Archive for the ‘The Jesus Dynasty Discussion’ Category

I hope I did not shock regular readers of this Blog in posting Pope Benedict XVI’s end of the year message regarding Mary below. I was just so very struck by the language that so well represented the stark contrast between a more historical view of Mary, or let’s call her more acturately, Miriam, the very Jewish mother of Jesus, and the theological dogma that has developed over the centuries.

It is interesting that in the time of Jesus the name “Miriam” was by far the most common name for Jewish women, honoring the sister of Moses and Aaron, and to this day, among religious Jews, Miriam remains the most common name for women.

It is surely more than odd that a historical view of Mary/Miriam, mother of Jesus, is so out of step with this theological, or perhaps more propertly, this mythological view, that is so clearly represented here by the foremost spokesperson on earth for the Christian view of things–namely the Roman Catholic Pope.

What history tells us is that Miriam, who lived and died as a Jewish woman was the mother of seven extraordinary children–Jesus and his four brothers and two sisters. They grew up in the small Jewish village of Nazareth, just south of the Hellenistic metropolis of Sepphoris. Jesus father remains uncertain, but whether Joseph was the father of his siblings, or perhaps, as I argue in The Jesus Dynasty, his brother Clophas, the Jesus family and its contributions to the Messianic movement heralded by Jesus, deserves its proper place in our historical memory.

Unfortunately, the kind of theology represented by the Pope’s message below, robs both Jesus and his brothers and sisters, not to mention the mother that bore them, of their humanity. The very concept of an asexual “mother of God” is alien and foreign to Jewish culture and to the Hebrew Bible. Such ideas, so very familiar in “pagan” Greco-Roman culture were brought into the Jesus movement decades after the death of Jesus and were unknown even to our earliest Christian witnesses–the apostle Paul, the Q source, and the gospel of Mark. They could only thrive after 70 AD when James the brother of Jesus was dead and the original Jewish followers of Jesus were scattered with little influence or effect on the increasingly Gentile movement that was growing up outside the land of Israel. It seems that just about everything was “transferred” to a heavenly realm, and the original message of the Kingdom of God, for which Jesus lived and died, was largely lost and forgotten.
Unfortunately, Miriam as the extraordinary Jewish mother of Jesus and his siblings was lost, forgotten, or outright denied. Mary “mother of God” and “queen of heaven,” a perpetual virgin, and eventually even a divine mediator to whom one could pray, became the enshrined and dominant view.

When one backs off a bit from the theology and the mythology, the ideas reflected in the Pope’s message, as pious as they might sound to some, are in fact a kind of travesty on what she was in reality–that is the Jewish mother of Jesus and his family. It is indeed commendable that so many millions of people in our time want to remember Mary, mother of Jesus–whether Catholic or Protestant, but could removing her from her own children, and all she held dear, in terms of her life and faith, by any stretch of the imagination be considered “devotion” to her memory? I have taken more “flak” and criticism for my portrayal of Mary in The Jesus Dynasty than any other single subject I cover in the entire book. And yet, ironically, I truly believe that what I presented shows honor to Mary in a way that is long overdue.

MOTHER OF GOD, INTERCEDE TO BRING PEACE AND COMFORT

VATICAN CITY, DEC 31, 2006 (VIS) – In the Vatican Basilica at 6 p.m. today, the Pope presided at the first Vespers for the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, and the singing of the “Te Deum” of thanksgiving for the end of the year.

In his homily, the Holy Father referred to the dimension of time, saying: “In the closing hours of each solar year, we witness the repetition of certain worldly ‘rites’ which, in the modern world, are prevalently aimed at enjoyment, often experienced as escape from reality, almost as if to exorcise negative elements and propitiate improbable turns of fortune. How different must the attitude of the Christian community be, … called to live these hours by making their own the sentiments of the Virgin Mary,” so that, with her, they may present to Jesus “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted.”

” Mary’s maternity,” the Pope explained, “is at one and the same time a human and a divine event. … The Son of God was begotten by Him, and at the same time is the son of a woman, Mary. He comes from her. He is of from God and from Mary. For this reason the Mother of Jesus can and must be called Mother of God.”

Pope Benedict called upon the “Theotokos,” the Mother of God, to intercede for the world entire, entrusting to her care “situations in which only the grace of the Lord can bring peace, comfort and justice.”

“We ask the Mother of God to obtain for us the gift of a mature faith, a faith which we would like, as far as possible, to resemble her own, a clear and genuine faith, humble and at the same time courageous, saturated with hope and enthusiasm for the Kingdom of God; a faith removed from all fatalism and that aims to cooperate in full and joyous obedience to the divine will, in the absolute certainty that God wants nothing other than love and life, always and for everyone.”

Following the celebration, in keeping with tradition, the Pope visited the nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square.

I am convinced that the gospel of Mark is our earliest, and in some ways, our most “historical” surviving gospel. But that is not to say that Mark by any means is mainly an historical account, lacking theological interpretation. Indeed, most critical scholars have concluded that Mark is deeply theological in his orientation and that he shapes his story in ways to fit his view of things. In other words, we do not get in Mark “history as it really happened,” but theological interpretation and faith proclamation. There is a very famous and worthwhile study by James Robinson, the great scholar of early Christianity at Claremont, titled The Problem of History in Mark (1957). I think it is long ago out of print but various editions are still listed on Amazon so it is available if one searches a bit.

However, given the nature of Mark as a theologically based “faith” presentation of the “gospel of Jesus Christ the son of God” (Mark 1:1), historians must approach it with a certain caution. Indeed, for years I have been thoroughly convinced that the essential “Christology” of Mark, and that of Paul is very close. In Mark, as in Paul, Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God, who as the Suffering Servant gives his life as a ransom for many. One of Mark’s key emphases is that service, suffering, and humility are the true marks of greatness and lead to exaltation and glory. Although thoroughly apocalyptic (Mark 13), much like Paul, Mark still fundamentally interprets the Kingdom of God as a present reality realized within the faith of the community as it exhibits spiritual insights and understanding (Mark 12:28-34). He contrasts standard forms of Torah observance with the inner spiritual understanding of those who know the “secret” of the Kingdom (Mark 2:27-28; Mark 7:1-23). He supports the gospel being preached to all the nations/Gentiles (Mark 13:10), which is the Pauline mission. His understanding of the Eucharist matches that of Paul precisely. One often hears that Mark presents a more human Jesus and has a less developed, even “primitive” Christology, yet in Mark we encounter a Jesus who has authority on earth to forgive sins, calm storms, and raise the dead.

And yet, regardless of Mark’s faith based theological agenda, and its parallels to Paul’s view of the heavenly and exalted “Christ,” as Son of God and Savior, there is a strange irony at work here. I am convinced that Mark nonetheless offers us a narrative framework that in its essentials is as close to the historical Jesus as we are likely ever going to get. What most convinces me of this are the many many times, such as the examples I mentioned in my previous post, that Matthew and Luke, in rewriting/editing Mark and using him as a source, recast his basic presentation in directions that belong to later stages of their own theological developments. I find that time and time again Mark has a less elaborated and more primitive version of the story. He is the earliest of our records, and thus closer to the traditions that were being passed on within the Jesus movement. I could mention countless examples, but a few will illustrate my point here.

Mark has no birth story of Jesus and he never mentions Joseph as his father. Indeed, he calls Jesus the “son of Mary,” and mentions the four brothers by name, including the nickname “Jose.” He knows about the house of Simon at Capernaum, near the synagogue, and even mentions “Simon’s mother-in-law.” He knows that Levi (aka Matthew) is the “son of Alphaeus.” He is aware of Jesus’ reach to the region of Tyre and Sidon and records Jesus’ clandestine visit to Tyre and his secret overnight stay in a “house” there. He gives our most primitive listing of the Twelve, including “James son of Alphaeus,” and Judas whom he knows by his affectionate nickname Thaddaeus (bosom-child). He records the details of the death of John the Baptizer, and gives us good geographical indications of the last months of Jesus’ life, including the Banias scene, the “high mountain” of the “transfiguration,” and the place “beyond the Jordan.” His narrative of Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem is exceptionally packed with details that I don’t think are created for his own theological purposes. And his narrative of the discovery of the empty tomb and the recovery of “faith” in Galilee are precious alternatives to what Luke, John, and Paul present in this regard.

I have addressed the “picking and choosing” issue in other posts on this Blog but it is the case that critical scholars do carefully sift through and evaluate their sources, seeking to separate the historical from the theologically elaborated. It is not a perfect “science,” but it is a process guided by a sense of judgment and argument, open to dispute and discussion. This is in contrast to those who say, Mark is God’s Word and I believe every word of it–as well as Matthew, Luke, and John. It seems that “picking and choosing,” if done with sense and judgment, is really the only responsible way to read these or any other texts for that matter.

More to come…

I wanted here to offer a few notes and observations in response to Jack Poirier’s on-line review of my book, The Jesus Dynasty on the Jerusalem Perspectives Web site. I would not attempt to respond here to the underlying theological differences between us, and how Mr. Poirier’s assumptions differ from my own as a “liberal scholar,” nor to the tone and attitude Mr. Poirier adopts in his review. I will leave that to readers of my book and of his review to judge. I do want, however, to get some facts straight in the hope of bringing some clarity to a number of points he raises.

1. Regarding the tombs and ossuaries that I discuss in the “Introduction” of my book, it is not the case that the “vast majority of scholars” have concluded that the James ossuary is a forgery, as Mr. Poirier states. First there is no dispute about the authenticity of the ossuary itself. Second, even the Israel Antiquities Authority committee did not claim the entire inscription was forged, but only that the words “brother of Jesus” were added by the owner Oded Golan. So minimally, we have an ossuary that reads “James son of Joseph.” Finally, the results of the patina tests, upon which the forgery conclusion was based, have been questioned by a number of other competent experts, most recently Prof. Wolgang Krumbein, and it remains a fact that no qualified epigrapher has yet taken the position that the inscription is forged. In fact, Ada Yardeni, one of the best in the business, has said if the ossuary inscription is a forgery she will quit her job! All of the relevant materials, pro and con, are nicely archived at the Biblical Archaeology Review Web site. If anyone cares to spend a bit of time browsing those hundreds of pages of documents it will be abundantly clear that the James ossuary and its authenticity and provenance are far from settled.

Mr. Poirier mentions a number of other points regarding the ossuary in an effort to imply that my discussion is flawed and uninformed—that I have the dimensions wrong, that the missing Talpiot ossuary is described as “plain,” so it could not have been inscribed, and that I ignore the worn rosettes on the reverse side of the ossuary. Unfortunately, Mr. Poirier, in taking me to task, seems to have not kept up with some of the most basic parameters of the discussion, whether the Krumbein report, the re-measuring of the James ossuary, or the details of when and how the missing 10th ossuary was catalogued and described and by whom. I have examined all the ossuaries I discuss, have copies of the original excavation notes of the late Joseph Gath, the excavator, and I have consulted extensively with Dr. Gibson, who was part of the original team. As far as I know what I present in my “Introduction” is accurate and if I find that I am mistaken I will gladly revise it in future editions.

It is the case that I do not attempt to adjudicate between the two tombs I discuss and their possible links to the James ossuary. I present the evidence for each to the best of my knowledge at the time I wrote and I left things open, pending further tests, whether DNA or patina. I fail to see how or why Mr. Poirier would find my presentation in any way strange or slight of hand. Unfortunately, in the world of the antiquities markets it is often the case that we simply cannot be sure of the provenance of certain items, though we can often present what appears to be best evidence. This is even true for the provenance of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were turned in by Bedouin in the early days of their discovery.

2. With regard to the Pantera tradition, and the dating of the birth of Jesus, Mr. Poirier has misunderstood a number of important points. I do not base my discussion of the Pantera evidence on a number of “anti-Christian” writers. To the contrary, the earliest references to Jesus as “son of Pantera” come from Jewish sources, where the name is mentioned for identification purposes, not in an effort to besmirch his reputation. Further, it is the case that early Christian writers, in responding to the anti-Christian claims, never deny the validity of the name, or that it is indeed part of the Jesus family lineage, but just that Pantera was not Jesus’ father—but his grandfather. In fact, the idea that Pantera is a play on the Greek word for virgin (parthenos), which Mr. Poirier thinks is the best explanation for the origin of the name, is a modern apologetic invention dating to the 17th century. Apparently our ancient sources took the name as a real person from the Jesus family, and now that an ossuary from a Jewish tomb in Jerusalem has been found with that name, the “pun for virgin” explanation seems rather moot. Mr. Poirier tells us that the name Pantera was popular in the Roman army, and somewhat equivalent to calling an American soldier “Joe.” I have looked at all the extant occurrences of “Pantera” in its various spelling of which I am am aware and the evidence seems to show that it is relatively uncommon, certainly under 1% in terms of standard onomastic statistics for Greco-Roman Greek and Latin names.

My date for the birth of Jesus is 5 B.C. so I am not clear as to why Mr. Poirier thinks that I challenge “the gospel’s dating of the birth narratives.” I have no idea of the details of any potential union between Mary and someone named Pantera, nor how or when he might have become a Roman soldier, and I do not connect her pregnancy with presence of the Roman legions from Syria following the death of Herod. My assumption, given the character of Mary, was that the pregnancy was honorable (see my Blog of September 29, 2006 “Joining the Slanderers”), at least in the eyes of those that mattered. My entire point on this matter is that the name should be taken seriously as a real name, referring to a person who existed, and not as a pun. Jesus’ father is unknown, but I do think he had a human father, and I felt obligated, as an historian, to lay out for readers what does survive in this regard from our ancient sources. Mr. Poirier does not tell us what he thinks in this regard, or whether he thinks that Jesus had no father at all, so it may well be that we are really pursuing very different agendas here.

This is the third installment of my response to the review of my book, The Jesus Dynasty, by my friend and colleague Prof. James F. Strange published in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (November/December, 2006, pp. 72-76).

Toward the end of Strange’s review he plays with me a bit and I am happy to indulge him in a bit of irony. He writes:

And by the way, he [Tabor] tells us a “shocking truth,” namely that Jesus and his followers were never baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Is he being ironic? Indulge me in a little irony. No, James! Say it ain’t so!

Dr. Strange is referring to my discussion in chapter 9 dealing with “Jesus the Baptizer” (page 149 in the Simon & Schuster English edition) in which I make the point that the baptism that John the Baptizer administered, as well as that carried out by Jesus and his disciples, was not a “Christian Baptism” in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This might be a simple and obvious point to someone with academic training but I wrote my book for the general reader and I am convinced of two things in this regard. First, that few to none have ever heard or imagined the figure of “Jesus the Baptiser”–that is the idea I discuss that Jesus teamed up with John the Baptizer and carried out with John a joint baptizing campaign in Judea, while John was working in the north along the Jordan River. And second, that the notion of the Twelve Apostles, that is Peter, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, Phillip–the whole lot of them–were only baptized into “John’s baptism,” and that the baptism Jesus and his disciples were administering was also “John’s baptism.” What this means is that none of them were ever initiated into a baptism into “Christ,” as Paul subsequently develops it in 1 Corinthians 12:12, Romans 6:3-4, etc. I do indeed think many readers will find that idea to be somewhat disturbing and shocking. First that Jesus baptized at all, and second that “his” baptism was not “Christian” in any sense that would distinguish it from what John was preaching and practicing.

But there is more to this point, taking us beyond Strange’s irony here. It is the case that Matthew has Jesus commission his Eleven followers, after his resurrection, to make disciples of all nations and baptize them “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). I have no idea if Dr. Strange believes Jesus ever said such a thing on a mountain in Galilee before he ascended to heaven but most scholars would consider it highly unlikely that Jesus used such language. It appears to be drawn from later Christian liturgy and put in his mouth to give authority to the new Christian baptism of the Church, which was in sharp distinction from the baptism preached and practiced by John, and even Jesus for that matter. It is also worth noting that Hebrew Matthew (Ibn Shaprut’s text published by George Howard) lacks the phrase entirely and there is some evidence it was lacking in early manuscripts of Matthew. This is not a moot point in that the book of Acts makes a great deal of the utter ineffectiveness of “John’s baptism” in contrast to the new Christian baptism administered by Paul “in the name of Jesus” that allows those baptized to “receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 19:1-7). The clear implication of Luke’s idea here is that those baptized by John (and by extension those baptized by Jesus), which would include the Twelve Apostles, never really received Christian baptism. I do indeed consider that “shocking” to many readers who might have assumed, as Paul affirms, that there was “one baptism,” that is the one that put one “into Christ.”

I am convinced that Paul’s teaching in this case have so clouded things that it is difficult to imagine John and Jesus living and dying without ever knowning anything about “Christian baptism.” What I seek to do in my book is put them both against the context of an apocalyptic Judaism, and a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, to prepare one for the imminent judgment that was expected. In the case of John’s baptism we also have a source outside the New Testament gospels, namely that of the historian Josephus. Not only does he record that John administered the rite of baptism, but he offers a bit of theological analysis of its purposes–surely a rare and valuable bit of data. Josephus’s description makes clear that the activities of John fit comfortably within the Judaism of his time and have no connections with Pauline baptism or subsequent Christian formulas.

I don’t mind Dr. Strange poking a bit of fun at me here. In fact I think this part of his review was rather appealing in its tone. However, I would not want readers to miss the underlying seriousness of the points I make in chapter 9. I truly believe they are profound, with, yes “shocking” implications for the practice of Christianity in the name of Jesus today.

I want to continue my responses to the review of my book, The Jesus Dynasty, by my friend and colleague Prof. James F. Strange published in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (November/December, 2006, pp. 72-76).

In the Introduction to my book titled “A Tale of Two Tombs” I explore the question of the possible provenance of the controversial ossuary that surfaced to public attention in October, 2002 with the inscription “James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” I remain convinced that the evidence for the authenticity of the inscription is strong and I would urge readers to carefully work through the materials, pro and con, archived at the Biblical Archaeology Society Web site rather than accepting the widespread perception that experts have “proven the ossuary inscription a forgery.” I should also point out that even the Israel Antiquities Authority committee concluded only that the words “brother of Jesus” were added by the owner, Oded Golan, not that the ossuary itself, nor the inscription “James son of Joseph,” were forged. Anyway, Dr. Strange writes the following in his review:

In his introduction, Tabor relates an exciting story of how he and his students, working with Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson in 2000, discovered a looted tomb with smashed ossuaries (bones boxes) and a burial shroud in Jerusalem’s Hinnon Valley. . . Tabor thinks there is reason to believe that the famous James ossuary… was looted from the Tomb. Furthermore, Tabor links this tomb with the tomb found in Jerusalem’s East Talpiot neighborhood in 1980, because certain names found on ossuaries form the Tomb of the Shroud also occur on ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb…Tabor then asks a sizzling hot question: “Was it possible that we had unknowingly stumbled upon the Jesus family tomb?” This reveals the rather sensational tone of the book.

Now, I have to put on my scholar’s hat and ask why anyone would think that the Jesus family tomb was in Judea and not in Galilee, though I do not mean to imply that this was impossible. Furthermore, why two tombs? (There are three, if we count the 1926 Talpiot tomb found by Eliezar Sukenik, which also featured the name Jesus son of Joseph on an ossuary.) Tabor gives no clear answer, just a simple assertion. This pattern–asserting a proposition, not establishing the truth of the proposition–repeats itself throughout the book (p. 72).

I regret that Prof. Strange has misunderstood the point of my discussion in that chapter on the Two Tombs, so let me clarify things a bit here. The chapter is based on my own view that the James ossuary inscription is authentic and likely held the bones of James brother of Jesus. Since much of my book is about the “Jesus Dynasty,” that is how James and subsequent family members took over the leadership of the Messianic Movement, for his ossuary to have surfaced after nearly 2000 years is truly a remarkable thing, and adds the kind of “material evidence” to the textual evidence for James as the brother of Jesus of which we normally can only dream. Accordingly, the main focus of this introductory chapter was to raise a further question–where did this ossuary come from? It was obviously looted from a tomb somewhere in Jerusalem, but can we know when, and if so, which tomb might it likely have come from?

The Tomb of the Shroud, which we discovered in 2000, and the Talpiot tomb, that was excavated by archaeologists in 1980 are not connected in any way as far as I know, nor are the names found in either tomb linked to one another. Here Dr. Strange has misread what I intended to say. The reason I bring in these two tombs has to do with the matter of the date that the owner of the ossuary, Oded Golan, acquired it–in other words, when did it first surface on the antiquities market? Golan has given a number of dates, but he has consistently maintained he had it in his possession for 15-20 years. On the other hand, the indictment against Mr. Golan claims that he acquired it rather recently, not too long before it came to public view in 2002. The government claims to have good evidence in this regard. What I try to present in my introduction is the circumstantial evidence for either the Tomb of the Shroud (2000) or the Talpiot tomb (1980) being the tomb from which the James ossuary was looted. There is no connection I see between the two, but evidence in both cases, depending on when Golan acquired the ossuary, that points to one or the other.

Strange mentions a “third tomb,” but as far as I know the ossuary published by Sukenik inscribed “Jesus son of Joseph,” he found stored in the basement warehouse of what is now the Rockefeller Museum and it has no known provenance. Since it was discovered sometime before 1926 it is most unlikely that it came from the same tomb as the James ossuary acquired by Golan, and thus no reason, other than a similarity of common names, to connect it to Jesus or anyone in his family.

Now, as to the matter of possibly “stumbling upon the Jesus family tomb,” it would all depend on whether or not the Tomb of the Shroud was the tomb from which the James ossuary was looted. The government’s evidence for Golan acquiring the ossuary rather recently has not yet been revealed, but Gibson and I became aware of other evidence, which was subsequently published in Biblical Archaeology Review (November/December, 2004), that pointed rather strongly to our Shroud Tomb as the home of the James ossuary. On the other hand, if Golan is telling the truth, and he did have the James ossuary, intact with its full inscription going back to the 1980s, and he claims to have a photograph proving that, then there is some interesting circumstantial evidence that points to the East Talpiot tomb as its home. What I do in my introduction is survey the evidence for both and in the end I am not able to reach any firm conclusion, since we have not been permitted to carry out DNA tests on the remains in the James ossuary compared to individuals in either of the two tombs. Maybe there is a “third tomb,” but as far as I know there is no evidence linking the James ossuary to any but the two I mention, so those are the ones I consider and discuss.

As for the Jesus family tomb being in Galilee or Jerusalem, unlike Dr. Strange, I would favor Jerusalem. We seem to have pretty firm traditions that James was buried in Jerusalem in 62 A.D., not carried to Galilee. This would seem to indicate that the family has relocated itself by this time in the Holy City, which is the HQ for the growing movement worldwide. I don’t find it at all unlikely that Mary, her other sons, and her daughters, as well as extended relatives, might be put in the same tomb or tombs. Why assume that James was buried in isolation when family burial is the normal practice? There are, of course, several locations for “tombs of Mary” in Jerusalem today, and I think one also in Ephesus as well. Given the burial of James, and now the James ossuary, plus the family exercising its leadership over the movement from Jerusalem, not Galilee, I am convinced that Jerusalem is more likely the place for the family burials.

My intention in my introduction was not to be sensational, but to bring to the public attention the potential implications of an authentic ossuary holding the bones of James the brother of Jesus, and the location of the tomb from which it was looted, as a vivid reminder of the family of Jesus, together in death as in life–and what that can mean for recovering the message of James. Admittedly, if either of the two possibilities I suggest are valid, and I am not aware of any others that have been proposed with any supporting evidence, one can not help but feel a bit of excitement in the discovery. I hope that further research and tests will determine some of these matters to the satisfaction of all of us who care about history and archaeology.

I want to begin to reflect upon some of the content, queries, and observations found in James Strange’s review of my book The Jesus Dynasty, published in this month’s issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Dr. Strange wrote:

“…Tabor seems to have a personal stake in letting us in on his ‘discoveries and insights.’ I wish I knew what that stake was, besides telling us that Christianity is all a mistake. Has he finally, after centuries of systematic doubt from Feuerbach, Freud, Voltaire, Bruno Bauer, Lüdermann [sic], Spong, the Jesus Seminar and others, finally got the Jesus story straight?”

This is quite an interesting list of figures, some of whom I would gladly associate myself with out of admiration for pioneering courage, given their culture and times (Freud, Voltaire), but other than Lüdemann, none of those listed would have much in common with my own approach or results in terms of the quest for the Historical Jesus. Bauer concluded that even the Gospel of Mark, though our earliest, was almost wholly fiction, a position quite opposite from my own. Indeed, I built my basic narrative framework around Mark and what I consider the reliable primitive structure of the Gospel of John. The Jesus Seminar, though hard to characterize with a single brush, would by and large scoff at the degree to which I accept the historical reliability of our Gospel sources. I actually think we can say with some assurance all sorts of things that Jesus did and said, and with a linguistic, chronological, and geographical detail that many critical scholars would question. In that sense I end up strangely “conservative” by such measures of conventional scholarship on the New Testament and early Christianity.

It is interesting that Prof. Strange mentions Gerd Lüdemann on this matter of whether I consider Christianity as all a mistake. I do indeed value Lüdemann’s pioneering and controversial book, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology (Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1994). In fact, I consider it to be one of the most important studies on the subject of the “historicity” of the notion of the “Resurrection of Jesus Christ” ever written. Its explicit aim was to prove the nonhistoricity of the resurrection of Jesus and thus encourage Christians to find a new grounding for faith based entirely on what he considers to be “the historical Jesus.” I strongly share that aim and consider my own work a small step in that direction. However, in Lüdemann’s subsequent work, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry (Prometheus Books, 2004), I am disappointed to see that Dr. Lüdemann repudiates his former position regarding a potential Reformation of Christianity on historical grounds, but frankly states that his latest work “…spells out in detail why the result of the nonhistoricity of the resurrection of Jesus leaves little if any room for Christianity.” In other words, Lüdemann gives up in his later work what I hold most dear–that a genuine recovery of the perspectives of the historical Jesus can, ironically, spell “life from the dead” for the cause that Jesus himself lived and died for–call it Christianity or not. The mistake I think he makes is to equate Paul’s visionary experience, which I think fundamentally dominates all subsequent definitions of “Christianity,” as determinative for defining what Jesus himself was all about, lived and died for, and for that matter–would have repudiated!
I guess what it comes down to is how one defines Christianity. My argument is that as one gets closer to the Founder, one also draws close to the original faith that one can define as a movement separate from other groups in “Judaism,” namely a Nazorean form of “Christianity,” indeed the “faith once delivered” that was subsequently taken in a decidedly different direction by Paul.

I hope that most readers of my book will sense on many levels, whether the academic, the descriptive, or the personal, that I have a high stake in the enterprise. Far from being an iconoclastic secularist, my whole life has been committed to what I consider to be the original and “true” view of Jesus of Nazareth himself. Accordingly, far from wanting to tell folks that “Christianity was all a mistake,” I want to affirm the opposite–that the original vision of John, Jesus, and James his brother can provide a new dynamic perspective in the new millennium. Yes, I do think it has been “hidden” and “lost,” as sensational as that sounds. But I present my arguments for a tiny glimpse of that original faith peeking through the mist of history, and I hope and trust these points will be not only convincing but inspiring to many who want to be faithful to Jesus. I try my best to say this in the Conclusion to the book, a section over which I labored long and hard to make clear. I regret that Dr. Strange did not seem to grasp that central point of my book. Yes, it is indeed a “personal narrative,” but one that argues with a passion that a recovery of the original vision of the founders of the movement we subsequently know as Christianity can truly lead to a new and fruitful faith. In that sense I am disappointed that Dr. Strange would want to cast me with the likes of Voltaire, Freud, Bauer, and even the collective Jesus Seminar–as much as I can appreciate the contributions of each of these. I stand decidedly on different ground, and as I try my best to convey. My model here is Albert Schweitzer–whom I consider to be a singular hero of the past century–as honest as one can be historically, but never deaf to the ethical call of Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God on earth.

More to come…

There is a very interesting and provocative two-page review of my book, The Jesus Dynasty in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (Nov/Dec 06) by my friend and colleague, Dr. James F. Strange, Professor of New Testament at the University of South Florida. The BAR web site does not offer the full review on-line, just a teaser introduction, but I know many readers are subscribers to this magazine and it is also widely available on newsstands and at bookstores such as Barnes & Noble or Borders.

It was Professor Strange who gave me my first field experience in archaeology at Sepphoris where he has been excavating since the 1980s. He is a brilliant scholar and one of the most careful and capable archaeologists in the field. On the whole Strange’s review is negative and he highlights what he considers to be the book’s many deficiencies, although he also remarks that it is a well-written fascinating read with much of value and importance. I want to begin to address some of his queries and objections in this Blog as I think his evaluations and my responses will be of general interest to readers. Stay tuned and in the meantime see if you can find a copy of the review to read for yourself.

My book The Jesus Dynasty has gotten extraordinary attention with many press reviews and other informal news stories. Academic reviews by colleagues and qualified scholars often come slowly in this business. So far, six months after publication, I have seen none until this week. Prof. Dennis E. Groh, noted scholar of early Christianity, has graciously given me a copy of his own review of my book that he prepared in conjunction with my visit to Illinois Wesleyan University as a lecturer this week. I have his permission to pass it along on this Blog. Dr. Groh has his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He was subsequently hired at Garrett Theological Seminary/Northwestern University where he reached the rank of full Professor. He is retiring this semester from his post as Professor of Humanities and Archaeology, and University Chaplain at Illinois Wesleyan University and will devote his time to writing. He has served as President of the North American Patristics Society and is the author or co-author of six books and over 100 articles. Perhaps his most enduring and notable contribution is his study, with Professor Robert Gregg of Stanford University, titled Early Arianism: A View of Salvation (1981), unfortunately now out of print. This single work has completely tranformed our understanding of “how Jesus became God” and the history and development of what is called “Christology.” It is rare that a single book transforms an entire field–but that was in fact the impact of Groh & Gregg on Arianism. Dr. Groh is not only a textual scholar but a highly accomplished and widely experienced archaeologist. I truly appreciate his input and perceptive evaluation and to have a person of his stature and accomplishment to review my book is truly an honor.

James D. Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty. The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006. ISBN # 13: 978-0-7432-8723-4

Is there anyone who has been so cut off from the religious scholarship and news reporting of the last decade that s/he does not realize that our portrait of the person and message of Jesus has been seriously “messed with,” if not “messed over” [i.e., intentionally distorted] as it has been transmitted to us in the traditions of both the New Testament and early catholic Christianity? We can now add to the myriad of books offering new pictures of what has come to be called “The Jesus Movement” yet another reinterpretation of its founder and progress.

James D. Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a distinguished scholar of the texts and archaeology of first century Palestinian movements, has written a book that offers a real alternative to historic interpretations of Jesus founded on, and (he thinks) obscured by, the literature of early Gentile Christianity—most notably Paul’s letters and Luke/Acts. In fact, Tabor proposes a different list of literary sources from which he reconstructs a far different picture of Jesus and his movement, one that builds on Jewish prophetic and royal messianic movements:

“The Christianity we know from the Q* source, from the letter of James, from the Didache, and some of our other surviving Jewish-Christian sources, represents a version of the Jesus faith that can actually unite, rather than divide, Jews, Christians, and Muslims . . . or at least open wide new and fruitful doors of dialogue and understanding among these three great traditions that have in the past considered their views of Jesus to be so sharply contradictory as to close off discussion.” (316).

Tabor has utilized recent archaeological finds from first century Jewish ossuaries to stabilize and verify the authenticity of family names attributed to Jesus by the New Testament and other literary remains of the period; he has leaned heavily on the genealogical tables of the Gospels and upon the notices in the New Testament and contemporary literature on the relatives of Jesus; he has drawn on the picture of contemporary Messianic prophecy and scriptural fulfillment from Qumran and the New Testament; he has mined early Christianity for notices of so-called “Jewish Christianity”; and he has accepted as historically accurate many statements from the narrative framework of the Gospels, usually ignored by biblical scholars as purely theological constructs. The picture of Jesus, his expectations, and the successor movement we know as early Christianity departs in a completely different direction from the Christianity long-associated with triumphant Gentile Christianity—that of Paul and Luke/Acts.

Briefly stated, Tabor’s thesis can be summarized as follows:

Jesus was “the firstborn son of a royal family—a descendant of King David of ancient Israel. He really was proclaimed ‘King of the Jews’ and was executed by the Romans for this claim.” (4). Neither a religion-founder or a church-founder, “he established a royal dynasty drawn from his own brothers and immediate family.” (4). The Hebrew Prophets which pointed to a leader from this blood line in the Last Days and the Dead Sea Scrolls gave precision to this expectation that Herod’s house and the Roman rulers worried about and watched-out for. “Shortly before he died, Jesus set up a provisional government with twelve regional officials, one over each of the twelve tribes or districts of Israel, and he left his brother James as the head of this fledgling government. James became the uncontested leader of the early Christian movement. This significant fact of history has been largely forgotten, or as likely, hidden. Properly understood, it changes everything we thought we knew about Jesus. . . . The pivotal place of James, the beloved disciple and younger brother of Jesus, has been effectively blotted from Christian memory.” (4-5).

Not surprisingly, such a radical thesis from so respected a scholar has generated a storm of discussion plus an unusual amount of curiosity in the wider public. The Jesus Dynasty was featured on ABC 20/20 and Nightline, the centerpiece of a cover story by USNews and World Report**, and shot immediately upon publication to number 22 on the New York Times best-seller list.

Some key conclusions of Tabor’s—ossuary evidence confirming Jesus’ familial names (including accepting the authenticity of the disputed “James Ossuary”); his assertion that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were children of Mary by a second marriage (likely to Clopas or Alphaeus, the brother of Joseph); the location of Jesus’ probable permanent burial [hence, Tabor’s denying any resurrection claims], along with that of James, somewhere near the Mount of Olives where he thinks Jesus was actually crucified—really push the boundaries of the evidence to its extremities. And his case is not helped by “what if” thinking that he reports from various historic locations he visits in ancient Palestine. But despite its radical ragged-edges and popularist speculations, this book makes a major contribution to a new picture of Jesus which takes into account very crucial and completely disregarded aspects of early Christianity. I want to take you on a sampling of three “soundings” into Tabor’s research that show how truly interesting and controversial his work is.

1. Jesus Relationship to John the Baptizer. One of the clearest embarrassments of the written Gospels is the priority in time and importance of John the Baptizer. John not only began the “Kingdom” preaching first; it was John who baptized Jesus, not the other way around. The writers of the four Gospels respond by stressing the clear superiority of Jesus to John, emphasizing that he was only a forerunner of or witness to Jesus’ messianic status (cf. 136-137). ). Here, Tabor turns to the Q* document’s saying in Luke 7:26, that there is “no one greater than John,” which Luke or the early Christians amended to, “yet the least in the kingdom is greater than he” (136). Clearly, Jesus had considered John an equal in the original form of the saying. Another Q saying preserved in Luke 7:32-34 (which Tabor does not cite) underscores the contention that early in his ministry, Jesus considered John and him to be equal partners in announcing the news of the Kingdom. Thus when Jesus’ disciples ask to be given a prayer, as were the disciples of John, Tabor suggests the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught his disciples was the very one he himself learned from John (137).

In Tabor’s complicated and intriguing reconstruction, early in his ministry Jesus moved south into Judea baptizing while John remained baptizing in the north—at the crossroads of Herod’s territory, the Galilean routes south, and the safety of western Transjordan (that is, out of what he supposed was the “reach” of Herod Antipas). Drawing on the Qumran literature, Tabor argues for a joint message to Israel delivered in concert by the Priest Messiah (John the Baptizer) and a Davidic Royal Messiah (Jesus) (pp. 147-150).

“Later, after Jesus’ death, when a replacement on the Council of Twelve was chosen for Judas Iscariot. . .it was specified that only candidates who had been with Jesus and the group ‘beginning from the baptism of John’ would be considered for this important office (Acts 1:22). Christians later tended to separate the two movements—that of John the Baptizer and Jesus, as if one was ‘Jewish’ and the other ‘Christian.’ In the lifetime of Jesus, and among his immediate followers, there was one unified movement and one baptism.” (150). It is only with the shocking and sudden arrest and killing of John, that Jesus realizes he must go on alone proclaiming: “the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand.” (157).

2. Jesus’ Genealogy and Family. While most scholars skirt the genealogies of Jesus that open Matthew and Luke, Tabor mines them for the strange inclusions that appear there. He treats the information as historical data and not just as the Gospel writers’ inventions of interwoven quotations from the Septuagint [i.e., the Greek translation of Hebrew Scripture cited in the New Testament]. These genealogies provide Tabor with important clues to Jesus dynastic claims. Noting that especially Luke includes the names of women associated with the Leviticus (Priestly) tradition, he argues that Mary possess both the Davidic and Priestly lines of descent which she passes on to Jesus (56). In fact, Mary has both the royal and priestly lines one expects in an “anointed king” [a priestly king; cf. Aaron, actually the first ‘Messiah’ in the bible: Exodus. 40:12-15]. (56). The Talpiot family tomb-find (near Jerusalem) shows another first century example of the family association brought about through the intermarriage of individuals descended from both Priestly and Davidic lines (51-56).

Most importantly to Tabor is the fact that all four Gospels avoid claiming paternity for Joseph, thus clearing the way for him to argue for an unknown (human) father for Jesus and a second marriage for Mary (61-62), producing the four brothers and two sisters of Jesus that Mark 6:3 mentions (73).

It is on his biological family that Jesus builds his dynastic hopes: “Jesus by age thirty functions as head of the household and forges a vital role for his brothers, who succeed him in establishing a Messianic Dynasty destined to change the world. This extended family of Jesus is the foundation of the mostly forgotten and marginalized Jesus dynasty and it is long overdue for resurrection. By restoring the various historical possibilities related to the family, we are prepared to gain a truer understanding of Jesus and how he might have understood what he believed was his God-ordained mission as Messiah and King of a restored nation of Israel.” (81).

3. The Leadership of the Jerusalem Church. Despite efforts to skip over, or minimize, the fact, when the curtain opens after Jesus death, James leads the The Twelve. The leadership of the early New Testament church has passed to Jesus brothers, especially James.
“This is perhaps the best-kept secret in the entire New Testament: Jesus’ own brothers were among the so-called Twelve Apostles.” (165).

Everyone assumes that Jesus brothers never believed in him. “This spurious opinion is based on a single phrase in John 7:5 that many scholars consider to be a late interpolation. Modern translation even put it in parentheses.” (165). James, in fact, is not only a disciple; he is the beloved disciple (165).

Thus, the latter part of Tabor’s book is spent carefully introducing the kind of Christianity that was dominant in the succession of Jesus relatives [note: not Peter] as heads of their church (until 106 CE) (291-293), whose movement continued to exist into the fourth century CE. The theology of this earliest movement existed in sharp contradistinction to the Pauline views of the heavenly, divine Christ whose Gospel abrogated the Jewish Law. For the Jesus Movement, who saw themselves as “faithful Jews” (not “Christians,” and certainly not “Jewish Christians”), no abrogation of the Law, no matter how widely the good news was to be proclaimed, was ever conceived (266). Paul’s insistence that the Law was a temporary or custodial guardian until Christ or a “temporary revelation” and his bitter polemic against Jewish observance was totally different from the Messianic Movement’s proclamation and aims (cf. 267).

I have only scratched the surface of this book in the three soundings above; but I encourage you to read it for yourselves. Because Tabor is constructing a new thesis on all kinds of evidence, a number of his statements are educated “guesses” and speculation to be tested by future information and study (cf. his discussion of DNA evidence, pp 11-12, 14, 22). Many who read this book will be outraged by his arguments and conclusions. But, from my point of view, a thesis rarely flies into my scholarly life out of nowhere that makes me rethink my entire scholarly framework; and The Jesus Dynasty is certainly one of those very rare birds.

For contemporary “children of Abraham,” by emphasizing the human, prophetic, ethical and messianic center of the Jesus Movement, Tabor has put interfaith dialogue on an entirely different basis. He has set the very matrix and foundation of early Christianity back into a world comprehensible in terms of both ancient Judaism and the rise of Islam.

*Behind both Matthew and Luke was an oral sayings-collection common to both and unknown to Mark. The German word Quelle (or “Q”) which means “source” was given to this collection of sayings, which most scholars believe began as an oral source but was eventually written down, perhaps as early as 50 AD in a form that served as a source for Matthew and Luke, either directly or through one using the other’s work.
** Jay Tolson, “The Kingdom of Christ,” USNews and World Report, April 17, 2006, 49-55. This is a first-rate and easily-understandable review of Tabor’s and others’ views of Jesus, nicely set within the modern history of Jesus research.

Here is another Blog reveiw of The Jesus Dynasty by Tim Gebhart that recently showed up on Blogcritics.org. I thought I would pass it on to my readers. I thought it was fair and honest and I can’t ask for more than that. I am receiving similar “informal” reviews from all over the world now, several a day, as readers weigh in with questions, reactions, and comments on the book–now also translated into Portuguese, Japanese, German, Italian, and Dutch, with many more languages and countries to come. I am pleased that the book is having an impact, even with readers who can’t agree with all I say. No author could ask for more than to be fairly read and considered.
Book Review: The Jesus Dynasty by James D. Tabor

October 06, 2006

Tim Gebhart

The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity James D. Tabor

Run a Google search for “the historical Jesus” and you end up with more than 650,000 results. But the search for a historical Jesus itself isn’t anything new. In fact, not only did it start in the 18th century, but Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer published his classic work, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, in 1906.

If anything, popular interest in Christianity’s origins has grown over the past several years with the success and attendant news coverage of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The title of James D. Tabor’s nonfiction work, The Jesus Dynasty, would make it seem yet another entry in the market based on the premise that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and produced offspring. Tabor’s work, however, is a serious exploration of the so-called historical Jesus and the origins and development of what we now call Christianity.

The Jesus Dynasty does contains some assertions that will attract attention and even be considered heresy. For example, Tabor not only postulates that Jesus was fathered by a man but also that his mother, Mary, was married more than once. But these are not the main points of the book, merely factors Tabor uses to develop his theme.

Tabor points to history, the Christian canon, works that were excluded from the Bible and archaeological evidence to advance a theory that is, at bottom, quite simple and not unique. According to Tabor, Jesus was a follower of John the Baptist and together they founded a Messianic movement. This was not the type of messiah as Jesus is viewed today. Rather, John (who Tabor calls John the Baptizer) and Jesus were messiahs in the sense that John, representing the priestly line descended from Aaron, and Jesus, representing the royal line descended from David, were destined to bring to Judaism “God’s kingdom on Earth.” Tabor argues that prior to his death, Jesus entrusted control of the movement to his brother, James, and that for decades thereafter James and other brothers of Jesus led the movement. That is the dynasty – the leadership of this movement were all descendants of Mary.

Similarly, Tabor, the chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, asserts that Jesus was not establishing a new religion. Instead, Jesus was a Jew whose Messianic Movement was an apocalyptic one in which the kingdom of God would be realized on earth if Israel repented and fully embraced the Torah and the prophets. This kingdom would be one in which the earth would be filled with the knowledge of God. Thus, Jesus’ message was attempting to teach the moral, spiritual and ethical principles that would enable the realization of that kingdom.

How, then, did the “Jesus Dynasty” and its principles become what is now known as Christianity? Tabor says those ideas came from Saint Paul. Although Jesus designated his brother as his successor, Paul managed to gain popular control and converted John the Baptizer into a follower rather than a leader and Jesus from a man to the son of God. Tabor points out how the gospels and other literature of the time reflect this change and how his theories are far more consistent with 1st century ideas and thought than what is accepted today.

Tabor makes a well-reasoned and credible, although not always compelling, case. If anything, he suffers the same hindrances as others seeking the historical Jesus. There is certainly no definitive information and, thus, conclusions must be based on personal analysis of particular parts of the puzzle. Plainly, others can – and do – reach different conclusions looking at the identical evidence or by emphasizing other evidence. And this is where The Jesus Dynasty tends to suffer. Tabor tends to make definitive statements when, in fact, he is expressing his opinion.

For example, he writes, “By the time he was thirty years old [Jesus] had begun to formulate a plan that he believed would lead to the complete overthrow of all that Rome and its Jewish sympathizers and supporters represented[.]” Similarly, Tabor later notes that in traveling to Capernaum in northern Galilee prior to Passover in 27 A.D., “Jesus definitely had something strategic in mind.” While Tabor can muster evidence to support these positions, it is impossible for him to definitively state that Jesus formulated a plan or that anything he did was a strategic move. Yet these are just two of many instances of Tabor asserting his hypotheses as fact. While that may make the book readable, it cannot help but undercut trust in whether other statements are ones of fact or theory.

Still, The Jesus Dynasty is a highly readable exploration of not only Christian origins but also life in the 1st century and Jewish tradition and customs. In fact, when Tabor takes the reader to various archeological sites, you can understand the excitement he expresses about being there. It is rare that an alternative exploration of Christian history and its original thought comes in such a non-polemic and entertaining package.

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dog, and his books. His blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.