THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Perhaps, the most pivotal book in the New Testament is the Book of Acts. Written by Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke, Acts forms the bridge between the Synoptic Gospels and the epistles of Paul, Peter, and James. The Book of Acts is the only writing that records the earliest history of the Church that we know of. It provides background to why the letters of Paul are written and records the earliest attempts by Paul to reform the Church regarding the inclusion of gentiles without their having to convert to Judaism. Although the Acts of the Apostles was written after Paul's letters, we could not possibly understand who Paul is or why he was writing without this vitally important book.
The Book of Acts begins by picking up with Jesus ascension into heaven. Like Luke's nativity story, the ascension story is necessary, if not a convenient, means to explain why Jesus is no longer present on the earth after his resurrection. Ascension stories, like divine birth stories, would not have struck anyone in antiquity as being beyond the realm of possibilities.
The first part of Acts also gives us an account of the first teachings about Jesus as presented by Peter. Peter dominates the first twelve chapters of Acts. This is important as it establishes Peter as the primary spokesperson for who Jesus is. Peter's presence in Acts gives credibility to Paul being an apostle. Acts also presents Peter as an early reformer of this new movement within Judaism, even though he is portrayed as a rather reluctant one when it came to the inclusion of gentiles.
One of the most important aspects of Acts, is that it tells the story of Christianity's Pentecost event, in which the Spirit of God descends on the apostles gathered in a room to celebrate the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, which represents a symbolic transfer of God's favor on Jesus's followers. I believe this story to be pivotal in the untold story as Judaism and Christianity go their separate ways over time. Acts depicts the growing conflict between Judaism and the Jewish followers of Jesus. It depicts the first known act of persecution of Jesus's followers by Jews who weren't; most notably by the Pharisee, Saul who became the apostle, Paul.
Broadly speaking, the teachings about Jesus in the New Testament come in the form of anecdotes in the Gospels and theological editorials in the Epistles. Let's start with the Epistles of Paul, which are the earliest known New Testament writings. Paul's letters largely address particular concerns he has about the churches he helped establish in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire or to particular individuals; such as, Philemon, Titus and Timothy. It is likely that some, if not all, of Paul's letters were edited by later disciples of his or may have been written in his name. Then there are letters attributed to James, the brother of Jesus followed by the letters of Peter, the letters of John, the letter of Jude (the brother of James), and finally the very esoteric Book of Revelation.
Apart from the Book of Revelation, all of these last groups are addressing particular concerns their authors had at the time of their writing. What they expose,however, is that within a short time after Jesus's resurrection (within fifty years), there was a diverse understanding about who Jesus is. We know this because there are explicit warnings in several of these epistles to avoid specific teachers and their teachings about who Jesus is, which didn't agree with teachings of the authors of these epistles.
What is important to understand about these writings is that they represent an understanding of Jesus that made the most theological sense to the people living in second through the fifth centuries C.E.. They become part of the cannon even though letters like 2 John and 3 John are notably mysterious in nature. In fact, 3 John never mentions Jesus by name. Standing back from an indoctrinated viewpoint, one can see that these letters make little to no reference by their authors about any direct teaching of Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels. I find that very interesting and odd. If it were not for the Gospels, one would know nothing about anything Jesus taught or did from these epistles.
The letters of Paul come the closest to giving us a picture of Jesus as understood by the earliest followers of Jesus, but Paul's frame of reference is through a vision and is largely concerned with last three days of Jesus's life on earth; Maundy Thursday (the Last Supper), Good Friday (Jesus's crucifixion), and Easter (Jesus's resurrection). Paul's letters are centered in accepting what cannot be known about Jesus from a purely intellectual point of view. Paul's letters expound on the importance of three things when it comes to understanding Jesus, one's experience with Jesus as found through faith, hope and love. For Paul, the post-resurrection Jesus is understood in the light of his experience of Jesus as a spiritual being imprinted with our humanity. Paul did not know Jesus prior to the resurrection event. So he references almost none of Jesus's teachings found in the Synoptic Gospels.
Other epistles are notable for their attempt to prevent what their authors considered were heretical views about who Jesus is. One could argue that even though they do not make direct reference to what Jesus taught, they maintain the fundamental substance of what he taught. Perhaps, but if they do that, it is done in an exclusive fashion by addressing the Elect, the "selected" followers of Jesus. According to the Gospels, Jesus was not that selective about who he dealt with. What we see in all of these letters is the onset of institutionalized Christianity; Christianity as a religion in its own right. As is true with all nascent religions, Christianity gets off track within the fifty years of its nominal founder's teachings.
The assumption most Christians have when reading the Epistles is that their authors were well versed in the Gospels we have today. The likelihood is that they weren't. For example, most biblical scholars believe that the first Christian writings were the letters of Paul with the possible exception of the Gospel of Mark being written during that same time period.
The fact that the stories of Jesus's ministry are sparsely mentioned in any of the epistles does not mean Paul and others did not know of them or some of them, but if they did they largely opted to stick with what those stories said about Jesus rather than paying attention to what Jesus actually as taught in those gospels. A Gospel like John, where Jesus talks a lot about himself should have been a great reference source for them but it wasn't. It is likely that the letters of Paul, Peter, and James predate authorship of all the canonical Gospels.
What is interesting in the early epistles is their referencing the Hebrew Scriptures in explaining who Jesus is. This is particularly noticeable in the Epistle to the Hebrews. What marks this epistle as Pauline in nature is its distancing any comparison between Jesus to Moses and associating Jesus with the mysterious high priest Melchizidek and Abraham. This would be understandable where Paul is concerned because of his views on law and faith, but I will get into that in later posts.
What the Epistles affirm about Jesus of Nazareth is that Jesus is the Christ and is the Son of God. What is not affirmed, except in 1 John, is that Jesus is God's only Son. That designation was a late Johannine descriptor found only in the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of John. In Hebrews 5:4-5 we are offered a differing understanding of Jesus as God's Son, as in being called to be God's Son, similar to Aaron's call, "No one takes honor upon himself; he must be called by God just as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, 'You are my son; today I have begotten you [made you who you are] .'" And when did this declaration occur? According to the synoptic Gospels (the place all three of these gospels are in agreement) was at his baptism. It is also was declared during Jesus's transfiguration.
If one was to check out all the references made to Hebrew Scriptures in the Letter to the Hebrews, one can clearly see that understanding Jesus as God's Son is derived from how the Hebrew Scriptures used this term. A son of God, was something that would be applied to a king or a leader who carried out God's will. It did not mean a divine being. It meant a human being called to serve a divine purpose. What is important about this being stated in Hebrews is that it exposes the Gospel of John's and 1 John's attestation that Jesus is God's only Son begotten before creation as being inconsistent with the understanding of term God's Son elsewhere in the New Testament and in the Hebrew Scriptures.
This seemingly small discrepancy of placing one word, "only" or placing emphasis in the Nicene on "begotten, not made" point to the vexing questions as to who or precisely what Jesus is. What the Church, in general, came to was a complex compromise that tried to avoid making Jesus being a demigod by establishing a mysterious paradox that made Jesus fully "True God" and "True Man." While one can find the process and arguments that led to this compromise interesting, if not amusing, it answered nothing. That one word, "only," removed Jesus as being on the same level as us and placed him on a higher pedestal than the demigods of ancient Greece and Rome and made Jesus God above all gods to the extent that any understanding of God, in Christianity, had to be seen through the lens of Jesus Christ.
Understandably, what the ancient authors of these epistles and the ancient theologians of that time couldn't do was say that Jesus was one of us without some sort of title that differentiated him from us. Jesus as the Son of God, Jesus as Christ (the anointed - the chosen), and Jesus as Lord became the identity they found useful in differentiating him from the identity he had in Galilee; as simply Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son. [NOTE: Capitalization of the word "son" or lord does not appear in the Greek Texts. That it is done in modern translations speaks to the fact that we continue to edit the New Testament with an orthodox agenda in mind Such seemingly small nuances subliminally entrench orthodox compliance as to who Jesus is.]
While the letters of Paul, Peter, and James are notable for their frequent references or connection to Hebrew Scriptures, the letters of John and Jude make no references to the Hebrew Scriptures, which, in my opinion, dates them as written at a much later time than those of Paul, Peter, and James. Even the Book of Revelation makes sparse references to the Hebrew Scriptures, drawing, in a few instances, from the Book of Daniel and the Psalms.
The fact that we see Hebrew Scripture referenced in the earlier epistles is, in my opinion, an attempt to keep Jesus very human because the Hebrew Scriptures do not divinize any human being; not Abraham, not Moses, and not Elijah. Elijah might have ascended to heaven on a fiery chariot and although the Letter of Jude references a legend about Moses' body being at the center of a debate between the Archangel Michel and the devil with Michael winning and taking Moses' body to heaven, neither of them were thought of as being divinized or as being equal to God. That thinking occurs only in one Christian school of theological thought, the Johannine scriptures.
THE GOSPELS
I have written what amounts to be a full commentary on the Gospel of John and if the reader wishes to explore that commentary you can start here and proceed to the posts that follow that Gospel. The Gospel of John is, in its entirety, a teaching about Jesus. There is very little in the Gospel of John that I would attribute to being something Jesus actually said.
The Gospel of John resonates with the synoptic gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew in that it references certain events that occurred in those Gospels. John, however, is a work of theology; in particular, it is the primary source for a field of Christian theology known as Christology. John is unique; in that, it talks about Jesus in Jesus's own voice and thus it has carried great weight in shaping how we see Jesus today. The Johannine writings have placed Jesus on the high, unreachable, pedestal that Christianity has come to embrace for that past eighteen hundred years. I will probably be referencing these writings throughout many of these posts, but for the present, I want to spend some time with the teachings about Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.
Even in the Synoptic Gospels, the teachings about Jesus dominate. What they offer that the Gospel of John doesn't offer is a credible account of what Jesus actually said to the people of his day. Some of the teachings of Jesus appear interwoven into stories about Jesus, that form the context of the teachings about Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. The stories of Jesus' miracles readily come to mind. In my opinion, there are two types of miracle stories in the Synoptic Gospels, miracles that Jesus actually performed and miracles that say something about who Jesus is.
Miracles are a tricky topic. I believe that miracles happen and that we experience the miraculous more than we think, but miracles don't convince us of anything. Miracles happen to Christians, non-Christians, and people who don't believe in a God. Miracles are part of the mystery called life. Miracles involve some perceived good that has occurred that generally wouldn't have occurred within a given set of circumstances.
Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, in one of his books, said something to the effect that stories about miracles never converted any person hearing or reading about them to a particular religion. I would add that miracles are highly personal and if you try telling a person about a miracle that you experienced, the person you are telling it to will either accept it as something good that happened to you or will try to explain it as something that probably has a logical or scientific reason for it having occurred. From personal experience, I can attest to what Rabbi Sachs has said. As such, I won't bother trying to explain miracles, because there is no adequate way of doing so.
In Jesus's day, miracles were more obvious because there was no cure for so many things plaguing people. Jesus was depicted as a healer in the Gospels, who had the ability to raise people understood to be dead back to life [See the story of Jarius's daughter in Luke 8:49-56]. Whether these stories are factual is irrelevant. All of these stories serve as a context to say something about who Jesus is. Healing stories all say something about Jesus's understanding and view of life, death, and the world in which he and we live.
Then there are what I would call the Grand Miracles; miracles like Jesus calming the seas, Jesus walking on the water, and Jesus feeding the four or five thousand. It is unlikely that any of these actually occurred. People don't walk on water, and feeding four of five thousand people from two loaves and five fish is not real, but saying that does not make these stories meaningless. The fact is such stories are loaded with meaning, more than the healing miracles stories are. These stories are saying a great deal about Jesus and about how we should emulate him.
I have talked about the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on water as portrayed in the Gospel of John, which is how I would treat it in any of the Gospels. Understanding the imagery of these stories are vital to understand what they are saying about Jesus, how Jesus viewed the world, how Jesus understood trouble, how Jesus approached situations that were difficult, and how we need to get out of our comfort zones and take a risk at doing something Jesus would do, metaphorically speaking. These Grand Miracle stories are grand by the way they depict Jesus being light enough to rise above the chaos of the life in which he and we live; to feed people with what they really need in order to sustain life, to give when there is nothing apparent to give. What they are not is fact. Like all mythic tales they address the deeper topic of truth and are an attempt to establish the truth of this man's, this Jesus of Nazareth's teachings.
Finally, there are events depicted in the Gospels that are likely to have a basis in reality, but again take on meanings that they likely did not have as they occurred. The question is whether the conversations that took place in these recorded events reflect something that Jesus actually taught. Regardless of whether they were actually said by Jesus or were word placed in Jesus's mouth they are saying something about Jesus more than they depict a teaching of Jesus.
What the Synoptic Gospels tread lightly about when talking about Jesus is attempting to put words into Jesus's mouth about himself. The Synoptic Gospels frequently use the ambiguous term, "Son of Man" when they have Jesus saying something of himself. Theologians try to make this have a meaning in the sense that the Book of Daniel references this title, which is used only twice in those prophecies, but if Jesus used this title his use seems to me to be more in keeping with how the prophet Ezekiel used this term (ninety-five times) to underscore that he was a human like the people he was addressing; that he was not different from them and, therefore, what he was saying applied to them also.
The teachings about Jesus in the all of the canonical Gospels are important, as they form how we have come to understand Jesus from the perspective of the authors of these Gospels. In my next post, I will examine the teachings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
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