Mark 6:17-18, How Did John the Baptist Die?

Posted on Friday, November 4, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife: for he had married her. For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.

//You know the story. Herodias’s daughter danced for Herod at a birthday party, and so pleased him that he promised her anything she wanted. She asked her mother, Herodias, what to request from Herod, and Herodias told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

Is this really the way it happened? Jewish historian Josephus gives us a different story. Josephus tells us that Herodias was not married to Philip, but rather to another brother of Herod who was also named Herod. Perhaps Mark’s Gospel confused the two Herods, and invented the wife-stealing story as an explanation.

If so, then how did John die? Josephus does confirm that his death was at the hands of Herod. John, according to Josephus, was “a good man” who baptized not for the remission of sins but for “the purification of the body, supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.” Herod feared that the influence of John could start a rebellion, and sent him as a prisoner to the castle Macherus, where he was put to death.

Book review: The Last Week

Posted on Thursday, November 3, 2011 in Bible Commentary, Book Reviews | 0 comments

by Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan

★★★★★

Beginning with Palm Sunday and continuing through the following Sunday, resurrection day, Borg and Crossan lead us day-by-day through the events of Christianity’s holy week. There are differences between the Gospel accounts, especially when it comes to John’s Gospel, so the authors are at times forced to play favorites. Because Mark is the earliest Gospel, and because Mark goes out of his way to chronicle the day-by-day events of the Passion week, the authors chose Mark as their primary source.

The stage is set early, on the first day of the week, as Jesus rides a donkey down from the Mount of Olives, through the east gate of the city. On the opposite side of the city, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, arrives at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus’ procession hailed the arrival of the Kingdom of God; Pilate’s, the power of the Empire. It’s not going to go well; this becomes clear early on, as Jesus plans his symbolic resistance. He arrives back on Monday and “attacks” the Temple, overturning the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.

The following two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, portray the disciples in their attempt to comprehend what is going on. The very first “Christian” perhaps appears during this time: An unnamed woman recognizes that Jesus is about to die, and anoints him for burial.

Thursday may be the most theologically significant day, as we experience the Passover meal, the Gethsemane prayer, and the arrest.

Good Friday needs no introduction. Jesus succumbs to the Roman machine, dies with a cry of despair, and leaves the disciples in a great state of confusion and sorrow through Saturday, the Sabbath. (Mark’s Gospel itself says nothing at all about Saturday; the feelings and events must be inferred, or taken from elsewhere, such as the tradition of Christ descending into Hell.)

Finally, Easter, and the joy of resurrection. By far, this is the most confusing day of the week. Again, Mark’s Gospel leaves us with little to go on; the original ending in Mark is very abrupt. Three women discover an empty tomb, and run away afraid, telling no one. It is only in the unfolding legends of other Gospel writers that we can try to piece together what this day meant to Jesus’ followers. Regardless of how we imagine the actual events, the message is clear: Jesus lives!

Genesis 2:18-20, Adam’s First Temptation

Posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: … but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

//Today’s verse is an absolutely hilarious story about how God parades all manner of animals in front of Adam, hoping to satisfy Adam’s need for a mate, but Adam isn’t tempted and holds out for a woman. Don’t you think this is a fantastic story? It’s gotta be my favorite story in the Bible.

I meet all kinds through my blog, but there are two kinds of people I guess I’ll never be able to reach:

[1] Believers who wonder why I am trying to destroy their faith in the Bible.
[2] Nonbelievers who wonder why I bother wasting my time on the Bible.

Sigh. Yes, I write often about funny stories and contradictions in the Bible. I honestly do think it’s healthy to be able to laugh at the human touches within our holy book. But it’s still the Bible! Capital B! I’m not mocking it. It’s still the most miraculous and fascinating collection of stories in existence. It’s still Christianity’s written link to the divine.

Readers: please understand that I have no desire to shake your faith, but to refine it! You can read the Bible differently, recognizing its human contributions and myths, and still appreciate God. The modern age of enlightenment, which forced everybody to divide even the Bible into neat little piles of facts and non-facts, has ruined its reading for many. Nobody used to think critically like this. The Bible never used to be peered at through a microscope. Nobody used to worry about making sense of religion in a literal way. The scientific age has killed us, science has killed us, because we have let science rise up as some sort of adversary to our spirituality. We have let critical thinking change how we read God’s Word. We have to get back to that old-OLD-time religion, where ultimate truth rises above the base, boring facts, if the Bible is going to survive.

The story of Adam and Eve is great religion and unquestionably belongs in our Bible, whether or not it really happened.

Genesis 4:17, Who was Cain’s wife?

Posted on Monday, October 31, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 2 comments

And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch.

//But where did Cain find her? It’s a tricky question, but it does have an answer! Let me guide you there in a roundabout way.

We have at least two legends about man’s arrival in the Bible, by two different authors. These two stories have been spliced together in Genesis. For more about how we know they were originally two separate stories, I refer you to the Documentary Hypothesis.

In one story, God creates the universe in six days. On the final day, God makes mankind, men and women both, and sends them forth to multiply. Kind of a boring story.

The second story is a bit more interesting. It begins in Genesis 2:7. God doesn’t make mankind, he forms a man, (Adam) sculpting him out of the dust of the ground. God has planted a garden, and wants somebody to tend the garden.

Story 1: All future generations descend from Adam. Story 2: No such assumption is made; Adam isn’t necessarily numero uno.

Suppose we keep reading in the Bible, past these two legends. One day, Adam’s son Cain shows up with a wife! If Adam was the first-ever man on earth, then where on earth did Cain find her?

Story 1: Presumably, Cain hangs around and chooses a sister. Story 2: Probably, Cain chooses a wife from the heathen nations rather than choosing one of Adam’s daughters. So which one is it?

Story 1: in Genesis 5:3-4, When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.* There isn’t any first-born Cain in this story. Repeat: No Cain in story 1. The firstborn is Seth. Story 2: Adam eats of the tree of knowledge, which apparently results in a sexual awakening, and lo! Children. Can you imagine their surprise? Anyway, as Genesis chapters 3 and 4 make clear, the first startling arrival is a fellow they name Cain. The second-born, Abel, comes along quite routinely. As the story continues, one child (Cain) kills the other and is driven away from the family. Cain pleads for mercy: “Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Cain seems to know that there are plenty of other people waiting on the other side of the mountain.

So, there you have it. Cain belongs to story 2, and probably found his wife among the nations of the world.

(*Note: Likely, the story of Seth as the firstborn of Adam is of yet another source, possibly an earlier source than Genesis chapter one, but may have been known to the writer who penned his six-day creation story.)

Genesis 14:7, Those Pesky Amalekites

Posted on Saturday, October 29, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 1 comment

And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites.

//You think Israel is the only nation that God resurrected? Here’s a nation that was destroyed four times, and kept coming back to life. In today’s verse, the wording seems to imply that all of the Amalekites were smitten, but apparently it wasn’t so. They were still around a bit later for Saul to destroy again:

1 Samuel 15:20, And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, … and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

This time, the wording is pretty clear. But Saul must have been wrong; it’s not over yet. Next, it’s King David’s turn:

1 Samuel 27:8-9, And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites … And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive.

There! That should do it! Surely this time they’ll stay dead, right? Not so; three chapters later, the Amalekites are still wreaking havoc.

1 Samuel 30:1, And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire; So, David goes after them, and in verse 17, he smites them “from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled.” Then, 1 Chronicles 4:43 tells what happened to the remnant: “And they smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and dwelt there unto this day.”

Let’s hope that finally did the trick.

Romans 8:14, Sons of God

Posted on Thursday, October 27, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

//The synoptic gospels indicate that in the age to come and in the heavenly realm, we will become sons of God. According to Luke, if you love your enemies, “your reward will be great, and you will become sons of the Most High.” (Luke 6:35) Matthew says of the peacemakers, “they shall be called the sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9) About the coming age Luke promises, “they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:36). Becoming God’s son is recognized as an eschatological sign of the final age, a promise speaking of the resurrection.

In contrast, John and Paul treat sonship as a gift already bestowed. Paul says, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” (Gal 4:6) John 1:12-13 makes it clear that God has granted the opportunity to be born again, not of natural descent but of God, and that such believers are already “children of God.”

When we recognize that Paul is our earliest Christian writer, and when we begin to notice all of the instances where John agrees with Paul rather than the Synoptics, we have to ask the question quite seriously whether John, with its insistence that we have already entered the final age, reflects an earlier Christian tradition rather than a later one.

Has the resurrection already occurred?

2 Samuel 8:4, 700 or 7,000 horsemen?

Posted on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

David smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates. And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen.

//Seven hundred horsemen, it says. Here’s the same battle, described in the Chronicles:

And David smote Hadarezer king of Zobah unto Hamath, as he went to stablish his dominion by the river Euphrates. And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen.

Oops! First 700 horsemen, then 7,000? Did the Bible slip a digit?

Early Bible translators preferred the second story. When the Hebrew text of 700 horsemen was rewritten into the Greek Septuagint, it somehow became 7,000. The Dead Sea scrolls agree: 7,000. Today’s various translations can’t decide what to do; some say 700, some say 7,000. Oddly, the Masoretic text claims 1,700. Can any of the numbers in the Bible be trusted? Or do its numbers just grow over time, like a good fish story?

I get the feeling that the only really important digit is the 7; that’s God’s favorite number, that’s the digit that proves God’s hand is in the matter. The rest don’t matter, and scripture writers felt free to exaggerate as they pleased. Here’s another example of how an original story (in Samuel) grew when rewritten hundreds of years later (in Chronicles):

And the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen, and smote Shobach the captain of their host, who died there. (2 Samuel 10:18). Now, here’s the same battle in Chronicles, where 700 charioteers again turn into 7,000. But the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew of the Syrians seven thousand men which fought in chariots, and forty thousand footmen, and killed Shophach the captain of the host. (1 Chronicles 19:18)

Isaiah 61:2, Who Is Melchizedek?

Posted on Sunday, October 23, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

[T]o proclaim the year of Melchizedek’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.

//You won’t find this verse in your Bible. Not in these words, anyway. This rendition comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls, where the name Melchizedek replaces “the LORD” in Isaiah 61:2.

The few verses we have about Melchizedek reveal little more than a mystery. He pops up in the Old Testament and disappears just as quickly. The book of Hebrews describes him as “without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God” (Hebrew 7:3). The Dead Sea Scrolls have shed some light on Jewish thinking regarding the mysterious figure of Melchizedek. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this verse in Hebrews made little sense. Who is Melchizedek, anyway?

But in the “Melchizedek Scroll” from Cave 11, Psalm 7 has Melchizedek ruling from on high, not God. In Psalm 82, it is not God who presides over the great assembly, it is Melchizedek. Finally, today’s verse where Isaiah mentions “the year of the Lord’s favor,” the Dead Sea Scroll reads “the year of Melchizedek’s favor.” Each time, Melchizedek is equated with God himself.

There you go.

Genesis 3:6, What Fruit Did Adam & Eve Eat?

Posted on Friday, October 21, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 19 comments

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

//Jewish tradition holds that the fruit was figs, grapes, or wheat. Another fruit often proposed is the pomegranate, one of the earliest fruits domesticated. It came to be known as a symbol of fertility and immortality. Greek and Persian mythology uses the pomegranate as a representation of life, regeneration, and marriage. The one fruit that no scholar considers seriously is an apple.

But in the fourth century, the word malum appeared in the Vulgate translation of Genesis in the phrase “the tree of good and evil.” Malum, in Latin, means both evil and apple. They’ve been connected ever since.

In the end, Adam and Eve may not have eaten of any fruit at all. Partaking of the “fruit of the tree of good and evil” may have been an allegorical feast, describing the first sin of the flesh, as explained in the very next verse: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

Matthew 23:9, Call No One Father

Posted on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.

//Some of Jesus’ teachings can leave us bewildered. Call no one father? Doesn’t this contradict the teaching to respect your parents?

It helps to picture the patriarchal society in which Jesus was born. One’s identity was tied to the family clan. Jesus had four brothers and an unknown number of sisters, and these siblings were probably married and forming families of their own. You can imagine that in a small village like Nazareth, Jesus’ family could represent a large portion of the population. Family provided protection, identification, and belonging.

At the pinnacle of the family was the father figure, and this person had absolute authority. Everyone owed him obedience and loyalty. He arranged marriages, he decided the duties of the household, he defined everyone’s place. This seems to have irked Jesus as one more instance of unnecessary control. Was Jesus slated by his father to marry, and if so, what happened to his designated wife? We don’t know. As risky as it was to break ties with family, Jesus did just that. God alone, says Jesus, should direct our lives to this degree.

Matthew 25:25, How Much is a Talent?

Posted on Monday, October 17, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 9 comments

And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.

//In this parable, a man travels to a foreign country, but before he leaves, he gives talents to his servants. Ten to one, five to another, one to a third.

Do you picture a talent as a small, silver coin? If you do, you miss the flavor of the parable. A talent is formed in the shape of a huge ingot; that is, a heavy weight with a handle on top for ease of transport. A talent weighs 75 pounds; over 34 kilograms. A strong man can lug one in each hand. It weighs 6,000 denarii and represents the salary of 6,000 days’ work. Sixteen and a half years.

Now we can read over the story with a new understanding. First, these talents are not on loan. They are freely given. Ten talents would provide enough for the servant to live adequately for another 165 years! Five talents would do for 82 more years! The abundance of the gift is important to the story. These servants gladly accept the gift, and put it to good use, doubling what they have been given.

Then we come to the third servant, who received only one. This man does not seem to appreciate it as a gift; rather it is an incredible responsibility! He sees it as nearly more than he can bear, keeping this talent for the day his master returns and he can give it back. How on earth can he hide an entire talent? He finds a way, burying it in the ground.

Now that you understand the dynamics of the story, I’m guessing the parable will speak to you in a different way.

1 Samuel 5:6, Golden Mice and Hemorrhoids

Posted on Saturday, October 15, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 1 comment

Mark 5:2, One Man or Two? Part II of II

Posted on Thursday, October 13, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him.

//Two days ago, I gave an example where Matthew changes the story of one blind man (Bartimaeus) into a story of two blind men. In case you don’t believe this is intentional, here’s another example. You all know this story well, about the man living among the tombs, out of whom Jesus cast a swarm of evil spirits. In fact, the man’s name was Legion, because of the many evil spirits inhabiting him. Jesus chases them out into the pigs, and the pigs rumble pell-mell down the hill into the lake, where they drown.

So. What do you suppose the man’s name is in Matthew’s version? I bet you never noticed … according to Matthew, there is no name given, because there are two demon-possessed men in his story!

Matthew 8:28, When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way.

In Mathew’s rendition, Jesus does the same thing, casting the demons out into the pigs. Do you find it odd that Matthew would so fecklessly change one person into two? You shouldn’t. Matthew loves to double his characters; it appears to be a unique literary style of his. In Matthew 9:27, like the verses presented two days ago, Matthew again has two blind men. In 4:28-21, he calls his disciples in pairs of brothers (Simon/Andrew, and James/John). In 26:37, he alone again refers to James/John as “the two brothers.” In 26:20, he alone mentions “two false witnesses.”

I don’t have an explanation for this literary habit, but I would enjoy hearing your opinions.

Mark 10:46-47, One Man or Two? Part I of II

Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

//Matthew tells the same story, but with a difference:

Matthew 20:30, Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

Which version is historically correct? One blind man or two?

Answer: you’re missing the point, if you ask this question. In both Matthew and Mark, this story of Jesus’ healing the blind is prefaced by the story of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, who wanted to sit on the left and right of Jesus when Jesus came into his glory. Matthew, in retelling the story of Bartimaeus, picks up on the context, and uses his literary liberty to turn the passage into a spiritual lesson. In Matthew, the story of one blind man, Bartimaeus, has become the story of two blind men … and the two men are James and John.

More on one becoming two in a couple days …

Revelation 12:1, 12:3, Signs in Heaven

Posted on Sunday, October 9, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 2 comments

A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. … Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.

//These two “signs in heaven” set the stage for the cosmic battle of Revelation chapter 12. John first introduces us to a “woman clothed with the sun.” She cries out in pain, about to give birth. But then a second sign appears, a fearsome looking dragon who “sweeps the stars out of the sky,” and then stands nearby, waiting for the birth, so that he can devour her child.

The child, we are to assume, is Jesus, and the fearsome dragon is Satan. Images of King Herod also spring to mind, as he lies in wait to kill the baby Jesus. The woman clothed with the sun is often compared to Mary, and though I personally doubt this is the intended association, I won’t go into that here.

But the dragon’s plan is foiled. As Jesus is born, he is snatched “up to God and to his throne,” who apparently lives above the stars.

These “signs in heaven” surely reflect astronomical observations, and can even pinpoint the time of year to September/October. For twenty days out of the year, the sun “clothes” Virgo, the woman, by appearing in her midsection. At the same time, Scorpio’s claws seem about to catch her. And as the sun appears in Virgo, of course, the stars of that constellation cannot be seen; they have been “swept from the sky.”

Matthew 2:1, The Three Wise Men

Posted on Friday, October 7, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 2 comments

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.

//Quick, now. How many wise men (magi) were there?

If you said three, you’re probably right.

Yes, I know, the Bible doesn’t say. How often have we all heard (usually in a smug tone) that the Christmas stories have it all wrong, and nobody knows how many wise men there really were?

It may be that the idea of three wise men derives from the three gifts they brought: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Or another reason may be seen in the stars: Many traditions have called the three stars of Orion’s belt the “kings” or “magi.” They form a direct line to Sirius and appear to follow him straight to the birthplace of the sun. Try to find them early on Christmas morning—they’ll be the brightest stars you see. (I’ve never sat out on Christmas morning looking for the magi in the sky, so don’t take my word for this; I’m merely passing on a controversial explanation.) But there’s a far more logical reason to imagine there were exactly three wise men.

For whatever reason, the story of Jesus closely mimics a number of Old Testament themes, and Matthew especially loves to relate these themes. Jesus’ birth is no exception to the rule. The Christ child is born miraculously of a virgin; Isaac, considered a typology of Christ in the Old Testament (he is offered as a sacrifice by his father, just like Jesus) is likewise born miraculously, this time to a postmenopausal woman. So, let’s go back to the story of Abraham and Sarah, parents of Isaac. What do we find?

Three wise men! Three mysterious strangers led by God to Abraham and Sarah, foretelling Isaac’s miraculous birth.

1 Kings 3:24-25, Cut the baby in two!

Posted on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

//Everyone knows this famous story displaying the wisdom of King Solomon. As it happened, two women bore babies within days of each other. The two are sleeping alone in their home at night, when one rolled over on her newborn son, killing him. So, she got up and swapped sons.

In the morning, the second woman realizes what happened, and takes the issue to the king. Solomon says cut the baby in half, and naturally the true mother objects, offering to give the baby to the other in order to save its life. In this way, Solomon learns the true mother of the living child, and awards it to her.

Ever wonder how this became a legal matter in the first place? Where were the fathers? Why are two women living alone in the same home?

Turns out the two were prostitutes. But that only brings up another sticky question. How is it that two prostitutes easily gain presence in the king’s court? Weren’t seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines enough for Solomon?

Sometimes the story behind the story is even more bizarre.

Mark 6:45, The Great Omission

Posted on Monday, October 3, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people.

//A while back, I reviewed a book titled “Q.” This gospel  is considered to be the other half of the two-source theory. The idea is this: Most of the book of Mark is repeated in both Matthew and Luke, making one think that those two Gospel writers wrote with Mark in hand. But Matthew and Luke also share a number of other common themes, enough for scholars to hypothesize the early existence of another document, a sayings Gospel, which they’ve unimaginatively titled “Q,” meaning quelle, or source.

The two-source theory has become the most commonly accepted explanation among scholars of how the Synoptic Gospels were derived. But there is potentially a big problem with it. Today’s verse begins a long passage in Mark, covering nearly two chapters from 6:45-8:26, that do not seem to be represented in Luke. If Luke used Mark as a source, why did he omit this section?

The Great Omission included Jesus walking on water, his healing at Gennesaret, the healing of a deaf and dumb man, the feeding of the four thousand, the Syrophoenician woman, and the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida, among other pericopes.

John 8:41, Was Jesus Illegitimate?

Posted on Saturday, October 1, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 1 comment

“We are not illegitimate children,” [the Jews] protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”

Some interpret this verse to be a subtle accusation by the Jews that Jesus was illegitimate. As in, “we aren’t the illegitimate ones, you are.”

It appears that quite early after the Gospel story began, rumors began to surface that Jesus was illegitimate. That Mary had been raped by a Roman soldier named Pantera. I personally don’t buy it, the whole accusation sounds like “normal” slander bolstered by flimsy evidence, but the logic runs something like this:

John the Apostle (or The Beloved Disciple, if you prefer) knew Jesus best, having been with him from the very beginning to the very end of Jesus’ ministry.

John’s Gospel was the last one written, probably in the mid-90’s, by which time any such rumors could have easily found their way to him. It’s possible, then, that John was cognizant of the slander and intentionally addressed the issue in his Gospel.

At the same time, this Gospel is quite hesitant to talk about Jesus’ parents. John mentions Jesus’ father Joseph only twice in passing, and refuses to call Jesus’ mother by name.

This same Gospel redirects attention away from Jesus’ beginning, rejecting the virgin birth story in favor of a different theology: That Jesus existed eternally and came down from heaven.

So … where did Jesus come from?

John 1:12-13, Are We Children of God Now or Later?

Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God–children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

//In the final age, the Jews of Bible times understood, God would come down to earth and make his dwelling there. There was an eschatological dream of kinship once again with God, as in the days of Eden.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke share this future expectation, though perhaps with a different understanding of the coming age. These gospels indicate that in the age to come and in the heavenly realm, we will become sons of God. According to Luke, if you love your enemies, “then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High,” and of this coming age, Luke promises, “they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” Becoming God’s son is recognized as an eschatological sign of the final age, a promise speaking of the resurrection to come. I should repeat that for emphasis: Becoming a child of God is something that happens to the resurrected in the final age.

In contrast, John and Paul treat sonship as a gift already bestowed. Paul says, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” John 1:12-13 makes it clear that God has granted the opportunity to be born again, not of natural descent but of God, and that such believers are “children of God.”

As I follow battles on facebook between Preterist and Futurist believers, I’m reminded of the very same fierce conflict in the first century. Has the final age arrived, or not? John and Paul say yes; Matthew, Mark and Luke say not yet.