Is destruction the defining characteristic of apocalyptic thought? If you look at the chart that I have included in a previous post, you see that “judgment/destruction of the wicked” is the only category that appears in every Apocalypse that is listed in the chart. This makes sense as a defining characteristic. Apocalyptic writing is a rallying cry, a kind of fantasy about the future that proclaims ultimate vindication of the righteous ones. Apocalyptic eschatology spurs on the faithful to remain faithful by reminding them that the unfaithful will get theirs in the end.

If destruction of some kind is a defining characteristic of apocalyptic eschatology, then can we make a judgment on whether Jesus or the Christ-confessing movement is “apocalyptic” in some way? That is, do the first century followers of Jesus of Nazareth have a sense that the end will bring destruction and judgment of the wicked? Without a doubt, yes.

The Jesus that we have presented in the Gospels is depicted as the Son of Man who will come to judge the nations. The “Sermon on the Mount,” for example has the statement:  “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it” (Matt 7:13). Jesus speaks of the coming day of judgment in destructive terms: “Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town” (Matt 10:15). “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49). The Son of Man condemns the wicked to a destructive end: “Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Mt 25:41).

The only way around this is the way of the Jesus Seminar: Jesus never said that stuff. Whether he did or not, that is how he is remembered by the community of his followers. I am interested in whether the early followers of Jesus were motivated by apocalyptic eschatology and here I have no doubt that they were.

But is it all about destruction? Does the final destruction mean for the followers of Jesus that present behavior doesn’t matter? Without a doubt, no. For instance, note what Bartchy calls Jesus’ Nazareth Charter in Luke 4:18-19. Jesus appears to be announcing the purpose for his ministry. This includes bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release for the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, and proclaim the year of the Jubilee. Here Jesus is quoting Isaiah 61:1-2 and yet he leaves out the statement immediately following: to proclaim “the day of vengeance of our God.” In his ministry, Jesus challenges the dominant cultural values and social codes of his situation, including honor and purity, as he touches and eats with those who are marginalized and thought to be unclean.

Apocalyptic eschatology in the Jesus movement is destructive, yes. But it also contains other strands of the prophetic view of history that seem to be more “optimistic.” For his early followers, Jesus embodied both destruction and the present transformation of behavior.

I’m borrowing the title of Deirdre Good‘s book even though I haven’t read it. It’s a catchy way of getting at what I’ve been considering quite a bit lately. As we read Jesus’ statements in the Gospels, he often feels somewhat hostile to blood families. Christians caught up in “family values” culture wars in North America might find these statements somewhat odd–they might try to find ways of working around them. They don’t make for happy Mother’s Day sermons (though I am proud to say that I did preach on one for one Mother’s Day!). But what we have to remember is that Jesus was in the midst of a vastly different culture, with a vastly different understanding of what the family was. The family in the ancient Mediterranean honor/shame (patriarchal) culture was dominated by the father. The father could do whatever he pleased with his family, which “belonged” to him, and his honor was intimately tied to how well he could manage his household. Jesus takes the father-dominated household to task. This is something my doctoral advisor, Scott Bartchy, discusses often. In fact, he has a book due out next year on the topic. You can find a little taste of it in his chapter for the recent publication of The Social World of the New Testament.

One of the things I find interesting about this insight is that there is such a strong movement today to challenge the use of “Father” language for God in church liturgy. Often people cite the notion of abusive Fathers and a desire to balance the masculinized image of God with a more maternal picture, which is also biblical. But Jesus himself was challenging an even more domineering image of fathers than we typically have in Western society and he spoke of God as “Father” because of (not in spite of) this. His statement that disciples should “call no man father” but God (Matthew 23:9) is a direct challenge to the patriarch of the family here. Again, I’m borrowing from Bartchy’s arguments here.

Most Christians don’t think much about what the “brother and sister” language means for fellow Christians. Why was sibling language so attractive for the Jesus movement? What did it mean for them? Community with fellow disciples was a “new family” for the Jesus followers.

I’d like to list a few of these “family values” texts, in which Jesus takes on this social institution of the ancient Mediterranean:

• “While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’ But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Mt 12:46-50; cf. Mk 3:31; Lk 8:19-21)
• “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.” (Mt 19:29)
• “Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.’” (Mk 10:28-30; cf. Mt 19:29) [Notice in Mark's version how Jesus mentions father as something to leave, but it is left out of what will be received in this life.]
• “To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’” (Lk 9:59-62; cf. Mt 8:21-22)
• “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
  father against son
  and son against father,
  mother against daughter
  and daughter against mother,
  mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
  and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Lk 12:51-53)
• “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
  For I have come to set a man against his father,
  and a daughter against her mother,
  and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
  and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
  Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Mt 10:34-37)
• “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14:26)
• “But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” (Mt 19:11-12)
• “And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven.” (Mt 23:9)

Bartchy had his survey course, “History of Early Christians,” watch a section of a documentary film on Christianity to review. I thought I would share my own thoughts here. Part One of the film “Two Thousand Years: The History of Christianity” (1999), a section entitled “The Birth of a New Religion: 1st and 2nd Centuries,” gives a standard outline of the first two centuries of the movement later called Christianity. Interviewing many respected scholars, including Jim Charlesworth, N.T. Wright, Henry Chadwick, Paula Frederickson, and Elaine Pagels, the documentary does have its foundation in solid scholarship on the early Christian movement. The film briefly mentions the person of Jesus, while especially highlighting the event of the crucifixion and how this might have affected his followers. Though it is not thoroughly examined (and there is a humorous moment when Jim Charlesworth seems to represent the resurrected Christ), the resurrection is discussed as a defining moment for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ disciples are surprised by both the crucifixion and resurrection, after which they reinterpret the meaning of Jesus’ messiahship. At this point, the documentary outlines the Book of Acts (particularly the issue of Gentile inclusion) in an uncritical manner, moves into the challenges of Roman suspicion of their movement and their subsequent martyrdom in the second century, while finally ending on the crisis of Gnosticism which is quashed by Irenaeus (who is depicted as the sole canonizer of the New Testament and the original author of orthodox Christian doctrine) [catch a free preview of the bit on Irenaeus here].

We can hardly blame the filmmakers for a simplistic presentation of facts that one finds in standard introductions to Christian origins. They cannot solve in 40 minutes all of the conundrums that have confounded New Testament scholars throughout modernity. In fact, there are several quite strong points that should be highlighted, especially comments from N.T. Wright on the influence of Paul within the early movement. In perhaps the strongest articulation of the content of this movement’s ideology, Wright acknowledges that Paul established a “counter empire, a rival empire, with little cells of people giving allegiance to Jesus rather than Caesar.” Wright notes that, while this counter empire is not quite like the Roman Empire, it is “sufficiently subversive to be dangerous.”

Elsewhere in the film, however, we have little discussion of the counter-cultural nature of the Jesus movement and hardly any mention of Jesus’ actual teachings themselves. Though Wright mentions that the new movement is a “new family” created by God, we have no explanation of how this idea challenges conventional understandings of the patriarchal family within the Greco-Roman world. Even with Wright’s comment that the Jesus followers are considered subversive and dangerous, we have no explanation of how this movement is subversive or why it would be considered dangerous.

Further, Jim Charlesworth’s necessary caution that the early Jesus followers are not “Christians” and did not have “churches” is muted by the narrator’s comment that by the end of the first century, “Christianity” is born–implying that a whole monolithic and organized religion already developed within decades. This is paired with the comments of Fr. Paul Lawlor, who suggests that eucharistic meals in the second century would have looked similar to what goes on in small parish churches today. The film has some strange shots in its take on second century Christianity. With mysterious music, images of catacombs, and three people in matching robes around a table, we have the picture of a strange secretive cult (perhaps bolstering certain Roman texts against the Christians cited in the film). Such moves in the documentary are overly simplistic and somewhat careless. In sum, the film does a decent job of surveying a few of the key issues at stake in the Jesus movement, but does a poor job of giving the viewer a reliable picture of “on the ground” social realities. This, however, is a broader symptom of surveys in Christian origins more generally.

( . . . continued from part one)

We can also recognize that Muhammad (peace be upon him) had contact with perhaps not-so-orthodox Christianity. When the Qur’an denies the Trinity, is it the same thing as the “official” Christian doctrine of the Trinity? The Qur’an is set within its historical and cultural context. Not only is the Qur’an colored by Arab interaction with Monophysites or Nestorians (for example), but it also appears to reference later non-canonical works, such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The Qur’an seems to refer to a story of Jesus giving life to birds that are made of clay (Sura 3:49; 5:110), which can be found in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (4:2). The fact that both the NT and quranic understandings of Jesus are historically and culturally conditioned is in itself a bridge (even if that bridge will be little traveled–since people in both faiths often feel uncomfortable with [and even deny] the historical setting of their sacred texts).

Even if the christology of the Qur’an and the New Testament greatly differ, we should note that the Qur’an has an overwhelmingly positive depiction of Jesus. We should expect as much when we note that the quranic Jesus is in many ways a forerunner to Muhammad, as perhaps John the Baptist is to Jesus in the NT. Jesus brings a new sacred text to the world (the Qur’an has Jesus writing the Gospels rather than simply being written about in them). Jesus is a messenger of God who faces persecution for his message. The quranic emphasis on Jesus humanity is to demonstrate that Jesus pointed the way to God through his miraculous signs.

People often use the Gospel of John as a point of discord between the quranic Jesus and the biblical Jesus. I would like to suggest that John offers a unique point of contact. Like the Qur’an, John depicts Jesus as an agent or messenger of God, pointing the way to God through miraculous signs. What do the Johannine Jesus’ signs reveal? The first sign that Jesus performs—changing water into wine—is described as “revealing his glory” (2:11), which harkens back to the prologue’s proclamation that “we have seen his glory,” that is the glory “as of a father’s only son” (1:14). Jesus’ glory does not come from humans (5:41), nor does he seek his own glory (8:50), but his glory comes from God alone (5:44; 8:54). In a question that seems particularly relevant to the Qur’an’s monotheistic concerns, Jesus asks, “How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?” (5:44).

Though the Gospel of John may suggest the pre-existence of Jesus (“In the beginning was the Word . . .”), both John and the Qur’an have Jesus directing people to God through signs as God’s messenger. The Quranic emphasis that Jesus is able to do miraculous signs by the “leave of Allah” (Sura 3:49; 5:110) is fully in tune with the Jesus of John, who says, “I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. . . . for I always do what is pleasing to him” (8:28, 29).

Though the subordination of the Son to the Father is later denied as heretical by the church, many NT texts seem to suggest such a relationship. Luke’s depiction of Jesus is not simply as the Christ, but as God’s Messiah (Lk 9:20; Acts 3:18). In the transfiguration, God declares that Jesus is “my chosen” (Lk 9:35, cf. Acts 3:20). The testimonies of Acts proclaim that Jesus is God’s servant (Acts 3:13, 4:27). Like John (“the one who sent me is with me,” John 8:28), Luke acknowledges that God is with Jesus (Acts 10:38), empowering him to do the work of God (“deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you,” Acts 2:22). While they do not show the same sort of agency, Mark and Matthew espouse themes of apparent subordination, for example, in knowledge of the coming eschaton: “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mk 13:32; Matt 24:36).

So, we can see some interesting thematic connections between the NT Jesus and the quranic Jesus. Some like to highlight the titles used for Jesus in the Qur’an as showing similarities in thought, but that is generally a non-starter as the meanings of the titles seem quite different. “Messiah,” for instance, seems to simply be borrowed from the Christian use of the term, “Christ Jesus.” Rather, I think it is interesting to note the “messenger” quality of Jesus in both sacred texts and also to remember all the difficult nuances of historical and cultural settings of these texts.

My final course for Fuller was an introduction to Islam. For my final paper, I had to look into the portrait of Jesus in the Qur’an and look for points of common ground with the NT Gospels. Instead of focusing on negative contrasts, we were to “evaluate the quranic Jesus and suggest how it can serve as a bridge for interpreting the biblical Jesus” and to look for “areas that might suggest bridges for discussion between Muslims and Christians.” For the record, I’m a little iffy on using the quranic Jesus to “interpret” the biblical Jesus, or vice versa for that matter. Each account serves completely different purposes in history and culture. Finding bridges for discussion on the other hand, is quite helpful. Before the project, I knew next to nothing about Jesus in the Qur’an. I’d like to summarize what I’ve learned and hope to get (unheated) responses from folks who know more than me.

Many Christian apologists will be quick to point out that the Jesus of the Qur’an is no more than human (e.g., Sura 43:59) and is rejected as a member of the Trinity (e.g., Sura 5:73). They will highlight the fact that Jesus does not actually die in the Qur’an and thus he is not resurrected (Sura 4:157). Non-dead people do not need to be raised from the dead, after all. From the Christian perspective, it seems the quranic account of Jesus skips the death and resurrection and jumps immediately to the ascension of Jesus (Sura 4:158). Sure, Mary gives birth to Jesus as a virgin in the Qur’an, the Christian apologist might say, but the Qur’an does not make the connection between the virgin birth and Jesus’ divine nature as Christian theology does.

But right now, we’re trying to make a bridge between the Bible and the Qur’an. One of the first steps in the process, is realizing the nature of the New Testament and how primitive “Christian theology” is within it, compared to the later statements of church councils. We do not have a full blown doctrine of the Trinity within the New Testament, although I will allow that there may be hints of the beginnings of such thought. In this comparative exercise, we should be aware of whether we are talking about the doctrines of Christ later formulated with great precision by the church or the interpretations of Jesus found within the NT documents.

(See part two . . . )

In a course I am currently taking on Post-Reformation and Modern Theology, the professor (Richard Muller) mentioned the relationship between Johannes Weiss and his father-in-law, Albrecht Ritschl. I first discovered this interesting relationship in my course on the history of NT scholarship. It’s a fascinating historical example.

Ritschl, the theological liberal (a descriptor, not a polemic), advocated an understanding of the “kingdom” that focused on morality and ethics (influenced by Kant and Schleiermacher). The little work of Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, undermined the biblical basis for Ritschl’s work. Weiss found that Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom was not so much the foundation for a moral society, but was rather deeply eschatological. Apocalyptic eschatology was not a hot topic in biblical studies at the time. Quite the opposite. In fact, it was closer to an embarrassment to biblical scholars since contemporary apocalyptic movements are considered, well, silly.

So, Weiss bucks the theological trends of his own 19th century Germany, including the imposing shadow of his own father-in-law. Weiss did, however, wait a few years after the death of Ritschl to publish his work. He also did not disagree with Ritschlian theology. Rather, he believed that Jesus’ message was eschatological, but that Jesus’ immediacy was simply wrong. While he believes that Jesus was wrong about the kingdom, Weiss also thinks that the “Exalted Christ,” if he were to return, would now affirm the agenda of liberal theology and would bring about the transformation of society.

What impresses me so much about Weiss is that he went against the grain, even his own theological presuppositions, to pursue historical research of Jesus and the texts. What a rare occurrence!

Signe Wilkinson / Philadelphia Daily News

HT: LA Times

In the next six months or so, I will have to create a paper to submit as a sample to doctoral programs. At this point, I am in the planning stages. None of my classes have provided the opportunity for me to create a paper that I feel expresses what most interests me. The topic that I am playing around with is regarding the memory of Jesus in the early church and what that does to people. In other words, how do Christians live out their memory of Jesus who is called Christ? This is a very broad category. Naturally, there will be some overlap with historical Jesus works (right now I’m reading volume one of J. P. Meier’s A Marginal Jew series), but I am not interested in the memory of Jesus as a way of getting behind the memory to find the “real” or even “historical” Jesus (Meier mentions that the “historical” Jesus is not the “real” Jesus, but rather the Jesus that we can “‘recover’ and examine by using the scientific tools of modern historical research” [1:25]).

Instead, I am interested in what the memory of Jesus means to the people of the early church and how it might have affected their lives. I have a feeling that it may be an impossible question to answer, but I’d like to try. I will be taking a class called “The Cross in the New Testament” with Marianne Meye Thompson this next quarter, which I think will concentrate mostly on atonement theories. How the early church conceived of atonement will certainly be part of this exploration, but not nearly the whole. If you have any suggestions for angles or good reading material, please let me know.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, the paper can only be so long. Here are some of the descriptions of the writing sample requirement for a few of the schools on my application list:

• Boston University: “A writing sample of no more than 20 pages. Academic writing is preferred.”
• Drew: “A recent academic writing sample which should highlight the applicant’s writing and research ability. The writing sample should not exceed 20 printed, double-spaced pages, not including bibliographic data.”
• Duke: “a term paper or sample of other scholarly work of 15-20 pages”
• Emory: “a research paper or academic essay of about twenty pages”
• Notre Dame: “A writing sample is strongly recommended but not required. Writing samples should be between twenty and twenty-five pages in length. An applicant should choose a writing sample that highlights his or her strengths for the area to which he or she is applying. In addition to clear writing and ability to frame a theological question, one might, for example, submit a sample that shows facility with primary-text research languages.”
• Princeton Theological Seminary: “We require a 20-25 pg. writing sample relevant to the subfield area of interest.”
• U of Chicago: “Applicants to the Ph.D. program must, in addition to this essay, submit a writing sample not to exceed twenty-five (25) pages, typed and double-spaced. The sample should be from work you have submitted for a course or for publication. It may be an excerpt of such work (but please include a short paragraph contextualizing the excerpt), but it must not be a re-write done solely to satisfy the stipulated length of the submission.”
• UNC-Chapel Hill: “An academic writing sample (no more than 25-30 pages) is suggested but not required.”
• Union in VA: “A research paper or recent essay the student considers representative of his or her work in the proposed field of study.”

In response to the requirement by U of Chicago that it should be from a work submitted for a course or for publication, I do hope that I will be able to submit the paper to a regional SBL conference. I wonder if that fits their expectation. It looks like I have to aim for a 20 page paper to satisfy all of the above. Many say “not to exceed” or “no more than” 25 pages and I wonder if I should have a slightly longer version for those schools.