Popular Eschatology and the Parousia of Jesus Christ

This is my final essay assignment from my New Testament as Literature Class last semester. My intention was to post all the things I wrote for that class on this blog just for a change of pace, as much of what I write here tends to be on the same kinds of subjects. I’m only posting it now because I forgot to do it back in December.

This post may prove to be a bit controversial and perhaps even offensive for some people. I don’t apologize for that. The scripture says what it says, and I can’t make it say otherwise. Let me be clear, though, that these ideas are not my own; I’m not nearly smart enough to figure this stuff out, and I’m not engaging in false modesty here, either. I tried to cite sources as much as possible (this was for a formal English class after all), but I’ve been studying this stuff for so long that I can’t ever remember where I got what idea and whose it was originally. Suffices it to say, probably as much as none of this is original to me.

One last thing to all of you English-type sticklers: I am aware that my works cited references and all of that are a MESS. That part of the paper was only worth like 5% of the grade, so um… I didn’t really care. 🙂

A Critical Investigation into the Parousia As Imparted By the Words of Christ and the Writings of Paul

One would generally think of Bertrand Russell and CS Lewis as strange intellectual bedfellows: the former a staunch unapologetic atheist and opponent of all brands of religiosity, the latter a champion of Christian apologetics. In his famous lecture (and later essay) Why I Am Not a Christian, Russell states as part of his argument against Jesus’ wisdom that Jesus “certainly thought that His second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that.” Russell goes on to cite Matthew 24:34 (NRSV): “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” Russell is not alone in this criticism of Jesus, and indeed in The World’s Last Night C.S. Lewis agrees that Matthew 24:34 “is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.” He continues: “The facts, then, are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so.” It is evident, then, that both of these men- although in disagreement regarding the truth claims of Christianity itself- agreed on their understanding of Jesus’ eschatological views, and recognized that Jesus turned out to be mistaken about his coming. Lewis finds this to be embarrassing while Russell finds it to be vindicating. The student of NT literature ought to find this point to be extremely interesting, and the question arises: what do the gospels and the epistles (specifically those written by Paul) have to say about the parousia, and what resemblance do these ideas have to the common understanding of eschatology today? When we investigate the text, we find that Lewis and Russell are in fact correct about Jesus’ concept of the end of the age, the resurrection and the parousia; not only that, but we find that Paul and the other disciples were in agreement with Jesus. However, when rightly understood, it is not clear that this prediction by Jesus is one which the Christian (such as Lewis) should find embarrassing or the opponent of Christianity (such as Russell) should find vindicating, and in fact the opposite seems to be the case.

The Greek word parousia in the NT nearly always refers to a Messianic Advent in glory to judge the world, and is most often translated “coming” (Bauer Lexicon). Jesus refers to his coming numerous times in the gospels, but we find the most detailed information in the Olivet Discourse- which Raymond Brown calls the Eschatological Sermon (198)- of Matt. 24:1- 25:46. The parallel sequences in the other gospels do not differ greatly except that Matthew is a great deal more loquacious and includes some parables not found elsewhere, and so we will focus on Matthew primarily.

The context of the Olivet Discourse is important to consider, as it has great bearing on the meaning of the words of Jesus. In chapter twenty one, Jesus enters Jerusalem amid cries of “Hosanna!” from the people, who are expecting a Messianic leader to come and set up a glorious kingdom, and drive out the Roman oppressors. Jesus then enters the Temple and overturns the money tables; but instead of continuing on to claim lordship over the nation, as even his disciples probably expected him to do, he leaves the city and spends the night in Bethany. Returning the next morning, in an odd and perhaps moody bout of irritation, Jesus curses a fig tree which has leaves but no fruit to feed him and the meaning of this malediction becomes quite clear directly. Jesus enters the temple again and has the penultimate encounter (before his arrest) with the priests and elders, scribes, Sadducees and Pharisees; they ask him about his authority, he tells them three parables, and they ask three more questions. The questions they ask him are about legalistic and theological minutiae: paying taxes, the resurrection, and the greatest commandment. Jesus’ parables- The Two Sons, The Wicked Tenants, and The Wedding Banquet- are all about those who purport to serve God and look good on the outside, but do not produce fruit and are ultimately judged harshly. Thus the meaning of the cursed fig tree: a tree must bear fruit or it is worthless. The stark contrast Matthew draws here is between the religious leaders who look good on the outside, while Jesus demands goodness on the inside. The sequence accelerates toward its conclusion with seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees, during which Jesus calls them hypocrites, blind guides, whitewashed tombs, snakes, a brood of vipers, and finally in a surprising moment of clear prophetic vision, Jesus announces that (23:35-36) “upon you may come all the righteous bloodshed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.” The scene climaxes in a lament over Jerusalem, and Jesus observes that her house is now left desolate.

The language and meaning here is very clear. Jesus is announcing that he is done with these “blind fools”, and tells them “fill up the measure of your ancestors” (23:32). The statement “fill up” is consistent with the numerology of the passage, as seven is used throughout the OT scriptures as a number signifying completeness, and indeed Matthew is therefore asserting that the sins of the religious leadership are soon completed. What, then, will be the consequences of this filling up of transgression? We do not have to wait long to find out, because Jesus continues with barely a pause into the Olivet Discourse. The observant reader must keep in mind that the context of this discourse flows directly out of the seven woes of chapter twenty three, and the announcement that Jerusalem, like the fig tree, is henceforth “desolate” (23:38).

The disciples- ever the rubes- make an off-handed remark to Jesus about the greatness of the Temple; instead of agreeing Jesus surprises them by predicting the Temple will be destroyed, with all the stones being thrown down. In order to appreciate the preposterousness of such a statement, one might compare it to a modern day prophet asserting that the Hoover Dam or the US Capitol will be destroyed- for the Temple was not only a symbolic center of Jewish culture and power such as the Capitol, but the sheer immenseness of the Temple itself, along with the walls of Jerusalem and the temple complex protecting it, would have seemed to preclude any possibility of such a travesty ever occurring, much like one may have difficulty imagining the gargantuan Hoover Dam being destroyed in anything other than a great modern cataclysm. But it is just this type of momentous event that Jesus is talking about. The disciples are so astonished, they inquire with a tone of dismay “When will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” James Stuart Russell’s 1878 book The Parousia contains a very honest and critical treatment of this Discourse, and the NT academician is urged to weigh James Stuart Russell’s observations without fear of compromised scholarship. JS Russell observes that the disciples’ interrogatory contains no hint of stipulation between the events of the destruction of the temple, the parousia, and the “end of the age”. On the contrary, the events are assumed to be one and the same by the disciples; and why wouldn’t they have assumed this? Jesus has just decreed a scant few minutes prior that all this will come upon this generation (23:36). Not only this, but on numerous occasions prior to even the Triumphal Entry of chapter twenty one, both John the Baptist and Jesus had somewhat vaguely, but undeniably, alluded to the idea that the parousia– the great judgment- would happen to the current generation, and the disciples would be around to see it (3:2, 10:23, 11:16,20-24, 12:38-45). The statement in 10:23 necessitates quotation: “…truly I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” Until the Son of Man comes (the word come is here the Greek word for the Advent, parousia) from where? We only know of one parousia, the same one Jesus begins talking about in detail after the disciples inquire about his prediction of the temple’s destruction. As demonstrated by their question, the disciples believed this coming to be connected to both the Temple demolition and the “end of the age”, and they fully expected to see this coming within their own lifetimes. This idea is contrary to the commonly held view today. Most Christians consider the parousia to be an event that is yet in the future. Although the disciples’ question clearly demonstrates they believed the parousia would happen in their lifetimes, this does not mean (as Betrand Russell and C.S. Lewis thought) that Jesus agreed with this notion. Did Jesus believe this to be the case himself?

Indeed, if we recall the vindication of Bertrand Russell and the embarrassment of C.S. Lewis, we will be forced to answer in the affirmative. Jesus answers the disciples’ question at length; he discusses false Messiahs, wars and rumors of wars, persecution, and the preaching of the good news to the whole world (24:14). Continuing, he talks about the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel in the OT, after which there will be much suffering, and immediately after this suffering the sign of the Son of Man will appear, and “all of the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the cloud of heaven’ with power and great glory” (24:30). Brown’s comments regarding the Eschatological Sermon are somewhat at odds with James Stuart Russell. According to Brown, the overarching message here is the need for an attitude of faithful watchfulness, and readying oneself for the coming judgment (199). Specifically, Brown believes interpretation of the passage to be quite problematic due to its use of apocalyptic language and mixing of the present time with the future, and asserts that the disciples are asking two separate questions of Jesus (198). However, he does not address the fact that Jesus once again asserts, identically to his assertion in 23:36, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (24:34). Perhaps for him- like C.S. Lewis and Bertrand Russell- this particular verse would have constituted an all too obvious point of contention for Jesus’ veracity that Brown did not wish to confront. This is understandable, since even Brown, like most other Christian scholars, theologians, laypersons, and readers of the English translations have a preconceived idea of what, exactly, the “end of the age” (24:3) entails. Directly after his pronouncement about the imminence of these events to the current generation, Jesus himself says that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (24:35). If Heaven and earth are to pass away at the end of the age, and this (empirically) did not happened within that current generation as Jesus clearly proclaimed on several occasions, then as Bertrand Russell and Lewis correctly point out, mainstream Christian eschatology has a real problem.

Though he ignores the “this generation” pronouncement of verse thirty four, Brown is correct about the apocalyptic genre of this portion (and other portions) of Matthew; yet it is probably incorrect to say that this renders the pericope so problematic as to be indecipherable in its meaning. James Stuart Russell says: “Happily there is no lack of parallel descriptions in the ancient prophets, and there is scarcely a figure… of which we may not find examples in the Old Testament, and thus be furnished with a key to the meaning of like symbols in the New.” It is well that Matthew’s close ties to Jewish heritage and culture are well documented, and so we can look into the Jewish scriptures, or the Tanach, for insight into what Matthew meant when using such phrases as “heaven and earth will pass away” and “the end of the age”. Heaven and earth is dealt with most easily. The OT prophets frequently referred to the cataclysmic destruction of what sounds like the entire material universe to the western ear; for instance, the prophetic utterance of Zephaniah 1:2-3 sounds like a prediction of the complete destruction of the cosmos, where God “will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” but it is clear from even the next verse that this prophesy is actually a dictum against the Kingdom of Judah. According to the HarperCollins Study Bible, even Jesus’ words in Matt 24:29- “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken” is an echo of several OT prophesies against nations such as Assyria and Babylon. In light of the context, it does not to do the slightest violence to the words of the text to say that Jesus is not referring to the dissolution of the entire creation with “heaven and earth will pass away”, but instead to the dissolving of the Jewish system of governance and religious observance through the Temple worship system. We will recall that this has been Matthew’s central theme since the cursing of the fig tree in chapter twenty one. Jerusalem has had seven woes pronounced upon it, and its cup is full to overflowing in transgression. It is obvious, then, what the disciples and Jesus have in mind when talking about the “end of the age.” They had no concept of an entire world engulfed in flame and essentially becoming uncreated and then recreated, yet they did have a concept of the coming Kingdom of Heaven, an imminent coming which would signal the end of the current epoch of time, or Jewish age, and bring about a whole new age. Or, as James Stuart Russell deduced, “The ‘coming age’ was… to succeed the existing age or aeon… the end of which our Lord declared to be at hand. We conclude, therefore, that the ‘regeneration,’ the ‘coming age,’ and the ‘Parousia,’ are virtually synonymous, or, at all events, contemporaneous.” There is not time or space enough in this treatment to properly explain every detail surrounding the parousia as it discussed in the gospels in terms of the framework just outlined. However, there is perhaps enough to at least begin to suspect that C.S. Lewis (and Bertrand Russell) was not quite right after all, and instead had he had a proper understanding of Jesus’ eschatology, there may have been much less room for embarrassment. Indeed, if we take the timing of Jesus’ parousia predictions of Matthew seriously, there is much about which the Christian can rejoice, since the “end of the age” did indeed occur on time and as Jesus predicted it would in the year A.D. 70 with the destruction of the Jewish Temple and the “end of the age” (the Jewish Age).

We have investigated the gospel of Matthew, but what of Paul? In comparison to Jesus’ or John’s (or in some aspects even Peter’s) well-developed eschatology, Paul’s is severely lacking in detail, but there is by no means so little as to make a detailed discussion impossible. According to Howard Marshall, when it comes to I Thessalonians “The major distinguishing feature… is the extent of the teaching about the Parousia… The occasion for the extended teaching is the need to correct misunderstandings on the part of the readers,” and so it is evident that even as early as his visit to Thessalonica, the parousia constituted a prominent place in Paul’s teaching (179). W.E. Bell notes that “when one turns to Paul’s first eschatological writings… he finds that Paul describes the second coming in almost precisely the same way that Jesus did in the Olivet Discourse, using terminology and sequences so strikingly similar to those of Christ that one could hardly imagine a closer parallel apart from direct quotation.” Just like Jesus, Paul speaks of Christ’s return, from heaven, with a shout, with angels, the trumpet of God, a gathering of believers, in clouds, at an unknown time, as a thief, with unbelievers not aware of impending judgment, which come as birth pangs to an expectant mother; believers are told to watch, and are warned against drunkenness (see Table) (Bell). Clearly, Paul and Jesus are in agreement to a great extent regarding the details of the parousia.

Table 1 – Details of the Parousia compared

1. Christ Himself Returns	Matt. 24:30	I Thess. 4:16
2. From Heaven	Matt. 24:30	I Thess. 4:16
3. With a Shout	Matt. 24:30	I Thess. 4:16
4. Accompanied by Angels	Matt. 24:31	I Thess. 4:16
5. With Trumpet of God	Matt. 24:31	I Thess. 4:16
6. Believers Gathered	Matt. 24:31	I Thess. 4:17
7. In Clouds	Matt. 24:30	I Thess. 4:17
8. Time Unknown	Matt. 24:36	I Thess. 5:1-2
9. Will Come as a Thief	Matt. 24:43	I Thess. 5:2,4
10. Unbelievers Unaware	Matt. 24:37-39	I Thess. 5:3
11. As Expectant Mother	Matt. 24:8	I Thess. 5:3
12. Believers to Watch	Matt. 24:42	I Thess. 5:4
13. Warning Against Drunkenness	Matt. 24:49	I Thess. 5:7

Paul’s correction of the Thessalonican Church makes it clear that the resurrection of the dead will be cotemporaneous with “the coming of the Lord” (4:13-16). Paul continues “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever” (4:17). The common interpretation of this idea is that immediately after the resurrection of the dead is a “rapture” of believers; the Greek word here, harpazo, contains the idea of a snatching away by force (Strong). Paul asserts in verse fifteen that this teaching comes “by the word of Lord,” and we are left to wonder what part of the Jesus tradition Paul would here be citing. It may be that Paul has knowledge of a teaching of Jesus that is not found in the body of literature we have available to us. However, this snatching away does remind one of Jesus’ words in the Olivet Discourse “as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming (parousia) of the Son of Man… two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left… be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” (Matt 24:37,40,44). It is interesting to note that for Jesus, this snatching away is like the sweeping away of the wicked at the Noahic flood, leading to the conclusion that one might prefer to be the one left, and not the one taken; if correct, this is consistent with Jesus’ view of the parousia as the coming judgment and ceasing of the Temple worship system. It would be odd, though, for Paul to cite this part of Jesus’ teaching and then to teach the polar opposite, i.e. that the ones being snatched up are the fortunate. It is possible, however, to reconcile the two treatments of the subject- that of Jesus and of Paul. The key is to understand that Paul’s snatching away does not, in fact, occur immediately after the rising of dead at the parousia, whereas Jesus’ “one.. taken.. one.. left” happens immediately. The word here rendered in English “then”: “…the dead in Christ will rise first. Then, we who are alive… will be caught up” (4:16,17), is the Greek word epeita. The English translation sounds as if Paul is positing an immediate catching up of “we who are alive and remain”; however, the Greek word which entails immediacy, i.e. “right then” in English, is not the word used. The word eita denotes immediacy. When a simple sequence of immediate events is described in the NT, the word eita is always used (e.g. John 19:27). Indeed, epeita– “after that” in English- throughout the NT refers to periods of time ranging from a few days (Gal 1:21) to as much as fourteen years! (Gal 2:1). Since Paul used the word epeita here, it is not unreasonable to posit the idea that he understood the catching up (harpazo) to be something that definitely did not occur immediately after the parousia. Instead, the harpazo would happen an unknown period of time after the resurrection. A detailed recounting of Paul’s concept of the resurrection is not within the scope of this investigation, but suffices it to say there is good reason to think that Paul had no concept of the modern day rapture followed by the conflagration of the entire world. He was not teaching the modern conception of rapture eschatology. Instead he was teaching a snatching up into heaven of all disembodied, believing souls who would live to see the “end of the age”, and die in the age to come, i.e. the age following the end of the Jewish age as taught by Jesus. What, then, is the harpazo? According to Paul, it is simply the “rapture” of a dead believer into heaven after his or her death. This rapture would happen “sometime after” (epeita) the resurrection of the dead (who prior to this were simply “asleep”, I Thess 4:13), the length of time after the resurrection of the dead depending on nothing more than how long an individual happened to continue living following the parousia.

The preponderance time statements surrounding the parousia throughout Paul’s epistles is weighty evidence in and of itself that Paul, like Jesus, expected the end of the age to occur in the soon (to him) thereafter. Speaking to his first-century audience, he uses statements such as “the Lord is at hand” (Phil 4:5), “the night is nearly over, the day is almost here” (Rom 13:12), “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom 16:20), “eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 1:7), “the time is short” (I Cor. 7:29), “the form of this world is passing away” (I Cor. 7:31), “all these things… were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (I Cor. 10:11), “may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thess. 5:23). If the student of NT literature keeps in mind the principle of audience relevance when reading Paul’s letters- that is, that Paul had a first-century audience to whom he wrote, and that these letters are not addressed to you and I directly- it becomes clear that Paul is guilty of the same embarrassing “mistake”, according to CS Lewis, as Jesus and his disciples. Paul believed that the parousia would occur in his own lifetime.

The matter of whether Jesus and Paul were correct in every detail regarding their expectations of the end of the age is largely not within the purview of NT criticism; one who wishes to preserve the veracity of the teachings of the NT begins to move in the realm of devotionally motivated investigation, and that is outside the scope of this paper. However it is clear that the majority view within certain circles- a paradigm which entails concepts such as the end of the world and the rapture of large swaths of humanity- is not rooted in the words of Matthew’s gospel or Paul’s epistles. In fact, the words of Christ and of Paul themselves seem to teach a different eschatology, one that expected the soon (to them) fulfillment of prophecy, the end of the age in the disciples’ lifetime, and the contemporaneous resurrection of the dead. Since Jesus, Paul, apologists such as Lewis, and critics such as Bertrand Russell all seem to be in agreement regarding the true pedagogy of NT eschatology, it seems appropriate and worthwhile that the observations espoused within this investigation, as well as their implications, ought not to be ignored or dismissed as simply misguided (as they typically have been) within the church itself. Devotional and critical scholars of the NT alike stand to gain much from a clear and accurate understanding of NT utterance surrounding the subject of eschatology. In particular, the devotionally motivated scholar would do well to understand the importance of addressing these considerations head on, and not with roundabout, largely unsatisfactory explanations that do violence to the very words of the person they profess to follow in order to avoid being forced to reevaluate popular eschatology.

Works Cited

Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Ed. Frederick W. Danker. New York: University of Chicago P, 2001.

Bell Jr., William E. A Critical Evaluation Of The Pretribulation Rapture Doctrine In Christian Eschatology. New York: New York University School of Education, 1967.

Brown, Raymond E. Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Bantam Dell Group, 1997.

Curtis, David B., Selected Sermons.

Lewis, C. S. The World’s Last Night : And Other Essays. New York: Harvest Books, 1973.

Marshall, Howard. Paul and Paulinism Essays in Honour of C.K. Barrett. Ed. M. D. Hooker and S. G. Wilson. New York: Society for Promoting Christian, 1982. 173+.

Meeks, Wayne A. HarperCollins Study Bible. New York: Harper San Francisco, 1997.

Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian : And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. New York: Simon & Schuster, Incorporated, 1986.

Russell, J. Stuart. The Parousia : The New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming. New York: Baker Group, 1999 (originally published 1878).

Strong, James, John R. Kohlenberger, and James A. Swanson. The Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible : 21st Century Edition. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001

Seven Pounds: an assault on the foundation of Judeo-Christian ethic

Last night I was fortunate enough to attend a sneak preview of the new Will Smith film Seven Pounds (trailers).  Going into it, I was intrigued by what I had seen thus far. The ad campaign has been pretty effective, engendering a palpable curiosity in the viewer: “What the heck is this movie about?”

Part of that curiosity is directly a result of Will Smith’s impressive turn as a mysterious figure engaged in some sort of enterprise involving several strangers; whether this enterprise is nefarious or benevolent in nature remains largely a mystery even until the end of the film’s first act.

It’s hard to address my reaction to the film without discussing specifics as I will do below; however for those of you who don’t like to know the details of a film, I’ll do a quick spoiler-free recounting.  This movie is, to put it bluntly, morally repugnant. It is a sneak attack on the very foundations that lead to the ascendency of western society, and sadly many people are going to fall for it. If you are a church attender, you will most likely hear Smith’s character’s actions compared to the sacrificial actions of Jesus Christ. Don’t buy into it. Go into this movie with the knowledge that it puts a very attractive face on an insidious worldview. This deceptive message, prevalent in our culture, elevates individually perceived reality as dictated by emotion coupled with (an admittedly admirable) concern for life above any transcendant principles of ethical behavior.

The central question of the film: is Will Smith’s character a hero, or a fool? To answer that, I will delve into spoilers. Don’t read further if you don’t like them.

The movie is basically as follows. Will Smith’s remorse following his negiligence in an auto accident (in which 7 people including his wife die) leads him to decide that he is going to kill himself and donate all his organs, money, house, etc to 7 people to ostensibly make up for his mistake. Also important to note is that he is in a lot of emotional pain because of what happened, and this is made clear by Smith’s look-at-me-I-am-in-pain face (of which I grew somewhat tired of within the first 30 minutes). However he doesn’t want to help just anyone, but wants to choose those “who deserve it- good people.” Although he does just want to end it all, his desire is depicted as a noble one because he wants his death to mean something. In the process of picking the person who he wants to receive his heart (he is a very rare  blood type), he ends up falling in love with a dying girl. Faced with the choice between living a short time with his new love (who is doomed to die) or allowing her to live on by sacrificing himself, he chooses the latter, and in the process also donates his corneas to a blind Woody Harrilson (who by the way probably delivered the best performance in the film), his beach house to a battered Hispanic woman and her children, bone marrow to a child, kidney(s?) to a token old white guy, pieces of his lung to his brother… the list probably goes on.

I hated it. And here is why. As I said above, the message is not merely morally questionable but a morally repugnant one: disdain for one’s own life is called virtue, and death is called life.  His ultimate selfish act of suicide, we are emotionally manipulated to believe, was a heroic act because of what he did with all his worldly possessions (his body etc). This is bullshit. To understand why suicide is so morally reprehensible in almost every situation (I withhold judgment for people in egregious physical pain that can’t be alleviated- I don’t know what I’d do in that eventuality), I defer to GK Chesterton in the chapter “The Flag of the World” of the book Orthodoxy:

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer’s suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man’s crime is different from other crimes — for it makes even crimes impossible.

Smith’s act is not heroic, it is cowardice. He is not unusually noble; he is atypically selfish. His pain-face makes something very clear: the real reason he is killing himself is because he doesn’t want to live.  All of the other things he does in addition to taking his own life? Semantics. Rationalization. What about all the pain his suicide inflicts upon the rest of his family, and on the woman who he supposedly loves? What about all the other good he could have accomplished over the course of a long life? What about the fact that life is itself a gift given by God that is not ours to throw away? No, ultimately Smith is elevating his perception of reality through his emotional pain above any claims the world (his family, God, society) has on him, and as Chesterton makes clear, this is in a very real sense, a purely evil act.

Now you will hear Smith’s character compared to Jesus- I guarantee it. But
this is a lie. He was not a martyr, he is a suicide. Jesus was not a suicide, and the idea that he was a suicide is an ancient, thoroughly refuted heresy. As Chesterton goes on to note in his book, the line between suicide and martyrdom is one of the most important distinctions to make in Judeo-Christian ethic, and in fact in many ways it is THE defining difference between the moral codes of Christendom and all other moral frameworks, i.e., fraudulent moral systems. This movie is trying to blur those lines. I’m not falling for it, and neither should you.

A discussion of the Christological hymn of Philippians 2

Continuing my habit of posting whatever I have to write for my New Testament as literature class.

The prompt:

One of the most important features of Paul’s letter to the Philippians is the christological hymn, located in Philippians 2:5-11. Raymond Brown dedicates a sizable section of his chapter on this hymn, underscoring its genre, features, and importance in early Christianity.

One of the logical conclusions to make about the hymn is that it acts as a major blow to the argument that Paul is literally the first Christian, or that he invented christology wholesale out of thin air.  In your conversation paper, consider Paul’s letter in the context of early Christianity and what we’ve already read of the gospels.

How do we know that this is a hymn? What do we know about its authorship?
What is the significance of this hymn? What doctrines are contained within it?
What does Paul’s inclusion of this hymn possibly tell us about early Christian doctrine?
Is it possible that Paul wrote this hymn? If he did write it, what could that mean?

The response:

The Christological hymn found in Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (2:6-11) plays an important role in placing the high Christological views found therein- i.e. “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name..”- into a historical context that is difficult to establish elsewhere. In considering this matter it would be instructive to investigate the hymn’s possible connections with the account of the establishment of the Philippian church found in Acts, and we will see that much can be learned about the significance of the hymn and the doctrines within.

The Acts narrative indicates that the Philippian Church began with the conversion of Lydia in chapter 16. Sometime after this conversion of her and her family, Paul and Silas are arrested for disruption of the peace because they cast out a demon from a slave girl who “had a spirit of divination”. In the next scene, perhaps one of the most famous of Acts, Paul and Silas are “singing hymns to God” while the other prisoners listen. Suddenly there is an earthquake, their chains fall off, and the jailer is converted along with his entire family.

Although the genre of the Acts narrative as a recounting of history for the purpose of advancing a theological agenda implies it should not be considered historically unassailable, it is clear from the unified attestations of Acts and Philippians that there was a church established by Paul in Philippi, and that the timeline regarding the progression of Paul’s journey is at least accurate to some unknown degree of detail; for example, Paul seems to have gone on to Thessalonica directly after his release from prison (Acts 17:1, Phil 4:15-16). For this reason, it is not wholly ludicrous to give some degree of credence to the details surrounding the Philippian Church’s establishment. There were, then, at least two pieces to the Philippian church: the Lydia group, and the jailer group. We know that Paul and Silas spent a moderate amount of time among Lydia and her family, but the jailer’s wing was established in quite a hurry over the course of an evening; the very next morning, we are told that Paul and Silas are released, after which they drop in to say their farewells to Lydia, and then depart. It is interesting to note that, although the jailer was asleep when the earthquake occurred, Paul and Silas were singing hymns. This is the only mention of an opportunity for the jailer to have heard the word of the gospel, and presumably, they were singing hymns about Christ which they had just taught to the Lydian wing. Could they have been singing the very hymn that we find in Philppians 2:6-11? We cannot know that for certain, but it is clear that hymn singing was at least part of the establishment of the Philippian congregation. It would make no sense for Paul to quote a hymn in his letter that the Philippians would not recognize; we can imagine it to be one with which they are familiar. Since Paul seems to have spent only a moderate amount of time in Philippi, and specifically with the jailer wing, this hymn must have been one of the tools with which Paul taught to them the high Christological truths; after all, at this early date there was little in the way of New Testament scripture (with the possible exception of Mark and a Q gospel). Hymns would have played an important part in establishing good doctrine among the churches.

This has interesting implications for the history of Christological doctrine; assuming the ideas above are reasonably construed, there is therefore good reason to think that the truth-claims found within the hymn are at least as old as the Philippian church. The hymn teaches that Christ was “in very form God”; some translations render the Greek word morphe to mean “nature” instead of “form”. This is important to note, since it has large bearing on the meaning of the hymn: is it saying that Christ was in God’s image in the same way that man was created in God’s image, or is it establishing a high Christology where Jesus is, like God, uncreated? A New Testament critic cannot say for sure without more information about the Greek meaning. However, if it is teaching a high Christology, an even more interesting question becomes whether or not Paul wrote the hymn himself, but unfortunately I cannot see how one can confidently know the answer one way or the other apart from the tenuous practice of stylistic analysis. It is difficult- perhaps impossible- to ascertain authorship of musical verse when we do not even have any other concrete examples to which we can compare it. As much as I’d like to aver that this hymn provides compelling evidence that the ideas of high Christological prominence were not distinctly Pauline inventions, I cannot make a compelling case for either eventuality. However, it is clear that if a good case can be made that Paul did not write the hymn himself, combined with the knowledge that the hymn comes probably earlier than almost anything else we have surrounding the doctrinal development of the first century church, this would then effectively obviate what Raymond Brown refers to as the “crude” ideas of modern critics who assert that Paul- not Jesus (or Peter or anyone else) – is literally the founder of the Christian religion.

Gnosticism and the Gospel of John

As I have said, I am posting anything I happen to write for my New Testament literature class, so here’s another short essay.  I expect this to be the last one on the gospels as we will soon be diving into the Pauline writings.

Enjoy the break from political and economic rants.

The Gospel of John is called the “spiritual gospel”, and a difference is maintained among scholars between it and the synoptic writings. The spiritual nature of the book lends itself to a variety of interpretation, and one of these historical interpretations has been from the standpoint of Gnostic thought and theology. There are many aspects in which John can be seen as a Gnostic book, however at the same time John is very hostile to Gnosticism in some ways as well.

The fundamentals of Gnostic thought rest on the basis that the material world inhabited by humanity is, by definition, a dark place, and the spiritual world is a place of light. Knowledge of this spiritual light through the overcoming of the material world- an idea from which the word Gnosticism derives- becomes the goal of existence. This understanding of the nature of reality can be stipulated from the mainstream of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other monotheistic theologies; whereas in these traditions the material world was at some point “very good”- or at the very least, amoral- a Gnostic understanding of the world avers that the material world is either a product of error or evil in itself, not created directly by the light or “God”. The world was either crafted by the light force non-ex nihilo, i.e. out of materialistic parts that happened to be lying about, or the monadic deity had no involvement in the material creation whatsoever. Instead, the world is a product of a second, lesser deity known as the demiurge.

The opening of the Gospel of John perhaps provides the seminal example of the ability for both a Gnostic and a non- Gnostic (such unfortunate alliteration) interpretation of a segment. The passage discusses an understanding of God as the light, and of Jesus as the Word having its origination from the light, and “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not overcome it.” What clearer picture of spiritualized knowledge- the very basis Gnostic thought- could be painted than to describe Jesus as “the Word”, or logos (in Greek thought, that which links the human mind to the mind of God)? Not only this, but the darkness of the world is separate from the light, and in various translations is capable of neither overcoming nor understanding the light. Indeed, John continues to tell that the mission of the light itself is to “enlighten the world”, and here we find the Gnostic idea of knowledge coming only from an experience with the source of the light. The light was coming specifically to interact with the world and impart knowledge. At the same time however, in this same passage there are explicit contradictions to Gnostic rumination, beginning with the statement that “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being,” and continuing with “the Word became flesh.” This is clearly an assault on one of the tenants of Gnostic theology, and there may be no more effective way to state for the reader, “the material world was not created by a demiurge; the material world has the logos at the impetus of its existence. Even the Word itself did not find material existence so abhorrent as to abstain from coming to live as part of it.” Continuing on, John the Baptist is sent to “testify to the light, so that all men might believe through him.” Indeed, this statement constitutes another shot across the bow of Gnosticism in that knowledge of the light is specifically delineated to be based not on experiential knowledge, but propositional knowledge. The only way to learn about truth, from a Gnostic perspective, is not to be told about it from another party- as John himself is doing, and as his character John the Baptizer is doing- but through experiential, participatory knowledge. Indeed, if John were a character of Gnostic provenance, he would not have said- TWICE- “I myself did not know him” (1:31, 33), and “testified that this is the Son of God”. He would have invited others to come experience the Son of God for themselves.

Continuing on from the introduction, there is no shortage of other places for Gnostics to find fertile ground for their beliefs to take root. Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, in which Jesus instructs him to become born of the spirit as opposed to being born of the flesh, is an example. Jesus likes to say about himself that he is not of this world, but is “from above”, and the “light of the world”- leading the reader to surmise that he is drawing an unfavorable comparison between material and spiritual existence. In addition, the wording of remaining in him, and Jesus prayer that all of his followers be one together (17:22) indicates a very spiritualized understanding of the mechanics of Christian practice. However, there is one glaringly obvious point with which the Gnostic reader of John much struggle; the bodily resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John seemingly throws a wrench into the idea that the goal of religious life ought to be to overcome and eventually leave behind the material, which is by definition a dirty and undesirable state for the light to debase itself. Already mentioned before was the untenable notion (from a Gnostic perspective) that the eternal logos may debase itself to a fleshly existence, yet this might be forgivable if the story culminated in a throwing off of that existence as an example to humanity; but the Gospel concludes with the exact opposite event. The tomb, we are told, is empty; to underscore the fact that Jesus’ resurrected body is fleshly in nature, Thomas is told “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side”, and again we find the evangelist actively engaged in fending off the roots of Gnostic thought.

The criticism of Jesus

This semester I am taking a class called ‘The New Testament as literature’, and part of the requirements of this class involve writing blog posts on assigned topics every other week.

Since I tend to skew to the political end of things when posting on this blog, I thought it might make for some interesting variety to include these posts on the New Testament here.  So without further ado, below are the prompt and my 600 word response:

The Prompt

In his book Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine (a chapter of which we’ll read later in the course), Harold Bloom, a well-known literary critic, writes about the portrayal of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, especially in comparison to the other Gospels. He writes:

“The Marcan Jesus is a master of silences, which we are invited to understand, if we can. This is not the Christ preached by Paul, or the Son of God presented by Matthew and Luke, let alone the cosmic Christ of the Gospel of John. Whoever composed Mark is a genius still too original for us to absorb, though a weird Gospel might seem an oxymoron.”

Mark is indeed a weird Gospel, probably because it confounds many preconceptions we might have about Jesus. The question I want you to write about relates to question number two on pp. 165 of Brown’s Introduction. Brown writes that “a number of scholars interpret [Mark] as an attack upon the apostles to the point that after their failure in the passion they are never redeemed” (165). Without a doubt, Jesus appears to be a mysterious and cagey guy who really rips into people who “don’t get it.” But, as Brown asks, isn’t the apostles’ bumbling just something that’s common to the human condition?

• Where are some places in Mark where Jesus appears to be critical of those who just don’t understand?

• What exactly don’t the apostles (and the readers) understand in Mark’s Gospel?
  Who does understand in the Gospel?

• In what sense does Jesus develop as a literary character in the Gospel of Mark? That is, how do his personal traits shine through?

The Response

The richness of the character of Jesus Christ as presented in the four Gospels of the New Testament challenges the reader to plumb the depths of his own humanity. One of the oft overlooked traits of Christ’s character is his tendency toward criticism of humanity, examples of which may be found in Mark. In chapter 3 Jesus “called to Him those whom He wanted,” and the reader might take this action by Jesus as a confirmation that these twelve men- who indeed become known as The Twelve- are representative sample of the types of individuals Jesus “wants”. It is encouraging to recall, then, that as caustic as Jesus’ words to these men and others may be at times throughout Mark’s narrative, it was He who chose them. However, much like a demanding father or unsatisfied overseer, Jesus is also not satisfied with leaving His followers in the state which He finds them; through His criticism and His example, He makes it clear that humanity is an obstacle to be conquered.

After His bodily resurrection Jesus appears to many, but even after these people come to the disciples to inform them of this miracle, they do not believe it. Coming to them Himself, He “upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed…” What had they not believed? Jesus barks reprobation because He had told them on several occasions prior to the event that he would be killed and rise again after three days. Therefore His censure is not for disbelief of the eyewitnesses per se, but for their disbelief of the words He had spoken to them. This is the core of our humanity which Jesus consistently demands that His followers overcome throughout Mark : a disbelief in Jesus Himself, and His authority. In one instance (chapter 12), Jesus denounces the scribes because of their disbelieving hearts coupled with a concern only for outer appearances. This humanly disbelief, also called pride, blocks the disciples (and by extension the reader) from understanding the depths of Jesus’ teachings, especially in the parables. Jesus seems to be teaching that understanding can only come after belief in Him and His authority are achieved. And he does not make this belief a casual or easy thing for the disciples; one might compare predicting the demolition of Herod’s Temple, for example, with the destruction of the United States Capitol today.

The key take away concept that Jesus desires to pound into the skulls of His followers, the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and perhaps even a reader of His teachings today, perhaps culminates in Jesus’ favorite title for himself in this Gospel: The Son of Man. Jesus even claims that someday, we will “The Son of Man coming on the clouds”, and will judge the living and the dead. It seems that not only is this belief in Jesus’ authority the key blockage to understanding His teaching, it is the central teaching of His ministry. It is because of His authority that we are to love our neighbor, and it is this role as the authoritative Son of Man which Jesus’ character grows into throughout the Gospel of Mark. The disciples and all of the people Jesus spoke to were perhaps at a disadvantage, not having the whole picture of the role of Savior and Redeemer which Christ claimed to fulfill for humanity; however, a reader of Mark today, able to sit and read the sixteen chapters in the comfort of his dorm room, has perhaps a greater responsibility than even the disciples did, as we hear booming in our ears Jesus’ words cutting directly into our core: Why do you not believe?

Ah, that’s the question isn’t it?

Or rather, these are the questions:

People have been wrestling with these same questions for centuries, and I of course don’t claim to have all the answers. There are volumes of books written about them, and I suppose all explanations would be called “rationalizations” by the maker of the video. After watching it, I suddenly realized that I only had a vague idea of what, exactly, a rationalization is. So I did what all “college educated professionals” (yuk yuk yuk) would do. I looked it up:

ra·tion·al·ize

v. ra·tion·al·ized, ra·tion·al·iz·ing, ra·tion·al·iz·es

v.tr.

1. To make rational.

2. To interpret from a rational standpoint.

3. To devise self-satisfying but incorrect reasons for (one’s behavior): “Many shoppers still rationalize luxury purchases as investments” Janice Castro.

Now it is obvious which definition of rationalize is meant by the video (#3), however let me point out something here which has some bearing on the whole affair: a rationalization is in the eye of the beholder. What is rational to one person may be complete nonsense to another, and the only way to determine whether an argument is a rationalization is to base this determination on the things one already knows to be true, or one’s presuppositions. By labeling all arguments contrary to his assertion that “God is imaginary” as absurd, the video creator is involved in circular reasoning of the following variety: essentially he is saying it is absurd to give an answer to the question “Why won’t God heal amputees?” because all such explanations are rationalizations. He is presupposing that God is imaginary before announcing his conclusion- something a “college educated professional” (translation: if you don’t agree with me you’re stupid) ought to know will lead to error. Observe the following syllogism:

1. All arguments based on rationalizations lead to invalid conclusions.
2. Any answer to the question “Why won’t God heal amputees?” other than “God is imaginary” is a rationalization.
3. Therefore, “God is imaginary” is the only valid conclusion.

This is the logical fallacy of Begging the Question, or assuming your conclusion is true (statement 2) before reaching it (statement 3). In addition, statement #1 is not even true on its face: an argument’s validity is dependent on its truth value, not on from where it came.

Now gentle reader, please humor me and have another look at definition #1 for rationalization. Since we have established that the video maker’s reasoning is decidedly IRRATIONAL, shall we proceed with some rationalization (definition 1!)?

I stated before that rationalization is in the eye of the beholder, and based on presuppositions. I am more than willing to admit my relevant presuppositions before I begin an argument. They are:

1. There was a man who lived in 1st century Israel called Yeshua (Jesus) who was unjustly executed by the Roman authorities.
2. There is overwhelming historical evidence that the gospels of the NT ought to be considered as accurate depictions of his life and words.
3. There is overwhelming evidence even independent of these gospels that he rose from the dead.

I’m not going to bother addressing each of the 10 questions raised in the video. I have my answers of course, I mean every “college educated professional” (blah!) must think about these things. I will point out again that the video maker is not being honest. This is not because he has presuppositions, but because he is pretending that his reasoning is completely independent of these presuppositions.

No, instead I would simply like to ask in regard to those presuppositions: what does the maker of the video do with Jesus? How does a man rising from the dead after 3 days in a grave square with the statement “God is imaginary?” If you can answer me that, then I will tell you why God does not heal amputees (even though he did- lepers and so forth, with fingers missing, etc. In front of people. It was written down. By 4 men, all 4 of whom were tortured over and over because they wouldn’t admit they made it all up).

A quick note about the “college educated professional” stuff: I am convinced nowadays, having spent time among the college educated and the non college educated, that a college education by and large actually has a deleterious effect on one’s center of reasoning.