Archive for the ‘Christian Origins’ Category

Tis the Season” love it or not but for an alternative take on Jesus’ birth, December 25th, and a different kind of “Silent Night” see my essay, just up on the Web at Bible&Interpretation, a site well worth a bit of browsing:

http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/xmas357921.shtml

I love this wonderful Armenian portrayal of the meeting of Miriam with her kinswoman Elisheva in the region of Ein Kerem in the “hill country of Judea,” west of Jerusalem. Note that the unborn babies are shown in situ as if by ancient ultrasound. According to Luke’s gospel the women were separated in their pregnancies by six months and Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months, implying that she was attending at the birth of John/Yehochanan.

I am honored to report that I was given a full page interview with photo in the cover story (translated: “What Really Happened in Bethlehem?) of the December 15, 2008 issue of Profil magazine.  Profil is the #1 newsweekly of Austria, also read widely in Germany, equivalent to Time or Newsweek. An image of the cover and the full interview, in German reproduced here. You can click on the images to zoom in and enlarge or download the PDF file link at the bottom.

Download the PDF link here: Profiltabor

Although there are examples of the Covenant God made with all Israel through Moses at Horeb/Sinai being “renewed” at various points (e.g. Deuteronomy 29:1; 2 Kings 23:1-3), the “New Covenant” of which Jeremiah speaks (31:31-34) seems to stand out in terms of how it is both described and placed in context.

If one reads carefully that historical context, namely chapters 30-31 of Jeremiah, it is abundantly clear, both by the descriptive content and the timing indicated (“At that time” “in that day” “the days are coming” etc.), that this is a singular, unique, event that has not come about or transpired as of yet but is to take place in a specific time when all the Tribes of Israel are gathered together back in the Land, with Judah and Israel becoming one, etc. This event is spoken of in all the prophets with a consistency and a specificity that rivals any other theme or subject in the Hebrew prophets, and is particularly evident in Ezekiel 37, that also mentions this “new” covenant, using different words. This seems quite clear that this vision of the future was the one anticipated by Jesus in speaking of a New Covenant, based on his saying in the Q source about having chosen the Twelve and appointing them as “apostles,” i.e., delegates, so they would eventually, in the coming Kingdom of God, sit on “twelve thrones ruling the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:28-30). Although there is a sense that one might still refer to this as a “renewed” covenant, it seems to stand out as different from the various “renewals” in the previous history of Israel, so that it is understood, by analogy at least, like a divorce and a remarriage, with all Twelve tribes (the house of Israel and the house of Judah) regathered to the Land and united under the Branch or Davidic Messiah. That said, there is only ONE covenant with Israel, as the Psalmist says, commanded to a “thousand generations,” thus the abbreviation O.T. could perhaps more rightly refer to the Only Testament, rather than the “Old” Testament.

Given this historical context one must pause over Paul’s ideas that the “new covenant” spoken by Jeremiah has come through his ministry, in contrast to the ministry of death that Moses instituted, that those who read the “old covenant” are blinded until they turn to Christ, or that the glory Moses experienced at Sinai is or has faded (2 Corinthians 3). The “last” Prophetic word we have on the level of the Hebrew Prophets is to “Remember the Teachings of My Servant Moses,” and that appears to take us to final days, characterized by the appearance of Elijah (Malachi 3/4). Rather than fade, the “glory” Moses experienced, that was the very Kavod of HaShem, will be renewed and enhanced in the time of which Jeremiah speaks. If one just reads Jeremiah 30-31 one does not find Paul’s ideas, that is, including his “heavenly Christ” who brings eternal life to those who accept him (with the rest blinded and hard of heart), or anything he says in 2 Corinthains 3 (and one really needs to include chapters 4-5 to get his full views here) referred to or predicted. There seems to be zero correspondence, other than the catchword “new covenant.”

This is not to say that the images of putting the Torah in the heart, or having a “new heart,” that Paul makes use of, are not found in the prophetic passages that speak of the “new covenant” and its operation. They lie at the heart of things, but they are nothing new, in that these very possibilities and potentials are all at the center of the covenant Moses made with Israel. Moses constantly tells the ancient Israelites to circumcise the heart, to have hearts of flesh not stone, and to put the Torah within. This is repeated constantly in the Psalms and Prophets as well. This is nothing “new” that comes with Paul and his “heavenly Christ.” It is at the heart of the Sinai/Horeb revelation always, and people in so-called “Old Testmant” times always had access to the Holy Spirit, a truly spiritual conversion, the Law written in the heart, etc. Grace, forgiveness, and a bonded friendship with the Creator through the Holy Spirit has always been offered freely to human beings, and all the more so through Moses’s covenant with Israel. Paul’s view of a “fleshly” and “spiritual” dichotomy is well known to us in all the hellenistic dualistic systems of thought of the ancient Mediterranean world, particularly the Platonists, Pythagorians, and to some extent the Stoics. That is why he thinks what one “eats or drinks” or observing “days” has nothing to do with the “real” inner person, or that God does not care for “oxen” when he says not to muzzle an animal threshing grain, but really has in mind his “new covenant” ministers being supported financially (1 Corinthians 9:3-12). Another response to Paul’s question–Does God care for oxen? is a resounding “yes,” as the Torah addresses ALL aspects of human life on planet earth.

A central issue when it comes to Paul is not whether he was a good guy or a bad guy, sincere or insincere, or even whether the ethical principles of the Torah are abrogated or carried through into the “new covenant” as he understands it. I have no doubt that Paul thought he was living in the “end times” and would live to see all that Jeremiah spoke of come about, at least in some “spiritual” way, since he had given up the idea that what he calls “fleshly” Israel mattered anymore. The real issue is whether one, Jew or Gentile, can have a right relationship with God by grace through faith, as Abraham had, by turning directly in repentance and faith, without the requirements of “accepting Christ” and receiving “eternal life” through the blood of the cross, as the exclusive new “way of salvation.” This is where “Christianity,” at least as viewed by Paul, parts with Judaism, and for that matter, with a plain reading of the Hebrew Bible, both Torah, Prophets, and Writings. And yet for Paul, centering everything on God offering his divine Son as a sacrifice for sins is the heart of his “new covenant” ideas. If one then turns back and reads Jeremiah 30-31 there is little to no correspondence between what Jeremiah says and the ideas Paul expounds that he calls the “New Covenant.”

Jesus himself offers something dead center in terms of reflecting the Hebrew Bible and its “way of salvation.” His well known story of “justification” given by Jesus in Luke 15 and the lost son who comes home, requires only the father’s gracious acceptance of a son who is truly broken up over his past wrong behavior. Even more to the point, the tax collector of Luke 18 who bowed his head, struck his breast, and said “God be merciful to me a sinner.” This is the one Way of turning to God that one finds consistently in the pages of the Hebrew Bible.

Two verses from the Hebrew Bible come to mind in this regard:

Psalm 145:18: “The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.”

Isaiah 56:6-7: “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

The Hebrew means to seek truly/sincerely, and it not referring to a set of “truth” in terms of religious dogmas and doctrines. These texts are bedrock and they cut through any theological or complex systems of religious dogma. They are relational not systematic. Many seminaries have courses called “Systematic Theology” and most all are complex expositions of Paul’s teachings, with all the ins and outs. These verses seem to skirt that whole arena, even though they are addressing a similar question–How can one come to know God, be forgiven, and walk with him?

One important characteristic of the Prophets is that they are on the whole relational and almost completely non-systematic, so even a fool, yea a wayfaring man, will not stumble on the path. They sketch out in fairly plain language the “vision” of things for the “days to come,” and along the way, with the Prophets commenting on their own day and time, they offer avenues toward repentance and return to their contemporary hearers, and thus by extension, to readers down through the ages.

One might refer to this understanding of God and God’s relationship with humanity as “Abrahamic Faith,” taking one back to the pivotal and foundational “faith” of Abraham as reflected in the accounts of Genesis 12-22 in particular. I write a bit about this in a very preliminary way in the Conclusion to my book, The Jesus Dynasty, but for those interested in this subject there is much more in an older work of mine, long out of print, but now again available titled Restoring Abrahamic Faith.

Some of you might remember the brief publicity just over a year ago regarding the publication of a text called “The Gabriel Vision” (Hazon Gabrile) by Israeli scholars Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elitzur (Cathedra 123 [2007]: 155-166 in Hebrew). Prof. Israel Knohl of Hebrew University wrote a fairly extensive article published in the Israeli newspaper HaAretz, that summarized his own reading and interpretation of the text. He has now published a more scholarly exposition in the current issue of the Journal of Religion and has arranged for a link to the PDF file of his article to be downloaded from the Shalom Hartman Institute Web site where he is a research fellow.

The text contains two partially preserved columns of Hebrew written on stone. It has been dated to the late 1st century BCE, or the early 1st century CE, on linguistic and paleographic grounds respectively by Profs. Bar Asher and Yardeni respectively. Prof. Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University has apparently confirmed the stone’s authenticity

Knohl finds confirmation in this new text of his position that the notion of a “slain messiah,” and more specifically, the Messiah son of Joseph figure alluded to in later Talmudic writings, dates back to the 1st century BCE, and accordingly, predates the views of a suffering messiah associated with Jesus. Knohl had argued a version of this thesis before the Gabriel text came to light, in his book, The Messiah Before Jesus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000; now out in paperback), that just happened to coincide with the publication of Michael Wise, The First Messiah (HarperOne, 1999). Neither knew the other was working on his book and yet they both argued, on different grounds, from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other texts, that the notion of a “suffering messiah” was not an early Christian invention but was “around” at least as early as the 1st century BCE in certain Jewish sectarian circles. Somewhat earlier, I remember Michael Fishbane’s provocative paper at the Princeton Conference on Apocalypticism and the Millennium in 1996, “Midrash and Messianism: SomeTheologies of Suffering and Salvation,” as well as my own contribution, dealing with some of the same elements, “Patterns of the End: Textual Weaving from Qumran to Waco.” Both are now published in the volume edited by Peter Schaefer and Mark Cohen, Toward the Millennium (Leiden: Brill, 1998): pp. 70-71; 409-430, respectively. A version of my paper can be downloaded at my UNC Charlotte Web site.

Knohl’s interpretation of the new Gabriel text rests on a skillful textual reconstruction of a text that is poorly preserved and difficult to read in places. He then seeks to position his readings in the context of late 2nd Temple Jewish messianism(s) with all their complexities. Now that he has put his views forward in a scholarly article it will be most interesting to follow the discussion of other experts in the field.

I heard Prof. Knohl read a paper at the Princeton Theological Seminar on Christian Origins in Jerusalem in January, dealing with views of Jewish Burial and Afterlife in the Late 2nd Temple period. Prof. Knohl’s paper focused on one aspect of the Gabriel text, and his reading thereof, namely the nature of the concept of “resurrection of the dead” in various Jewish apocalyptic circles of the period. According to Knohl’s reading, lines 80 of the Gabriel text should be read:

By three days–live, I Gabriel command you, prince of princes, the dung of rocky crevices.”

The three day statement is surely fascinating in the light of Jewish views of the afterlife, but even more interesting is that this particular corpse, that Knohl identifies as that of the crowned Jewish rebel leader Simon, killed in Transjordan in the 4 BCE revolt following the death of Herod the Great, is spoken of as “dung” in the rocky crevices where he was slain. Knohl’s main point at the conference was that the Jewish idea of “making live the dead” did not necessarily involve the revivification of a copse, as in this case one turned to “dung,” but rather a revived life in what would be potentially a “new body.”

I want to highly, even extravagantly, recommend a book by Barrie Wilson, York University professor in Toronto, titled How Jesus Became Christian (New York: St. Martins Press, 2008; Random House in Canada). I will go so far as to say that I judge this single book to be one of the most important contributions to an understanding of Christian Origins published in many decades. Prof. Wilson’s book represents an absolute “sea change” in our understanding of how one moves from the historical Jesus (Jewish Prophet, Charismatic Healer, Teacher, Messiah figure), to the new religion called Christianity, created by the apostle Paul and given a definitive stamp of approval by what became the “standard story” of Christian Origins preserved in Luke-Acts.

Books that explore the “From Jesus to Paul” theme are quite common in the scholarly field: From Jesus to Paul (Klausner); The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (Maccoby); From Jesus to Christ (Paula Fredrikson); From Jesus to Christianity (Michael White); Paul: Founder of Christianity (Lüdemann); and Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (Segal), to name a few more recent titles. However, in my view, Wilson has advanced the discussion miles beyond any previous work with his daring hypothesis regarding the stark and uncompromising dichotomy between what he calls the “Jesus Movement” and the “Christ Movement,” created and espoused single-handedly by the apostle Paul. Wilson goes a long way to putting an end to the wishful thinking that there is somehow some kind of continuity between Paul and his “gospel” and the message of James, Peter, and John, and those early Jewish followers of Jesus commonly known as “the Jerusalem Church.”

Wilson’s writing style is clear, his documentation is impeccable, and he makes his case with a strength and a level of persuasiveness that in my judgment leaves counter proposals in the wayside. The book is already a best-seller in Canada and it is beginning to climb the charts on Amazon in the U.S. Prof. Wilson also has a Web site, with many features and additional materials including an interview and Blog. The Toronto Globe and Mail had this to say in a recent review:

Jesus the Jew and the Christian Coverup:
HOW JESUS BECAME CHRISTIAN
By Barrie A. Wilson
Reviewed by Allan Levine
March 22, 2008

Forget about Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and fictional conspiratorial machinations about whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children, Barrie Wilson has produced a significant and sensational work of scholarship. And it is truly religious dynamite.

Acknowledging Jesus’s Jewish background is nothing new, but arguing, as Wilson does, that Christianity is largely the result of a deliberate and deceptive manipulation is more intriguing and contentious. “Jesus never converted to another religion,” Wilson claims. “Nor did he start one. If he were to return, he’d probably be amazed – perhaps bewildered or possibly even angry – at what has been created in his name.” Adding for good measure that, “of all the Jewish males who ever lived, Jesus was by far the most influential.”

A professor of humanities and religious studies at York University in Toronto, Wilson has drawn on decades of his own research into the history of early Christianity and, like the superb teacher he must be, invites readers to accompany him on a wondrous journey back in time to understand Jesus’s life, the ordeal of being a Jew in a world ruled by Romans, the construction of the New Testament, and the powerful forces that have transformed Western civilization.

Admittedly this is no easy task, but he pulls it off brilliantly. He is an academic who can write for a non-specialist audience and does so exceptionally well – guiding, explaining Scripture, and even creatively integrating imaginary newspaper columns and blogs into his prose. All of which brings Jesus and his epoch alive.

Using an array of biblical sources, both Jewish and Christian, he builds his case step by step, searching for clues in the Gospels, offering concise summaries, and posing difficult questions – many of which, he concedes, cannot be answered. We do not know, for example, the precise details of Jesus’s day-to-day life – his emotional state or the real reasons he opposed Roman rule – and probably never will. But it is possible to offer reasonable and intelligent speculations based on solid research. That is what Wilson does very well, and by the last page he has convincingly made his case.

The short version of Wilson’s thesis, which he calls the “Jesus Cover-Up Thesis,” is this: The spiritual figure that billions of Christians worship worldwide as the Son of God was, in fact, a Jew, a rabbi, and a revered teacher of the early first century who obeyed and championed the Torah. Jesus (or more accurately in Hebrew, Yehoshua or Yeshu) prayed in synagogue and urged his followers to adhere strictly to Jewish law. Only in this way, he promised, would the Kingdom of God become a reality. Wilson probes the Jewish roots of the Lord’s Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper (which is more commonly recognized as a Passover seder, although there were likely many more people in attendance than the 12 disciples portrayed in Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated painting). In Wilson’s view, Jesus wanted to improve Jewish life, not abolish it. He did not proclaim himself to be a “Christ” figure or a “Son of God.” That came later.

Living as second-class citizens in their own country and dominated by a foreign power in Rome, Jews needed hope and Jesus provided it. His growing number of followers began to think of him as a “potential Messiah.” Led by Jesus’s brother, James – whose writings until recently have been largely ignored – these Jews established the “Jesus Movement.” After Jesus was killed by the Romans, in about 30 AD, they waited for him to return to create the promised Kingdom of God.

With James’s death in the early 60s, the Jesus Movement suffered a leadership crisis, and in Wilson’s words, was eventually “upstaged” and “hijacked” by the Christ Movement launched by Paul of Tarsus, a Hellenized Jew living in the Jewish Diaspora. The two movements should have remained separate and parallel religious sects, but subsequent events changed this. Paul did not know Jesus, yet nevertheless linked him to the Christ Movement. In the process, he tore Jesus from his Jewish roots.

Wilson shows that the most significant development in this synthesis occurred 60 years after both James and Paul died and was accomplished by the unknown author of the Book of Acts (part of the Gospel of Luke). This new “take” on Jesus was so credible that, as Wilson puts it, “we tend to think of Paul’s Movement as just another form of early Christianity. It wasn’t. It was a brand-new religion entirely.” It was thus what Wilson terms “Paulinity” – “a Hellenized religion about a Gentile Christ [and] a cosmic redeemer” – rather than the Jewish-inspired religion of Jesus, which was embraced by the Gentiles of the Roman world in the period from the second to the fourth centuries.

The New Testament is not a neutral document. The Gospels and other writings are arranged in a particular order to give weight to Paul’s interpretation of the link between the Jesus and the Christ Movements. Moreover, it was not sufficient for authors of several Gospels to distance Christianity from Judaism, they had to vilify it: Jews became equated with Satan. According to Wilson, this made the cover-up complete. The devastating result was religious anti-Semitism and the perpetuation of the accusation that the Jews killed Christ.

In fact, it was only one Jewish sect, the Sadducees, who turned against Jesus. They wanted to maintain the status quo with the Romans and feared that Jesus’s preaching about a Kingdom of God and altering the world was dangerous. Once the Romans accepted Christianity, it was not possible to blame them for Jesus’s death, so the Jews were identified in the Gospels and later Church decrees as the true evil murderers of the Son of God. Centuries of persecution followed.

One major reason, Wilson notes, for the hostile reaction to The Da Vinci Code was “its suggestion that Jesus was human.” And that criticism was levelled at a novel. Wilson’s firm belief that Christianity must refocus on the human and Jewish Jesus and accept the truth of the cover-up is sure to generate an even greater controversy.

The Toronto Globe and Mail, Canada’s leading newspaper, ran a story yesterday titled “University of Toronto Scientist Puts Odds on Lost Tomb” that headlines Prof. Andrey Feuerverger’s statistical conclusions on the Talpiot Jesus tomb. Award winning writer Michael Posner, author of the piece, also offers a kind of “state of the question” update on a number of current issues related to the academic discussion of the tomb and its significance. It can be accessed on-line .

U of T scientist puts odds on lost tomb

Chance that ancient Jerusalem burial tomb did not contain bones of Jesus and family
calculated at 1 in 1,600

MICHAEL POSNER
FROM TUESDAY’S GLOBE AND MAIL
APRIL 22, 2008 AT 4:17 AM EDT

A University of Toronto mathematician is lending new support to the controversial claim that
an ancient burial tomb near Jerusalem once held the bones of Jesus of Nazareth and his
family.

In a peer-reviewed article published last month in the prestigious Annals of Applied
Statistics, Andrey Feuerverger places the odds of the 2,000-year-old tomb not belonging to
the Jesus family at 1 in 1,600.

This figure is even more bullish than the 1-in-600 figure that Dr. Feuerverger calculated a
year ago, when interviewed for The Lost Tomb of Jesus, a $4-million documentary produced
by James Cameron and directed by Toronto’s Simcha Jacobovici.

The tomb, now sealed beneath a housing development in Talpiot, east of Jerusalem, was
accidentally discovered in 1980. Its contents included 10 limestone ossuaries, six of which
were inscribed with evocative names, including “Jesus, son of Joseph, Maria, Jose [perhaps a
brother of Jesus], Mariamne, Matya and Judah, son of Jesus.”

It was Judaic custom at the time to place a deceased’s bones, a year after death, into bone
boxes stored in family tombs. Archeologists stumbling across these crypts typically turned
the remaining bone fragments over to Orthodox officials for reburial; inexplicably, there is
no report of what happened to the bones found at this site.

The film, adducing DNA evidence that suggested Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have
been married and had a son named Judah, triggered a tsunami of debate. Many orthodox
Christians viewed its claims as challenging the very foundations of the faith, which maintains
that Jesus never married, never fathered a child and, three days after he died, was resurrected
physically and ascended to heaven.

In the past year, six books and three other documentary films have been released, all
attempting to refute the thesis of The Lost Tomb of Jesus. Websites and bloggers, academic
and lay, have led a vituperative chorus denouncing the film as sensationalism and its findings
as shoddy science.

The filmmakers say orthodox Christianity has even flexed its power to suppress their
message. There’s no hard evidence of such tactics, but Britain’s Channel 4, which paid
£200,000 for British rights to the film, has yet to broadcast it. Discovery U.S., which aired
the documentary a year ago to enormous ratings, has since declined to rebroadcast it.
For years, archeologists attempted to deflect speculation about the tomb, saying that the
names inscribed on the Talpiot ossuaries were common to the period. But Dr. Feuerverger’s
analysis rejects that argument, noting that while the individual names might have been
common, this specific cluster of names so resonant of the New Testament is not. Indeed, in
January, at a symposium with about 50 academics in Jerusalem, no one made the case for
commonality.

Instead, opponents have challenged Dr. Feuerverger’s historical assumptions, notably that the
unusual Greek name Mariamne found on one of the ossuaries is an appropriate designation
for Mary Magdalene.

But even discounting the Mariamne assumptions, Dr. Feuerverger’s 51-page paper says that
the tomb has a 0.48 chance of belonging to Jesus. That means, says James Tabor, head of
religious studies at the University of North Carolina, “that if we had two tombs to examine,
one of them would be the Jesus tomb. With Feuerverger’s paper in print, a more responsible
discussion of the Talpiot tomb name frequencies and statistics can take place.”

One surprise development at the Jerusalem conference was the appearance of Ruth Gat,
widow of the Israeli archeologist who first excavated the Talpiot tomb. Presented with a
lifetime achievement award on his behalf, Mrs. Gat told the assembled academics that her
husband had died with the conviction that the tomb belonged to Jesus Christ and his family.
A Holocaust survivor, Mr. Gat had confided his views to his wife. He never went public, she
explained, because he feared doing so would produce a global backlash of anti-Semitism.

“The fact is,” maintains Mr. Jacobovici, the filmmaker, “that the conference shifted the
fulcrum of academic opinion from ‘couldn’t possibly be the Jesus tomb’ to ‘very well might
be.’ ”

Although most scholars remain deeply skeptical – 15 of those at the Jerusalem parley signed
an online manifesto rejecting the Jesus tomb arguments – cracks have formed in the academic
front.

“I don’t believe the idea can be simply dumped into the garbage heap of pseudo-science and
history,” says Israeli geologist Aryeh Shimron. “And no manifestos are going to change my
mind that easily. It deserves further, very detailed scientific study.”

University of Detroit professor Jane Schaberg, one of the world’s ranking experts on Mary
Magdalene, says it is “quite possible, even probable,” that the inscription on that ossuary
describes Magdalene and adds that the tomb “may very well belong to Jesus and his
followers, as opposed to Jesus and his family. My gut tells me it’s a movement site.”

What are the implications for orthodox Christians? “It means they should start studying what
was meant by resurrection in the first century,” Dr. Schaberg says. “Resurrection is not a
simple thing, where the body just stands up and walks out.”

“We might be dealing with the most tangible evidence ever of the existence of Jesus and his
family,” adds University of Toronto social historian Claude Cohen-Matlofsky. Even the
conference’s lead organizer, Princeton University’s James Charlesworth, a New Testament
scholar, said afterward, “I have reservations, but I can’t dismiss the possibility that this tomb
was related to the Jesus clan.”

Symposium delegates ultimately voted unanimously to reopen the investigation into the
Talpiot tomb as well as a second still unexamined crypt only nine metres away. So far, no
action has been taken.

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Our best historical evidence, based on the computer programs that reconstruct the astronomical past, as well as various ancient calendars, including the Jewish, indicate that Jesus was crucified on a Thursday, April 4, in the year 30 AD.

That means today at sundown, April 3/4, as Thursday fades into Friday by Jewish reckoning, marks the actual day and date, 1978 years ago, that Jesus died. For those readers who are unfamiliar with the evidence that Jesus died on a Thursday, rather than on the traditional “Good Friday,” see the evaluation and discussion in my Book, The Jesus Dynasty, Chapter 12.

I append here the relevant calculations based on a highly accurate computer program developed by Eugene Faulstich:

The subject heading is the title of a most famous book by Jim Bishop, The Day Christ Died, published in 1957 by Harper Collins with an official Imprimatur by the famous Archbishop of New York Francis Cardinal Spellman–guaranteeing it “free of doctrinal or moral error.” The book is still available in reprint editions. I highly recommend it for a kind of retrospective history reading. I remember devouring this book when it came out. I was eleven years old. It captivated me utterly, I could not put it down.

Fifty years later I write this post on a Thursday night, on the eve of “Good Friday,” that happens this year to also be the night of Purim as well as the Vernal Equinox–a kind of triple package of markers and observances. Today is Thursday. I have been absolutely convinced for several years now, as I explain in my book, The Jesus Dynasty, that Jesus died on Nisan 14th, which in the year A.D. 30, fell on a Thursday not a Friday. So this is indeed, the “day Christ died.” He was put in the temporary rock hewn tomb just before sunset, and Friday, the following day, was the first day of Passover. This means the Passover meal or Seder was eaten that Thursday night, just as the Gospel of John records (John 13:1; 18:28). The next day, Friday, was indeed a “Sabbath,” but not Saturday, the weekly Sabbath, but rather one of the seven “annual” Sabbaths of the Jewish festival cycle (see Leviticus 23:7). This means there were two Sabbaths, back to back, Friday and Saturday, that year. Sunday morning, when Mary Magdalene went early to the tomb and found it empty, it was indeed “three days and three nights” that Jesus had laid in that tomb (Thurs, Friday, Saturday nights), which comports with the tradition that Matthew has received (Matthew 12:40). Surely a million Sunday school kids over the years have asked, not to mention adults, how can you get three nights, from Friday to Sunday morning. It simply will not work.

Modern astronomical programs completely confirm this chronology of the Spring of A.D. 30. I have had quite a few dozens of readers write me to point out that the Jewish calendar never allows the 14th of Nisan to fall on a Thursday. But this adjustment in the calendar, based on what are called “postponements,” was not instituted until well into the 2nd century. In the time of Jesus the month of Nisan was set by the new moon, and that particular year, A.D. 30, the 14th day of the first month (14 days after the new moon) fell on a Thursday. The “last supper,” that Jesus ate with his disciples the night before, a Wednesday evening, was not the Passover Seder, but a messianic banquet or Eucharist of “bread and wine,” such as mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Didache. One way of putting it is that Jesus did not eat the Passover, he was the Passover, at least as understood by the Gospel of John and by Paul (1 Corinthians 5:7). According to Josephus it was between 3pm and sundown the Passover sacrifices were made, just as the 14th of Nisan ended and the 15th, an annual Sabbath, began. Christians subsequently saw great symbolism in this chronology.

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….

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.