Loading...In keeping with the current topic of the diversity of early Christianity, I thought I could say something about a book that I just read that I found to be unusually interesting and enlightening. It is by two Italian scholars, married to each other, who teach at the Università di Bologna, Adriana Destro, an anthropologist, and Mauro Pesce, a New Testament specialist whose teaching position is in the History of Christianity.
Their book is called Il racconto e la scrittura: Introduzione alla lettura dei vangeli. It is about all the things I am currently interested in: the life of Jesus as recounted by his earliest followers, the oral traditions of Jesus, and the Gospels as founded on these oral traditions. In it they develop a theory that I had never thought of before. I’m not sure all the evidence is completely compelling, but the overall view is very interesting and very much worth thinking about. As an anthropologist Prof Destro looks at things in ways differently from most of us who are text-people; and she and Prof. Pesce together apply these thoughts to our early Christian writings.
The aspect of their book of particular relevance to this thread on the diversity of early Christianity has to do with the evidence found in our Gospels themselves that different followers of Jesus from the very beginning – the VERY beginning – may have had different perspectives on who he was, what he taught, what he meant, and why he was important.
What the two of them do is focus on…
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Obviously one thing Paul was trying to do with his epistles was to create a unified interpretation of Jesus’ teachings, and Jesus himself. In spite of his enormous influence, during his life and after, he never succeeded. There were rival traditions from the very start. There still are.
So much of the early history of Christianity would be tied up in an oral tradition we don’t have anymore, except to the extent that it influenced the surviving texts. One imagines the authors of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, tramping around, talking to people, getting a wide variety of tales, and then trying to boil them down into a coherent narrative–and adding their own ideas to the mix. Interesting that the John gospel is centered more about Judea–where the Messiah was supposed to be from.
I don’t suppose there’s an English translation of this book?
I’m afraid not.
I figured. We probably have it here at the library I work at, or will soon, but it might as well be in ancient Sanskrit, far as I’m concerned. If only they’d come up with some sexy theory about how Leonardo DaVinci was a lineal descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, or like that, I’m sure it’d be translated lickety-split.
I would like to make one minor point–I agree that there must have been many interpretations of Jesus’ teachings from the start, but I wouldn’t like to give up entirely on the notion that there was a unity in the early church–not a doctrinal unity, because they were in the process of arriving at ‘orthodox’ doctrine, and it took centuries.
But in the early days, it was risky being a Christian. That means two things–a lot of people wouldn’t join because it wasn’t worth the risk to them–and the people who did join felt a certain basic solidarity with each other, no matter how geographically and culturally distant they might be. I would imagine you could go anywhere in the early Christian world, and if you could find other Christians, they’d treat you like a longlost brother. The kinship mattered far more than the differences. It was only once Christianity began to feel more secure in its longterm survival that the doctrinal differences began to take on new significance, that they’d start thinking about things like heresy.
So in a sense, orthodoxy, the imposed unity, led to the first real divisions in the new faith. They had to have a status quo first in order for anyone to rebel against it.
And I think the more destructive personalities wouldn’t join until it was safe to do so–safe and empowering.
Interesting points. But I’m not completely sure it was all that risky being a follower of Jesus in the early days….
I have read up a fair bit on Roman history, and I know organized state suppression of Christianity was sporadic, and often nonexistent. However, when your leader, who you say was either God or God’s most favored one, got crucified, and his brother was murdered, and his most important early followers were mainly executed by the state as well, it’s pretty hard not to think there was a certain filtering process going on there.
A birding companion of mine, who died some years back, used to say in the context of birdwatching that once you get more than a certain number of people involved in something, it goes all to hell. Now that’s a bit curmudgeonly, but you see his point. The more popular something becomes, the more people will join just because it’s popular. So you get a greater diversity of personalities, some of whom may not be well-suited to whatever activity we’re talking about, but they join anyway, because that’s where the action is. This is a recurring pattern–say in the Middle Ages, you have a monastic movement, and it’s very rigorous and disciplined, and so you only get the people who are serious joining–then it becomes successful, then corrupted by success, and then comes the next monastic revival which brings back the asceticism, and repeat.
Even when Christians weren’t being killed, they were still mocked, shunned, treated as social pariahs. We can be pretty sure of that. They were faced with tremendous challenges within the Roman State, which most wanted to recognize (and which they ultimately co-opted), because of their monotheism–the rest of the Roman world could not understand why they made such a big deal about sacrificing to a few other gods–nobody was asking them to give up their god. So even in the GOOD periods, they were under a lot of pressure, subject to many penalties, but they had something the others did not have–a community of faith–a sense of being special, chosen. We see that kind of solidarity today, in many smaller faiths, Christian and otherwise. The Elect. It can add a lot of meaning to someone’s life to belong to a group like that–imagine how much more powerful it is when you have to actually put some skin in the game. But when that’s the case, you get a lot fewer converts. Many are called, few choose immolation. The reason there were so many saints and martrs from the early days of Christianity was that you needed that kind of faith and fortitude to make the grade.
But we have, to our credit, created a much more tolerant diverse society, where people are free to worship pretty much exactly as they please, and nobody has to ever worry about being punished for their beliefs–and not knowing their history, many modern religious people scream they are being oppressed if they can’t tell people who don’t share their beliefs what to do, how to act–they want to practice what Herbert Marcuse once called, apparently without irony, Repressive Tolerance.
You may want to read Candida Moss’s book The Myth of Persecution to see what an expert has to say about the persecution of Christians in the early church.
I might (and that at least is in English), but let’s say 100% of the traditional Christian martyrs are myths created after persecution was a distant memory. That doesn’t prove it wasn’t very hard to be a Christian in the early days, any more than all the myths created about Jesus about his death prove he didn’t exist.
There was a problem for Christians besides that presented by their unwillingness to make sacrificial offerings in the context of the Roman state religion (the fact that merely practicing your religion as you see fit can be interpreted as an act of sedition is certainly persecution by our standards, and I think Christians of that day were justified in seeing it as such).
We know now that one reason the later gospels went out of their way to distinguish Christians from Jews was because of the Jewish rebellion against Rome, and it’s bloody aftermath. Roman authorities tended to have a poor understanding of the differences between traditional Jews and Christians (many of whom were of course from Jewish families). So simply being a Christian during periods when the Romans were cracking down on Jews meant you risked being lumped in with the zealots who had mounted that bloody rebellion (Reza Azlan, as you know, has argued Jesus actually was a zealot, which I don’t believe is the case, but many might well have believed it then, particularly given that he was crucified for sedition).
So the danger is always there, even if most of the time, Christians are living at peace with their pagan neighbors, forming communities, often becoming financially successful (as members of persecuted minorities so often do throughout history).
My point is simply that the sense of being a minority unified all Christians back then, in a way they ceased to be unified after they became a majority. And when you think on it, at least some present-day laments about persecution of Christians (and in the Middle East, that is no myth) may be partly an attempt to regain that unity. I don’t personally believe it’s terribly Christian to try and achieve unity by sowing mistrust and hate towards those who believe differently–but it can work. It’s what you might call the quick and dirty method.
I agree. The Roman Empire seemed to be very open to various gods.
There is an English translation of “Encounters With Jesus: The Man in His Place and Time” by these authors giving us hope that “Il racconto e la scrittura: Introduzione alla lettura dei vangeli” may be translated at some point.
Yes, I believe at least two of their books are in English, so one can always hope.
Sounds fascinating. Too bad that book isn’t translated into English. Do you think they add anything more to the theory that Mark was writing for a community in the hills along the border of Israel and Syria driven there by the Romans at war with the Jews?
They don’t deal with that issue. They are more interested in knowing where the traditions that Mark is based on originated.
I don’t mean did the authors address the issue, but rather, does their argument lend further weight to the theory for a southern Syrian community of which Mark was a member? It seems to me that for those who accept the ideas of Destro and Pesce and who subscribe to a Palestinian community would have another arrow in their quiver by noting a Jesus who only operates in northern Israel (not counting Jerusalem) contrasted with one who operates in only other specific areas in the other gospels would give the idea of a southern Syrian community. Of course the northern Israel focus of Mark has already been noted.
No, their argument is made independently of where the author of Mark was himself writing, though possibly someone could make an argument about that based on their data. (But possibly not!)
So there is something new under the sun. BTW, how many languages do you read Bart?
In terms of modern scholarship I read German, French, and Italian. Virtually every bona fide scholar in my field can read German and French at least.
Bart: Thanks for the interesting post on “Il racconto e la scrittura: Introduzione alla lettura dei vangeli.” Is there an English translation of this book?
I’m afraid not.
Very interesting, Bart. Is the book available in English translation, or do you read Italian?
I’m afraid not. I read it in Italian.
I’ve always assumed that the real diversity in the Jesus movement would have taken place post-easter since the interpretation of Jesus’ death and what his ministry meant would have been the prime driver of this diversity. But if this diversity had it’s beginning in Jesus’ own lifetime then it raises some interesting questions. What about the argument over the chronology of Jesus’s ministry? Wouldn’t it have taken a good bit of time to build up active communities in these different areas? Perhaps John’s chronology is more historical than the synoptics?
Good question. I wish we knew how long a period his public preaching covered….
What a fascinating set of ideas with which to start the week!
Are you fluent enough to read the book in Italian?
I’m working on my Italian, and read the book as a way to get there…
Can i get this book in English?
I’m afraid not; it is just in Italian.
Very interesting! Are the miracles/events in different locations? Or do some of the same events take place in different locations? If so, perhaps the story tellers are relocating them for local interest.
Some events are located to different places; most of the time though we’re talking about different events in different places.
These are really interesting observations. Have there been any theological studies that have divided the material by source, and then compared and contrasted the various theological themes and topics of interests that emerge?
Oh yes, lots of books dealing with, for example, the theology of Q or the community of Matthew, and so on.
Very, very interesting.
With regard to “George Washington slept here,” the Grove Park Inn in Asheville has a room where F. Scott Fitzgerald always stayed when he visited his wife in the Highland Psychiatric Hospital. The hospital is now closed.. Fitzgerald evidently liked this room because it allowed him to see all the women who entered the hotel as they entered. This “hotel history,” likewise, is of little interest except to “locals.”
It would be interesting to characterize these different areas with respect to culture, politics, economics, religious beliefs/practices (Jewish & pagan), foreign contact, etc. It might lead down some interesting paths, particularly concerning later diversity. Very interesting!…George.
Do you think that James and Peter ended up in Jerusalem because the scattered groups who actually met Jesus, living as an itinerant healer and teacher, did not accept the Messianic interpretation of his life?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why they ended up in Jerusalem, and don’t really know yet. I’m not sure why locating there would have been because others didn’t think he was the messiah. My best guess at this point is that they thought he had appeared there and maybe thought he would appear again? Or that he would “return” from heaven there? I really don’t know.
In his book “The Jesus Dynasty,” James Tabor implies that in order to bury the mortal remains of Jesus in Jerusalem where he died the family would have had to purchase a tomb and an ossuary in the same area.
Tabor raises the possibility that the tomb has been found and that the controversial “ossuary of James” had been removed from the same tomb, which may have housed many from Jesus’s family — if I am recounting Tabor’s hypothesis correctly.
If resources and energy were devoted by the family to bury the remains in Jerusalem, it makes sense that the family — especially James — might remain there and set up shop, so to speak, in the largest and holiest city in Palestine, which also becomes the site of the family tomb. And it does not seem likely that the body would have been transported back many miles to the family home in the Galilee area if in fact there ever was such practice.
Tabor and others (Luke-Acts and Paul’s letters) regard James as the acknowledged leader of the ecclesia post-Jesus. Isn’t James’s re-locating in Jerusalem to provide a proper burial for Jesus’s body a possible reason for the apostles remaining in Jerusalem as well, adhering close to the leadership and then making that city their base of operations?
I don’t think there’s any evidence that Jesus’ family had the means or desire to purchase a family tomb in Jerusalem.
But what other options did they have if the accounts of Jesus’s body being housed in a temporary tomb are to be believed?
It is also possible that his body remained on the cross and was ravaged by vultures and dogs and we must also allow for a full bodily resurrection. In either of these two cases there’d be no need for a tomb.
All the evidence we have to go on are the multiple attestations in all four gospels that claim Joseph from Arimathea intervened and laid Jesus in his (Joseph’s) tomb or in a newly hewn tomb nearby the site of the crucifixion. In either instance the tomb for Jesus is a temporary one.
If the family had no means to pay for a tomb in Jerusalem, it is possible that money could have been raised by his disciples to pay for it. The family might not have desired a tomb in Jerusalem, but if there was an intact body, wouldn’t it have been difficult to transport the body elsewhere? Is there evidence that remains of the deceased in the First Century were regularly or on occasion returned to a tomb in the family’s hometown?
Because there is evidence in Acts and Paul that James re-locates to Jerusalem — and perhaps his brothers and mother was well, prudence indicates he would have prepared for his demise and perhaps the eventual demise of his family by purchasing a tomb. (And judging by the long tenure of James’s leadership — from Jesus’s death until James’s death in 62 CE, he seems to have been a prudent fellow.)
I agree there is no hard and fast evidence about a Jerusalem tomb — though your colleague J. Tabor might argue otherwise. But there is NT evidence regarding the need for a tomb and perhaps establishing a tomb in the vicinity of the crucifixion was in part a reason for James to base his ecclesia in Jerusalem.
The option is the one found in the NT: that someone chose to bury him. But there’s zero evidence that his family had a tomb there, or bought a tomb there, or that his followers pooled their money together for the family to have a tomb there, etc. etc.
Off topic: Would you like to weigh in on the competing claims of Qasr al-Yahud and al-Maghtas to be the authentic Jesus baptismal site? I’d been under the impression the latter had a much stronger claim, but your colleague Jodi Magness was quoted by the AP as saying that isn’t true.
My view is that we don’t have a clue where it happened.
Another great post! Thanks for sharing.
“It would have been scattered, disunified groups throughout Palestine. From the very beginning.”
Do you think it follows that the original diversity of interpretations would not have been based only on geography but also on the social groupings of their relation to Jesus. There would have been family, friends, acquaintances, people who knew Jesus as a healer, those who remembered his sayings, Palestinian Jews, Hellenistic Jews and Gentiles. More importantly any social grouping or geographical location would not have a single interpretation but rather a continuum of interpretations.
Yes, probably so, to some extent. But my sense is that most of his followers were of the same basic demographic: lower-class Jewish peasants in rural Galilee…
Do you think there is anything to learn about early Christian diversity from the diversity of religions whose founders left actual books behind (Islam and Mormonism, say)?
Possibly — but I’m not sure what!
Now that is a fascinating theory. I’ve never thought about this before.
Prof, I’m wondering if you’ve read Hector Avalos’ “Health Care & the Rise of Christianity” and if some of Avalos’ ideas might relate? — i.e. Levitical law creating groups of banished peoples (lepers, blind, etc.) outside of towns for which Jesus’ healing ministry found abundant new converts. Could the various hotbeds of early Christianity as mapped by Destro and Pesce be related to early Christian healing practices as proposed by Avalos?
Interesting idea. I don’t really know.
It appears that Jesus got around if the mapping is accurate ( I assume it is). They are talking about his preaching before he was tried and executed, right? They are including his appearances after the resurrection as well, right? How could he be in two such different locations as Jerusalem and Galilee?
Yes that’s right. I guess he could move fast.
Interesting and exciting perspective.
“in Matthew and Mark, it is quite clear that after his resurrection Jesus meets his (eleven) disciples in Galilee”. Oh, you know better than that.
I’m not sure what you mean. I’m saying that this is what is stated in Matthew and Mark, not that this is something that really happened.
Where exactly is this stated in GMark?
Their assumption is that if the women are told that Jesus will meet the disciples after his resurrection in Galilee (not in Jerusalem) then what Mark has in the back of his mind is a resurrection appearance in Galilee (not Jerusalem).
With regard to your extensive research on memory, I have come across a very interesting article that might interest your blog readers and you. It is on the “Mother Jones” website and is entitled “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science.” It is written by Chris Mooney. It deals with the question of why evidence does not persuade people and discusses the concepts of “confirmation bias” and “motivated” or “rabbit-hole” reasoning. The article describes how a group devoted to Dorothy Martin thought that the world was ending on 12/21/54 and how they adapted their views when this did not occur. Very interesting. .
Very interesting! Thanks.
Another article along that line I recently ran into holds that modern man is descended from ancestors who recognized and reacted conservatively to “patterns”. This ability was a survival characteristic leaving us with strong “patternicity” and “God” is a pattern to be believed in. Cutting across patternicity is cognitive inhibition – the mental ability to stop thought patterns which is apparently centered in a part of our brains which was more active among skeptics.
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/05/why_doesnt_everyone_believe_in_god_the_skeptical_brain_may_hold_the_answer/
I read that article too. This whole idea though was fleshed out by Carl Sagan’s seminal work “The Demon-Haunted World”.
“Mark has activities of Jesus up in Tyre, Sidon, Caesarea Philippi – basically places north and northwest of the Sea of Galilee. … Matthew’s special source has some overlap with Mark, but mainly it’s all up in Galilee north, east, and NE of the sea of Galilee.”
Mark also has an apparent interest in the Decapolis, which would seem to provide even more overlap with Matthew, Northeast and especially East of the Sea of Galilee. Matthew’s redactional interests may be related to geography, but more important seems to be an interest in integration into contemporary Jewish thought and disputes. But I have long believed that an at least modestly successful ministry of Jesus during his itinerant lifestyle best accounts for the early diversity of christologies and theologies. Accounts of the resurrection would be variously interpreted in different areas and by different people, along with differing interpretations of Jesus’ earthly ministry by various types of Pharisees, priests, Essenes, sinners, tax collectors, other outcasts.
The theory of scattered divergent views of Jesus and his teaching rings true to my background in geography. Have seen several similar thesis put forth on language, music and other elements of culture.
How interesting and inspiring that an anthropologist along with an NT scholar could put their finger on a co-incidence of location and text that possibly adds to our understanding of the four gospels — their geographically related narrative sources.
Your honest and humble assessment of a discovery and rationale you had never considered is also remarkable.
What else might be hiding in plain sight that perhaps a map (actual or conceptual) plus a careful reading might reveal?
Would it be plausible to speculate that the gospel authors were from the regions that their individual books focus on? It seems an interesting coincidence that in four gospels, each focuses on a different region.
YEs, the problem is that the authors were almost certainly not living in Palestine at all.
Raises a lot of questions, concerning what the research process was like collecting stories about Jesus from particular regions, whether people in different regions were differently inclined towards claims that Jesus was the Messiah raised from the dead, whether those sharing stories the compilers heard necessarily believed those claims or even knew of their existence, and so on.
Presumably Q itself, being mainly a sayings source, rarely mentions locations at all. But I wonder if the maps add to the evidence of Q’s existence, in that if Luke used Matthew we might expect more geographical overlap between their non-Markan passages.