CONVERSING IN THE DARK - Johannine Theology Part III

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Note:  All scriptural citations in this post are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 by the International Bible Society

JOHN 3

Perhaps the most challenging chapter in the Gospel of John is the third chapter, the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus.  Chapters one and two of John set stage for the rest of John's Gospel by making it clear that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God and the Jesus is also the Lamb of God who offers himself as the blood sacrifice, the new Passover lamb, whose blood will be spent to save those who are his own - those who are called and chosen by God.  The implication in John is clear - some make it  into God's kingdom, others don't.  This is not only unsavory - It is wrong.  In my opinion, this conclusion of John 3 renders it unworthy of the papyrus it was written on and here's why...

Chapter three is a recap of the message chapters one and two is making just in case you haven't figured it out.  In chapter three we see Jesus testifying about himself to a person only mentioned in the Gospel of John, Nicodemus.

Nicodemus is thought to be a Pharisee who was also a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.  He doesn't play much of a role, being mentioned on three different occasions in John; here in the cover of darkness, the second time at Jesus's trial before the Sanhedrin and the third time is mentioned as the one who purchases the spices for Jesus's burial.  The significance of Nicodemus may be lost on us.  Undoubtedly mention of him in John lends a sense of gravitas to what the authors of John are trying to convey.

If one were to follow the storyline of John, one is led to consider that Nicodemus comes in the cover of darkness presumably because Jesus has earned himself the reputation as a trouble maker in the Temple [see John 2] and Nicodemus, being an official of the Temple, doesn't want to be seen conversing with a rabble rouser.  Darkness is also the condition Nicodemus finds himself in. He is intrigued by Jesus but is not able to figure Jesus out.  The impression is that he wants to know more. The darkness is symbolic of his unknowing.   There is a sense in John 3 that Nicodemus could also represent those being initiated into the mystery of the Christ.  He is in some way our guide into this mystery.  The thought has occurred that Nicodemus might have been originally intended to be the one who is telling the story Jesus in John, but then was relegated to play a much lesser role.

As an initiate, Nicodemus is faced with a  quandary posed by Jesus that takes on a riddle-like quality.  In fact, if this were a factual story, which it is not,  we really have no idea why Nicodemus was approaching Jesus based on anything Nicodemus says.  Nicodemus does not even ask a question but rather makes a statement that no one could do the miracles that Jesus had done unless he came from God.  That's as far as Nicodemus gets and that's the point the authors and editors want us to get from Nicodemus - Recognition that Jesus comes from God.

Jesus, as portrayed in John, rarely gives a direct answer or response to anyone's questions or statements. Before Nicodemus has a chance to ask a question, Jesus is giving an answer.   The answer actually shapes the question that Nicodemus doesn't ask, but which the authors and editors of John want the reader or listener to ask.  The trouble is that most Christians are so indoctrinated how to think about this chapter that very little thought is actually given to it.  So let's do some unpacking.

BORN AGAIN

Being born is code for being spiritually remade or reshaped by God's Spirit as a new spiritual creature.   Once again John is rewriting the Genesis creation story.  This is something that Paul also talked about in his epistles. Early Christians saw the resurrection as the genesis point of a new creation in Christ.  By the time John is being written this was or was becoming standard Christian theology. In this sense, some evangelicals and fundamentalists are very much in line with Johannine theology.  There is a quasi-intellectualism about this process as explained by Jesus in John; that no one can see the kingdom of God unless one is born again, or to put in language of the time, one has to be initiated into the mystery of Christ to gain spiritual sight.  Initiation rites were a big thing at the time of Roman Empire - so many cults had such rites.  This would have been easily identifiable to John's audience at the time and readily accepted as proper procedure.

Nicodemus plays the straight man, the literalist, who questions Jesus how a man can be born again at his age. His role in this chapter is to be the fall guy who asks the question everyone is thinking about.  Of course, true to John's form, Jesus continues being enigmatic about the whole thing.  His answer is basically another riddle:  "No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit (code for the initiation rite of Baptism). Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  'You must be born again."   To further mystify the issue Jesus adds, "The winds blows where it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Hmm... What's John's point in having Jesus say this?

There is an unspoken or subliminal question that John's authors are trying to answer.  It's a question that has plagued Christianity from its inception. If Jesus died on the cross to save the world from its sins, to pay the wages of sin, why is there sin in the world and why is the world the same as it was prior to Jesus' death and resurrection?  What has changed?

THE SPIRIT

In the book of  Genesis, it was God who breathed "his" spirit and made mankind in his image.  The authors of John are putting a twist on this.  Since the feast of Pentecost, God's Spirit has gone rogue and recreating the world one person at a time, "The wind blows wherever it pleases."    The force of the Spirit drives those who have been reshaped, reborn, recreated by the Spirit to wherever the Spirit desires.  In John's creation story, the Spirit of God is once again the active force that is making followers of Jesus and has Jesus telling us so himself.

When Nicodemus asks, "How can this be?  John's authors are answering  a question that was being indirectly poised to rabbinical community of which Nicodemus is a symbol of.   The answer Jesus gives in John is to this community, "You are Israel's teacher (code for rabbis) and do you not understand these things?"

Jesus basically let's Nicodemus' question, the rabbinical question, drop by saying, "I have spoke to you of earthly things and you do not believe, how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?"   I'm not sure what "earthly things" Jesus was referencing, but in essence what John is having Jesus say, if you can't get it, can't see it, I can't help you, but I will give you clue anyway. Jesus then goes on to say the sign that they already have regarding God's act of salvation in Christ is what happened in the wilderness when Moses raised a snake on a cross like structure so that everyone who saw it would be saved - another riddle?  The oddity in this is that the authors of John are engaging in the redactive practice of reading a meaning into a past event and then putting it into Jesus' mouth as a prophecy about his yet to be death [if one were to read John as a linear story about Jesus, which it is not].

JESUS' ODD SOLILOQUY

Perhaps the oddest soliloquy ever written is John 3:16 through 21, the famous "For God so loved the world" passage.  It would be a less odd soliloquy if it were said about Jesus by Nicodemus, since he was present at the time or, better yet, if it found its way into one of the letters attributed to John about Jesus.  If that were the case, it would have made sense, but John 3: 16 through 21 has Jesus talking about himself as if he were in the third person and uses the past tense to explain the supposed present and intimated future tense; as in, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

Is this some form of a first century attempt at rhetorical or literary modesty on Jesus' part, by not referencing himself in the first person? 

Talking about one's self in the third person tends to heighten not lessen the narcissistic tone that John 3:16 presents Jesus as having.  I doubt that people in the first century would have seen it differently, and it has become (at least for me) one of the key verses in John which has convinced me that this entire gospel is a story or a parable about Jesus made to appear as though Jesus said the things attributed to him in it.

Another possibility is that John 3:16 -21 is a theological commentary made by the authors or editors of John in an attempt to explain what Jesus was talking about and connecting it to chapter one.  The original Greek text did not use quotation marks or red letters to let one know when Jesus was speaking.  The only reason to think this is Jesus talking comes from verse 10 which simply says , "and Jesus said," after which there is no interruption to the comments being made to indicate it's an insertion beyond the grammatical use of person and tense.

Having said that, I need to get back on track about why this is said.  The purpose of having Jesus give this soliloquy is to answer the unspoken question - why the world hasn't changed?  Here John gives a nod to the original creation story in this soliloquy.  The implication in John 3:16 is clear - God loves the world - the world he created - God's original creation as described in Genesis.  This is the tenuous link John maintains with Judaism - that and reading everything in Hebrew Scriptures as a foreshadowing of God's realized intention of saving the world by sending Jesus into the world as his only begotten Son - an intent that was a given from the very beginning of world - a sort of "just-in-case" measure  things go south, which they did rather quickly in Genesis.

EVERLASTING LIFE

Now if God loved his original creation, God's remake of that creation from those chosen to become believers in Jesus is, according to John, even better.  Since Jesus paid the ultimate wage for the sins of the world, death, and God accepted it by the sign of Jesus' resurrection (implied at this stage in John) they will have everlasting life - if not in this life - then in the life to come.  I would add that if this were a literal retelling of Jesus' actual message during his life time, it would have made absolutely no sense to anyone who heard it.  This whole passage is written on the presumption that everyone who is listening to this gospel knows Jesus' story.  That is the only way this passage makes any sense. 

As to the reason the world continues to be what it always has been, sinful, is that God will not destroy what God has created.  Jesus is not sent to destroy or condemn the world but rather to save it, one believer at a time.  This, of course, creates a theological conundrum that remains unexplained:  If Jesus died to pay the wages of sin for the whole of humankind, why isn't the whole of humankind saved and given eternal life?

Progressive Christian theologians tend to say today that ultimately this is exactly God's plan and intent - everyone is ultimately brought into God's new creation and saved, which I see as an evolving intuition based on the New Testament theology as a whole, but John stops short of that in verses eighteen and nineteen.  John tells us that that whoever believes in  Jesus will not be condemned and those who don't are condemned already.

Already?

THE LIVING AND THE WALKING DEAD

John's vision of reality is dualistic.  There are people of light and those in the dark.  There are those who believe and those who don't.  There are those who are saved and those who are condemned even as Jesus is speaking.  This is the version of reality the authors of John are expressing when John was being written.   Things are what they are.  It's a version of reality that has much appeal today.  It's a literal example of black and white thinking.

The implication in John 3 is that God cannot destroy God's original creation, as in the covenant made with Noah, by which John means humanity. At any rate, it will self destruct eventually; such is the apocalyptic understanding promoted by Johannine school.  God has selected those who seek the light to be saved and those who don't cannot be saved, as if to say God will not violate the concept of human choice or will.  This throws out any notion of universal salvation.  It is also extremely problematic from both a human and theological perspective.

The "already" comment about the condemned paints a hopeless picture.  They are as good as dead upon taking their first breath.  They are no more than zombies, the walking dead.  In my opinion, the authors and editors of John overplayed their hand when they got into this quagmire.

I believe their intent was to discourage the audience of their time from listening to or conversing with those who disagreed with them; namely, the Pharisees who would not have accepted Jesus as divine, much less, God's only-begotten son. I believe discouraging association with the Jewish community to be their intent given the fact that the Pharisees and the Jews are consistently portrayed negatively throughout this gospel.

This approach would have had pragmatic implications as well, since the  fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.  Christians were having a rough time as it were, Jewish communities even more so.  Christianity literally, in some places like Rome, started to go underground.  In others they figuratively did.  With the destruction of the Temple, the visual heart of the then Jewish world was destroyed.  This was likely understood by Johannine school as the death knell of Judaism and confirmation of their view of Jesus as God's Son and why John begins with Jesus cleansing the temple.

John doesn't stop with Jesus making his own claim of being God's only begotten son.  John once again brings John the Baptist back on stage to reaffirm what Jesus just said about himself.  Again there is an unspoken issue being addressed by having John the Baptist saying in verse 30, "He (Jesus) must become greater; I must become less."  John the Baptist claims that all authority has been given to Jesus as God's only-begotten and ends by stating once again at the end of Chapter 3, "Whoever  believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."  

WOW!  We get it, already!!

MAKING SENSE OF JOHN 3

There are several ways to view John 3.  One thought that occurs is that it was part of another gospel that was edited into the Gospel of John - a gospel that might have used Nicodemus as the narrator.  There is a Gospel of Nicodemus that can be traced to Medieval era. This would have had to been a much earlier gospel.   In some ways John 3 reminds me of Genesis 1 and 2; two different but similar creation stories. 

Like the wedding of Cana, the Nicodemus story is parabolic in nature.  Nicodemus, in this chapter, appears used and abused.  His presence is functional to the extent that he allows John's authors to have Jesus say something about himself and to establish the importance of the initiation rite of baptism as necessary for salvation as the only means to being born again.  Nicodemus is also used to represent the rabbinical class, the teachers who don't get who Jesus is.    Later on, Nicodemus becomes the voice of reason and represents those who honor the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Throughout the centuries Nicodemus has been viewed as a saint in both the eastern and western churches of Christianity.

I mentioned that the authors, in their attempt to make a clean break from Judaism, overplayed their hand when it came to declaring that there are those who will be saved and those who are condemned "already."  Progressive theologians would just as soon gloss over verses 18 and 19 of John 3.  Those Christians who promote universal salvation; that all will be eventually be saved, have to deal with these verses. 

Personally, they make no sense to me as a human being and raise all sorts of theological problems about the Gospel of John, Jesus, and salvation theology as a whole.  Personally, I think the Gospel of John is wrong about Jesus and Chapter 3 proves it.  I can empathize with John's authors from a historical perspective as to why they portrayed Jesus as they do, but they get it wrong.

What appears to be a sophisticated approach to answering the question of who Jesus is becomes a bungling theological mess that most have sanitized by calling it mystery.   John 3 is not a mystery.  It is an editorial faux pas that is completely unnecessary to the story and meaning of Jesus' ministry.  It is, in a word, "overkill" and will taint the rest of John and has tainted Christianity as an excluding religion. 

In the establishment of Christianity as its own religion, one can appreciate the zeal these authors and editors possessed in writing and creating the Gospel of John.  By zeal, I do not mean to imply a lack of sincerity.  They were undoubtedly sincere in their beliefs about the meaning of Jesus they wanted to portray. In the polytheistic cosmopolitan environment in which they were defining this new religion, they understood the radical nature of what they were saying.  What I am saying here is not to question their sincere beliefs or diminish their endeavor. 

What I am saying is that Christianity has evolved from where they were and that is my primary point in discussing the Gospel of John, in particular.  In a world where atheism was tantamount to insanity, speaking of any form of God or gods came from the perspective of God's existing as separate, other beings, different from humans in any number of ways. Monotheism was a major shift in thinking about the divine and was a giant leap towards a singular view of religion - God is one.  Christianity brings this concept to earth in the form of Jesus which the writers of John attempt to meld together by imbuing Jesus with both the divine and human traits and declaring him to be God's only-begotten Son. 

This was an extremely radical view and led to Christians being accused of atheism by Roman authorities who understood the emperor to be the son of God.  From that perspective, John 3 is setting another agenda about who Jesus is - a defiant agenda against the earthly powers that be. The writers of John could not anticipate the changes that have taken place since their time.  They may very well have thought the world in which they lived would be the final version of reality; that it would come to an end very quickly - perhaps within their own life time.  Some Christians still think this way today.

In fact the world ending or the end of human life is today more of a scientific probability  than a religious belief.  The fact that we have scientific proof of the earth's vulnerability and the fragility of life, as a whole, on this planet has changed how many Christians view life on this side of death.  They are seeing it as far more precious and much less an obstacle to get through unscathed in order to obtain life on the other side. 

John 3 is a dangerous chapter in the New Testament; dangerous if not understood as a theological faux pas based on a world view at the time it was written.  It's a time piece whose time has come to be exposed for what it is - bad theology for the 21st century and for the foreseeable future.  In the ever evolving religious life of us human beings and of Christianity, in particular, we who are Christian have a responsibility to correct the errors of the past, not eliminate them, but rather own them and  understand them compassionately, explain them, and to revisit and, if necessary, to  reshape our understanding of all the traditions and beliefs that have been handed down to us. 

In some ways and in some parts of the Christian world this is happening, but much of it is happening by glossing over the unsavory parts of scripture rather than calling them for what they are and pointing out the flaws they present.  For me the practice of trying to sanitize a flaw is to perpetuate it.  A flaw is a flaw.  Point it out and fix it by telling why it is flawed.

Monotheists are hung up on their scriptures.  They have a tremendously difficult time calling things that are flawed and unsavory in their ancient scriptures as such.  They would rather gloss over them, call them a mystery, or not speak about them at all. 

Lectionaries are a wonderful means to ignore unsavory parts of scripture.  I have yet to hear a sermon or a homily that points out the error of an assigned reading for the day in clear, straightforward language, as in saying, "That was a waste of ink and papyrus and here's why... ."  It would be liberating and refreshing.

Until next time, stay faithful
























 



SETTING THE STAGE - Johannine Theology Part II

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN

In this and subsequent posts, I will examine the Gospel of John as a creative work of theology.  The Gospel of John has had many books and papers written about it.  I am not going to bother with attempting to explain what others have written.  I will examine this gospel, sections at a time, to point out some of the nuances I see in it.  The readers of this blog are invited to read the Gospel of John (hereafter referred to as John) along with me as I comment on it. My hope is to offer an objective understanding of this gospel as a work written during a particular time in which Christianity emerges as a new monotheistic religion.  

In this and other posts, I will be working from the premise that John is composite work involving more than one author and that it has been subjected to numerous editing throughout its dissemination within the early church.  As such, I will be referring to its authors and editors.

The Gospel of John assumes its audience has some knowledge about the life and times of Jesus; that is, enough knowledged to allow its authors to play around with timelines, storylines, and the characters found in the three synoptic gospels.  For instance, names appear out of the blue with little or no introduction as to what role they played in Jesus's life and ministry.  There is an assumption on the part of John's authors that their audience knows what and who they're talking about.

All of this lends support to the notion that the Gospel of John is theological work or perhaps, better said, an early doctrinal work on the meaning of Christ and the Eucharist.
Minutiae matters in John.  Most Christian readers gloss over it because they think they know the Jesus's story so well.  The Gospel of John turns most of what we think we know about Jesus on its head - especially when read in comparison with the synoptic gospels.

John 1

TO BEGIN WITH

John is written for an intellectual audience.  Given the premise that John's audience is  primarily Jewish, one can speculate that they were Hellenized Jews and that some of this audience were gentiles, particularly Greek, and well versed in Hellenized thought because the first verse of John is immersed in both Greek and Judaic logic. The point of the first chapter of John is to established the divinity of Jesus.

"In the beginning" is the exact phrase used at the beginning of Genesis.  Readers of the Septuagint [Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures] would have understood the implications of what the authors were about to embark on.  In fact, the word for beginning in Greek is loaded.  It has, in modern-day parlance, a Big Bang quality about it.  It connotes a sense of power and can be literally translated as such.

"In the beginning was the Word."  The Greek word for "Word" is "Logos," another very loaded term, which connotes reason, logic, and in this case the act of saying or creating.  Its use supports the ancient monotheistic concept that God is a verb, God is acting, but John does not stop there, John's mission is to move from an indescribable, abstract construct for God to a very much flesh and blood one, a person, who will redeem or recreate creation with this simple phrase, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us... ."

Jesus in a very few lines is identified as the eternal Word through whom all things are made and then comes to be enfleshed as one of us to live in a redemptive relationship with us.  This is a seismic shift in theology.  To think of God becoming a human is beyond scandalous, it's heresy, at least to the Judaic mindset of the time.  Philosophically it raises ontological questions as to why God would do this and who's running the cosmic show while God's saving this speck of dust called Earth.  It will ultimately lead to the question what is the nature of God, but that's for a later discussion.  John's concern is to say that God is fully present in Christ Jesus who becomes God's enfleshed, only-begotten Son.

The creation story in John is notable for its lack of mentioning anything good about creation as frequently described in Genesis One.  In John, there are people who see the light and those who dwell in darkness.  John is setting the stage for the followers of Jesus to experience the intimacy of their relationship with Jesus by presenting the world as it is or thought to be at the time.  It's not all good. It's a mix. Into this mixed up world Jesus, the enfleshed only-begotten Son of God, comes to establish the kingdom of God.  John points out that there are people who will not accept Jesus, who do not know him, cannot recognize him.  The authors of John make it clear that it is near impossible for mere mortals to see the enfleshed God in Jesus unless one is called, one is chosen to see Jesus.

This theology is shaped by the real experience that there are and were those who cannot or refuse to accept the Johannine theology that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God.  What John acknowledges is the counterintuitive nature of the gospel message.  The world beyond the confines of the ecclesia cannot grasp its message by itself, only those to whom it is revealed by God are capable of receiving it.  There is a Gnostic undercurrent in John.

The intent of John, however, is not to create anxiety over this lack of understanding or rejection exhibited in others, but rather to reassure John's  audience that there is a degree of intentionality about it all;  that there is a purpose in all of it and since the reader or listener is one of the blessed, one of those who has seen the light and receives Jesus as the Word, sonship awaits for those "born of the will of God" - the chosen few.

JOHN THE BAPTIST

The Johannine school of theology also makes an effort to clear away any confusion about who John the Baptist is.  There's an implied issue here.  Apparently there were those who considered John the Baptist to be the messiah.  The authors of John are intent on clearing this up and assigning John the Baptist the role of Jesus's forerunner and gives John the Baptist the honor of being the first, in John's gospel, to recognize Jesus for who he is.

An oddity in Chapters One and Two is the element of time.  We have a beginning that does not mention anything about time or days, as does Genesis One, but then when John starts talking about John the Baptist we suddenly have in verse 29 mention of a "next day" - as in the second day - when John the Baptist sees Jesus coming to him. 

What happened to the first day?

It is tempting to make something of a missing piece, to assign it a mystical meaning.   In this case what I think the lack of a mentioned first day points to is the composite nature of John; that it was pieced together by its authors or that mention of a first day was editorialized out of of the final script. Simply put, whatever happened to day one in the narrative about John the Baptist and/or Jesus is simply lost.  

What we have is a next day, a second day in which Jesus makes his first appearance as a real person doing real human things, like walking by John the Baptist as he is baptizing people in the Jordan.  What is a curious fact about this event is that Jesus is not baptized by John.  Jesus approaches John for the purpose of being declared by John the Baptist to be the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."

There is no description of Jesus entering the river or being baptized.   Rather John the Baptist declares that the spirit of God is resting of Jesus and states that whereas he baptizes with water, Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit.   There is always an assumption by readers of John's gospel that Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist and, later on in the gospel, the assumption that Thomas actually puts his hands into the wounds of Jesus, even though John never says any of those  things happened. 

Why?

Sometimes things left unspoken in John serve as invitations for further contemplation.  This is what makes the Gospel of John more of a challenge and a difficult read.  In John's gospel, Jesus doesn't require the act of a  physical baptism to be declared the Lamb of God.  The Holy Spirit is already upon Jesus as the eternally begotten Son of God, enfleshed in human form.  Later, Thomas does not need to touch Jesus's wounds, he only needs to hear Jesus's voice, Jesus's word, and be recreated in his acknowledgement that Jesus is his Lord and God.  Words have power in John because the Word is the power of God. 

John goes on to talk about the calling of select group of disciples that come to Jesus in twos,  Andrew and Simon or Peter and Philip and Nathaniel - an odd selection.  The first two are rather familiar and the latter two not so much, the underlying message seems to be this: There are those who have actually seen Jesus, heard him talk and then there are those who are brought to Jesus by those who seen him first.

The interesting undertone is that both Simon and Nathaniel are the one who receive more comment and compliment from Jesus than the Andrew and Philip do.  What can one make of that?  The obvious meaning is that those who come late to Jesus are just as important, just as worthy, as those who originally knew and met Jesus.  Jesus comes to those who come to him and the promise is that there is more to come.    The obvious message in this vignette is that Jesus knows who he is calling. Disciples are chosen.  John's audience who receive the message are God's new Chosen People. 

The first chapter of John establishes several things about Jesus.  Jesus is the reason for creation, Jesus is God and, in the flesh, Jesus becomes the Only-begotten Son of God.  There are people who get this, like those who knew Jesus, such as, John the Baptist, Andrew, and Philip, and those who are seekers of Jesus, like Peter and those who are met by Jesus, like Nathaniel.  All proclaim Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God   More importantly, according to John, one cannot get this message unless one is chosen by God; in that, God wills some to get it.  It's reflects the "many are called but few are chosen" scenario found in the Gospel of Matthew.

John 2



WEDDING WINE

Chapter 2 begins with " And  the third day...." and the story of the wedding at Cana.   I think this is a totally contrived story - a parable about Jesus - to set the stage for what is to come.  It's a story that has multiple layers or meanings, the least of which is that it has to do with a real time experience. 

The premise of the story is that the Jesus and his band of disciples along with his mother were at this wedding feast. We don't know whose wedding this was or if the person was a friend or relative of Jesus, but the implication that Jesus' mother was serving means the people involved were well known to Jesus, were his friends and relatives ( in coded language, the family of God, the ecclesia). The lack of detail is telling and clues us to the story's parabolic nature.  The use of a geographic location, Cana of Galilee, tends to lend credibility to its being a real time event, but I would suggest that the authors' intent is a double entendre, a parable with real time application, God at work in our world, our reality.  John is also pointing to the greater reality that John's audience is part of, the realm or kingdom of God.  John is notorious for use of  this approach in delivering a message to the listeners of the day.

The wedding feast  or feast is common theme of Jesus' parables in the synoptic gospels.  It plays a role in Pauline theology and it should not be a surprise that Jesus should be portrayed as performing his first "miracle" in John at a wedding in which Jesus and his disciples are participating in.  A wedding feast is code for the ecclesia, the Eucharistic feast.

Also, we have our first encounter with the fruit of the vine, wine. Wine is the literal life blood of the ancient Mediterranean world.  Running short if wine at a wedding might have been considered an embarrassment to the host. In the full context of this gospel, John uses this story metaphorically to hint that this wedding feast represents the depleted state of Judaism of which John's audience was a part of.  In the light of Christ, it's traditions and laws are the jars, and its jars are empty.  There is a very symbolic moment in this story when Jesus asks the servants to fill the jars with water. 

Water is associated with death in Judaic mindset and is a symbol of baptism. Baptism is an entry into the death of the old self.  It is used to clean the dead.  Jesus fills the jars with water which then become wine, and not just any wine, but the wine that will make you party hardy. Wine, new wine, is new life and new meaning.  This is a transformative moment, a moment of transition. Jesus injects new life into the party, offers the better wine of celebration, has taken the ordinary and transformed it into the extraordinary.   One could play with the various meanings of this story ad infinitum, another indication of its parabolic nature.

MARY

Leave it to the mother of faith, Mary, to come to the rescue. The jars are empty.   In the story, when the wine runs short, Jesus' mother, Mary, tells the servants (another term for believer) to do what he says and all will be well.  Jesus feigns being annoyed by being approached by his mother on what he views as a trite matter and complains that his time has not yet come - a phrase that will be repeated after his resurrection to another Mary [as mentioned earlier John has to be read as a whole or one will miss the clues to its coded message].  In other words, throughout John there is implied a hiddenness to who Jesus is; a not-yet or yet-to-be quality that is held in tension throughout the gospel.   It gives an esoteric quality to John, an unspoken question, "When will Jesus' time come?"  It provides an eschatological patina to the entire works attributed to John as found in the New Testament.

Jesus, compelled by his mother's intercession, turns ordinary water into wine - a wine that far exceeds the quality of the first wine.  The role of Mary as intercessor is undoubtedly established or is being established as doctrine by the time John is written.  Jesus becomes the ultimate host of the feast, the Eucharistic celebrant who changes the ordinary into the extraordinary.  Mary represents the faithful intercessor who is wise beyond knowing.

HOUSE CLEANING

The scene quickly shifts, not as a new day but to a new location.  It seems to me the editors of John make a rather shabby attempt at giving the narrative a linear feel as a means of giving it real time look.  The reality is that what John jumps to next is anything but in keeping with the timeline of events recorded in the synoptic gospels.  This too points to John being a theological commentary on who Jesus is.

We find Jesus and company in the Temple precinct just before the feast of the Passover.  Again, the reader is confronted with a not-quite-the-time or an anticipatory moment.  John uses these in between times to underscore a sense of preparation or a call for preparedness.  As noted before the authors of John assumes the reader has previous knowledge about Jesus.  There is no cogent reason why Jesus would drive those who were selling cattle and doves for sacrifice in the Temple precinct as stated in John.  One would have to possess some understanding as to what Jesus saw that would lead him to do something like that.  It's a violent act that places Jesus in an uncharacteristic light.  The reason Jesus gives for doing so in John is even more confusing, "How dare you turn my Father's house into a market."

First one has to understand that sacrifice was an essential function of the Temple.  How else were people to offer sacrifices if they could not purchase animals to do so? Of course, what is unspoken in John is that there was corruption in the selling business, especially with the money changers who gouged people for converting the imperial currency to temple currency.

None of this is mentioned in John, which leads one to conclude that either John's audience would have known all about this or they didn't and for John's purpose what matters is to get to the point of Jesus being asked by the "Jews" which, by the way, is the first time "Jew" is mentioned in as a differentiating comment which will increasingly be mentioned in a negative context,  for a sign of his authority.  Jesus responds, "Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days."   The "Jews" take him to mean the Temple there having this conversation in (and why wouldn't they?), so the authors want to make sure John's audience understand this is code for the resurrection, making the connection that he, Jesus, is the true temple of God, the indwelling presence of his heavenly father.

While John wants to get to the point about Jesus sending a coded message about his eventual death and resurrection, I can't help but be intrigued about John having Jesus complain about turning his Father's house into a market.  In fact, I see more application of this statement in today's world than any other found in these first two chapters, which brings me to the following: 

MAKING SENSE OF THIS TODAY

As many of you know, I'm not particularly fond of John as a gospel and some may be asking why spend so much time on it if I find it to be difficult and troublesome.  My answer is simply that John is what it is, a vital part of the Christian story.  It has to be dealt with and interpreted to make sense in today's world.  John is itself a theological work, a commentary on the life Jesus written in and for a specific time in history, a time that is both different and in some ways similar to the time we live in.  What intrigues me about John is that it is itself an interpretation of Jesus' life and ministry, and once one comes to understand that aspect of John, one has sense of freedom to interpret the gospel itself.  One cannot afford to take John at face value or as a literal, factual account.

Believing in John gets one nowhere. It gets one where every literal interpretation of any theistic scripture gets us, running into a concrete wall.  Studying it, examining its meaning and applications at the time it was written and for today is what matters and will hopefully bring about a better understanding of ourselves and the world we live. 

In the first two chapters of John, we see John's authors setting the stage or re-setting the stage for the presentation of this new monotheistic religion, called Christianity.  It's a chaotic time.  Christianity is one of probably hundreds of religious cults floating around the cosmopolitan realm of the Roman Empire at the time, each vying for adherents and trying not to ruffle the feathers of the powers that be.  As such, John does not present the world of its time in good light.  In fact, John portrays the world in stark contrasts of people of the light and those in darkness.  John is the breakaway gospel from the Judaic tradition that Christianity emerged from.  It seeks its own identity by making Jesus, as the Christ, the only begotten Son of God - equal to God and the very reason creation exists.  In this sense, John presents a very narrow view of creation and the world in which we live.  It also accounts for why Christianity, today, contains elements that possess a very narrow view of today's world. 

In my opinion, the creation story of chapter one, verses one through five, needs to be seen for what it truly is instead of the romanticized and sanitized interpretation that it has been presented by the church since the canon of the New Testament was set.  It wrongfully places Jesus as the reason for creation and means by which creation came into being.  It turns the story of creation found in Genesis One which depicts chaos being turned into goodness back into something chaotic and in need of salvation. 

Jesus as the Lamb of God, to be sacrificed for the sins of the world is also theological time-piece.  As much as this language has found its way in the liturgy of orthodox Christianity, one needs to be careful in its use.  John identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God as new interpretation of the Passover, in which blood of the lamb was spread on the door post of the Israelites in Egypt to spare their household from the angel of death.  Jesus represent the new Passover, the blood that pays the price for our sins, and spares the believer from eternal death.  Again, the theme is that Judaism is being replaced by Christianity; that at best, everything in the Hebrew scriptures only has meaning in the sense that it foreshadows Christ.  In today's world, we need to be cautious with such interpretations.  Judaism has its own rich history that Christianity shares, not replaces.  The Passover story of Judaism is the Passover.  The death and resurrection story of Jesus, needs to be seen in its own light as a Christian story that has broader applications.  I will explain this further along in these posts.

The wedding at Cana is a unique parable about Jesus.  It's application for today is that religions, especially theistic religions, run dry after a period of time.  They need to be refreshed, cleaned out filled with water - the common stuff of life today, which is then fermented (contemplated) into new wine.  This is one way of interpreting this parable for today's world. We need the faith of Mary to take action in the sense of trusting God's actions in and through our actions to bring about better world. 

The cleansing of the Temple, is another parabolic story.  For me the story is that places of worship can get too busy with the business of the place.  There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this unless it becomes the sole focus of what a place of worship is.   For instance, fund raising can become an obsession, especially when money becomes the issue for a place of worship.  After awhile, there is a tendency with all market places to play to the consumer. 

In theism, this can be problematic in a variety of ways.  Ironically, John seems to be doing some of that in the sense that John seems to be trying to create a new market for Christianity at the time.  The reality is that religions do market themselves.  We're seeing that happen in today's world in rather dramatic and violent ways.  The question for the religious market should not be how do we market our particular brand of religion but rather what is needed in the religious market to sustain the goodness of creation and the dignity and worth of every human being as the image of God.


Until next, stay faithful.







THE JOHANNINE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY



Some time ago I mentioned the notion of religious singularity.  Since that time I've concentrated a good amount of time talking about my own religious affiliation, Christianity, and contemplating its early origins; all in the attempt to set the stage for taking on the broader topic of religious singularity.

One might ask how reviewing the origins of Christian theology lends itself to a broader discussion of religious singularity?  Religious singularity, if it is to be accomplished at all, will be a matter of theological/philosophical evolution.  Humans are not well-adapted at coming up with new ideas ex nihlo. We build upon what we know and understand, we create by manipulating the ideas or matters at hand. We evolve from what is.    All religions - ALL have this in common -  evolving ideologies. So in pursuing a path to religious singularity, I need to start with what I know and considering in what ways it can be used to facilitate the notion of religious singularity

In my opinion, Christianity and its parent religion, Judaism, offer prime examples of evolving theologies; thereby, offering an opportunity to examine pathways to a broader, unitive understanding of religion as a whole.  As book dependent as these two religions are, they demonstrate a capacity for a flexible reading of their scriptures that have contemporary applications.  The fact that they are book-based gives them the ability know what they are evolving from and where they are evolving to, which brings me to what I will refer to as the Johannine school of theology. 

In my last three posts, I touched upon the theological development found in the apostle Paul's writings and the fact that they were written during a time when Christianity was largely understood to be a Judaic sect composed of followers of Jesus who were primarily Jewish.  This understanding would fade after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The shift in theological focus is palpable in the Christian literature written after that event.     The gospel and letters attributed to a writer or writers named John demonstrate an evolutionary shift in theology that brought Christianity into its own as the distinct  monotheistic religion it remains today. 

In this and following posts, I will examine the shift that Johannine school of theology represents and discuss its ramifications as a model for movement toward religious singularity.  By in large, Christians tend to see the New Testament as a seamless document, but taking a close look would reveal that it is not, even though there appears to have been a concerted effort to make look so. Although the edges have been smoothed out over the centuries, there is evidence of distinct schools of thought peppered throughout the New Testament.  This is evident in all the canonical gospels, but it is particularly evident by the presence of the Gospel of St. John in the New Testament's canon.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Before getting into that, however, I would like to offer a historical perspective as to what facilitated the creation of the Johannine school of theology.  The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE changed the theological trajectory of both Judaism and Christianity.  It is a historical fact that the persecution of Jews during this time was far greater than that of Christians for one simple reason.  Being a Jew who remained Judaic would have made that person rather obvious and easily targeted, being a Christian wasn't. Paul mentions Christians being found in the household of Caesar.

Today's Christians, for the most part, have been immersed in a rather sanitized version of Christianity, with martyrs being regularly persecuted for their faith in Christ.  The early persecution of Christians has received much more historical press than the persecution of the Jews that was rampant after the fall of Jerusalem. The proof of this is that after the fall of Jerusalem, many Jews headed east, beyond the borders of the Roman empire to places like Babylon in modern day Iraq. Jews who remained in the empire had a rough time of it. Christianity went literally underground from where it gained steam as a grassroots movement (no pun intended).

Jews were out of favor and Christians were at risk of guilt by association if they maintained a direct tie to Judaism.  It is in this atmosphere that the Gospel of John is written.  Ironically, the audience to whom John is writing are largely composed of Jewish Christians which begs the question why the Gospel of John places "the Jews" in such a negative light.

The answer is that with the end of temple worship and the early church of Jerusalem there was no reason for Christian Jews to remain linked with Judaism.  In the Gospel of John we see its author(s) exercise the differentiating paradigm of religion to demonstrate that Christians Jews are different from Judaic Jews, to the extent that Jewish Christians no longer needed to identify as Jews. In this sense, the Johannine theological perspective relies on Paul's adoptive matrix and morphs it into an adaptive one.

Whereas Paul denies the difference between Jews and Greeks, the Johannine school of theology delineates the difference between Christianity and Judaism thereby presenting Christianity as an alternative to Judaism. In the Gospel of John there is, metaphorically speaking, a difference between Jews and Greeks or, to be more succinct, a difference between Christians and Jews.

Whereas Judaic Jews could not rewrite their history and traditions, Christians could and did.  Like Paul, who read the concept of the eternal Christ back into the Hebrew scriptures, its history, and traditions, the Johannine school not only followed Paul's lead but took it a step or two further and rewrote the entire creation narrative, making Jesus equal to God, as God's only begotten Son and the reason the world exists at all, insisting that every event prior to Jesus' earthly ministry was nothing more than a foreshadowing of things to come. Thus Christianity becomes its own religion.

After the fall of Jerusalem, Christianity and Judaism set out on divergent paths.  Judaism found its center in synagogue and exploring and reshaping its understanding of its tradition in the light of its scriptures and the contemporary world.  Christianity, on the other hand, found its center in the ecclesia, the local church, as the body of Christ, which coalesces around a new tradition, the Eucharist, the new Passover, the agape feast - the love feast - that feeds upon the very being of Christ, the source of new life.

In Christianity's nascent state this love feast is reserved for the followers of Jesus.  Its being offered does not appear to extend beyond the ecclesial community.  While this nascent religion maintains that the love of God for the world of his creating, the world, for the most part,  has rejected God's love which can be only regained through becoming one with Christ as a member of his body, the church.  The rejection of Jesus by the Jews and, in particular, the Pharisees is notable the Gospel of John.

I have referred to the Gospel of John in past posts as Christianity's clubhouse gospel, written exclusively for those who are Christian.  In the posts that will follow, I will contend that the Gospel of Johns was largely written as a commentary on the Eucharist and designed to initiate the reader or listener into unitive mystery of Christ which are presented in words attributed to Jesus himself.  The Gospel of John is unique in this sense.  Its telling of Jesus' dinner discourse is designed to emphasize the unifying force of God's love expressed in Jesus' being the very Son of God through whom all things were created and who was sent to earth by God to bring God's select into the fold of the Good Shepherd.   There exists an esoteric quality to Gospel of John in that it presents an intimate, if not a somewhat insular, message for the adherents as it initiates and introduces them into what it means to be member of this new monotheistic religion.

A CODED GOSPEL

The Gospel of John is not simple.  It is a difficult gospel; in that, it is not a straightforward account of Jesus's life and ministry.  It is a gospel about who Jesus is written as if Jesus is explaining himself to his new religion called Christianity.  To grasp its esoteric format, John should be read and taken as a whole.  Its vignettes, its stories, are set within an unspoken overriding contextual narrative that serves as a commentary on the Eucharistic as the traditional center of the ecclesia.

What is somewhat confusing to the casual reader of this gospel is that the rite of Holy Communion is never mentioned.  There is no ritualized act of breaking bread or sharing a cup of wine by Jesus mentioned here, no command to perform such an act as remembrance, as was emphasized in the synoptic gospels and Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Yet bread and wine are frequently referenced throughout this gospel as in Jesus referring to himself as the Bread of Life and speaking of himself as the vine.  The Gospel of John begins with wine, at wedding of Cana.  Each story in John serves a purpose or two or three.  The Gospel of John is tightly packed and multilayered.  It is also highly edited, which demonstrates how important its message is to get right.  Editing is obvious and leads me to see it as a work of several authors or editors who correct and adjust its narrative.

The Gospel of John has a deliberate format, which I will discuss in the next several posts. It cannot nor should it be taken as a factual account of events in Jesus' life.   In fact, John is obvious about being coded in that it has Jesus telling his disciples, on several occasions, that he is talking figuratively, metaphorically.  The Gospel of John is selective in what is presented. One has to read John as a whole, preferably at one setting, which I would encourage  those reading this post to do.  Symbolism abounds.  Day and night, light and darkness, bread and wine, food and drink are interspersed throughout this gospel and provide clues to what the writer (s) of John are pointing to. The reader needs to pay attention to setting and each stories context and consider how they are figuratively being used and what they point to.

The Temple plays a prominent role in John. Its dominance as the setting for much of what takes place in John is unlike the synoptic gospels.  In John, Jesus' cleansing of the temple is one of his first acts to take place.  Why is John talking about it as one of Jesus's first acts instead of one of his last, as seen in the synoptic gospel? Is John confused as to the order of events in Jesus life or is there a meaning behind the placement of stories within this gospel?   .

To understand the Gospel of John, one must understand that it is, in many ways, written in code and whose primary message must be read between the lines if its narrative. It is not hard decipher when read from the perspective of John's historical context, which was approximately thirty years after the fall of Jerusalem.    In the posts that follow, I will spend some time looking the coded message of John, its relevancy today, and its application to religious singularity.

Until next time, stay faithful.

THE APOSTLE PAUL - Part III

In this final post on the apostle Paul (for now), I wish to examine his legacy.  It would have been interesting if the New Testament canon had been laid out chronologically . Being that Paul's letters  are the first known writings of the New Testament would have placed them in front of the gospels.  I think doing so would offer readers a different perspective on the gospels and would have allowed the reader to understand how much Paul's perspective is reflected in what became written about Jesus in the four gospels that ended up in the New Testament. 

In examining Paul's legacy, it is important to keep in mind that his writings occur within the context of the Church of Jerusalem's existence, the spiritual center of the early church, just as the Temple was the center and focal point of Judaic worship.  Christianity was very much understood by the earliest Christians to be Judaic, a part of Judaism. The link between importance of the Temple and the church in Jerusalem is undeniable.  This ultimately played a major role in the promulgating Paul's theological perspective, when both the Temple and Church in Jerusalem were destroyed in 70 CE and Paul's theological views of the church became the foundation upon which the church grew throughout the Roman Empire.

Paul's endeavor to include gentiles into the emerging early Christian church without the need for conversion to Judaism and male circumcision led to development of what I referred to as his adoption matrix, whereby every Christian was considered an adopted child of God until such time all, like the resurrected Jesus, become the raised, spiritual children of God. This was a very inventive approach that, for the first known time in Judaic history, the centerpiece of Judaism  - adherence to the law - was questioned as relevant to the concept of righteousness in the sight of God.  Paul did not take this lightly and his writings illustrate a torn individual who struggles with his past relationship to the law and it's relevance in the light of God's unmerited grace.

Paul was a rational visionary, who greatly expanded the Christian church.   His reasoning abilities provides a template for further development and has been, in fact, the inspiration for most of what is considered Christian doctrine and dogma.

As I have said in another post, the Holy Bible helps us form our questions rather than give us the answers to them.  Times change and we need to have the ability to reinterpret these ancient scriptures, much the same way the apostle Paul took liberties in redefining the meaning and purpose of Judaic law and the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures in the light of his visionary experience which led him to embrace the unmerited grace of God.

Paul's use of logic is refreshing but is under-appreciated. He has become so mainstream today, that few realize the radical inventive way he utilized Hebrew scriptures to support his theological perspective.  Reason in religion may not be everyone's cup of tea, but Paul underscores the necessity of reason in forging a path for the good news of the risen, spiritual Jesus who becomes the Christ of God. While Paul referenced little of what Jesus taught during Jesus' ministry as recorded in the canonical gospels, he undoubtedly has helped shaped many of the teachings about Jesus.

Because Paul employed a logical and reasoned approach in his writings he also understood the limits to which he could know, to which he could reason.  His visionary experience led him to a realm of the unknowable, what some would call mystery. Even here, Paul identifies tools to utilize on this side of life that help us deal with the mystery we find ourselves in, life.  Faith, hope, and love become the centerpiece of Pauline theology, what I have referred to in other posts as the affective elements of life; that help shape our responses to what our life experiences bring.

What I have not spent a great deal of time discussing in these posts is Paul's reference to the Holy Spirit in his writings. The Holy Spirit is ubiquitous throughout Paul's epistles.  It becomes that eternal presence in our temporal existence working in, through, and with our acts of faith, hope, and love.  The Spirit of God becomes the bloodline and life force of Paul's version of the Church, the spiritualized Body of the risen Christ in this world.

The spiritual realm that Paul writes about is breathtaking in scope. It gives wide berth to expand our thinking and perspectives especially with regard to Paul's concept of God's grace which, by Paul's account, is limitless.  Neither Paul's mind nor ours can wrap themselves around such limitlessness.  Room for growth, the expansion of God's Spirit, and the ever evolving meaning of the Church as the body of Christ is evident in what Paul writes.  What limits he mentions appear based on human kind's inability to look past our dimensional perspective and limited knowledge.

As with the ministry of Jesus, I do not see Paul's work complete.  Incompleteness is woven into the very fabric of Christianity.  There is always work to be done. The "once-and-for-all-ness" of Christ's death and resurrection is not an end but rather a beginning on this side of life.  Paul's emphasis that a new creation is afoot hints at a completeness yet to come, not mission accomplished.

The apocalyptic and eschatological strains that are embedded in Christianity and in Paul's writings do not, in my opinion, necessitate having to be interpreted as they were some two thousand ago.  Paul may have been caught up into that mindset and may have been expecting a return of Christ within his lifetime ...  but maybe not.  His visionary experience opened him to the likelihood of a greater reality that breaks into our present world and co-exists with the present until such time as this world no longer exists.

Paul was capable of skepticism and at times he expressed it in roundabout ways.  If he had not been skeptical he could not have been receptive to his vision; Doubt is a key to what appears to be a locked tight mind. To apply and paraphrase a saying of Leonard Cohen, it is the crack that sometimes let's the light shine through.

Paul could not have argued Judaic law from the perspective of certainty.  He could not have put forward the affective elements of faith, hope, and love in the manner he did.  These ideas and principles did not proceed from a certain mind, but rather  a questioning one.

What permits Paul to think freely is his ultimate trust in God's faithfulness, hopefulness, and love as discovered in his vision of the risen Christ Jesus.  In this sense, Paul, more than any other person of the early church period, shaped the Christian Church we know today; a church that continues amidst its failures and setbacks.

Until next time, stay faithful



THE APOSTLE PAUL - Part II

Note: All quotations from the Holy Bible in this post are from "The Holy Bible, New International Version," Copyright 1984 by International Bible Society.  

In my last post on the apostle Paul, I focused primarily on his attempt to circumvent the Church in Jerusalem's requirement that male gentiles desiring to become Christian must first convert to Judaism.  As such, Paul views Jesus' resurrection as a reset point, God's new creation, upon which Paul  premises his adoption matrix that put both Jew and gentile followers of Jesus on equal footing as "adopted" children of God by faith rather than lineage.   In the process of making his case that faith alone in Christ Jesus as the only requirement for inclusion, Paul takes issue with Judaic law, as a whole, which was received poorly by the leaders of the Jerusalem church.  In the end, Paul manages to convince James, the brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem church, that circumcision was unnecessary, but James and the other leaders maintained that the law must be followed.

What we experience in reading Paul's epistles is Paul's mind at work.  Although his legal argument on Judaic law, to my mind, is a bit convoluted, Paul was making a logical argument regarding the futility in trying to meet every possible demand or requirement of Judaic law as necessary for righteousness in the light of God's unmerited grace.

In this post, I will examine Paul's understanding of Jesus' resurrection and the new creation it heralded.   To do so, we must understand the impact of Paul's vision Jesus on the road to Damascus. The important fact to keep in mind was that this encounter was a vision - not a physical presence. Visions were understood in Paul's day as a spiritual rather than a mental process that one could psychoanalyze.  The spiritual, throughout most of human history, was and continues to be considered every bit as real as a physical encounter in many parts of the world and at least until the dawn of psychoanalysis in other parts.  In fact, Paul had a physical reaction to the light of Christ perceived in this vision, he became blind.

The significance of this is that the spiritual was not separated from reality or a separate reality. The spiritual was real and was not questioned in Paul's day as it is today, where we tend to view spirituality as a mental process rather than a form of being or existence in its own right.  In fact, during the time of Paul it is likely that most understood spirit as a reflection of a greater reality that physical reality was dependent on and which could and did interact with the physically mundane world from time to time.

The physically animated world was largely referred to as flesh in Judaic thought, and Paul's writings and understanding of the physical world reflects that perception.  Flesh was observed to be corruptible. When a person or an animal died, flesh would decay; therefore, the physical is impermanent and the spirit permanent.  This is key to Paul's understanding of Jesus' resurrection. In fact Paul utilizes the concepts of corruptible and incorruptible in correlation to resurrection in his epistles. Although Paul's use of these terms implied a double entendre, the basic meaning is simply there are aspects of reality that last and aspects that don't.

In Judaism, what makes humans the very image of God is that God breathed his spirit in us.  By virtue of this act, we are spiritual creatures as well as physical ones.  Paul tends to side-step this fact of Judaic theology.  The adoption matrix that Paul utilizes  is, I believe, an outcropping of the Judaic concept of the Chosen People, the children of Abraham, which Paul asserts was reconfigured at Jesus's resurrection to potentially include all people by virtue of their faith in the resurrected Christ. Paul's sidestepping of what is referred to in Judaism as the Noahide covenant is not a denial of it.  Paul's intent was to broaden the Abrahamic covenant to include all who had faith in Jesus as the risen Christ.

PAUL AND RESURRECTION

I would invite readers of this post to review with me Paul's explanation of Jesus' resurrection as found in his first letter to the church at Corinth, 1Corinthians 15. What we find here is that Paul never affirms or posits a belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus. What I believe confuses people is that Paul talks about the body or talks about mortality putting on immortality, which to most means a physical body, but Paul is not talking about the resurrection in terms of a physical body, but rather as a spiritual body.

In verses 44 through 50 of  1Corinthians 15, Paul writes:

"If there is a natural (physical*) body, there is also a spiritual body.  So it is written:  "The first man Adam became a living being;' the last Adam (Jesus*) became a life-giving spirit.   The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.  The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.  As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.  And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." [*=my insertions]

A platonic understanding of reality  seems apparent or perhaps is being referenced in Paul's logic regarding reality. The physical world is impermanent - not all that real -  a shadowy place - a mere reflection of what truly is or meant to be "for now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror" (1Corinthians 13:12)  The spiritual world is the true reality.  The resurrection of Jesus, by being a spiritual event resulting in Jesus acquiring a spiritual non-physical body, is in a greater type of reality - a lasting reality.

Paul may have adopted some of this thinking from the Essenes, but as a Pharisee, this seems unlikely. What also seems as unlikely is that he would have acquired such a negative view of God's original creation, but somehow he did and I believe the answer resides in his Hellenized understanding of reality which was largely dualistic; there is that which now appears real but is merely a shadowy reflection and then there is that which is truly real which we cannot fully understand on this side of life.

As I mentioned in my last post, what I see Paul doing is an attempt to bridge the gaps between the two mindsets he possesses, which becomes essential to Paul's manner of coming to terms with the vision he received and his endeavor to include gentiles into the Church without the need to convert to Judaism.  The vision Paul experienced shatters his Pharisaical allegiance to the idea righteousness via compliance to Judaic law.  

The key to this shattering moment is on the voice of the "spiritualized" resurrected Jesus who says, "Saul,  Saul why do you persecute me?" Acts 9:4.

There is an answer to that question.

The reason Paul persecuted members of the early church is because as a Pharisee, he believed he was doing the right thing, complying with the letter of Judaic law, only to come to realization via his vision that he was doing something very wrong, blind to a greater reality.

In my opinion, Paul never fully recovers from that realization and is torn by what he knew prior to this vision and the realization that after this vision, he knows that he knows nothing which brings to the forefront of his thought process what can be referred to as his Greek mind.  Paul seemingly cannot resolve this disconnect with his Pharisaical past through his understanding of Judaism.  This becomes an enormous struggle for him that ironically finds a way to resolution when he sees gentiles embracing the gospel message he intends for his Jewish brethren.

The question that one speculates to have formed in the back of Paul's mind becomes why was it easier for gentiles to embrace his message rather than his own Jewish brethren.  The answer becomes obvious.  There is no legal or theological barrier preventing them to do so.  

What Paul runs up against is his own past, the intransigency of the Judaic mindset regarding the law. The leaders of these Jewish communities are not willing to give up what was holding them together, the law, and there was no easy way for Paul to argue that they should do so from the perspective of Judaic law. So Paul abandons any legal argument and introduces a philosophical, a Greek, argument instead which is based on his notion of God's reset point of creation in raising Jesus as a new spiritual creation.

While Paul cannot argue the gospel message from a legal perspective, he finds a reason to sidestep it and thus argues that all of the law's requirements have been met in Jesus' death and resurrection: "The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives , he lives to God." (Romans 6:19)

In essence, Jesus's death is the "once and for all" atonement for the sins of the world and his resurrection is God's approval who reset the creative paradigm as a result.  The basic message is that in order to become part of this new creative order one; to be on the right side of God, only has to have faith in Jesus as the risen Christ.

NOW AND THEN

This logic raises other questions:  If God has reset the creative paradigm, what had changed? Why weren't Paul's audience seeing its effect now, experiencing it in real time?  

Paul never directly addresses this, and perhaps did not see a need to at the time, but he indirectly does by regular use of the terms "now" and "then."  Chapters 12 and 13 of First Corinthians is what I configure as the "Now and Then" discourse by Paul.

What Paul describes in these chapters could be likened, in modern parlance, to a parallel universe that exist side by side that have  breakthrough points called revelations or a multiverse that has an added eternal dimension, not defined by space or time.  

Of course, Paul was not thinking any of that in his day. Instead Paul simply stays within the context of "this world and the next."  In the "now-time" or meantime of the present, the greater reality of the new creation becomes spiritualized.  It exits and has always existed due to its eternal nature and has been at work ever since the dawn of time. 

What has changed is the awareness of the new creation by the presence of God's Holy Spirit.  The Pentecost event was the point where the new creation merges with the old creation until such time the old completely passes away. 

Eschatology is very much a fixture of Christianity.  There is this time, "Now," and there will be a different time, "Then." Given the eschatological mindset at the time, especially within Judaism, with its tendency towards the apocalyptic, the concept of this world and a world to come morphs into Christian theology.  It is what Paul does with it that is of interest here.   Paul uses these terms to great effect in these two chapters.

Paul himself, introduces a mild form of skepticism, into this eschatological view.  In fact I suspect Paul in both chapters 12 and 13 addresses his own questioning mind. The result is one of  Paul's most profound works placing the present, the Now, in terms that have endured and sustained the church in its mission as Christ's presence in the world to this day.  

At this point, I would advise my readers to read First Corinthians 12 and 13.  Paul's underlying answer to all the "big" questions about how this all comes together is in essence, "I don't know.  I don't have all the answers to all the questions." 

He doesn't say that, of course, but it is there, implicit in what he provides; in his use of Now and Then.  This what I find most appealing about Paul, his honesty. 

Paul writes about what he sees and feel, but he doesn't stop there.  Paul wisely knows there is a limitation to what one sees and feels and suspects there is more than what one can see or feel within the limitation of our physical senses.

Paul sees the church made of people with various abilities and strengths.  He calls these gifts.  He also sees the church as acting, through the animating power of the Holy Spirit, as Christ's presence, Christ's risen body in the Now-world. 

Paul's concern is with what he now knows, those who have come into the church.  This becomes his focus in the Now. He doesn't pretend to have all the answers to all the questions.  It is in this unknowingness of Paul that he offers something much deeper than sight and sense.  He offers what I have referred to in past posts as the affective elements of faith, hope, and love.  In essence, Paul says that on this side of life we cannot possibly understand everything there is to understand, but that a lack of understanding should not become an obstacle to doing, or to being.  I think this is becomes one the most enduring messages of Paul to any age, but is particularly relevant to our current times. 

In observing the church's growth, he saw the effects of faith, hope and love first hand; how life-giving they are and how sustaining they are to human life.   At the end of chapter 13 of First Corinthians, Paul writes,

 "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but then perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  when I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.  Now* we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then* we shall see face to face.  Now* I know in part; then* I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now* these three remain: faith, hope and love.  but the greatest of these is love.

[*emphasis mine]

Until next time, stay faithful.



THE APOSTLE PAUL - Part I



Note:  In this post I am beginning a short series that examines the evolution of salvation theology at the very beginning of Christianity.  What I find intriguing is that the earliest known documentation of this event is not the gospels but rather the epistles of the Apostle Paul, a rather enigmatic figure, who shows up on the Christian scene after this event, "as one untimely born" 1Cor. 15:8.  The question that arises is whether Paul is writing from what he was taught after his conversion which later are compiled in the four gospels of the New Testament or does Paul's theology shape and influence how the gospels are eventual written.

I like Paul.

I need to say that up front because as you read this post, you may be led to think otherwise. For instance, I don't agree with everything Paul says, or, to be more specific, I don't agree that everything that has been attributed to Paul is Paul speaking; as in, his being named the author of the letter to the Hebrews, the two Timothy letters, and Ephesians.  

Paul is, in my opinion, the first authentic Christian.  In fact, many people consider Paul to be the founder of Christianity. I won't argue that.   There can be no doubt that Paul's letters shaped and continues to shape Christianity.  What I like most about Paul is that the letters he wrote reveal an authentic human who writes from both the head and the heart.

Paul's letters strike me as a rarity in ancient literature because of the personal content that is poured into them.  What I find in Paul's letters is a mind grappling with a newfound faith-source.  Paul is constantly torn between his conflicting identities; that of his former identify as Saul and his converted identity as Paul.  In Paul I find a combination of characteristics the likes of Jacob and Jeremiah  found in Hebrew Scriptures, a person who struggles with who he is and then is compelled to talk about it.  As such, Paul becomes an interesting character study whose writings invite a certain degree of analysis.

What intrigues me most about Paul is that his letter predate all other canonical literature in the New Testament.  The layout of the New Testament canon is misleading; in that, it is not concerned about the chronological order of the writings it contains. Instead its format begins with the "historical" account of Jesus ministry and life, then proceeds to Acts of the Apostles and finally to the letters of Paul and others.  It gives the impression of being in chronological when in fact it is not.  What is also confusing is that Paul's letters are not in any chronological order and begins with what might be considered his last epistle, the Epistle to the Romans, which presents what many might consider his most mature theological writing.

My reason for writing this post is to examine, Paul's understanding of the resurrection event which is so central to his theological perspective.  This may sound like a waste of time to devout Christians who readily believe in and accept the physical resurrection of Jesus on Easter and who assume that their understanding of the resurrection is the same as Paul's understanding.  I contend, however, that Paul's view of the resurrection is not what most Christians think it is or understand why it becomes so central in Paul's theology to the point of excluding almost everything that Jesus said or did prior to his death and resurrection. 

As a historical figure, it is difficult to know Paul.  One can deduce from his writings something of his mind and theological perspective.  We also have the Acts of the Apostles that give us some idea of Paul within the historic context of his time.  The tendency by modern Christians is  to ignore the contentious environment Paul's ministry caused and the role it played in forming his theology.  In this post  I will briefly delve into what I feel leads Paul to interpret Jesus' resurrection in a way that is unfamiliar to most, even though, it is quite evident in his letters.

Finally, as an introduction to Paul, I am positing that all four of the gospels are likely to have been influenced by Paul's theological view of the resurrection event rather than they influencing his theology. Whether Paul's particular view of Jesus' resurrection was entirely Paul's idea cannot be fully established.  What can be established is that he is the one who writes about it.

Pauline theology becomes the foundation upon which orthodox Christianity is built.  I contend that Paul's theology was catapulted into eventual dominance as the result of a singular historical event that changed the religious landscape Paul's time. I will explain further along in this post.  For the moment I need to say a few words about Paul as a person.

PAUL AND PARADOX

Paul is a paradox of tragedy and ecstasy all rolled into one package.  He's both slave of Christ and freed by grace.  Given this dichotomous mix, Paul does what most of us do, try to find a balanced emotional response to our inner conflicts.  He suffers in his joy and rejoices in his suffering.

Paradox abounds in Paul's very fabric.  Paul as Saul persecuted the early Christians. Paul is the Johnny-come-lately apostle.  He never knew Jesus prior to Jesus's death and resurrection. Throughout his ministry Paul readily identified and prided himself as a being a Pharisee in several of his letters. He comes to know Jesus through revelation via a vision.  As a result of his conversion and persecutory past, Paul is reluctantly received into the Church at Jerusalem and sent as a missionary to spread the gospel to Jews throughout the Roman empire to help support the Church in Jerusalem.

Paul is also a product of two world views.  He is both a Jew and  a Roman citizen. Not much is made of this until his arrest in Jerusalem where he reveals that he is a "natural born" citizen of Rome.  There has been much speculation about this with some putting forth that Paul's father was awarded citizenship or bought it at some point.  A more likely scenario, in my mind, is that Paul's father was a natural born Roman citizen and his mother was Jewish, since being Jewish is conveyed through the mother, not the father. It is clear that Paul was raised Jewish which could mean his father was a gentile follower of Judaism. 

As an apostle sent to spread the gospel to the Jewish communities located in larger cities of the empire, Paul finds that his most willing converts are not Jews, but rather gentiles who are attracted to Judaism or who are intrigued by Paul's message.  His familiarity with the Hellenized world likely provided a urbane patina to his delivery of the gospel.  For Example, Paul's familiarity with Greek mythology and philosophy is evident in his speech to the Athenians in the Agora ( Acts 17: 16-34).

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES - THE GOSPEL OF PAUL

Paul's journey into Christianity is strictly about his relationship to the resurrected Christ he encountered on the road to Damascus. Paul's vision-like encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus is crucial to understanding Paul. The only thing Paul sees in this encounter is a bright light, but the voice he hears is identified as being Jesus.  The experience left Paul physically blind, and spiritually confused. It was for Paul  a religion-shattering moment.

The Acts of the Apostles traces the history of the early church from the point of Jesus' ascension into heaven through Paul's supposed final journey to Rome.  The first six chapters of Acts do not mention Paul, but rather spends time talking about Peter and setting the stage for Paul's arrival at the end of Chapter 7, the account of Stephen's martyrdom, has Paul holding the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen to death.

Acts attempts to fill in the blanks to what Paul alludes to in his Epistles.  Undoubtedly the Acts of the Apostles was written after the time of both Peter and Paul and would place it somewhere in the vicinity of last two decades of the first century CE, if not slightly later.  From chapter seven to the end of Acts, chapter twenty-eight, Acts follows the travails, travels and trials of Paul  The Acts of the Apostles clearly places Paul, not Peter or even Jesus, as the major architect of the Christian Church. 

PAUL AND CHRIST

Paul's relationship to the historical Jesus; the Jesus who lived in Galilee, told parables, healed the sick, preached in the synagogues and on the mountain tops is non-existent.  He knows Jesus only after the fact of his life on Earth.  As such, Paul makes mention of only one direct quote that was attributed to Jesus before his crucifixion and that is in relation to the Last Supper, what is commonly referred to as the word of institution (1Cor. 11:24-25).  The only other quote Paul makes is asking Christ to remove his thorn in the flesh to which Christ tells him in some manner, "My grace is sufficient..." (2Cor. 12:9). That's all Paul ever presents as a direct teaching he received from Jesus mentioned in his epistles. 

Everything Paul talks about in his epistles refers strictly to Jesus as the Christ.  Paul never mentions Jesus's birth, his relationship with his disciples, Jesus' mother, any of Jesus' parables, his Sermon on the Mount, his miracles.  There is no way of knowing what Paul actually knew about the earthly ministry of Jesus.   As far as Paul is concerned (based on his epistles) the only activities of Jesus' human life on this planet, relevant to Paul's ministry, started on Maundy Thursday and ended on Good Friday.  Easter begins a whole new chapter when Jesus becomes, in Paul's lexicon, the risen Christ.

PAUL'S ADOPTION MATRIX

One of the curious terms used by Paul, particularly in his epistle to the Romans, is the word adoption. It is used three times in this epistle:  Roman 8:15, 8:23, and 9:4.  He also uses it in Galatians 4:5. Why adoption and not a straight out claim that everyone, by virtue of one's birth, is a child of God as intimated in Genesis 1 is, in my opinion, one of the perplexing questions that Paul's epistles raise.

Paul's use of adoption appears to be a theological attempt at bridging a religious gap that was the result of Judaism's indelible link to the Jewish people and the fact that Christianity, in its nascent years, was very much linked to Judaism as an emerging Judaic sect, not the separate religion it is today.

Paul's world was largely polytheistic, and in an empire that was cosmopolitan; where people could largely practice whatever religion they chose as long as they gave their due to the imperial religious cult, ethnic religions were viewed with suspicion by the Romans.  Rome tolerated Judaism in order to keep the peace.  Palestine, as a province within the empire, was allowed to practice its religion, Judaism, without interference and by extension Rome offered limited protection to Jewish communities that existed throughout the empire.  Rome did not particularly like Judaism which viewed its accommodation of it as a practical annoyance, and in less than a decade of Paul's death, Rome would actively attempt to eliminate it.

This was the tense environment in which Paul is writing.  This environment undoubtedly shaped Paul's theological perspective. Paul's initial mission was to bring the gospel of Jesus to ethnic Jews who were not familiar with this new brand of Judaism.  The object was to garner adherents and financial support for the church in Jerusalem.  Given the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the empire, many Jewish synagogues had a gentile following, some were proselytes, some remained gentile followers.  As a result, Paul's message appears to have resonated with this gentile audience more than with the ethnic Jewish community.

Given the tenuous situation these Jewish communities were in undoubtedly led the leaders of the synagogues to avoid as much conflict and attention of the Roman authorities as they possibly could. They tried to avoid at all costs anything that would draw negative attention to them or that would undermine the continuity of  these communities.   Paul's new version of Judaism was not well received by these leaders.  After being thrown out of the synagogue in more than one city and on more than one occasion, Paul carried his message to the streets which caught the attention of other gentiles and the gentile church began to grow. This created tension between the leaders of the church in Jerusalem and Paul.

[Side Note:  The tension in the Book of Acts is attributed to the Pharisees who were members of the Church in Jerusalem.  It should be noted that during Jesus' time the Pharisees were intrigued by, if  not, friendly towards Jesus. That they get a bad reputation in the gospels may have more to do with the contentious relationship they had with Paul within the Church  at Jerusalem which was later written back into gospel narratives.  It was Sadducees who sought to kill Jesus, not the Pharisees. In fact, Luke 13:31 says the Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod was out to kill him.]

What Paul experienced in his ministry was surprise at the capacity for faith of those outside the Jewish community.  As such, faith becomes the cornerstone for Paul's paradigmatic shift in theology, but this is not easy path for Paul to take.  As a Pharisee, Paul is well aware of the legal obstacles that stood in the way of a straightforward path to inclusion of gentiles into this new Judaic sect called, "The Way."  While he works for the inclusion of gentiles into the church, he struggles within himself on how to address the turmoil it creates. 

It seems reasonable that what comes to bear on Paul's thought process is not his Judaic upbringing but rather his Hellenized one. Paul is simply trying to present his case in the form of Socratic argument: "If this then that..."  and so on.   In order to do so, however, Paul had to base his premise on something that would enable him to make logical argument that would support the inclusion of gentiles into the church without having to become Jewish.

THE RESURRECTION RESET

To accomplish this Paul establishes a new paradigm based on the concept that Christ's resurrection is a new creation, a reset of God's original creation.  Jesus becomes the Christ of God, the new Adam of God's new creative order.  Jesus, as the Christ of God becomes the heavenly (spiritual) first born Son of God by virtue of being raised by God from the dead as the first fruit of a new spiritual creation. [1Cor. 15:45, 2 Cor. 5:15, and Gal. 6:15]


Of course this leads to a host of questions. What does this mean for the Chosen People, the Jews?What does this mean for the rest of humanity?  Paul begins walking a fine theological line.  In making Jesus the first-born, the spiritually-natural born Son of God by virtue, not of his physical birth by Mary, but by his divine birth of being resurrected to new life by God the Father, Paul levels the playing field.  There is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free man [Gal 3:28]. Ethnicity and any other identifying mark that differentiates us on earth (on this side of life) is removed, means nothing.

As a Jew, Paul saw himself as child of Abraham and as a Christian Paul saw himself more than that; he saw himself as a child of God through "adoption."  Paul reads this formula back into who he identifies as a true child of Abraham - one who has faith in Christ Jesus as one's Lord and savior. The argument becomes rather convoluted in his Epistle to the Romans. Paul speaks specifically about the patriarch of the Judaism, Abraham's, faith and connecting Abraham's faith to faith in Christ as synonymous types. In fact, Paul reads Christ into almost every important event in the history of the Hebrew people. 

At the reset point of Jesus' resurrection, Paul says the best we can get to on this side of life is adoption.  We can be adopted as children of God, made heirs with Christ by faith in the resurrected Christ Jesus.  We have to wait, however, for our own spiritual rebirth at the time of final resurrection. This becomes Paul's answer to the issue of whether a male individual needs to become a Jew; that is, circumcised before being identified as a Christian because such identities mean nothing in the light of Jesus' resurrection and God's new creative order.

Paul's point is that the only thing necessary for salvation is to have a faith like Abraham's, a faith embedded in Christ Jesus.  In trying to bridge the ethnic gap of who is considered a Christian and who is not, as with all attempts to differentiate who is and who isn't saved, Paul, in my opinion, fails to make the definitive leap of faith of full inclusion of the human species as beneficiaries of God's grace. 

Paul's use of adoption implies that everyone is at the reset point on this side of life and, as yet, is not a natural/spiritual born child of God. This theological point will continue to shape Christianity's theological perspective throughout the millennia to the present. It will figure prominently in Augustine's doctrine of original sin.  The logical result of Paul's adoptive matrix says if you're not a child of God than you must be a child of someone else - a godless child of the world, a child of the flesh.  The term "flesh" is oft repeated in Paul's letter to the Romans as a pejorative. Adoption on this side of life becomes the assurance of becoming a full heir with Christ at the final resurrection.

Another logical consequence is that the adopted do not choose the adoptive parent, the parent chooses the child. Paul falls extremely short of saying that everyone is adopted.  In fact, he falls short of saying that adoption is open for everyone.  Instead, Paul works from the perspective that not everyone is going to be saved; that some will be lost, including, those who claim to be children of Abraham.  As such Paul introduces the Church to the concept of predestination [Roman 8:29 & 30 which is further developed in a work some attribute to Paul, Ephesians 1:5 & 1:11]. It is important to remember that although Paul worked for inclusion, he lived in a world of dualism and his thought process was dualistic.

Paul also takes issue with Judaic law and spends a great deal of time discussing this.  While he cannot find it within himself to outright deny its relevance he tries to mitigate its redemptive effectiveness. Paul argues that the law is effective on this side of life, but it cannot lead one to become a child of God; that only faith in Christ Jesus can accomplish that as an act of God's grace through no personal merit any person's part - It's not something we choose. 

A CATAPULTING EVENT

Near the end of Acts, we read that a compromise is reached with the leaders of church in Jerusalem and James, the younger brother of Jesus.  The Church in Jerusalem will accept uncircumcised male gentiles into the fold on the condition that they keep from things offered to idols, and from ingesting blood and meat that was strangled, along from refraining from fornication (Acts 21:25).

As part of the compromise it is evident that Paul must take a penitential, atoning stance, having to shave his head, and purify himself and commit to being "orderly and keeping the law."  (Acts 21:24).  Ironically, as Paul is making a show of penitence for his endeavors in Jerusalem he is arrested, tried before the Sanhedrin, claims his Roman citizenship and is packed off to Rome to be tried by Caesar.  We never know for sure how things turn out for Paul. 

What catapults Paul's letters to the authoritative level they now have is not that his views were accepted by the church in Jerusalem, because they clearly were not, but rather the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, which not only saw the destruction of the Temple but also the church in Jerusalem.  This event would also foster the split between Judaism and Christianity.  Paul's reasoning did not win the debate with Pharisees within the church at Jerusalem and it is the Pharisees who survived the events of 70 CE and kept Judaism alive.  Since there was a clear division between Christianity and Judaism, the Pharisees end up being unjustly vilified, for the most part, in the Christian gospels.

Had the events of 70 CE not occurred, one can only wonder if Paul's epistles would have remained as influential as they became.  Paul's theological perspective was shaped both by his experience of the risen Christ and his experience with the conversion of gentiles to Christianity. Paul defines Jesus' resurrection as a reset point in story of human salvation - "If Christ be not risen, then is your preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." [I Cor. 15:14] 

What evolves from Paul's personal struggle over inclusion and his adoptive theology will be the subject of future posts.

Until then, stay faithful.