sister, his aunt) along with his mother and companion “were each a Mary.”

As well, if Jesus’ sister Mary traveled with him, why isn’t she mentioned in the first sentence as regards those women who “always walked with the Lord”? Or did both of his sisters travel with him as well, Mary and Salome, but just aren’t mentioned? After all, in the NT it doesn’t even give Jesus’ sisters names. Just a mention of “sisters” on a couple occasions.

This passage in Gospel of Philip, due to it’s puzzling aspect, should tell us something. As you’d be apt to say, James, “something is definitely going on here.”

And now, due to your book The Jesus Dynasty, this passage makes sense to me after reading “The Mystery of the ‘Other Mary’ ” (pg.77-80)

It’s as though, in the Gospel of Philip, they left a ‘clue’, or rather a ‘riddle’ to try to figure out -maybe they (whomever wrote it), also knew that Mary, the wife of Clophas, was not the sister or cousin or sister-in-law of Jesus’ mother Mary, as many others thought, (and still think today), but that both Marys were actually Jesus’ mother, as they are one and the same person, which you wrote about in your very insightful book.

Why else would the Gospel of Philip write it in this puzzling way as regards the trio of Marys and Jesus’ maternal aunt?

It adds, in a sense, more weight to your argument, (which I find highly likely), that the two Marys were really one and the same - Jesus’ mother Mary married Clophas, the brother of Joseph, after Joseph died, ‘possibly’ leaving Mary with no children other than Jesus, whom he wasn’t the biological father of, and thus, the father of Jesus’ half-brothers and sisters would thus be Clophas.

As well, you’d wisely noted in The Jesus Dynasty (pg 79):
“Is it really likely that these two women, both named Mary, whether sisters or sisters-in-law, married to brothers and had three sons with the same names and born in the same order: James, Joses, and Simon?”

No, not likely at all. After all, how many sisters or brothers do you know of who have the same name? Whether today or way back in the days of Jesus and family. A father/son or a mother/daughter with the same name, is one thing, and quite acceptable, but two sisters/daughters or brothers/sons with the same name, no that’s a horse of a different colour, and isn’t something you ever hear of, really. (with the exception of Michael Jackson’s sons!)

The passage quoted here from Gospel of Philip at first leaves one with the impression that there were three Marys who constantly traveled with Jesus - yet his aunt isn’t mentioned in the second group of women named Mary in Jesus’ life, so she wasn’t a Mary, least not going by what is stated here, or she’d have been listed as such - shouldn’t it have thus said: “His sister and his mother and his aunt and his companion were each a Mary.”

Also, while it lists the three Marys in Jesus’ life whom he was close to - his mother, sister and companion - it doesn’t state that all three of them traveled with him. While we know his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene did, his sister Mary may or may not have traveled constantly with him.

John 19:25:
“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary [the wife] of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”

I think it’s ‘possible’ that Salome is the wife of Zebedee, mother of James and John, and though it’s not mentioned directly, is the sister of Jesus’ mother Mary. Salome was at the cross and went to the tomb to anoint the body, with Jesus’ mother Mary, and Mary Magdalene, so she was close to Jesus and family, likely a family member of some kind.

In the above quote from John you could add Salome:

“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister Salome, Mary [the wife] of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”

Or, add Salome (as Mary’s sister) to your “decrypted version of John” in your book (pg 80):

“Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother Mary wife of Clophas, his mother’s sister Salome, and Mary Magdalene.”

And while Jesus had a sister named Salome, I believe the Salome I’m writing of here has two sons who are perhaps close in age to Jesus’ brothers, as they’d be first cousins, so it wouldn’t be Jesus’ sister.

Mark 15:40:
“There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and of Joses, and Salome.”

So here it could be speaking about Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mother Mary, and his aunt Salome - his mother’s sister.

The most intriguing passage, if Salome (though not mentioned by name here) is viewed as Jesus’ aunt, his mother’s sister, is from Matthew 20:21:

“Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s sons, kneeling down, desiring a certain thing of him. And he said to her, What wilt thou? She said to him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left, in thy kingdom.”

Jesus gently rebukes them and in Matthew 20:23, Jesus notes “..to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give..” And in Matthew 20:24 it states “And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.”

Though in Mark, they leave out “the mother of Zebedee’s children” and have the sons of Zebedee making the request of Jesus. (Mark 10:35)

This could be seen/interpreted to fit with your ‘Jesus Dynasty’, because she asks Jesus for special privileges for her sons (or else her sons do on their own, as per Mark), and if she’s Jesus’ mother’s blood sister, his aunt, she carries the same maternal royal bloodline as Jesus’ mother Mary, and thus her sons have the same bloodline as Jesus and his brothers and sisters, so they are part of the dynasty - a main branch of it.

Why else would she dare to ask Jesus such a thing? And she must have known Jesus well enough to be so bold. Not to mention, in those days, first off, women weren’t apt to speak to men unless they were part of the family in some way. Secondly, women at that time also weren’t likely to speak up like this, be so forward, and make such an (audacious) request of any man. Though if she’s of the bloodline of Jesus, as she’s his maternal aunt, it at least makes a bit more sense why she would ask this of her nephew, Jesus. Even if it wasn’t the ‘proper’ thing to do (thus the other apostles were annoyed. Perhaps some were actually envious?)

Mark 16:1:
“And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.” (i.e., Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mother Mary, and her sister, his aunt Salome.)

Thus, on the hypothesis that Salome is the sister of Jesus’ mother Mary, we can add Salome to the passage in the Gospel of Philip, so it makes more sense, or at least it causes one to read the sentences as separate statements, and not mistakenly conclude that three Marys “always walked with the Lord.” (thus I’ll split them up here):

“There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister Salome, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion.”

“His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.”

This is an informal post sent to me by e-mail from Wendy Pond. I asked her for her permission to pass it on. This matter of sorting out the Marys in the three anointing scenes in our gospels (Mark/Matt; Luke, and John) is a complex one. I have shied away from identifying Mary “called Magdalene” with “Mary of Bethany” in John, and also leaned toward the idea of two pair of sisters named “Mary and Martha,” one in the Galilee and another in Jerusalem/Bethany (Luke 10 & John 11 being a different family) but I remain open and consider this matter unresolved. Here is Wendy’s take on things:
Luke seems purposefully to juxtapose the introduction of Mary Magdalene (as exorcised of 7 demons in 8:1-3) with the woman of the city identified as a sinner in 7:37-38 who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair and anoints his feet - perhaps to cause intentional blurring/association of MM with the sinful woman of the city, i.e., to obscure/demote/sully any close relationship MM might have had with Jesus and thus her important status as part of Jesus’ inner circle of disciples.

Further to this, the act of washing and anointing the feet so intimately as done in Luke would be expected to be performed only by a man’s wife or servant/slave. It would have been considered sinful for any non-attached woman to do this to a man (especially in front of witnesses!). If the author of Luke was intentionally distancing MM from Jesus, he would have known this (whether he was Jewish or Gentile, I think!), so if, from Luke’s original knowledge or source, MM actually had performed this act and was close to Jesus such as wife/companion, but Luke did not wish to present her as such, Luke would have had to paint her as a sinner - even if he didn’t name her - therefore he made the association by juxtaposing 7:37-50 with 8:1-3. (”Woman from the city” could also be a true remnant from an early source descriptive of MM - from Magdala or another large, possibly Hellenized/pagan - “sinful” - city.)

I will add that within that Jewish-Mediterranean culture, when women were traveling with men, it would have been assumed they were either wives, sisters, daughters or servants/slaves, i.e., attached to the men as family/household/property, and a man meeting a mixed group of travelers on the road would likely never even bother to ask another man about the relationships of women traveling with him. The fact that Jesus’ group had independent women traveling with them was probably highly unusual, and why Luke mentions it 8:3 - maybe he couldn’t avoid/omit it. Once again, Luke associates MM with these important, independent women (wealthy? and/or had left their families/husbands?) who provided for Jesus/the group from their means. But was MM truly independent - as in, unattached, no relation to Jesus at all other than spiritually/part of the movement? Luke has sandwiched MM between these two vignettes, and has painted her as a woman who was (at least formerly) ill/mentally unstable, on top of it all.

While Mark does not identify the woman, John identifies her as Mary, sister of Lazarus and Martha, and both annointing accounts take place in Bethany. In both accounts, “some” present (disciples? other guests?) or Judas Iscariot complain/s about the waste of the costly spikenard, but no-one complains about how sinful or shocking it would have been for a woman not related to Jesus to perform such an intimate act (any form of touching!), especially the case in John where, again, the act involves Mary wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair! Clearly the authors of both gospels wished to emphasize the act of anointing the Messiah, but I believe any close relation the woman/Mary had to Jesus was quietly omitted from the story - the fact that there is no shocked reaction from the men in attendance to this intimate act is the loud, red flag, and it seems to indicate that those in attendance either knew or just assumed the woman/Mary (especially Mary in John) was closely related to Jesus. (That, or Jesus’ disciples and friends just accepted the fact that Jesus had an unusually open, egalitarian and casual attitude/approach toward all women - which I do believe at any rate.) I think I pointed this out in an earlier email to you, but in contrast, in the account of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (John 4:27), the disciples are rather surprised to find Jesus talking to a strange woman; a man would never bother - a woman was unimportant or it wasn’t even proper. But in the annointing account with Mary, no surprise at all - why? Because Jesus’ and Mary’s relationship may have been omitted.

I believe Mary of Bethany in John is the same as the woman in Bethany in Mark 14:3-9 (clearly in that she wipes his feet with her hair - a memorable scene in deed!), and same as the woman in Luke 7:37-50, and she is Mary Magdalene. And she would have to have been Jesus’ wife or close/intimate companion. Luke unwittingly connects the dots with Mark and John, ID’ing her as MM, even though he tries to paint her in the worst light. Matthew doesn’t even mention her until the crucifixion! It’s why MM is at the tomb (with Jesus’ mother - the 2 most important women in his life, in that order!) to anoint Jesus’ body - she was his wife/companion, the first person to whom he appeared, and why none of the gospel authors could omit her completely from the story. Thus we have:

(A) Woman in Bethany - Mark
(B) Sinful woman of the City; wipes J’s feet with hair - Luke
(C) Mary of Bethany; wipes J’s feet with hair - John

Because A and C are the same (it’s doubtful 2 anointings took place in Bethany), and because B and C are also likely the very same, highly memorable story (intimate/sensual wiping of Jesus’ feet with the hair - again, it’s not likely to have happened twice with different women!), then A and B must also be the same woman. Luke connects the dots to Mary Magdalene. Luke also put the anointing story much earlier in Jesus’ mission and turns it into a moving story about forgiveness of sins rather than the anointing of the Messiah before his death - a way of downplaying Messianism vs. Son of God or the Jewishness of Jesus? What’s also amazingly odd is that Mark omits the woman’s name even tho’ he cannot erase/omit Jesus’ words about her - his proclamation that “what she has done will be told in memory of her.” A woman to be remembered the world over with no name….

There is a most intriguing stained glass window in the Kilmore church (”Church of Mary”) in the village of Dervaig on the Scottish Isle of Mull. The scene shows a Jesus figure in a most intimate pose with a woman named Mary who appears to be pregnant. Under the figures is a quotation from Luke 10:42 “Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.” I want to thank Jennifer Duba-Scanlan, a colleague I know through e-mail, for pointing this out to me, as well as calling my attention to the Keith Akers post on the Talpiot tomb that I mentioned recently.The Web site to which I was referred understands the “Mary” in the image to be none other than Mary Magdalene, but Luke’s account (10:38-42) is set in an unnamed village, presumably in the Galilee, in the home of two sisters–Martha and Mary. It is a story unique to Luke in which the sister Mary is commended for her desire to “sit at Jesus feet” and listen to his teaching, presumably with the male disciples, while Martha attends to household serving.

**Wendy Pond just pointed out to me that the text actually says that “Martha welcomed Jesus into her house,” when “they,” namely the Jesus entourage, came to a certain village. It does not say that Mary lived there, but just that Martha had a sister called Mary. It is possible that this “Mary” has been traveling with the group, suggests they stop at her sister’s house for a meal and rest, and she has developed the practice of gathering and sitting with the men. Even though Luke introduces these women as if they are “new” to the story, it is clear from the way Jesus speaks to them in the core tradition that he knows them both well. The “good portion” that Mary has chosen appears to be her desire to hear and learn the words of the Teacher.

The scene raises a most interesting question. Who is this particular “Mary,” in Luke’s story and is she possibly to be identified with “Mary of Bethany,” in Jerusalem, mentioned only in the gospel of John, who also has a sister named Martha and a brother named Lazarus? This is the Mary who anoints the feet of Jesus (11:1-2). The answer is neither easy nor obvious, despite the similarity of names. Are there two pair of sisters named “Mary and Martha” or just one?

Other than Jesus’ mother Mary, there are two other intimate Marys in Jesus’ life about whom we have narratives–Mary Magdalene and Mary, sister of Martha. One of the most puzzling challenges in our New Testament gospel traditions is to sort through the various stories regarding these two (or three?) Marys, and the ways in which they intersect with the stories of Jesus being “anointed” before his death. Here are the bare facts in outline form:

• Mark (14:3-9) contains the core story of Jesus being anointed by an unnamed woman at Bethany two days before Passover while reclining at a meal in the house of “Simon the leper.” The woman pours an alabaster flask of expensive oil over his head. Jesus accepts her gesture, defends her against those to call it a waste, and says that “she has anointed my body beforehand for burial.”

• John (12:1-8) recounts that six days before Passover, also at Bethany, Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair. Jesus defends her in a similar manner but says that she should keep the ointment “for the day of my burial.”

• Luke (7:36-40) relates a separate story, much earlier in Jesus’ career, in which an unnamed “sinful woman” anoints Jesus’ feet with an alabaster flask of ointment, wetting them with her tears and drying them with her hair. Jesus tells this woman that her sins are forgiven. The story is strangely juxtaposed, in the immediate verses following, with Luke’s first reference to “Mary called Magdalene” from whom seven demons had gone out. Does Luke intend to imply that Mary Magdalene was a “street woman,” a sinner, and thus healed by Jesus of demonic influence?

These appear to be three separate scenes of anointing, with important differences in content and setting, yet somehow related or “intertwined.” Many scholars have suggested that behind the three accounts lies a single core story, but the consistent elements are rather bare: Jesus is anointed with a costly ointment by a woman; the woman is criticized by others, but defended by Jesus.

In subsequent Christian tradition Luke’s “sinful woman” was indeed identified with Mary Magdalene, who was in turn, quite often, identified with “Mary of Bethany,” sister of Martha. However, since we know of “Mary of Bethany” only in the gospel of John, and she seems clearly distinguished from Mary Magdalene, this identification does not seem to stand up–in John at least. But to further complicate matters, it is indeed Mary, known as Magdalene, who does go to the tomb early Sunday morning with the intention of “anointing” Jesus body for burial–so somehow that motif is connected to her, on one level or another.

The anointing stories in John and Mark are close enough, despite differences of details, to be related. The story in Luke seems to stand independently, and could well be a way of introducing Mary Magdalene. However, the Mary, sister of Martha, in Luke 10, is not so readily identified with Mary of Bethany–who clearly lives in Jerusalem. In fact, it seems hard to make such a case. She could be just “another Mary,” or it is possible, as in the stained glass window in the Kilmore church, that she was indeed the one known as Mary, “the one called Magdalene.” What most characterizes her in this story is that she is a woman among the male disciples, strong and confident of her place of “sitting at the feet” of the Rabbi. It is certainly interesting that this image of Mary as the one who conveys the message of Jesus is the dominant image one finds in subsequent non-canonical traditions about Mary Magadalene, as Jane Schaberg and others have so ably pointed out.

I remain convinced, for reasons I will soon explore in this Blog, that the ossuary inscription in the Talpiot tomb that Rahmani read as “Mariamene also known as Mara,” is the best interpretation of the names, however, as many are now suggesting, if it does indeed read “Mariam and Mara=Martha,” referring to two women, they would indeed most likely be sisters. Given the complexity of our evidence above it is entirely possible that Mary Magdalene did have a sister named Martha.

For some years now I have made the point to my students that the earliest Christian teaching about the “resurrection of the dead” was not so much about the dead “living” again in some state, but rather an affirmation about the participation of the dead, along with the living, in the events of the “last days.” In other words, it was a thoroughly “apocalyptic” subject and concept. It had to do with “whether” and in “what state” those in the community who had died would participate in the events of at the “end of the age,” when Jesus returned from heaven.

Today we might tend to associate “resurrection of the dead” more with the question of “life after death,” that is, the matter of whether death is the “end” or whether humans who die “exist” or somehow go on in another realm. That was not the issue among the early Christians, nor among many if not most Jews and Greeks in Roman times. In both Jewish and Greco-Roman culture it had become exceedingly common to affirm the life of the departed soul, either in Sheol or Hades, with either reincarnation or “resurrection of the dead” at the end as a way of “coming back” to the world of the living.

Last year I published here two fairly extensive Blog posts dealing with “What the Bible Says about Death, Afterlife, and the Future, that can be easily assessed, Part I and Part II, so I won’t repeat all of that dense history and exposition of biblical texts here. What I want to do here in this post is get at this matter of participation, as a way of clarifying what was at state for the earliest followers of Jesus in affirming “resurrection of the dead,” either that of Jesus, or of those of the community who had “fallen asleep,” to use Paul’s metaphor for death (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

This way of looking at resurrection of the dead would then distinguish it from the bare idea of resuscitation, that is a person who has recently died being revived. The Greek word translated “resurrection,” is anastasis and its literal meaning is “to stand up, to rise.” It does not necessarily refer to the dead, but it is used in Greek literature quite generally for anything from setting up a statue to literally standing up before one’s superiors. In contrast, in English today, “resurrection” means to revive something/someone that is dead, whether literally or metaphorically (e.g., the resurrection of a cause).

Anastasis then, in its most literal meaning, as applied to the dead, simply means that a corpse lying prone, “gets up,” i.e. is resuscitated, or comes to life. Thus Jesus speaks to the corpse of a twelve year old girl was has just died, “Little girl, get up,” and “the girl got up (Greek verb eigeiro) and walked about” (Mark 5:41-42). He encounters a funeral procession for a young man, son of a widow, in the Galilean town of Nain, touches the bier, and speaks to the corpse: “Young man, I say to you, rise” and the dead man sat up and began to speak (Luke 7:14-15). In the most dramatic case, that of Lazarus, who had been dead for three days, Jesus commands at the door of the tomb, “Lazarus come forth,” and the deceased walks out still clothed in his grave clothes (John 11:43-44).

But none of these cases of “resuscitation” really match what the earliest Christians came to affirm more generally about “resurrection of the dead.” After all, presumably, these three individuals, brought back to life, eventually died again, and their resurrection “bodies” were physical, mortal, and subject to corruption.

To understand this earliest Christian affirmation of “resurrection of the dead” we have to go to the writings of the apostle Paul. He clearly expresses his views in three extensive passages on the subject: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15; and 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. These passages and what they affirm predate our gospels by several decades.

What Paul affirms is that since Jesus was “raised from the dead,” all those who “belong to him” will experience a similar resurrection at his appearance or “2nd coming” when he returns in the clouds of heaven at the end of the age. He makes it absolutely clear that the “body” Jesus has, as a result of his resurrection, is heavenly, spiritual, and incorruptible, that is, it is not “flesh and blood” (1 Cor 15:42-50). He understands that those who have died will experience a similar “resurrection,” in that they will be raised with incorruptible, spiritual bodies–not flesh and blood. Paul is not the least concerned with locating or otherwise preserving the rotting or decayed corpses of the dead, so they can be somehow revived like ghouls in the Michael Jackson video “Thiller.” He sees death as a “naked” state, in which one has shed the physical body like an old pair of clothes, only to be “reclothed” in a new heavenly “garment” or body that is incorruptible, non-physical, and has nothing to do with corruptible body that turns to dust” (2 Corinthians 5:1-4).

Christians later expanded this early affirmation of Paul to include all the dead, both good and bad, who would be brought forth from the realm of the dead (Hades/Sheol) to face the final last Judgment and a separation between those entering the heavenly Kingdom and those cast out into Gehenna. Thus we get texts such as the following:

Jesus declares that “the hour comes when all who are in their graves will come out–those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28-29).

Paul affirms with the Pharisees according to the book of Acts that he has “a hope in God that there will be a resurrection of the dead; both of the righteous and the unrighteous” (Acts 24:15).

The book of Revelation pictures a final scene at the end in which “the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done” (Revelation 20:13).

This idea is based on the clear affirmation in the book of Daniel, that at the end of the age, “Multitudes of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2).

In none of these early affirmations of “resurrection of the dead” is there a view of “resurrection” that would require the gathering of physical “dust” or decayed flesh or bones in some literal fashion, in order for God to raise the dead. In fact, that very absurdity is what caused Epicureans and Sadducees to scoff at the notion of “resurrection of the dead.” But as Paul makes clear, the objection of “How can God raise the dead?,” or “In what kind of body could they come?” is a foolish one, that limits the power of God as Creator. Paul’s answer is a simple one–God will give the dead an appropriate heavenly body as it pleases him (1 Corinthians 15:35-38).

The language about coming out of graves, Hades, or even the “sea,” is clearly metaphorical, not literal. It is a way of affirming the participation of those who have died in the events of the end.

This has important implications in understanding how the affirmation, first found in Paul, that “Jesus was raised from the dead” developed into the “empty tomb” scenarios, with appearances of Jesus’ resuscitated physical body as found in Luke and John, where Jesus eats, drinks, and is described as “flesh and bones.” Mark, know none of this, Matthew begins to move down that road, but not in any heavily apologetic way. There are historical and apologetic reasons that Luke begins to cast things in this “literalist” direction, early in the 2nd century CE.

Scholars are aware of the rich and diverse ways in which the term “Son of God” is used in the Hebrew Bible, in subsequent Jewish literature, and in the New Testament writings themselves, not to mention various non-Jewish texts (including inscriptions and coins) of the Greco-Roman period. Most of us who teach in the field of Christian Origins get asked from time to time by students or in public lectures, “Professor, do you believe Jesus was X.” Sometimes X is “Messiah,” other times it is “Divine,” but in my experience, most often, the question is “Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God.” In good Socratic fashion one is tempted to reply, “Well what do you mean by the term ‘Son of God,’ and such a counter question is certainly more than subterfuge.

1) In the Hebrew Bible the precise phrase “son of God” does not occur, although the plural phrase “sons of God” (b’nai ‘elohim) occurs five times in the Masoretic text (Genesis 6:2,4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7), likely referring to a group of “angelic” beings who comprise God’s heavenly court and are charged with the responsibility of overseeing, ruling, and reporting on human affairs. In Psalm 82:6 this group is directly addressed: “You are Gods, sons of the Most High all of you.” In the Dead Sea Scroll copies of Deuteronomy, the phrase “sons of God,” occurs two more times in the “Song of Moses,” also likely referring to these heavenly custodians of human affairs (Deut 32:8; 43), and these two additional references are also found in the Greek Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew from the 2nd century BCE. There is also an Aramaic reference (bar ‘elahin) to such a heavenly being who is said to be like “a son of the Gods” in Daniel 3:25.

2) The anointed kings of ancient Israel were referred to as “son of God.” Samuel tells David that God has promised to make a covenant with him and his royal descendants will rule as kings forever. Yahweh declares, according to Samuel, “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me” (2 Samuel 7:14). According to a later Psalm, the Davidic ruler will cry “You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation” and God will make him “the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (Psalm 89:26-27). This is the background of Psalm 2, where Yahweh says to the king, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.” Some scholars are convinced that this language was used in some kind of coronation ceremony, and various Psalms are classified as “royal Psalms,” in that they celebrate the reign of Israel’s King as Yahweh’s direct human agent (Psalm 45, 72, 110).

3) The people of Israel are called “God’s son.” Moses tells Pharaoh of Egypt “Thus says Yahweh, Israel is my firstborn son” (Exodus 4:22), and the prophet Hosea, looking back to that time, has God declare, “when Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (11:1).

4) In late 2nd Temple Jewish writings one who devoutly follows God is said to be his “son” (Wisdom of Solomon 2:16-18; 5:5; Sirach 4:10). For example, the various patriarchs such as Noah, Lamech, and Shem are addressed as “my son” regularly in 1 Enoch.

5) Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, and subsequent Roman emperors were regularly referred to as “son of God” (divi filius), on coins and inscriptions, as were a host of Greco-Roman “heroes” whom were called “divine men.” Some of these were said to have been “fathered” by a God, while others were honored for their extraordinary deeds. However, the terms “Lord,” “Son of God” and “Savior,” in the time of Jesus, was used rather widely in Greco-Roman materials to refer to such legendary, political, philosophical, or religious figures.

6) Adam, and by extension, all humankind, is called the “son of God” on the basis of being created in God’s image and likeness (Luke 3:38; Acts 17:26-29). This is akin to the general notion of God as Creator being “Father” of humankind.

7) Jesus at his baptism hears a voice from heaven that declares “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). Mark records no birth narratives of Jesus at all. Matthew follows Mark here but there were versions his gospel in Hebrew that added the phrase “Today I have begotten you,” based on Psalm 2:7. This interpretation was referred to as “adoptionism,” meaning that Jesus was made and declared to be God’s son at his baptism when the Holy Spirit came upon him. Apparently such a view was held by some early Jewish followers of Jesus, associated with James the Just, the brother of Jesus, who came to be labeled in later years as “Ebionites.” We are told that they used the gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, but in a version that lacked the virgin birth story of chapters 1-2, that they believed Jesus had a human mother and father, and that he was designated (”adopted”) as God’s son at his baptism as an indication of being chosen and favored as Messiah.

8) Jesus is said to be the “son of God” based on his mother Mary becoming pregnant through the Holy Spirit, with no human father, as explicitly stated in Luke 1:35. This idea of no human father is found in both Luke and Matthew. Even though the gospel of John has no explicit account of the “virgin birth,” his statement about the “Word (Logos) becoming flesh and dwelling among us” likely reflects this same idea of incarnation–the Son of God born in the flesh (John 1:14).

9) Jesus declared to be the “Son of God” by his resurrection from the dead. This idea is most explicitly stated by Paul in Romans 1:3-4, where he says Jesus is a descendant (”seed”) of David in the flesh, but a “Son of God” in the Spirit. The same idea, including the quotation from Psalm 2:6, “You are my son, this day have I begotten you,” is applied to Jesus through his resurrection from the dead in Acts 13:33. We have no indication that Paul thought Jesus was born without a human father, indeed, he says that he was of the “seed” or lineage of king David, but his status as “Son of God” was, according to Paul, based on his resurrection from the dead.

10) According to Paul those followers of Jesus who have received the Holy Spirit are made “sons of God,” and indeed, Paul says that Jesus is “firstborn of many brothers” (Rom 8:14-17; 29-30). Paul uses the term “adoption” to describe this idea that one becomes a “son of God” and calls God Father upon receiving the Holy Spirit. The writer of Hebrew speaks explicitly of these “many sons of God” who are to come (Hebrews 2:10). John expresses a similar idea of an extended family of “sons of God” based on a new spiritual “birth” for those who united with Jesus (1:12-13).

Given this complexity and diversity what one might mean by calling Jesus the “Son of God” could range from an affirmation of Jesus as God’s favored choice as Israel’s anointed king, to ideas of a preexistent Divine being who is born of a woman with no human father, and thus “becomes flesh” (Incarnation), with ranges of views in between.

Carefully re-reading Jane Schaberg’s book, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, has set me to thinking and working through all the texts related to her once again, particularly those in our New Testament gospels. I wanted to do a bit of “thinking aloud” here, covering various thoughts and ideas that have come to me of late.

I begin with Mark, whose references to Mary Magdalene form the core of the Synoptic gospels account of her. He mentions her three times, at the crucifixion, at Jesus’ burial, and at the empty tomb on Sunday morning (Mk 15:40-41; 15:47; 16:1). She is named first among two other women from Galilee, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome, but according to Mark they are part of a larger contingent of “many other women” who had followed Jesus from Galilee where they had provided (Greek: diakoneo) for him. This reference to a large group of Galilean women who form a base of support, presumably financial and otherwise, is something Luke picks up on and elaborates (8:1-3), but it fundamentally comes to us from Mark. I presented arguments in my book, The Jesus Dynasty, that this second Mary of Mark’s group, is Jesus’ mother, with Salome most likely his sister. At any rate, it is these three, led by Mary Magdalene, who make preparations to attend to the intimate task of preparing the corpse of Jesus for burial, buying spices on Saturday evening with the intention of anointing his body early Sunday morning. Thus they come to discover the empty tomb early Sunday morning.

Matthew, clearly relying on Mark as his source, has the same three references to Mary Magdalene, at the crucifixion, the burial, and early Sunday morning at the tomb. She is paired with the “other Mary,” and he does not name Salome, though he implies she might be the “mother of the sons of Zebedee. Regardless, it is the two Marys who witness the burial and visit the tomb Sunday morning (Matt 27:55-56, 27:61; 28:1).

Luke, also following Mark, makes some significant changes to Mark’s basic structure. He too has women from Galilee standing at the cross but he names none of them (Luke 23:49). Likewise, at the burial, these women from Galilee remain unnamed (Luke 23:55-56). Finally at the empty tomb he says the women who came to complete the rites of burial were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and “the other women with them” (Luke 24:10). This means that Luke only names Mary Magdalene once in the three scenes that Mark has introduced her. As we will see, this is absolutely deliberate and calculated. What he does is introduce her much earlier, back in Galilee, among this group of many women who had provided for Jesus, picking up on Mark’s reference. But there he adds that she was part of a group of women who had been cured of “evil spirits and infirmities” naming Joanna and another woman, Susanna, but adding that Mary Magdalene herself was positively deranged beyond description, in that she had been possessed by seven demons! (Luke 8:1-3). Luke is keen to make the point that the presence of these women, who do not need to be even named, is of no credible importance, since they come from such shady backgrounds, epitomizing the hysterical “female” whose testimony would be considered an “idle tale,” thus preparing the way for the true and reliable male witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection (Luke 24:11). All he really has to go on is Mark, but he skillfully recasts Mark’s material in this way, thus marginalizing Mary Magdalene, and “demonizing” her, quite literally, cured or not, lest anyone might think the resurrection faith was first proclaimed by such a witness. But there is more. Just before Luke introduces the deranged woman in chapter 8, as followers of Jesus from Galilee, he constructs a scene, in Galilee, of an unnamed woman of an unnamed city, a “sinner,” who comes to Jesus at a dinner with an ointment, who then weeps uncontrollably, bathes his feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, and anointing them (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus forgives her many sins, and she presumably becomes his follower. And thus Mary Magdalene is introduced in the next passage. The juxtaposition is deliberate. Although Luke is not bold enough to say that Mary Magdalene herself is this forgiven harlot, the contextualizing is enough, coupled with her deranged mental past. Interestingly enough, Mark also has a story of an anonymous woman anointing Jesus, but it is a few days before Jesus’ death, in Jerusalem, and she is honored not as a forgiven sinner, but one whose anointing prepared him “beforehand” for his burial (Mark 14:3-9).

What Mark fundamentally tells us then about Mary Magdalene is that she is first among a group of women from Galilee who provided for Jesus, that she is involved (with his mother) in the intimate rites of preparing Jesus’ body for burial, and that she, Mary, and Salome, are the “first witnesses” to Jesus’ resurrection. Mark knows nothing of appearances of Jesus to these women, but they hear the proclamation, “He has been raised, he is not here.” The disciples, led by Peter, are to “see him in Galilee,” though the scene is never reported by Mark. Matthew elaborates Mark’s disturbingly sparse account, with Jesus subsequently encountering the women who linger at the tomb, and a mysterious “foggy mountain” appearance to the Eleven somewhere in Galilee (with some doubting!). Luke feels compelled to go further. There is no disputing the women were involved, at the cross, the burial, and the empty tomb–but as a group they are unnamed, and even when named, identified as “formerly” deranged and contextualized with the unnamed “harlot” whom Jesus forgives for her many sins. Luke wants nothing of appearances in Galilee, nor of the deranged women who might have proclaimed such as “first witnesses.” For him the resurrection of Jesus rests solidly on his Jerusalem based appearances to reliable male witnesses, including to Peter and the Eleven.

And then there is the gospel of John. John also has Mary Magdalene at the cross, and he clearly identifies Jesus’ mother there as well. He does not mention the women at the burial but his account of what happened early Sunday morning is significantly different from that of Mark. Rather than the group of women arriving together, John relates that Mary Magdalene came alone, very early, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb (John 20:1-10). She runs to tell Peter, and he, and an unnamed disciple rush to the tomb, confirming her story, but not yet coming to the conclusion Jesus was raised. There are no messengers, angelic or otherwise, as in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, to tell the women Jesus is raised–it is simple a case of someone having “taken the master out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2).

I find this account in John strangely compelling. Mark’s young man in white linen, proclaiming Jesus is risen, seems wholly theological, not to mention Matthews fantastic expansion where we have a dazzling angel who comes like lightening from heaven, heralded by an earthquake, who rolls back the stone and proclaims Jesus is risen. Luke’s two men in dazzling clothing is cut from the same cloth. In contrast, John’s core account has nothing fantastic or even theological. It deserves our careful attention, and at the heart of this account is the singular experience of a woman–namely Mary Magdalene.

According to John the tomb is found empty very early Sunday morning, even at dark. The logical conclusion is that someone has removed the body and placed it elsewhere, perhaps the gardener, or as the rumor in Matthew has it, some of his disciples. Schaberg effectively argues, in my judgment, that what happens next in John’s gospel (20:11-18), namely Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene, still in the garden near the tomb where he was missing, is our earliest and most fundamental witness to Jesus’ resurrection, and that further, the form and structure by which John narrates this encounter, implies an Elijah-Elisha like succession story, of Jesus passing on this witness to his chosen and intimate follower, Mary Magdalene. In this extraordinary account we have dialogue between Jesus and Mary. She is Maria in the narrative but Jesus calls her name directly, “Miriam,” and she replies with the affectionate diminutive “Rabbouni,” my dear/little Master. What she is told is that she must not grasp him for he is ascending to the Father.

Like Matthew and Luke, John includes other appearance stories, both to the disciples in Jerusalem, and in Galilee. But this core account, found now in John 20:1-18, is perhaps our best window for reconstructing what might have happened that early Sunday morning. Based on the Mary Magdalene account, found only in John, I am convinced that the discovery of the empty tomb should be given historical weight. It is what John’s account does not say that makes it compelling. With no angelic messengers proclaiming the resurrection, and Mary not even told to go tell the rest that they too would see Jesus, it seems to me we should give the Mary Magdalene story priority. The subsequent accounts of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and even the supplemental accounts in John, all seem to be accretions to this core account.

Mark does not dispute that Mary Magdalene and the other women first discovered the tomb, but his account is clearly a generalized expansion of an earlier core story, much elaborated by Matthew, and radically re-contextualized by Luke. But they do not venture to remove the Magdalene. Only Paul does that, in his roll call of appearances of the heavenly Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. There Mary Magdalene is completely eliminated. In effect, that has already begun to happen in Mark, since the women “say nothing to anyone” and are mainly pointers to the male Eleven who will see Jesus in Galilee. In Matthew the main point of resurrection is the “commission,” and that would not be given to women, but only to the male Eleven. Likewise in Luke, who has Jesus appear to the Eleven, telling them to take his message to all the nations.

In my view John 20:1-18 stands separate and isolated from all these subsequently embellished traditions. John is able to contextualize it with subsequent appearances to the male leaders, but read as “first testimony” it has a most compelling ring to it. I find it the only account that lends itself to some measure of credible historical reconstruction. It essentially is what I make most use of in my own reconstruction in The Jesus Dynasty:

Jesus is hastily buried in a temporary tomb that happened to be nearby in a garden at the place of crucifixion. The intent was to move his body to a permanent place after the festival/Sabbath was past. Mary Magdalene arrives early Sunday morning, while it is still dark, and finds the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. She alerts Peter and the others. No one thinks Jesus has been raised, but they draw the logical conclusion, that someone has moved him. Presumably that someone would be either other family members, or more likely Joseph of Arimathea. Lingering near the tomb Mary has a visionary encounter with Jesus himself. She is told by him that he is ascending to heaven and that is what she reports to the others. Mary then becomes first witness, and as such, “successor” to the ascending Jesus. She alone is given the message–Jesus has ascended to the Father.

It is difficult to read this account as it stands without interjecting subsequent stories from Matthew, Luke, and John. But that Mark, writing as late as the 70s AD, has no appearances, yet he does have Mary Magdalene at the tomb, supports the essential core of John’s Mary Magdalene story. Historians have rightly judged that the series of expanded and dramatic appearances of Jesus to his various male followers are theologically cast apologetics. As such, the singular appearance to Mary Magdalene, did not fare so well. Luke begins the long history of her demise and defamation–yes, she was there, but remember, she and the others were surely less than reliable witnesses. What is important is that even in Mark she can not be eliminated. She is there at the first, and she is clearly the first, if John is to be given any weight at all.

One puzzle in John is that he, like Mark and Luke, also has a scene at which Jesus is anointed by a woman (John 12:1-8). His account is clearly parallel to that of Mark in several of its key elements, but then it departs significantly therefrom. John’s story takes place a few days earlier than Mark’s, six days before Passover. John identifies the woman as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, whereas Mark leaves her unnamed. Rather than Jesus’ head, as in Mark, this Mary anoints his feet with a costly perfume and wipes them with her hair–which in turn reminds one of the Luke story of the “woman of the city,” that is the “sinner.” In John Jesus does not say that she has anointed him beforehand for his burial, but rather that the costly perfume was well spent and that she can store it up to use in the future on the day of his burial! One would then expect her to appear in some manner, at the burial scene, to anoint Jesus’ body, as Mark has Mary Magdalene do. I see no easy way to sort through these three anointing stories. I think behind them lies some event that took place the last week of Jesus’ life, in Jerusalem. We can surely discount Luke’s moving the story much earlier, and placing it in Galilee, as well as his implication that the woman who anoints Jesus is a “sinner.” But that Luke juxtapositions his redeemed harlot story with his own introduction of Mary Magdalene as formerly “deranged” or demon possessed, gives one pause. Does Luke fear that Mark’s story might imply that the anointing woman is none other than Mary Magdalene–who subsequently comes to the tomb to complete her prophetic/proleptic act of devotion? The intimacy implied in John’s story, namely the wiping of the feet with the hair, given Jewish custom, is also present in Luke but not in Mark. It is all more than confusing but one is tempted to say at the core of these accounts is a story of involving intimacy, anointing, and burial. I do not think it makes sense to identify Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene, as some have suggested. However, it might make sense that final editors of John wanted to distance Mary Magdalene from such an intimate act by some substitution of names, whereas Mark simply leaves her anonymous.

The lastest release of from the Original Bible Project of the Transparent English Bible, the Torah portion “Noach,” is now available on-line for download as a PDF file. The plan through the year is to release the Torah, a segment (Parashah) per week, through the coming (Jewish) year.
You can find it at the main site: originalbible.com

Continued from the previous post…

THE TIME OF THE EXILE AND BEYOND

Beginning in the eighth century, and well down into the sixth century B.C.E., the nation of Israel suffered through political, social, and military catastrophes. First under the Assyrians, then successively under the Babylonians and Persians, large parts of the population were exiled and their land was occupied. This is the time of the Hebrew Prophets–whose books comprise Isaiah through Malachi. It is primarily in these texts–written before, during, and after this period of exile–that we find the beginnings of a new view of the future. It is this new view, in contrast to what I called the “historical” view above, that can properly be called “eschatological.” It seems to develop over time from a rather simple hope for the ultimate restoration of the national fortunes of the tribes of Israel to a fantastic vision of total cosmic renewal and transformation. This development is somewhat, though not strictly, chronological. The type and range of “eschatological” solutions proposed seem to correspond directly to the perception of the scope of the historical problem.

The Restoration of National Israel
One of the dominant and ubiquitous refrains of the Hebrew Prophets is that all twelve tribes of Israel will someday be gathered back to the land and, once fully restored, experience in an unprecedented measure all the blessings of their special relationship with Yahweh (Deut. 28 again). This picture of a “golden age” is sketched out over and over again in similar terms: All the tribes return to the land; they repent of their idolatry and sinful ways; the Davidic kingship is restored; peace and prosperity abound; and all the nations either submit to them or they are converted to Israel’s God.[6] This state of affairs apparently lasts indefinitely. To illustrate, I cite three quotations from Jeremiah:

At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of Yahweh, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of Yahweh in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel [i.e., the twelve tribes reunited], and together they shall come from the land of the north [i.e., exile] to the land that I gave your fathers as an heritage ….
Behold the days are coming, says Yahweh, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. in his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely ….

Behold the days are coming, says Yahweh, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah …. I will put my laws within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.., and I will remember their sin no more. (Jer. 3:17-18, 23:5-6, 31:31-34)

This final state of things, however “golden” and ideal, is still described in most of these texts in thoroughly “historical” terms. In other words, all the promises of national grandeur made anciently to Israel, which became utterly hopeless during the Exile, are grandly projected into the future. But the cosmos is still basically the same. Humans stay on earth. The normal cycles of nature continue. Generations still come and go, and the dead of past ages remain in Sheol, thoroughly “dead.”

A Transformed Cosmos
However, in a few texts, scattered here and there in the Hebrew Prophets, a dramatically different vision of the future begins to emerge. It is built around the view of a restored Israel, as described above, but it also sets forth the hope of an utterly transformed cosmos, extending from the heights of heaven to the depths of Sheol, and including all normal cycles of nature and human history. In other words, all that led the author of Ecclesiastes to cry out, “vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” will be reversed. Isaiah describes a time when even the violence of nature, “red in tooth and claw,” will end:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall feed;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put his hand
on the adder’s den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Yahweh
as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:6-9)

This transformed state of things is so dramatic, it is like a new or second creation. A “new heavens and new earth,” Isaiah terms it (Isa. 65:17-25, 66:22-24). It is inaugurated by a highly idealized Davidic King (Isa. 11:1-5; Mic. 5:2-4).[7] Total peace reigns among all nations (Isa. 2:4; Mic. 4:3). The suffering and toils of life are eliminated as “Yahweh wipes away tears from all faces,” and death itself is “swallowed up forever” (Isa. 25:7-8). This apparently includes the “resurrection” of the righteous dead of the past (Isa. 26:19).[8] This era of complete justice and righteousness is ushered in by the terrible Day of Yahweh’s wrath in which all wicked sinners are utterly destroyed. [9] The topography of the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem is drastically altered: The deserts bloom like a rose; fresh water flows into the Dead Sea; and the whole Jerusalem area is elevated (Isa. 35, Zech. 14:8-11, Ezek. 47-48). Some few texts seem to imply that wicked angelic powers are also disposed of in this overthrow of all evil by Yahweh (Isa. 24:21-22, 27:1). [10]

Still, even in this thoroughly idealized transformation of the cosmos, it is interesting and important to note that in one sense the vision is still rather “earthly.” Humans remain on the earth, however “renewed.” And indeed, Yahweh himself descends from heaven with his angels. His “feet stand on the Mt. of Olives,” and he becomes “king over all the earth,” dwelling in his perfect Temple forever (Zech. 14:4-9; Ezek. 43:6-7). The view that these texts begin to develop represents a kind of “compression” of the cosmos. In other words, the immortal heavenly realm above “comes down” to earth, and the world of death below is eliminated or “moved up” through resurrection. There is a certain sense in which this can still be seen, typologically at least, as linear or “historical.” Salvation here is eschatological. It comes at the end of history, through God’s dramatic intervention in the affairs of this world, as the new transformed age is inaugurated.

This is in contrast to views of the future that pictured salvation as taking place “away from the earth,” without any required end of history. I have in mind here the notion, particularly widespread during Greek and Roman times, of the immortal soul, leaving the body and the earthly realm at death, and obtaining immortal life in heaven above.

A GRECO-ROMAN TRANSFORMATION

As we move to the period of first Greek and then Roman domination of the eastern Mediterranean world (the fourth century B.C.E. to the first century C.E.), the biblical materials reflect drastic development with regard to the view of the future. All the ideas I have discussed so far–the older Hebrew view of the cosmos, the restoration of national Israel, and the transformed cosmos of the new age–continue, but they are fundamentally transformed and merged in rather complicated ways. Two views dominate: the hope of an eschatological transformation of the cosmos and the notion that an immortal soul escapes the body at death to enter the heavenly world. Both are closely tied to a deep despair regarding the course of history and the possibility of things ever changing. How and when might the many dreamlike promises of salvation for God’s faithful people, which I have just surveyed, ever be realized?

The Rise and Development of Apocalyptic Scenarios
One can find, as we have seen, the general outline of the major themes of Jewish eschatology in the Hebrew Prophets. However, such a general hope for change was apparently not enough to satisfy some of this period’s minority parties that were disenfranchised from the social, political, and religious establishment–groups that experienced real or imagined persecution. Increasingly we find evidence of a turn to some very definite apocalyptic schemes and scenarios. Apocalypticism focuses on the “signs of the end,” which have been revealed by God to his special “elect” or “chosen” ones. They alone understand the secrets of the cosmos, particularly the “times and the seasons” that will lead to God’s dramatic intervention.

The most important and influential apocalyptic work in the Bible is the Book of Daniel. Scholars date this text to near the time of the Maccabean revolt, c. 165 B.C.E. Chapters 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12 contain visions that claim to show the sequence of events, in some detail, that will lead up to the time of the end, when God sets up his Kingdom over all the earth. The basic scenario is this: Following a succession of world kingdoms (Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome–as they were subsequently interpreted), a terribly evil ruler would come, march into Palestine, defile the Temple at Jerusalem, persecute God’s people for a limited time (about three and a half years), but be utterly and decisively crushed by the sudden intervention of God (Dan. 7:19-25; 8:23-26; 11:31-45). The resurrection of the dead and final judgment would follow, with the Kingdom passed to God’s elect and persecuted “saints” (see especially Dan 2:44; 7:13-18, 26-27). This basic scheme of events became enormously influential among Jewish and Christian groups of the period and is the backbone of all the major apocalyptic schemes in the New Testament. Each time a likely candidate showed up in Palestine–whether Antiochus Epiphanes (the original subject of the visions), the Roman general Pompey (63 B.C.E..), the threat of the emperor Caligula to have his statue placed in the Jewish temple (41 C.E.), or the actual destruction of the Temple in August of 70 C.E. by the Roman general Titus–the specific expectations of Daniel’s scheme came into play. Various groups of Jews and Christians would be whipped up into a kind of apocalyptic frenzy, utterly convinced that the time of God’s Kingdom was at hand.

2 Esdras is another thoroughly apocalyptic work, which builds on the book of Daniel and is concerned with the “delay” of the end. [11] In a crucial section, 12:10-30, the author recasts Daniel’s basic vision and brings it down to his own time, with detailed predictions of what lies just ahead leading up to the arrival of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God.

Immortality of the Soul and Resurrection of the Dead
Side by side with the expanded speculation about when and how the end of the age would arrive are two important developments regarding the future of individuals beyond death. First, there is a vastly increased concern with the state and fortunes of the dead, both wicked and righteous, before the end of the age. Second, we see the full-blown development of the notion that some (or all) of the dead will rise to face a final judgment. As we have seen, in the Hebrew Bible the dead are in Sheol, barely existing, and never to return. The “state” of these dead is hardly any state at all. Daniel 12:2-3 is the earliest text in the Bible to speak clearly and absolutely about a resurrection of the dead, both wicked and righteous [12] His reference to the dead as “those who sleep in the earth” shows that he does not yet know, or share an interest in, their so called “interim” state (i.e., before the resurrection at the end). 2 Maccabees (written sometime between the first century B.C.E. and the first century C.E.) reflects an interesting state of development in this regard. Not only does the author believe in the resurrection (at least of the righteous martyrs), but he advocates prayer and sacrifice for the dead and believes that they can intercede for those on earth and vice versa (2 Macc. 12:43-45, 15:11-16). Likewise, in 2 Esdras the dead are fully conscious, already suffering either punishment or comfort in various levels and compartments of the heavenly realms, awaiting the final day of judgment (2 Esd. 7). Here the view of the immortal soul that departs the body at death is combined with a view of final and future resurrection of the dead. We know from texts outside the Old Testament canon, like the Ethiopic Enoch (third century B.C.E. to first century C.E.), that such views were common among various Jewish and Christian groups during this period. The Wisdom of Solomon is most interesting in this regard. In chapter 2, we have a powerfully poetic description of the ancient Hebrew view of death:

Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts. When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air. Our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will remember our works. (2:1-4)

This is precisely the view of Ecclesiastes, as we have seen. But here the author of The Wisdom of Solomon attributes this view to the grossly wicked (Wisd. of Sol. 2:21-24)! He strongly supports a view that is the very opposite of Ecclesiastes, that of the immortality of the soul and resurrection of the dead. He declares:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. (3:14)
He goes on to declare that in the time of their visitation they will “shine forth” (be resurrected?) and will end up governing and ruling nations in the Kingdom of God (3:7-8).

VIEWS OF THE FUTURE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

The general view of the future found throughout the New Testament incorporates and builds upon most of these developments and changes. The ancient Hebrew views, which are so dominate in the bulk of the Hebrew Bible, are simply ignored, or they are read and interpreted in the light of the newer views.

The Resurrection of the Dead
Perhaps it is only too obvious that the idea of a resurrection of the dead has a central place in the New Testament documents. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find reflected or upheld the old Hebrew idea of death as the final end. In fact, in several places this idea is directly opposed. In the Synoptic tradition, the Sadducees, who held such a view of death, challenge Jesus, and he sharply refutes them, arguing for some kind of continued existence after death as well as a future resurrection (Mark 12:18-27). In the Book of Acts, Paul too makes a point of distinguishing his faith in resurrection of the dead from the view of the Sadducees (Acts 23:6-10).

Still, what these early Christians meant by the idea of “resurrection” is not always so clear. Take the case of Jesus. In Luke 24, he appears after his resurrection to have a normal physical body; he eats and drinks and presumably exercises all bodily functions, just as before his death. So we seem to have here the notion of the resuscitation of a corpse, i.e., the same physical body of Jesus, wounds and all, that was laid in the tomb (see John 20:24-27, 21:9-14). Yet this body comes through locked doors (John 20:19), and Paul defends the idea of some kind of a “spiritual body,” definitely not “flesh and blood,” but immortal and glorified. What connection this “spiritual body” is supposed to have with the body put in the tomb is not clear (l Cor. 15:42-54). Resurrection, however, throughout the New Testament, is at the end, when Jesus returns with the clouds of heaven to gather his elect people together (Luke 20:34-36; Matt. 11:20-24; John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15; 1 Thess. 4:15-17; 1 Cor. 15:51-52; 2 Tim. 4:1; Rev. 11:18). (There are exceptions: Jesus and the Saints of Matthew 27:52f., as well as the dead raised by Jesus and Paul.)

As for the “state of the dead” before the end, Paul prefers the image of “sleep” (1 Cor. 15:6, 18, 20, 51; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; 5:9-10). But he also believed that the “spirit” of a departed Christian went to “be with Christ” (Phil. 1:19-26; 2 Cor. 5:6-10; 1 Thess. 4:14). Several places in the New Testament we clearly find the notion that the dead are conscious, dwelling somewhere in the heavenly realms beyond, and awaiting, either in torment or comfort, the final judgment (Luke 16:19-31, 23:43; 1 Pet. 3:18-20; 4:6; Rev. 6:9-1 l; 7:9-12).

The Close of the Age
The early Christians believed in the “close of the age”–and also what might properly be called the “end of the world.” They looked to a future, following the return (parousia) of Jesus in the clouds of heaven, in which the physical world would “pass away,” replaced by a new creation (Rom. 8:21; 2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21—22). Here, is it difficult to lay out a single eschatological scheme for all the New Testament documents. Revelation, chapter 20, speaks of a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth before the “new creation” (see Rev. 1:6; 2:25-26; 3:21; 5:10; 11:15-18). Paul seems to anticipate such a time, between the coming of Christ and the final “end” (Telos), when the elect group will “judge the world . . . and angels” and reign as kings in the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:23-28; 4:8; 6:2-3). The author of Luke through Acts speaks of Christ coming back to “restore” all the things spoken by the prophets (Acts 3:20-21), and Jesus chooses twelve disciples to rule over the re-gathered twelve tribes of Israel in the Kingdom of God (Luke 22:28-30). This rather “literal” or concrete view of the Kingdom of God on earth, drawn from the Hebrew Prophets, appears often in the Synoptic tradition. Jesus will return to earth and sit on his glorious throne, surrounded by his twelve ruling apostles, over the twelve tribes (Matt. 19:28-30). All the Old Testament patriarchs will be resurrected and participate in this Messianic kingdom (Matt. 8:11-12). The nations will be gathered before this throne of Christ and judged (Matt. 25:31-46). Whether all this can be fully systematized or not, Revelation, chapters 19-22, does contain the key elements of this overall vision of the future in some kind of rough order: the return of Christ, the utter defeat of Satan and his agents; the resurrection of the dead and the reign with the saints on earth; a return of Satan to lead the nations against Jerusalem; their defeat and the immersion of the Devil and the false prophet in a lake of burning sulfur for eternal torment; a final resurrection and judgment; and the new creation and final perfection. Most New Testament passages on the future will fit somewhere into this general scheme. And most of the themes cited earlier from the Hebrew Prophets anticipate one part or another of this final New Testament eschatological outline.

Signs of the End
Any actual apocalyptic scenario, when reflected here and there in the New Testament, seems to be remarkably consistent with the visions of Daniel. In the Synoptic tradition (Mark 13; Matt. 24; Luke 21) Jesus connects the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple to the more general “signs of the end of the age”: false prophets, wars and disruptions, earthquakes, famines, pestilence, persecution, and a world-wide proclamation of his message. These then lead up to “the sign,” spoken of by Daniel the prophet as the desolating sacrilege (”abomination of desolation”), apparently some kind of profanation of the Jewish Temple rites (Dan. 8:13-14, 9:27; 11:31), This is followed immediately by the greatest time of tribulation in history (Dan. 12:1-2), which in turn ushers in the disruption of the cosmos (”heavenly signs”) and the return of Christ. The scheme is very tightly connected, and Jesus declares at the end that “this generation will not pass away until all these things are fulfilled” (Mark 13:30). Those words alone must have had a tremendous impact on the expectations of the Christian communities that lived through the Jewish-Roman war (unless they were made up during it). Remarkably, the same scenario occurs in Revelation, chapter 6, with the opening of the “seven seals” of the apocalyptic book, and the further details in Revelation, chapter 11, regarding the three and a half years during which the Temple is defiled by the Gentile “beast” power. [13] We get more of this kind of interpretation in the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians; where Paul (or one of his followers) says the Day of the Lord cannot come until this wicked ruler, who profanes the Temple, arrives on the scene. This is a remarkable example of just how literally Daniel l l:31ff. was taken by Christian groups.

This means that besides the more general schemes of Hebrew Bible eschatology, and along with the specifics about resurrection of the dead, early Christians were actually watching world events, including political figures and troop movements in the Palestine area, with an eye on Daniel 11:35-12:1. After the scare of 41 C.E. (when it appeared that Caligula would literally fulfill Daniel’s predictions by putting his own statue in the Jewish Temple), and the terrible war of 66-70 which resulted in the utter destruction of the Temple–but no return of Christ–it is likely that this kind of apocalyptic fervor began to wane. We see a very general scheme, complete with an exhortation not to scoff or give up on the end-of-the-world hope, in the third chapter of 2 Peter, one of the latest documents of the New Testament. Here, we have a view of the future that can take one ahead several millennia–and it would serve the Christians well. The writer declares that “one day with the Lord is as a thousand years” (2 Pet. 3:8).

Earliest Christianity is often described as a Jewish apocalyptic sect (”end-of-the-world movement”), which, drawing upon Daniel and the Hebrew Prophets, pinned its hopes and dreams of the future on the catastrophic events before, during, and after the Jewish War. What they most expected to happen never came–the return of Jesus on the clouds of heaven to usher in the Kingdom of God. What they least expected to happen was what in fact did happen: the utter demise of the Jewish state and the increasing power and stability of Rome over the next several centuries. The fact that Christianity survived these disappointments suggests that its center was not solely apocalyptic expectation, but there is no denying that such expectation was central to the earliest movement.

What is most remarkable about all these images and views of the future, taken from all parts of the Bible, is their amazing flexibility. They were, and continue to be, applied to all kinds of situations and circumstances, always shaping the way readers ask and answer some of their most profound questions.

NOTES

6. The main passages are Isaiah 2:2-4, l1-12; 27:12-13, 35, and 66:18-24; Jeremiah 3:15-25; 16:14-21; 23:1-8; and 30.31; Ezekiel 11:14-21, 34:11-31, 36:8-38, 37, and 40-48; Hosea 1:10-11; 2:16-23, and 3:1-5; Joel 3; Amos 9:9-15; Micah 5; Zephaniah 3; Haggai 2; Zechariah 10:6-12 and 12-14.
7. This idea of a royal agent of Yahweh, an ideal descendent of David, is linked to various passages in the Psalms (mainly Psalms 2 and 110) that speak of divine priesthood and sonship. All these (King, Priest, and Son) later go into the idea of a heavenly Messiah arriving and bringing about the Kingdom of God.
8. This important section of Isaiah (24-27) is often called the “Isaiah Apocalypse,” and it was apparently written much later than Isaiah’s time (eighth century B.C.E.). It is one of the earliest examples of apocalyptic material in the Hebrew Bible.
9. There are dozens of passages describing this “great and terrible Day of Yahweh.” Some are: Isaiah 2:12-22; 13:9-13; 24; 59:15-19; 63:3-6; and 66:15-16; Jeremiah 25:30-33; Ezekiel 38-39; Joel 2:1-11 and 3:9-15; Zephaniah 1:2-18 and 3:8-13; and Zechariah 14.
10. Unlike the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible does not contain the developed view of a powerful Satan with wicked rebellious angels set in opposition to God. These ideas apparently began to develop in the late Persian period. A hint of the beginning may appear in this late text of Isaiah. The only other book in the Hebrew Bible that contains anything like this is Daniel (written in the second century (B.C.E.). In later times, texts such as Isaiah 14:12-14 and Ezekiel 28:11-17 were understood to refer to Satan and his original rebellion against God.
11. The composition and textual transmission of 2 Esdras is extremely complicated. The central portion (chapters 3-14) were probably Jewish, written in the first century, but it now contains Christian interpolations, which were composed at a later date.
12. It is not entirely clear whether Isaiah 26:19 and Ezekiel 37 should be taken as literal references to resurrection of the dead. The latter might be a kind of parable for the re-gathering of the twelve tribes of Israel.
13. For this reason I think it is likely that the Book of Revelation, at least in these sections, was composed under Nero, as the Jewish-Roman war was breaking out.

Back in 1989 I had a call from the late Professor Morton Smith of Columbia University. He was editing a book with Joseph Hoffman called What the Bible Really Says. It was a topical treatment of various subjects (Marriage, Divorce, Capital Punishment, et al.) intended to provide readers with a broad survey, running from the Hebrew Bible through the New Testament. It was published first by Prometheus and later reissued by HarperSanFrancisco. I think it is now out of print.

Prof. Smith asked me if I would write a chapter dealing with the various ideas regarding death, afterlife, and the future in the Bible! Given the complexity of ideas and cultures, and the chronological range of at least 1000 years, and the limited space of a single chapter, I found his request to be one of the most difficult challenges I had encountered.

I want to present the results in a series of Blog posts, to be followed up with a specific discussion of the Jewish/Early Christian notion of resurrection of the dead and how it conceptually compares or contrast with beliefs in the immortality of the soul. This discussion has particular relevance to notions of Jesus’ resurrection of the dead, the idea of an empty tomb, and the more general Jewish and Christian teaching regarding the “resurrection” of all the dead at the end of history.

There is no simple and single response to the question of what the Bible really says about death and life beyond the grave. What one finds is just what one would expect in any book composed of documents from many times, places, circumstances, and authors–variety and development. There are a lot of both, although by “development” I mean here simply change. My treatment presupposes no particular valuation of the various dreams and schemes regarding the future. My approach in this survey will be mainly chronological, tracing the topic through various periods of history; from ancient Israelite down to the Roman period, when the final parts of the New Testament were written. I have also roughly divided the topic into two subtopics: what the Bible says about the future of the world; and what it says about the future of the individual, that is, the afterlife. The two are always interrelated and they often overlap.

THE EARLY HEBREW BIBLE

In the earlier parts of the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, one finds fairly uniform views of both the future of the individual human person and that of the world or society. I have in mind here texts and traditions dating from the second millennium B.C.E. down through the time of the Exile of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah by the Assyrians and the Babylonians (8th-6th B.C.E.).

To understand this somewhat singular view of the future one needs to get a general grasp of ancient cosmology. Cosmology is the theory and lore of how the world or universe is structured. A kind of map or picture of the cosmos, cosmology is a way of naming things and putting them in their proper places.

The ancient Hebrews pictured the universe divided into three parts or realms, as did other civilizations of the period. First, there was the upper realm of the Firmament (Sky) or Heavens, the dwelling place of God and his divine angelic court, as well as the place of the sun, moon, planets, and stars. Here no mortal belonged.[1] Then there was the realm of earth below, what the first chapter of Genesis calls “the dry land.” It is the proper human place, shared with all the other forms of plant and animal life–a thoroughly mortal realm. The earth was seen as a flat disk; at the edges were the threatening waters of chaos, held back by the command of God (Gen. 1:9-10; Ps. 104:5-9). Finally, below the earth was the dark realm of the dead, which was called Sheol by the Hebrews and Hades by the Greeks. Psalms 115:16-18 puts it succinctly: “The heavens are Yahweh’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the sons of men. The dead do not praise Yahweh, nor do any that go down into silence. But we [the living] will bless Yahweh from this time forth and for evermore.” [2]

There is a particular set of perceptions, tied closely to this cosmic structure, that has great bearing on the ancient Israelite view of the future. The emphasis on order and proper place is of central importance. Yahweh and the divine beings of his court, whether gods (elohim) of the nations or angels, inhabit the upper heavenly realm and are not subject to death. Such heavenly beings, including Yahweh or his “Angel,” can “come down” to earth and appear to human mortals (see Gen. 11:5-7; 18:20-21; Exod. 3:1-6).[3] Jacob sees in a dream the very “ladder of heaven” with such beings moving up and down between the two realms (Gen. 28:10-17). Yahweh comes down upon Mount Sinai and speaks to the whole vast assembly of Israelites following the Exodus from Egypt (Exod. 19:11, 18; 34:5). Moses and the elders of the nation go up the mountain, meeting him halfway as it were, and encounter him there (Exod. 24:9-11, 15-18). Moses speaks with Yahweh face to face in personal conversation and actually sees his “form” (Exod. 33:11; Num. 12:8). But clearly the immortal beings, or “gods,” belong in heaven–it is their proper sphere, while they only visit the earth below. Conversely, humans are mere mortals, placed on the good earth below, with no idea whatsoever of any “future” in heaven. Their only permanent movement is down, to the lower world of the dead.

Life Beyond the Grave
First I will consider the notion of the future of the individual human person. The ancient Hebrews had no idea of an immortal soul living a full and vital life beyond death, nor of any resurrection or return from death. Human beings, like the beasts of the field, are made of “dust of the earth,” and at death they return to that dust (Gen. 2:7; 3:19). The Hebrew word nephesh, traditionally translated “living soul” but more properly understood as “living creature,” is the same word used for all breathing creatures and refers to nothing immortal. The same holds true for the expression translated as “the breath of life” (see Gen. 1:24; 7:21-22). It is physical, “animal life.” For all practical purposes, death was the end. As Psalm 115:17 says, the dead go down into “silence”; they do not participate, as do the living, in praising God (seen then as the most vital human activity). Psalm 146:4 is like an exact reverse replay of Genesis 2:7: “When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his thoughts [plans] perish.” Death is a one-way street; there is no return. As Job laments:

But man dies, and is laid low;
man breathes his last, and where is he?
As waters fail from a lake,
and a river wastes away and dries up,
so man lies down and rises not again;
till the heavens are no more he will not awake,
or be aroused out of his sleep. (Job 14:10-12) [4]

All the dead go down to Sheol, and there they lie in sleep together–whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free (Job 3:11-19). It is described as a region “dark and deep,” “the Pit,” and “the land of forgetfulness,” cut off from both God and human life above (Pss. 6:5; 88:3-12). Though in some texts Yahweh’s power can reach down to Sheol (Ps. 139:8), the dominant idea is that the dead are abandoned forever. This idea of Sheol is negative in contrast to the world of life and light above, but there is no idea of judgment or of reward and punishment. If one faces extreme circumstances of suffering in the realm of the living above, as did Job, it can even be seen as a welcome relief from pain–see the third chapter of Job. But basically it is a kind of “nothingness,” an existence that is barely existence at all, in which a “shadow” or “shade” of the former self survives (Ps. 88:10).

This rather bleak (or comforting, depending on your point of view) understanding of the future (or non-future) of the individual at death is one that prevails throughout most of the Hebrew Bible. It is found throughout the Pentateuch (the Books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), and it runs through the books of history, poetry, and prophecy (from Joshua through Malachi) with few exceptions. Those exceptions, however, are noteworthy. The most obvious is the infamous account of the seance in which King Saul has the “witch” (or medium) of Endor conjure up the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel. The narrative is fascinatingly realistic. The medium asks Saul, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” Saul replies, “Bring up Samuel for me” (1 Sam. 28:11). What follows is worth quoting in full:

The king said to her, “Have no fear; what do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a god (elohim) coming up out of the earth.” He said to her, “What is his appearance?” And she said, “An old man wrapped in a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance. Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” (I Sam. 28:13-15). Saul’s intent in trying to contact Samuel was to consult him regarding the wisdom of going into battle against the Philistines. Samuel appears to him in bodily form and gives him a clear prediction of what would befall him, just as he would have done in his prophetic ministry while still alive, he clearly knows the future, even though he has departed below, to Sheol.

Here the dead (at least Samuel) are viewed as “gods” of sorts, resting below in Sheol, but potentially capable of “coming back”–after being “disturbed”–and participating in the life of the living to the extent of even knowing the future. The practice of consulting the spirits of the dead was strictly forbidden in both the Torah and Prophets, but it obviously went on persistently (see Deut. 18:11; Isa. 8:19, 29:4). Throughout this period Israelites apparently thought that the dead could be consulted on behalf of the living. This indicates that their view of the state of the dead in Sheol below was not entirely static. Although generally pictured “at rest,” such spirits could assume special power and still have verbal intercourse with the living world above. Some have also noted as exceptions texts such as Psalms 73:18-26 and 49:13-15, which contrast the fate of the wicked as perishing in Sheol with that of the righteous, who will somehow be “ransomed” from its power. These texts are impossible to date with any certainty, and they might reflect some beginning “hints” of an idea of a resurrection hope for the departed righteous. If so, they probably come from the late Persian period. But even these texts lack a clear affirmation of resurrection of the dead. They might reflect the mere notion of God saving one from Sheol, i.e., rescuing from danger, sickness, and prolonging life. This is clearly the sense of passages like Psalms 22:19-24 and 103:1-5, Isaiah 38:10-20, and Jonah 2:1-9. It is only in certain late portions of the Hebrew Bible, and in sections of the Apocrypha, that we find the beginning expressions of any kind of an actual “future” for the individual beyond death. These will be discussed later in this chapter.

Surprisingly, this view of the future holds true for even the greatest of Israel’s heroes. Genesis 25:7-8 records the death of the greatest of all, Abraham: “These are the days of the years of Abraham’s life, a hundred and seventy-five years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.” The same is said for Moses, David, and all the others (Deut. 32:48-50; 34; 1 Kings 2:10; cf. 2 Sam. 12:22-23). Death is the great equalizer. So, one might accurately say, in ancient Hebrew there is no view of the future for the individual human person, certainly not when contrasted with the later ideas that arose–such as resurrection of the dead or eternal life in heaven. And yet the “religion” of Israel functioned very well without these ideas for more than a thousand years.

The Future of the World
Scholars use the term “eschatology” to refer to what they call the “last things,” i.e., the events and realities at the end of history or, more popularly speaking, “the end of the world.” However, this idea of the “end of the world” does not necessarily mean the destruction of the planet. More often it refers to the end of an “age,” following which history takes a dramatic turn for the better. Eschatology addresses these questions: Where is history headed? And what will be its final determination and meaning? Obviously, one is presupposing here that there is some meaning to history and that the end will make it all clear.

We find little or no eschatology of this sort in the Pentateuch or in the historical books. This is not strictly a matter of chronological development, since before and after the time of the Exile (8th-6th B.C.E.) we do find plenty of material in the Prophets that is clearly “eschatological.” And yet it is around this same time that both the Pentateuch and many of the historical books receive their final edited forms. What we encounter here is fascinating: two very different ways of looking at the future, existing side by side, but in some tension and competition with one another. The first, which is earlier and predominates in the bulk of the Hebrew Bible material, I shall call the “historical.” In this view of things, there is obviously a “future,” since history proceeds on its linear path and generations come and go. But there is no expectation of any dramatic change ahead, i.e., the massive intervention of God through which everything gets set right. The book of Ecclesiastes contains the most systematic and poignant expression of this “non-eschatological’ view of the future. I quote here its opening lines:

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does a man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever ….
What has been is what will be
and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. (1:24, 9)

Obviously, such a view of things, in which there is “nothing new under the sun,” can fill one with a deep sense of despair. After all, the human realm below is full of injustice, suffering, and tragedy, which is what the book of Ecclesiastes is all about. Is there to be no change, ever? The author of Ecclesiastes, like all ancient Hebrews, shares the view that death is the end of all human aspiration and experience, as I described above. He writes:

For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust; again (3:19-20).[5] Surprisingly, this mood of fatalistic resignation and despair, which is expressed so powerfully in Ecclesiastes, does not dominate the Pentateuch and the historical books. By and large, these materials, though sharing at root the same bleak view of the future, reflect another element that tends to make them guardedly, or at least provisionally, optimistic. They are concerned primarily with the future fortunes of the people or nation of Israel, and such a future is seen, potentially at least, as full of abundant good and blessings.

This idea of a good future for the nation of Israel begins with texts in Genesis, which promise such to Abraham and his descendants. God tells Abraham, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2). Later he is told, “I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.., you will be the father of a multitude of nations” (17:2,4), and “to your descendants I will give this land [i.e., Palestine]” (Gen. 15:18). These elements of “chosen people,” covenant, land, and blessings form the foundation of this view of the future. The twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy best sums up this whole idea. Israel is to be “set high above all the nations of the earth” (Deut. 28:1) and experience incredible material blessings–peace, power, wealth, and health (Deut. 28:3-14), if only she will obey the commandments of Yahweh. However, the bulk of the chapter catalogs in lengthy detail the very reverse of that potential future. If Israel turns from Yahweh, serves other gods, and disregards his commandments, she will experience terrible curses, plagues, and disasters, and finally, near complete destruction, captivity, and exile. This is the basic story line of much of the Hebrew Bible. Yahweh offers Israel all these potential blessings, she consistently rejects him and his laws and suffers various curses, and all the while there is a constant call for her to repent and come back.

I have called this view of the future “historical” rather than properly “eschatological” because it still sees the cosmos (world, universe, history) as a whole, as running along normally with its repeated tale of death, war, disease, suffering, and tragedy. In other words, the lower human realms of earth (history) and Sheol (individual fate) remain fundamentally the same. There is the potential for the chosen people of Israel to experience the blessings of Yahweh, and thus some respite from the brunt of this common human experience. But by and large, for most individual Israelites at most times, the stark view of Ecclesiastes remains the same. Death is the end. There is nothing new under the sun. I should point out that in some few texts there is the notion that the blessings to be poured out upon Israel will “spill over” to other nations (Gen. 12:3). But a more common idea is that such non-Israelite nations will partake of these blessings at a much lower level, as the proverbial “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” that is, as Israel’s slaves (Deut. 20:10-15; Josh. 9:21-27).

To Be Continued…
NOTES
1. Enoch and Elijah are possible exceptions here. Rather than recording the death of Enoch, the genealogy of Genesis 5:24 simply says, “He was not, for God took him.” Elijah is taken to heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2).
2. See also Psalm 104 for a celebration of the proper place and created order of Genesis 1. I have generally used the Revised Standard Version translation of the Bible. However, I have rendered the divine personal name of God as “Yahweh” rather than “the LORD.” All emphases within quotations of biblical texts, as well as explanations in brackets, are my own.
3. The “Angel of Yahweh” sometimes appears to be an epiphany of Yahweh himself (Gen. 16:7; 13; 21:17; 19; and Exod. 3:2; 6; 14:i9, 21), sometimes his chief representative (Exod. 23:20-2 1; 33:2-3, 12).
4. The verses that follow (14-15) are sometimes misunderstood as offering some hope of life after death or resurrection from the dead. The context makes clear that the answer to Job’s question, “If a man die, shall he live again?” is no. That is precisely Job’s point.
5. In the next verse he asks, “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth?”–expressing skepticism about such an idea. See 9:3-10; his view is clearly that death is the end.

I have mentioned a number of times in this series of posts that the gospel of John appears to have an underlying narrative framework that is most useful to the historian when it comes to matters of chronology and geography. In contrast, Mark has few chronological markers, so much so that halfway through his account (chapter 8 of 16 chapters total), Jesus is already on his final journey to Jerusalem where he is crucified. What goes on before that, essentially Jesus’ entire preaching career, narrated in chapters 1-8, is presented in a rapid and sweeping flow of events with no indication as to whether the time involved was days, weeks, months, or even years. In my book, The Jesus Dynasty, I adopted the three and one-half year chronological scheme of the gospel of John (Fall, 26 CE to Spring, 30 CE) and attempted to understand Mark’s fast paced narrative in that light.

I have posted a useful document charting the narrative movement in the gospel of John on my UNC Charlotte Web site. It is interesting that Mark provides a few “hooks” into John’s framework. The most obvious is the sequence of events with Jesus feeding a crowd, walking on the Sea of Galilee, and teaching in the area of Capernaum, found in Mark 6 and John 6. According to John’s account this is around the time of a 2nd Passover, which would be the spring of the year 29 CE. The most interesting and intriguing of these “hooks,” however, is the short statement in Mark 10:1:

“And he left there (Capernaum) and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again; and again, as his custom was, he taught them.”

Until the last week of Jesus’ life when Jesus goes to Jerusalem, Mark sets his entire rapid-paced narrative around the Sea of Galilee, but here he seems to at least be aware of the tradition that we find elaborated in John, that Jesus made these excursion-like forays south to Judea and east beyond the Jordan. Jesus’ move across the Jordan River during the final months of his life is something that really caught my attention in the spring of 1992. I was teaching my standard New Testament/Christian Origins class and we were working through the ending of the gospel of John when these words jumped off the page at me:

“He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John at first baptized, and there he remained. And many came to him…” (John 10:40)

I was showing the students how that verse tied into the one in Mark, and that, according to the gospel of John, Jesus had made a quick trip to Jerusalem at Hanukkah (December, 29 CE), and that Mark at least mentions him going “to the region of Judea” but with no details, but we know from the gospel of John that Jesus’ life was actually in danger and he was in need of a safe place to hide until he decided to make his final moves in Jerusalem the following Spring. But what caught my attention that day was John’s reference to a specific place. I had never noticed that before. I remembered that earlier in his gospel John had actually pinpointed that very place with this description:

“John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there were many pools there; and people came and were baptized” (John 3:22).

We pulled out the Oxford map of Galilee in the time of Jesus and quickly located Aenon near Salim, just south of Scythopolis, or Beth Shean today. Directly across the Jordan from that spot I noticed two things. There was a “Wadi” or ravine named Cherith, and just to the north the Decapolis town of Pella. Both rang different bells in my head. Cherith, of course, was the ravine where Elijah hid and was fed by the ravens when he fled from king Ahab and queen Jezebel when his life was in danger (1 Kings 18:1-7). And Pella was the traditional location where the followers of Jesus fled around 68 CE when Jerusalem was put under siege by the Romans prior to its destruction. Scholars have always had problems imagining this flight of the Nazarenes, led by Simon bar Clophas, to a pro-Roman Hellenistic city such as Pella. However, the idea came to me that perhaps the Pella tradition referred to the area of Pella, not the city itself. The Wadi Cherith is just six kilometers to the south, literally part of the “precincts” of what could be called Pella. In a matter of minutes it all began to fit together.

The Wadi Cherith, across the Jordan, would have been remembered as a “place of safety” for Elijah. Although some have located the Wadi Cherith to the south, the weight of evidence favors the northern Gilead location. It fits the description in 1 Kings 17 precisely, and the site of Jabesh-gilead (Abu el Kharaz) as well as Tishbe has been located in the Wadi. If Jesus also went “across the Jordan,” from Aenon near Salim, that would put him right into the Wadi Cherith, and thus provide an explanation for this odd choice of location for his flight. Finally, nearly 40 years later, his followers, some of whom would have been with him in the winter of 29 CE flight, would have returned to that area.

I had been to Jordan before but only to see the standard tourist sites. I had no idea what the Wadi Cherith might be like. On a modern map of Jordan I saw the name used today: Wadi el-Yabis, which actually connects to the name Cherith, referring to the rugged cut nature of the Wadi. I decided to make a trip to Jordan as soon as the semester was out and in June of that year I found myself hiking with some students and friends deep into the reaches of Wadi el-Yabis.

What we found was quite amazing. The Wadi was incredibly rugged with water falls, pools, and surrounding high cliffs on both sides, dotted with abundant caves. We searched some of the caves and found early Roman period pottery shards in abundance.

I asked the artist Balage Balogh, who was doing illustrations for my book, The Jesus Dynasty, to create a scene that would portray Jesus and his small band of followers living in this Wadi that last winter of Jesus’ life. He took great care in the details, as he always does, wanting to get the clothing, hairstyles, and other things just right. The result, in color, is quite stunning and I wanted to share it with my readers here:

Based on the traditions of both Mark and John regarding Jesus’ excursion “beyond the Jordan,” as well as the Pella flight tradition, I am convinced that the location of Wadi el-Yabis as a “Jesus Hideout” has good historical probability. If John’s chronology is correct this is where Jesus and his entourage spent the last winter of his life, from December until early April, when he hears of Lazarus being deathly ill and is summoned by Mary and Martha of Bethany to come to the Jerusalem area. It would also be the location where the band of fleeing Nazarenes went in 68 CE as the Roman laid siege to Jerusalem. A Wadi el-Yabis Survey Project (G. Palumbo, J. Mabry, I. Kuijt) begun in the 1990s has identified a number of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age sites but a specific concentration on potential early Roman habitation of the caves south of Pella remains to be done.