Saving Jesus
. . .
By Ernest Cassara
Professor Emeritus of History
George Mason University
It may seem presumptuous of
me to suggest that we “save Jesus,” when all of our
lives we have heard countless preachers proclaim that “Jesus
saves”–us! I hope to spend our time together
attempting to undo centuries of harm done to the character of Jesus by
theologians and churchmen. In other words, I’d like to deal
with Jesus–and his fate at the hands of the
churches–as would a historian.
When my wife and I agreed to
join other members of Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle
East on a trip to Israel and Palestine, I was inspired to ponder again
what we can know about the historical Jesus from the muddle of
conflicting written sources and church traditions. And, once on the
scene, our group led by a tourist guide, a Roman Catholic who had
imbibed all of the traditions of the church, on several occasions I had
to swallow hard, and bite my tongue, rather than interrupt him with
skeptical questions based on my study of the sources with a
historian’s perspective.
Our knowledge of Jesus is
based on the gospels. In the Greek, in which the New Testament books
were written, “gospel” means “good
news.” Four of the gospels were popular enough with the
churches in the Graeco-Roman world that they made their way into the
collection of Christian writings we refer to as the New Testament, to
distinguish them from the Hebrew scriptures, which Christians refer to
as the Old Testament. There were other gospels, however, only fragments
of which have survived.
With the gospels in the New
Testament, the alert reader has problems, for each author has his own
interpretation of the character and career of Jesus. The Gospel
According to Mark, despite its position as second in the New Testament,
was the first to be written. It pictures Jesus as a wonder worker, who
traveled through the countryside driving out foul, or evil, spirits
from people, curing folks who were blind or crippled. And, his power
was so great that he even had the ability to raise people from the
dead. In the course of his travels, he taught some men and women who
latched onto him, often illustrating his teachings with stories, which
we call parables.
The authors of the Gospels
of Matthew and Luke used Mark as an outline, but they had other
sources, which allowed them to give a fuller idea of what Jesus taught.
If one compares the first three gospels, one discovers that Matthew and
Luke had many teachings Mark was unaware of. The 19th-century
German scholars of
the Higher Criticism of the Bible postulated that Matthew and Luke must
have been drawing on a collection of teachings. They gave this
conjectured document the name “Q,” from the German
word Quelle, which means “spring,” or
“source.” Some of the most familiar teachings came
from “Q,” although Matthew and Luke often used the
teachings in different settings. Just one example: The familiar
“Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew is a
“Sermon on the Plain” in Luke, and they do not
completely agree on the content of the sermon. If one looks at the
Sermon on the Mount closely, one has to conclude that it is a series of
unconnected teachings strung together, inconceivable as a unified
sermon.
In addition, both Matthew
and Luke each had a source of teachings the other did not. For
instance, the beautiful parables of the Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, and
the Lost (or Prodigal) Son, are found only in Luke.
Matthew’s is the
most Jewish of the gospels, the author constantly likening Jesus'
actions to stories or sayings in the Old Testament. In other words,
Jesus was fulfilling prophecies found in the Hebrew scriptures.
Luke, on the other hand, is
less concerned to connect Jesus with the Hebrew scriptures, his view
much more universal, picturing Jesus as motivated by kindness and
concern for the people he met in his travels. In our day, we might
liken him to a social worker!
The fourth of the gospels,
of course, is that attributed to John. This is the most theological of
the gospels. It is estimated that, where the first three gospels were
written several generations after the death of Jesus in A.D. 30, John
was written well into the second century. The author is far removed
from the Jewish land and worldview in which Jesus lived, presenting
him, rather, to a world of gentiles, with their very different
world-view. One has only to read the first few passages of John to see
that he is concerned with Jesus as a god: “In the beginning
was the word, and the word was with God, and word was God.”
When believers read the
gospels, they tend to blend them together in their minds. For instance,
the birth stories at the beginning of Matthew and Luke are completely
different. But, Christians seem not to notice that. They tend to like
Luke’s version better than Matthew’s. Matthew, you
remember, has Joseph and Mary flee with their child into Egypt, because
of the evil designs of King Herod.
Christians prefer the pretty
story of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem, supposedly because a
Roman census required Joseph to register there. Because there was no
room in the town inn, they moved into a stable, and, of course,
pregnant Mary delivered her child there. (In Bethlehem, our guide
showed us the grotto in which the family allegedly resided, and the
very spot where Jesus was born!)
Why Bethlehem? Because that
was the city of King David, and the early Christians wanted to picture
Jesus as a descendent of David. The Magi, in Matthew’s
version, and all of the details of the story, are designed to
foreshadow a great career for the baby. Luke is much more democratic,
having mere shepherds come to the scene of the birth.
Mark, the first of our
gospels, knows nothing about Jesus' birth. He begins his story when
Jesus is a grown man. He knows nothing about Bethlehem and Jesus as a
descendent of King David. Jesus, in his version, is the son of a
carpenter, born and bred in Nazareth. Our guide, by the way, pointed
out to us a grotto in Nazareth in which Joseph plied his trade. (In
rocky Israel and Palestine, we discovered, there are many grottoes!)
When we try to understand
Jesus, we have to realize that he spoke the Aramaic language, whereas
the gospels were written in Greek. You know the saying, that much is
lost in translation. So, translators have a very difficult task. In our
day, some folks refuse to surrender the so-called King James Version,
often called the “Authorized Version,” although no
one ever authorized it. It is true, that King James the First of
England, who came south from Scotland, where he was King James the
Sixth–thus the United Kingdom--tried to calm the disputes
among Christians of the day by agreeing that a group of scholars should
work on a translation. The result was the only classic ever produced by
a committee! The King James Version was published in 1611, and, along
with Shakespeare, its magnificent prose set the standard for the
English language.
As I say, even though some
words have completely changed their meaning between the 17th
century and today, some
refuse to read anything but the King James Version. As the lady said,
“If the King James Version was good enough for the Apostles,
it is good enough for me!” But, if we want to get closer to
the vigorous Greek in which the New Testament was written, we have to
get over this hang-up!
Not only are historians
confronted with the problem that Jesus spoke in one language and the
gospels were written in another, they struggle to find historical
nuggets in books that are not really biographies or histories, but
books of propaganda. That is, propaganda in the classic sense of the
word, seeking to propagate an idea--that is to convert people to
Christianity--not to spread lies, as is so often done by governmental
and business propaganda.
In dealing with the life of
Jesus, inevitably one has to account for the belief that he rose from
the dead. Many have attempted to rationalize the conflicting accounts
in the gospels. Some, who have attempted to rationalize the
resurrection stories, have suggested that Jesus was not really dead
when he was taken down from the cross. The coolness of the tomb revived
him. But, of course, the Christian world generally has believed that he
was dead and did come back to life. It is true that in his day, the
Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the body, whereas the
Sadducees did not. For myself, I believe that the touchingly beautiful
story of the disciples who were walking to Emmaus, not far from
Jerusalem, and their encounter with a man who so impressed them that,
when they parted, they were convinced that he was the risen Jesus is
the key. “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked
to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” The
story is found in Luke [ch.24], although there is a brief reference to
it in closing passages of Mark [ch. 16].
In attempting to understand
the early Christian’s belief in the resurrection, we must
remember that the religions of that day often featured gods who
performed miracles, were born of virgins, and were resurrected. We are
so far from that time that we tend to forget that those who propagated
Christianity were competing with many other religions. Christians in
our day are living in a sort of cocoon, looking back only to Judaism in
the time of Jesus, and the rise of Christianity, and not being aware
that they were just two of a multitude of religions. One has only to
read the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer to get an idea of what it was like
then. Homer not only tells us what the gods were up to on Mount
Olympus, but, the more interesting parts of his books are when he
recounts the hanky panky that the gods committed when they hobnobbed
with men and women!
So, the most influential of
all of the apostles, that is, St. Paul had much competition from other
religions as he traveled across the Mediterranean world.
Paul, of course, was a
johnny-come-lately to the group of Jews who were spreading this new
Christian religion. Saul--that was his real name–had never
known Jesus, and, indeed, began his career as a persecutor of the
Christians. But, then, on the road to Damascus the most famous
conversion in history occurred. Some have said that he suffered
sunstroke and thought he heard Jesus calling out, “Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute me?” He, of course, believed that
his Savior was speaking to him from the heavens. In any case, he became
the most vigorous of all of the apostles, traveling far and wide in the
Graeco-Roman world. In essence, he was the real founder of
Christianity, transforming a Jewish carpenter and teacher into a god.
As much as we may admire Paul, and I certainly do, for the moral
teachings found in his letters in the New Testament, and for his great
personal bravery, his religion was not the religion of Jesus.
As I say, there was much
competition from what have been labeled the “mystery
religions.” My favorite example is that of the god Mithra and
how one was baptized into his faith. A person stood under a platform on
which a bull was slain, the animal’s blood pouring down on
him and cleansing him of his sins. Some folks, referring to Jesus as a
sacrificial lamb, in their version of Christianity, speak of being
“washed in the blood of the lamb.” A perfect
example of syncretism; that is, the combining of differing beliefs. The
most obvious example in Christianity, is the Christmas tree, which is a
tradition taken over from the German tribes. But, there are other pagan
elements in the Christian practices of our day. I used to have fun in
my university history classes asking students to specify what they are.
Well, they would mention the Christmas tree, of course, but then I
would ask them what pagan symbol I was wearing. They were puzzled,
until I held up my hand with the wedding ring on it, and inquired of
them where in Judaism or the teachings of Jesus one finds any mention
of a wedding band.
If the gospels are filled
with stories of wondrous deeds, which we in our Unitarian Universalist
rationalism cannot believe, what can we capture of the historical Jesus
in the Gospels? Various attempts have been made, of course. You may
remember that Thomas Jefferson, after a long day of reading diplomatic
dispatches, and chatting with congressmen, and whoever else wandered
into the White House–they saw no reason for security in that
day– would spend his evenings with the gospels spread before
him. With scissors and paste pot, he went about the task of cutting up
the pages, separating the teachings of Jesus from the wondrous stories,
and pasting them into a notebook. Since he was Jefferson, English would
not suffice; his pages contained the teachings in various languages!
This, I think, is a lovely
example of the Unitarian Universalist mind set. Separate the wheat from
the chaff. His little book, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,
is usually referred to as the “Jefferson Bible,”
and I heartily recommend it to you.
The early Christians were
living in a gullible world, a world in which all religious teachers,
who were elevated to godhood, were expected to be wonder workers, to
perform miracles. Unfortunately, despite the rise of modern science,
and the great Enlightenment of the 18th
century, there are just as
many gullible folks in our day as in antiquity, people who expect
wonders and miracles. In a break from preparing these remarks, I
happened to pick up a copy of the Boston Metro newspaper [9/26/02], and
discovered several examples of gullibility in our own time. On page 1,
I read that in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, “Hundreds of
stiff-jointed Cambodians are flocking to a cow whose lick is believed
to cure rheumatism and other ailments.” The story went on to
report that, “Ailing peasants offer incense, candles, flowers
and water. The cow consumes the latter and then performs its licking
duties.”
Thumbing through the same
paper, on page 13 I read a feature in which a reporter asks a question
of the day, and the responses of three people are given. The question
on this particular day was “Do you believe in
ghosts?” Two out of the three folks answered that they do.
One lady responded, “I’ve read a lot of books about
it. There is a lot of evidence out there.” A gentleman
responded to the question, “Yup, because people out there
swear that they see them.”
“Out
there,” which these people mentioned, must be an interesting
place! But, when you stop to think about it, this kind of superstitious
approach to life is fed by the mass media. Newspapers universally carry
Horoscopes. By way of full disclosure--as they say in the media these
days--I should admit that, if I happen to come across the Horoscope in
a paper, I always glance to see what the stars promise for us folks who
are classed as “Geminis.” But, alas, I have yet to
find any prediction that corresponds with my experiences on a given day.
And, then, of course, there
is that great elevator of human intelligence--television. In the last
few years, I have run across dramas in which angels supposedly
“touch” people. And, if I remember correctly, there
is a program in which a lady performs wonders by witchcraft.
We may say, of course, that
these are just the work of imaginative writers and producers, but,
unfortunately, I am afraid that a fair number of our fellow citizens
take these dramas as representing facts in our existence.
I’ve often thought
that it was unfortunate that the early Christians did not reject the
Old Testament, since it just confuses Jesus' teachings. But, of course,
as a historian, I realize that this was impossible. Jesus was a Jew and
his teachings were in the context of Judaism. Without the Old
Testament, we could not understand Jesus and his teachings.
As you know, the early
Christians were persecuted in the Roman Empire, for they were a
remarkable people. They refused to bring disputes to court, on the
ground that disputes should be settled in their churches. They refused
to serve in the Roman legions, because they obeyed the teachings of
Jesus and refused to shed blood.
As Christianity spread
across the Roman world, and gained many more adherents, it began to
adapt to the ways of the Romans. I date the fall of Christianity to the
conversion of the Emperor Constantine. For two reasons: First, it now
became a legal religion and began to compromise its beliefs. And,
second, because Constantine was concerned with the arguments among
Christians on the question of the nature of Jesus–was he God
or Man, or something in between?–he insisted on the Council
that met at Nicaea. It was at Nicaea in A.D. 325 that the doctrine of
the Trinity was developed, and the Arian, or Unitarian, view of Jesus
was condemned.
This whole development, as
you know, led to countless disputes, and even bloodshed, among
Christians. In the process the teachings of Jesus were minimized, and
the nature of Jesus became the main concern. Worshiping Jesus, after
all, is so much easier than living by his teachings.
What is so interesting in
the early pages of the first gospel, Mark, is that, when Jesus leaves
his carpenter’s bench, and ventures out to preach, his family
thinks he is crazy! Mark knows nothing of a virgin birth, or the
predictions in the later gospels of Matthew and Luke that Jesus is
slated to do great things! No, in Mark, his family tries to get him to
come home. He, of course, tells the fellows who latched onto him and
followed him around--we usually call them disciples--that they, too,
should renounce their families, for preaching the coming of the end of
the world should not be impeded by relations who think they are nuts!
Jesus was an
“eschatologist;” an impressive Greek word, which
means a person who, believes the end of the world is at hand.
(“Eschaton” is the Greek word for
“end.” And, “ology,” which we
tack on to so many words, means “words,” or
“thoughts, about.”) Paul, and the other early
Christians, expected history to come to an end, with the coming of
their Lord on the clouds of heaven. St. Paul said that the end could
come at any moment--when people least expected it-- “like a
thief in the night.”
When you look at the history
of the Israelites, who, except for brief periods, were under the thumb
of greater powers in the Middle East, and, in Jesus' day, under the
power of Rome–remember King Herod was just a puppet of the
Emperor in Rome–it is easier to understand the mind set of
Jesus and his followers. When we read the Hebrew literature written in
the period between the final books included in the Old Testament and
the earliest of Christian writings in the New Testament, we find that
there was great stress put on the coming of the “Son of
Man” on the clouds of heaven, who would bring history to an
end. Jesus often refers to the Son of Man in the third person. Since
the early Christians believed that he himself was the Son of Man (which
they identified with the Messiah, or “Christ,” in
the Greek language), it is remarkable that these passages survived.
When his followers called
him “good,” Jesus rejected that term, saying only
God was good. It is also remarkable that such passages survived in the
record of his teachings, seeing that the early Christians came to
believe that he was the Son of Man, the Messiah, the Christ! The basic
message of Jesus is found in the story of the Good Samaritan [Luke.,
ch. 10]. You recall that a lawyer, in an attempt to test him, asked
Jesus what he should do to be saved. Jesus responded that he should
love his God with his whole heart, soul, strength, and
mind–the first great commandment–and his neighbor
as himself–the second great commandment. It was the question
that the lawyer then asked Jesus–“Who is my
neigh-bor?”-- that led to one of the greatest of his
parables. Jesus tells the story of a man who was beaten and robbed and
left by the side of the road to die. Along came a priest of the temple.
When he saw the man, he passed by, on the other side of the road. Then,
along came a Levite, that is, an official of the temple. He, too,
passed by on the other side of the road. It was doubly damning, of
course, that these were the leaders of the Jewish religion. (We see
this kind of denial of action in our own time, on the part of people
who say they don’t want to get involved!)
The third person who came
along was a Samaritan. He did not avoid the man, but took pity on him,
dressed his wounds, put him on his own animal, and brought him to an
inn. He paid the innkeeper to provide whatever the man needed,
promising to pay him whatever further cost was incurred, when he
returned to the area.
Jesus asked the lawyer who
was the man’s neighbor. And, of course, he answered, the man
who took care of the man who was attacked by robbers; in other words,
the Samaritan. This, Jesus said, was the Second Great Commandment: We
should love our neighbors as ourselves.
The great significance of
this parable, of course, was that the man who showed love for his
neighbor was a Samaritan. Jews held Samaritans in contempt. They were
considered half-breeds, whose religious views were defective. Thus,
Jesus was not limiting our love to our own kind, but to all humanity.
Were Jesus alive today, he would be appalled by the way his fellow Jews
treat the Palestinians, making their lives pure hell. We saw many
examples of this on our trip. For the people of the Holocaust to act in
such a manner demonstrates that human beings do not learn from the
evils of a previous period.
It seems to me that these
two Great Commandments, along with the Beatitudes, are the core of the
teachings of Jesus. As you know, there are many distortions of Jesus'
teachings. How often have we heard supposed Christians calling for
punishment of malefactors, citing the words of the Hebrew
scriptures–that is, the Old Testament–“An
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” forgetting that this
approach was specifically rejected by Jesus. “If someone hits
you on one cheek, turn the other to him,” said Jesus. Jesus
was a great psychologist. He knew that if one responds to a pugnacious
person with a soft word, he most likely would calm down and become more
reasonable. It is this idea that is behind the movement for conflict
resolution in our day.
With the passage of time, it
became clear to Christians that Jesus' expectation that the world was
coming to an end, a belief that was also basic to the message of St.
Paul, was not to happen. So it was that stories grew up that Jesus
established a church, which would continue through the centuries, and
sent his apostles to convert the world. Thus, the basic belief of Jesus
was buried.
The corruption of Jesus'
teachings was just beginning. We have heard much discussion of late as
to whether Islam is, or is not, a religion of peace. As in the case of
Christianity, it is a mixed bag. Christians are in no position to
criticize Islam. Most of the death and destruction in the world in
modern times was caused by wars among Christians. Consider, for
instance, the centuries of warfare in Europe, each country appealing to
the same god to aid it in the slaughtering of its neighbors. In this
day of war, and rumors of war, we hear learned discussions of the
question of what constitutes a “just war.” In none
of these discussions have I heard Jesus or his teachings mentioned, for
the simple reason that the doctrine of the “just
war” has nothing to do with Jesus, but, rather comes from the
teachings of St. Augustine in the fourth century and St. Thomas Aquinas
in the thirteenth. So, we had best remember that those politicians who
claim to have been “born again,” and yet call for
war, have never read the teachings of Jesus!
But, what about us? Can we
live by the teachings of Jesus? Is it possible for Jesus to
“speak” to us living in a time very different from
his own? Some of us are old enough to remember the most poignant
example of a man who asked this question and the answer he found: Dr.
Albert Schweitzer, whom we associate with his hospital in French
Equatorial Africa, present-day Gabon. You recall that Schweitzer was a
minister, a musicologist–he wrote one of the great
biographies of Bach–a great organist, a theologian, and a
philosopher. His message of “reverence for life,” I
am sure, has influenced many of us.
As a result of years of
study, Schweitzer published his book, The Quest of the Historical
Jesus, in 1906. In that work, he traced views about Jesus over the
years of scholarship. He pointed out that a historical study of the
gospels led inevitably to the conviction that Jesus believed the end of
the world was at hand. The Son of Man, Jesus believed, would arrive on
the clouds of heaven, to bring human history to an end. This figure, in
the eyes of early Christians, was identified with the promised Messiah
(in Greek, “Christ”), who would deliver the
Israelites from Roman domination. With the death of Jesus, and their
belief that he had been raised from the dead, his followers became
convinced that, when he predicted the coming of the Son of Man, he
meant his own return.
So, the question for
Schweitzer was: Since Jesus lived in a very different time, can his
teachings be applied today? Schweitzer’s answer was that
Jesus can speak to us across the centuries. For himself, it was a
matter of leaving behind his many-faceted career in Europe, and, after
years of study of medicine, to devote the rest of his life to his
hospital at Lambarene.
If Jesus spoke to Schweitzer
across the centuries, can he speak to us? When we struggle against
hatred; when we struggle with ourselves to get along with others, whom
we would love to tell to go to--Hades; when we seek resolution of human
problems, in a spirit of love and understanding . . . . When we . . .
well, we can all fill in the blanks.
Living in the spirit of
Jesus is not a piece of cake. It is much easier to worship him as a god
and ignore what he taught. It is difficult to live by his teachings.
But, as the great Universalist leader Hosea Ballou stressed, we do good
because we feel good when we do. And, when we do evil things, we are
miserable.
Because of defective genes
in some people, because of chemical imbalances, because of
psychological problems, because of a lack of education, because of
defective education, because of nationalistic jingoism, because of all
the evils to which human beings are heir--there is much sin in the
world. But, the spirit of Jesus, speaking to us over the centuries,
urges us on, and on, and on, to do what we can do to improve the lot of
our neighbors and our society.
Let us save Jesus . . . from
the church, . . . from the theologians, . . . from the warmongers and
saber rattlers, . . . from the preachers of hate. Let us treasure his
message, and may it give us the strength we need to overcome the hatred
and bitterness of so much of the world around us.
Amen.
************************************************************************
Dr. Ernest Cassara is
Professor Emeritus of History at George Mason University, the state
university of Northern Virginia, at Fairfax. He has also taught at
Tufts University, Goddard College (where he also served as dean),
Albert Schweitzer College, Switzerland (where he served as interim
director), and as Fulbright Professor of History at the University of
Munich. He is author of The Enlightenment in America; The History of
the United States of America: A Guide to Information Sources; and
editor of a new edition of Abraham Lincoln, by Carl Schurz. His
interest in Universalist history is of long standing. His writings
include the biography, Hosea Ballou: The Challenge to Orthodoxy;
Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith;
Introduction to a new edition of Hosea Ballou’s 1805 classic,
A Treatise on Atonement; and two mystery novels featuring Hosea Ballou:
Murder on Beacon Hill: A Father Ballou and His Dog Spot Mystery and
Murder on the Boston Common: A Father Ballou and His Dog Spot Mystery.
His articles have appeared in Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Collier’s Encyclopedia, the World Book Encyclopedia, and in
several historical journals. Prof. Cassara currently resides in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.