From a historical point of view, was Jesus anything more than just an ancient equivalent of the modern stereotype of the homeless man – somewhat detached from reality – who holds a sign on the street that says “The End Is Near!”?
If so, how?
Someone here commented that his moral teachings weren’t particularly ground breaking, They were a regurgitation of the Old Testament Pastoral tradition right?
A few years ago an American Christian preacher committed suicide after the the world did not end on the date he said that the he Bible told them it would. He has been interviewed on TV quite a bit beforehand.
Is this equivalent to Jesus asking on the cross to God, “why have you forsaken me?”
Thank you Robert. I knew that Jesus was one of many apocalyptic preachers, but it did not occur to me that the Jewish tradition would have had contemporary schools of thought at the time as well. It should have.
This is quite fascinating actually. Would you be able to to recommend any articles or books that outline these Talmudic legends/schools of thought and which discuss the historical interplay between them and Jesus?
Questions I would have, for example:
– Are there specific pieces of text in the gospels that could be understood as reactions to these schools. And the converse, pieces of text in the writings of these schools that were reactions to the Gospels/things Jesus taught?
– Do we have any texts of these legends that provide historical information about them, people central to them, etc?
– Are there any articles/books that discuss the the scope and degree of influence of early Christian texts on the evolving Jewish tradition, and vice versa?
Ah Robert….the ever familiar arguments over binaries at the center of most philosophies, East as well as West. Lol!
Thank you kindly for the recommendations.
And Steven, could you elaborate? Are you talking about the years during which this bidirectional influencing took place?
I think as far as his credulity, placing him in parallel with the homeless guy yelling about the end of the world is not-entirely off base. He was probably a lot like David Koresh in having a very deep conviction that prophecies were true, and that he understood them, and that they predicted that the end was upon us. If he showed up today, I think we would label him a religious fanatic and a total nut.
As to his social position, I think it misses the mark. Keep in mind, we’ve had thousands of years of people making false predictions that the end was imminent; when someone says the end is neigh, we instinctively roll our eyes. But in first century Palestine, predicting an imminent eschaton was, while not a majority position, still common enough to be mainstream.
Thanks for the correction; I was sloppy with the ideas; they did not expect the end of the physical world.
But granted that, it still seems to me there is a pretty strong parallel there–between Jesus and the guy on the street corner with the placard saying the end is nigh.
Jesus seems (insofar as we can discern what he thought) to have expected the present order of things to come to an end through a fairly grand divine intervention in history that would usher in a new order, a new order that we might describe as a heaven on earth. And, importantly, Jesus (and Paul) seemed to think this grand divine intervention that had been prophesied was quite imminent–it was upon us, it was at hand.
From one perspective–specifically touching on their psychology and propensity to believe–, what they thought the end of the saeculum, the end of the kosmos would look like (an actual destruction of the physical world and the establishment of some otherworldly heaven, like many contemporary apocalypticists, or the destruction of the present world-order and the establishment of a new age of justice on earth, as they actually did) seems sort of immaterial: If a street preacher confidently informed me that, according to the prophecies, all the world powers (the UN, the US, the big multinational companies) would soon be destroyed, all the wicked and selfish, the powerful and rich would get their comeuppance, and, one way or another, God would, within my lifetime, usher in a new era of justice where love and peace reign on earth, I’d think him just as nutty as if he said the earth was about to be destroyed outright.
But also, from the perspective of politics, you make a good point: Predicting God is just going to blow everything up and sort the good from the bad in the afterlife doesn’t have the same political implications as predicting that God is about to overthrow the present evil rulers of this world and establish a new order here.
That’s exactly what I was trying to say, if Jesus showed up preaching the kingdom today, we (who have thousands of years of failed prophecies of some sort of imminent apocalypse–from Jesus and Paul to Joachim of Fiore to Whisenant and Koresh) would write him off as a delusional fanatic, but in his milieu, such beliefs were within the mainstream.
On the one hand, comparing Jesus to the nut on the corner preaching the end is apt, insofar as both not only put a tremendous amount of credence in unproven apocalyptic prophecies but are also convinced they know when and how those vague prophecies will be fulfilled. I think it is helpful to realize that, in looking at Jesus and the early Jesus movement, those are the sorts of people we are dealing with: people we would today consider credulous religious fanatics, people who are deeply convinced of things which they have precious little reason to believe.
On the other hand, I think the analogy is misleading in that Jesus’s preaching wasn’t seen as totally fringe and far outside of the mainstream at the time. Jesus may have been credulous, but he lived in a time when a lot of people shared his credulity. He may have been a religious fanatic, but he lived in a culture where religion was universal and religious fanaticism was pretty common.
Perhaps I could make the point succinctly: It’s fairly common to recognize that John the Baptist would be taken as a religious fanatic today. I think it is important to realize, first, that Jesus started off as a disciple of John and their movements were closely related, in some sense they were cut from the same cloth, and second, that John wasn’t seen as just an easily dismissed nutter, he enjoyed a significant popularity.
Let me offer an illustration of why I think it is helpful to think of Jesus and the early movement as credulous religious fanatics: When I was a Christian, one important historical argument I relied on to show the credibility of Christianity is that very early on people believed all sorts of really remarkable things about Jesus. Why would people put credence in such claims if those claims were demonstrably false or not supported by some sort of fairly convincing evidence? Even after I stopped believing I was plagued with the problem of why people believed this stuff, how could I offer a reasonably probable and naturalistic, and intellectually satisfying explanation for the rise of Christianity?
But if we realize that these people weren’t assessing evidence and forming beliefs in the way the best-educated moderns do, if we realize they were what we would call religious nuts, the whole argument falls apart.
Again, if we realize Jesus was credulous, that he saw God’s activity everywhere, he might very well have gone to Jerusalem expecting to be crucified, but also expecting the Son of Man to show up to vindicate him and take him down from the cross before he actually died. It becomes possible that Jesus did predict the crucifixion, that he did go to Jerusalem fully expecting to be arrested and condemned, that he did have an agony in Gethsemane, and that he did tell the Sanhedrin that they would see the Son of Man coming, and that he did at last despair on the cross when he realized an angelic army wasn’t going to ride in to save him. (I’m not saying that is the best explanation, and I’m reluctant to historicize Mark, but it opens up a bunch of possibilities, if we don’t expect Jesus to act like an educated modern skeptic).
Likewise, his reputation as a miracle worker would be easy to explain if he and his followers were credulous. Maybe he really believed he could do miracles and sometimes it seemed to work, and both he and his superstitious followers took those lucky occurrences as proof while overlooking or explaining away all the times his powers seemed to flag.
Again, with the early belief that he rose from the dead. If the earliest Christians were simply gullible loons, who can say what they might have accepted as proof of a resurrection? But the fact that they believed he rose is hardly proof of anything, neither does it require much of an explanation.
And again, Paul’s visions of Jesus. Who knows what he really experienced? There are people today, not necessarily clinically insane, who credulously believe that they converse with God, though no reasonable person takes them seriously; if Paul was that sort of person, then the fact that he was convinced he spoke to the risen Christ, and so suffered all sorts of hardship to spread the gospel, isn’t particularly hard to explain.
You can see how the delay of the Parousia might cause the idea of the Kingdom of God to mutate into the Second Coming. How the expected judgment and destruction of the evil demonic forces dominating this world could mutate into the End of the World. In his own context Jesus was one among many. In our context he would be regarded as a wackadoodle even by folks who seriously speculate about the Rapture or the Tribulation Period.
I was a child when the Late Great Planet Earth fervor swept the evangelical churches. It’s hard to describe the sense of excitement to those who’ve never experienced this kind of thing. Soon! Very soon! I’ve often imagined this was at least similar to how Jesus’ original disciples must have felt.
Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart published his translation of the New Testament right at the beginning of the Pandemic. In his comments he noted how struck he was by how thoroughly apocalyptic the writings of the New Testament are. Has there been a generation of believers since the first century that didn’t experience at least some outbreak of this attitude?
Alas for us we are finally able to merge the ancient idea with the sheer technological force to actually pull it off. Can anyone doubt that in the troubled decades ahead that some apocalyptic sect will seize on global climate change as the avatar of their expectation?
I remember, as a child, lying in bed on Christmas Eve and having this bizarre experience of my temporarily: I knew that santa would certainly come before the sun rose, it was simply a matter of passing time before I would be living the glorious reality of Christmas morning. But it wasn’t here yet.
I think something similar happened to me the night before my wedding. This wonderful thing will be, I just have to pass time. But knowing it will be is almost like having it. “So close I could taste it” comes to mind as an apt description.
I remember having (somewhat presumptuously) the same experience when, again as a child, contemplating the afterlife. In my, not just hopeful but certain, expectation it was as though I already enjoyed what I knew was yet to come.
I can’t help but think something like that is at the heart of apocalypticism, and also of Christianity. In giving adherents the confidence of what will be, it also gives them the very substance of the things hoped for.
So it doesn’t surprise me at all, psychologically, that there are people in every age who want to accentuate the high, the feeling of “so close I can taste it”, by putting a short timeline on that expectation. And it also doesn’t shock me that, like an addict, they keep chasing that high even after the last high let them down hard.
Throughout Western history in the C.E. we see a correlation between hellish times and an increase in conservatism and proliferation of churches, often fringe theologically. This happened in the area where I grew up about 20 years ago when the economy got worse. (I actually predicted to my father that we would see this and it did).
The psychology behind this is not complicated and we all can relate to it I think – when things are so bad we want a reason to hope, something to cling on to. We may start believing anything to help ease the pain. Even to a dissociative “dogmatic” degree.
The Roman occupation was hell with no end in sight, so to start believing that there is a world after – the “real” world in a sense – that is full of bliss is not a surprising development.
And I hear what Robert is saying – we are talking about a pre-Enlightenment time and place. And, frankly, people unafforded even a rudimentary education as we know it. The very concepts and words we now have which enable us to step back and look at things objectively have been very hard fought and many of these wouldn’t have even occurred to people of that time.
Look at how vastly different contemporary cultures can be today, even with the internet. Let alone our culture from the near east culture of 2,000 years ago.
I understand that Jesus would not have been viewed as negatively in his culture as he might be today, but I think this just means that he was one of many people we would today describe as “men on the street holding placards.”
And further in my view, the development of early Christianity was akin to what we know happens to stories when they get passed through too many people. Look at how distorted they get even when people are trying to recount them accurately.
Put simply, I feel like we’ve all been duped. And it saddens me to see my loved ones cling to their beliefs. I am angry for them. I am angry for me. It hurts me deeply. Having their pain toyed with.
But it works for them, and that is what is important.
Then, I take a deep breath… and think that someone a millenua from now may look at the assumptions we make unawares today and feel pity for even us.
The layers of maya (illusion) – the number of veils distorting our perceptions in this life – are innumberable. It would be hubris to say that we have no veils left to lift.
Porphyry, if you’re not already familiar with it, you should read a book written in 1969 by renowned literary scholar Frank Kermode, entitled The Sense of an Ending. (Not to be confused with a novel and a movie with the same name.) At this point the book is considered a seminal piece of literary criticism. In a series of essays Kermode discusses the idea of time in western literature and how writers have confronted the idea. He contrasts modern ways of thinking with ancient and this leads him into a fascinating discussion of apocalyptic thought. By all means read the book if you haven’t but the short version is that living in a time of apocalypse, the more imminent the better, sacralizes time, giving each moment a significance otherwise lacking. Kermode comes to the conclusion that this is why there are continual outbreaks of apocalyptic “date-setting” even in the face of inevitable disappointment. We need that “sense of and ending” so much that we are willing to endure the humiliation of repeated failure. Your comments reminded me of this book. Apocalypse is forever beyond the horizon (hopefully!), but like you said though, through expectation we can “taste it”.
Dharma22, good points. Unfortunately in history we have many examples of ways of thinking that lived on far past their “expiration dates”. And it’s interesting and more than a little depressing to realize that much of our own religious history in the West consists of periodic revivals of whatever “fundamentalism” happened to be inspired by their “current” events. I’m a late Boomer. The values of my parent’s generation were set by being children of the 1930s, the depression. Their ideal of public piety was set by the general American religiosity of the WWII years. The 50s was a transitional period and the 60s were quite a shock. They had a sense that everything was falling apart. So looking back how surprised should we have really been by the rise of the Religious Right in the 70s?
A sea change is taking place in American culture. Levels of social religiosity have oscillated over the decades but all the markers now show religion seriously declining in a way it never has. But ominously more and more you can also hear expressed the idea of things “falling apart” from conservative voices. One of the growing minorities (so far!) in American Christianity is Christian Nationalism. This seems to be an offshoot of extreme (so far!) Calvinism. These folks are blatantly theocratic. They mask their anti-democratic ideas by a retelling of American history which turns it into a “Christian Nation” that has lost its pious moorings, rather like – suprise! surprise! – Biblical Israel. Now I would expect the hardcore to cling on the bitter end and in fact actually facilitate the decline. But who knows?
I am an ex-Christian but I remain totally fascinated how American Christianity will navigate a world where it is no longer privileged. Christianity has shown it can compete with antagonistic voices. Can it compete with indifference? Can Christianity survive where it is not privileged in some way? One of my best friends is a minister and I often tell him that if I were still a believer I would welcome this development! If the faith is reduced to only include those members who participate because of genuine personal piety, if there is no longer some perceived social advantage to feign piety, then perhaps the faith can truly rejuvenate itself. I’m not sure my friend appreciates the analogy but has anyone ever treated a dog heavily infested with ticks?
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)