This is the title I’d like for my next book.  Of course, I may change my mind (it happens all the time) and of greater moment, what I propose to my publisher as a title book often ends up having little effect or influence on the actual title.  Publishers have the final say on that, and even though there is a lot of back and forth, discussion, and negotiation – in the end, well, good luck winning *that* decision!

Even so, it’s what I’m calling the book now because I think it encapsulates what I want to say in it.  My view is that Jesus’ teachings on how to live in relation to others were radically different from what can be found in (a) the teachings of Greek and Roman moralists (“moral philosophers”), (b) on the ground, in the Roman empire generally (among non-philosophers) (insofar as we can tell how people normally lived, given the scarcity of our sources of information), and (c) even in the Hebrew Bible tradition in which Jesus “lived, moved, and had his being.”

The Jewish tradition was, of course, normative for him, deeply influencing his own teachings in every way.  They too were quite distinct from the ethical teachings found virtually everywhere else in the Mediterranean world — especially Jewish teachings of the crucial importance before God of helping the poor, the outcast, the hungry, the needy.  That is a teaching central to the Hebrew prophets of Scripture, such as Amos and Isaiah.  Jesus endorsed this view whole-heartedly.

But he also radicalized it, in two ways and for one reason.

To summarize the matter as briefly as possible (hopefully without oversimplifying it beyond all recognition):

1. Whom to help
   1. In the pagan ethical tradition, people were to treat their families, friends, and social equals well, even in altruistic ways at times, when they were in need.
   2. In the Jewish ethical tradition, such as found in Amos and Isaiah, Israelites were to treat fellow Israelites in altruistic ways when they were in need (not just families, friends, and social equals, but – all other Israelites)
   3. Jesus expanded compassion further, not just to family members, friends, and social equals; and not just to fellow Israelites who share the same God, cultic practices, customs, heritage, history, and so on, but to ALL people who were in need: Fellow Jews, Samaritans, pagans, enemies!\
2. How much to help
   1. The pagan moral teachers insisted that it was a good, noble, and virtuous thing to help those in need (as specified above) when it was possible to do so. That’s how you ought to live in order to be a good person who could be pleased with who you were and how you lived.
   2. Jewish moral teachers such as the Hebrew prophets insisted that it was essential before God to help fellow Israelites in need. This was more important than following the cultic laws of sacrifice and worship.  Those who had resources were decidedly not to exploit the poor but help them when they were in need by providing them some of their own resources.
   3. Jesus’ taught that one should devote one’s entire life to helping those in need and to give all that one had for the sake of the poor. Helping those in need was the ultimate point of life; one should not worry about what to eat and drink – let alone about eating and drinking well, having fine clothes, a nice house, or any other material possession.  One should live strictly for God and give everything not needed for pure survival to those in need. In fact, one should be willing to die for the sake of others.
3. Why Do So
   The first two points are about Jesus’ radicalized view of ethics; this final one is about the reason for living (and/or dying) this way.
   1. In the pagan ethical tradition, going back to Aristotle, the point of moral behavior was to promote personal well-being (to put it in its simplest terms); the word almost always used is EUDAIMONIA. You will recognize the word DAIMON in it, a word that in later Christian texts comes almost always to mean “demon.”  But a DAIMON in the Greek tradition was not a wicked fallen angel set on making life miserable for people; it was a lower-level divinity more intimately connected with people than the great gods.  Often it was a good and helpful being.  Socrates famously claimed he was led by his DAIMON to know right from wrong – and so it was more of a guardian angel.  The word DAIMONION, based on DAIMON, could mean something like “heaven-sent” or “divine.”

The first two letters of EUDAIMONIA (EU) mean “good” or “well.”  And so a person who has EUDAIMONIA has a “happy” (divinely blessed) life – not in the sense of a shallow and transient emotion (“Gee I’m happy today”) but in the sense of feeling self-satisfied (in the good way) or contented with life and how one is living it.  All is well.

The different philosophical schools (Aristotelians, Platonists, Stoics, Epicureans, Cynics, etc.) had different advice for how to attain EUDAIMONIA – that’s one of the big things that made them all different; but they all had it as a goal.  Helping family and friends in need is a way to make you a good person, virtuous, self-content, and happy.  So that’s why you should do it.  Virtue is good for your character, good for your life, good for you.

2. In the Jewish tradition of the prophets, the point of moral behavior is to please God (again, to put it in its simplest terms). God has told Israelites how to behave in relation to one another and how to worship him.  The Torah (Law of Moses) is all about that – worship practices (rituals, sacrifices, festivals, sabbath, sacred places, etc) and communal life (how to behave individually and as a community).  The “people of God” were set apart from all others and so needed to live in certain ways.

Those who refused to help others in need in the broader community were not living in imitation of God who saved a needy people from their oppression at the Exodus, or in obedience to his Law, which stresses the need to “love your (Israelite) neighbor as yourself.”  People who fail to do that will be punished.  If the nation as a whole is filled with such people, then it too will be punished.

In the Hebrew Bible the punishment is never eternal damnation to torment in hell.  There is no hell in the Hebrew Bible.  The punishment comes in this life, usually in the form of physical suffering sent from God, from famine to earthquake to drought to crop-failure to military defeat to national destruction (see Amos 3-5 e.g.).   The prophets insist on this point in book after book after book, page after page.  It’s their main point.  (Their purpose is NOT to predict a future messiah!!  Just read them sometime!)

3. In Jesus’ teachings the point of moral behavior again is to please God, as in the broader Jewish tradition, but it is also in order to receive the glorious Kingdom of God that is coming and to avoid annihilation at the future resurrection of the dead. Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew (like the Essenes, the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, John the Baptist, etc.), who believed the end was imminent.  It was coming VERY soon.  God was soon to enter into history to destroy all that was evil in the world, everything and everyone who opposed him and his purposes.

This day of judgment would affect not only the living at the time but also those who had already died.  Everyone would be raised, bodily, from the dead and either shown the errors of their ways and annihilated or received into God’s glorious eternal kingdom.  Those were the two choices.

And who would enter into the kingdom?  Those who lived completely for others.  How completely?  Giving away everything if need be, to allow others to survive.  Not just Jews.  Not just people who follow the right ways of worship.  All people, Jew and Gentile, who live for others.

Is this feasible and practicable?  Not if the world will be lasting for another 2000 years.  But if this age of evil is coming to a crashing halt sometime soon – a few years, a few months, a few days – then of course, it makes sense to do your utmost to show your devotion to the God of all so as to enter into the kingdom.  Give it away.  Help the needy.  Don’t be concerned about what you eat and drink.  Seek first the kingdom of God!

 

Thus Jesus’ radical ethical teachings were based on a deeply apocalyptic premise that “you will not die before all these things take place.”  My new way of understanding Jesus’ teachings is that they were Jewish ethics on apocalyptic steroids.

And that’s why no one follows them today.  At least no one I’ve ever met.  (It’s true, I’ve heard of some people, but even they….)   And in fact, that’s why just a couple of decades after Jesus’ death his followers were already modifying his views, and returning his radical teachings into something more practicable, such as “give a lot” rather than “give it all” or “be generous” rather than “take up your cross.”   Etc.

Even those *modified* teachings were significant for the ancient world, and in fact changed the world for all time for the good, and a good part of my book will be about that.  But they weren’t the teachings of Jesus himself.