I’ve been listening to a lecture series on the history of the Hebrew Scriptures, part of the research I’m doing for my novel. I encourage everyone to devote a bit of time to peeking behind the wizard’s curtain, though it’s not for the faint of heart. But neither is the Bible, for that matter!
For now, however, let’s jump ahead (a few centuries) and take a look at the idea of Christianity.
Christianity grew out of Jewish belief, and was founded not entirely or necessarily on the principles that Jesus stood for; love, acceptance, the need to repent and prepare for the kingdom of God. Rather, Jesus’ crucifixion, his resurrection and subsequent ascension to heaven, were key factors in the creation of Christianity. Who he was (versus what he stood for) was more important and necessary to fulfill prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.
So who the heck was Jesus anyway? Does his portrayal as human and then later as both human and divine go back to the days he traversed the dusty paths and temple halls? Why did certain teachings about the energetic prophet emerge as normative? Let’s assume for the moment that the Gospels are reliable enough to build a hypothesis. And let’s apply the same reliability factor to the Hebrew Scriptures, for there lie the prophesies that Christians reinterpreted in order to “prove” that their man was the Messiah.
The Gospels Story
The four books written anonymously in Greek decades after Jesus’s death were not written by eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, but rather drawn through stories handed down in the oral tradition of the time. Oral tradition was the principle architect – the vehicle by which thought sustained and ideas perpetuated. Stories were handed down generation after generation (not so unlike today, only now we also have a digital footprint). With each retelling there were certainly contextual references, opinion and innuendo based on political and ideological motivations. And let’s not forget the mythological influences of the ancient near-eastern world, which looms large, particularly in the Hebrew scriptures. Creation narratives, flood stories, reaching for the Gods (read Tower of Babel), patriarchial heroes – those were all common mythological themes of the time.
So what do we know about Jesus?
Let’s begin by understanding that there were numerous contradictions within the four canonical books, including where Jesus was born and when he died. Three of the gospels, Mark, Mathew and Luke, all portray Jesus as a first century apocalyptic preacher who warned/taught of the coming of God’s kingdom and the need to prepare and repent. By the time we get to the book of John, the author has reconciled some of these differences and portrays Jesus in less apocalyptic ways, generally speaking, he tones the story down – making it what, more universally appealing?
This hypothesis can be supported through what we know about Jesus’ own teachings, as defined in the gospels, and through an historical understanding of what was going on for Jews in Jesus’ time. Jesus was a rebel, as were many of his Jewish compatriots. Breaking away from the status quo was not so unusual. I mean, imagine what the status quo was like back then! Jesus became an advocate for the underdog, cavorting with women and prostitutes, pagans and criminals. He condemned the rich and pious, and offered hope to the disenfranchised, promising that a new day dawning was just ahead. He promised that God would save them from their miserable, sinful, human lives.
Jews – and Jesus lived and died as a Jew – believed that they were God’s “chosen ones.” Many resisted the idea of having to pay taxes on land that God had given them. Jews resisted in varying ways, through silent protests during Passover; non-violent protests when they were offended; violent insurrections and armed revolts; with self-styled prophets who emerged saying God would intervene; and through an apocalyptic philosophy that purported the world was ruled by evil forces and that the only saving grace would be God’s intervention through divine judgment – the prologue to ushering in a new kingdom.
Was Jesus an apocalyptic Jew? He stressed the need for people to give up power, prestige and wealth, and to serve others, foretelling a reversal of fortunes in God’s kingdom. He challenged the taxpayers, the people in power, and broke from convention by associating with the outsiders of his time. Jesus also urged people to repent, and promised that a new kingdom of God on earth would be seen in his day. He painted a picture of good versus evil by the haves and have-nots. When Jesus took these teachings to Jerusalem and tipped those tax tables over in the temple, Jews of high authority, being politically tied to the Roman government as they were, had no room or patience for a troublemaker. The fact that Jesus was crucified in and of itself was not outstanding. It was a commonplace occurrence. It was word of his resurrection that ultimately inspired a cadre of believers. Jesus’ resurrection marks the beginning of Christianity, and the beginning of the debates about who he was and what he represents today.
The Christology Debate and the Development of the Trinitarian View
By 429 A.D., Christians were debating the divinity of Mary as the “Christbearer.” Every aspect of Jesus’ humanity and divinity was scrutinized until a consensus was established with the Council of Chaldedon in 451 A.D. Here, the teachings of Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople were affirmed, and the role of Spirit based on scripture was expanded. Jesus was “consubstantial with Father in Godhead, consubstantial with us in manhood, and…his birth is ‘from the Father before all ages as touching his godhead,…from the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, as touching his manhood.’” It’s interesting to note that compromises were the name of the game in coming to consensus, compromises that allowed and affirmed that Antiochene, Alexandrian, and Roman theologies, all of which contributed to the understanding of the nature of Jesus.
The principals created with the Council of Chalcedon “remained largely unchallenged throughout the Protestant Reformation.” But it remains controversial, for its perceived limitations by some, and precisely because it is affirmed, officially, by others, namely Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. Albert Schweitzer, in The Quest for the Historical Jesus writes “when at Chaldedon the West overcame the East, its doctrine of the two natures dissolved the unity of the Person, and thereby cut off the last possibility of a return to the historical Jesus. The self-contradiction was elevated into law…by a deception the formula kept the life prisoner and prevented the leading spirits of the Reformation from grasping the idea of a return to the historical Jesus.”
Hall, writing in the nineteenth century, notes that “as biblical study has encouraged concrete historical research into the origins of the faith and Jesus himself, one great theologian (Rahner) has suggested that only now can the Church begin to exploit the Chalcedonian principle of his full humanity.”
The Question Remains
Such debates were the central catalyst for the development of Christianity, and the debates persist today. Where faith and history have no meeting place, the question of who Jesus really was can never be answered definitively. Religious organizations will claim ownership of such knowledge, and believers, looking for something more to bet the house on, will choose faith over fact.
And through our beliefs we create history.
