After doing the Truro Church event over the weekend, one of our former Asbury students kindly took me downtown to the Mall in D.C.  (no, not the shopping mall) to see the newest exhibitions as the Sackler Museum (part of the Smithsonian), and the two new exhibits at the National Gallery of Art  (on Gaugin and Caneletto).  This post will be about the former of these two exhibits, which was just fascinating.

The Persian book of the Kings is a 50,000 line long poem, written in Farsi (the Iranian language) which dates back 1,000 years ago.   The name of the poem is ‘Shahnama’  and what is most interesting about it is that tells the story of Persian history even back to the time of Alexander the Great (who conquered the Persian Empire of Darius). Alexander in this epic is called  Iskander.  What is especially fascinating about this illuminated epic is that it blends actual Persian history  (Alexander really did conquer them) with Persian mythology, including their extensive belief in the Devil and demons.   In its latter forms, this was part of a Persian religion we know today as  Zoroastrianism,   though it is not clear that religion really existed as early as the time of Alexander.  Our sources for Zoroastrian beliefs considerably post-date the NT era.

Even to this day,  this text is the most popular book in Iran, with the exception of  the Koran itself,  and most Iranians own a copy of this book, according to those who set up this exhibit at the Smithsonian.   The Book tells the story of Persia up to the time of the Arab conquest in the 7th century A.D.  In all, it tells the story of 50 different Persian Kings, and as the guide to the Smithsonian exhibit says

The poet Abul-Qasim Firdawsi wrote the epic over a period of 30 years, during which time the ruling local dynasty, the Samanids, permitted cultural and artistic expression to flourish. But by the time the poet finally finished in the year 1010, the Samanids had been overthrown by a Turkic dynasty from Central Asia, the Ghaznavids, who cared little for the arts. Still hoping to be rewarded for his 30 years of literary labor, the poet petitioned Mahmud, the king, showing him his 50,000 verses.  The king responded with an insulting reward that was but a pittance for his work. A despondent Firdawsi proceeded to drown his sorrows in beer at a local bath house.

The king lived to regret his decision. Ten years later, Mahmud reread the text and immediately sent a caravan of camels loaded with precious indigo to Firdawsi the poet as a peace offering, but it was too late. As the camels entered Firdawsi’s town, they ran right into a funeral procession. The poet was dead.

“For every king to rule, they had to have ‘farr’, the divine rule to kingship,” says Farhad (He is the chief curator of this particular exhibit). “The Shahnama deals with the moral consequences of becoming too proud and forgetting who you are.” Each Persian king who came after the infamous Mahmud commissioned his own copy of the text, which became an emblem of the divine right to rule.

Starting in the 1300s, these royal copies were illustrated with opaque watercolors, gold and black ink. The illustrations—so intricate as to warrant the use of a magnifying glass—make up the majority of the exhibit, which is also punctuated with a 16th century full manuscript of the epic and several silver and bronze vessels from the 6th and 7th centuries.

After an introductory hall, the exhibit is divided into two sections, one focusing on history and the other on myth. The former largely offers the story of  Alexander, the Macedonian conqueror, who despite his imperialist spirit is nonetheless described in the Shahnama as a just ruler. The mythological section features morality tales of kings who lost touch with their roots and thus lost their divine rule, their farr. These are often populated with mythical beings; one folio on display depicts a Harry Potter-like hippogriff. (“J.K. Rowling must have seen a copy of the Shahnama,” insists Farhad.)

In other words, this book is about the same subject as one of the  main themes of the Book of Revelation— the need for justice, and for just rulers.  But the book also focuses on themes of legitimacy and more importantly the concept of divine glory.  Without divine glory, a ruler has no divine right to rule.    The person who actually wrote this book was a Persian poet named Firdawsi. One of the more interesting features of this poem is that it includes the story of 3 women monarchs of Persia.    It concludes with the tale of Yazdigird  (632-51 A.D. was his rule), the last of the Sasanian kings.    The illuminations in this manuscript are as spectacular  and facinating as those you find in the Book of Kells or the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Here for example is one of the heroes fighting a gnarly white demon.

Here below is a depiction of how two heroes went into a cave and were captured by a white demon with bull horns.

Two of my favorites are the pictures of Alexander the Great (Iskander).  The first is of Alexander at a tree, much like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, only this tree has masculine talking fruits or beings during the day and female talking fruits at night, trying to seduce the hero to do something wicked.    The last picture below depicts  the death scene of Alexander who died in Persia and whose body was transported to Alexandria in Egypt for burial.  In the death bed scene,  Aristotle, the tutor of  Alexander is depicted as weeping into a hankerchief over the loss of Alexander.

If you have a chance, you should go see this fine exhibit, which is only on until about April 7th.   It is well worth the visit.

(Disclaimer:   The following verbatim of the live press conference has various typos and errors in it, nonetheless, it is of value to give a strong sense of the discussion about the Pope’s new book.   So, wade through the errors of the transcriber, and see what you think).  BW3

Besides reading the transcript below, you can listen to the tele-conference at this link.

http://www.ignatius.com/promotions/jesus-of-nazareth/

Maximus Group

Moderator:    Alexis Walkenstein

March 9, 2011

2:00 p.m. ET

Operator:               Good afternoon my name is (Andrea) and I will be your conference operator today.  At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week tele-press conference call.  All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.  After the speakers remarks there will be a question and answer session.  If you’d like to ask a question during this time simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad.  If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key, thank you.  I would now like to turn the call over to our host Ms. Alexis Walkenstein with The Maximus Group.  You may begin your conference.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Good afternoon, on behalf of Ignatius Press, I welcome you to this unprecedented tele-press conference, an advance of the global release of Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week from the entrance, into Jerusalem, to the resurrection by Pope Benedict XVI.  A special beginning note to all members of the media, the news and information derived from this press conference event will remain under embargo until tomorrow March 10^th, 3 am Eastern time, 9 am Rome time.  The only portions that you may write or report on in advance of the embargo include the excerpted content which has already been released as of last week.

That material includes Chapter 3 Section 4, The Mystery of the Betrayer, Chapter 5 Section 1, The Dating of the Last Supper, Chapter 7 Section 3, Jesus before Pilate.  A written transcript of this call as well as an audio MP3 will be available by request but to maximize our time for questions and for our panel please approach me after the completion of this call by telephone or email.  I want to point you all to the website for Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week which is www.jesusofnazareth2.com any questions about obtaining copies of the book will be answered again after the call and I’ll be happy to help you with that.

Right now I am pleased to introduce our very distinguished panel, comprised of renowned theologians and scholars from a cross-section of faith denominations, Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant, who today will share meaning and insights on the Holy Fathers latest great work on the figure of Christ.  Joining us today Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, founder and publisher of Ignatius Press.  Father Fessio is a personal friend of Pope Benedict XVI and former student of then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.  He joins us today from Rome and will be with the Holy Father for tomorrow’s global release of Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week.

Next we have Mark Brumley, who is president and CEO of Ignatius Press as well as editor and co-author of the study guide to Pope Benedict’s the XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth and a study guide to Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week.  Dr. Craig Evans, Protestant Scripture scholar.  He is Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament from Acadia Divinity College of Acadia University, Nova Scotia.  Author of Jesus, The Last Days and editor of The Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus.

Next we have Dr. Jacob Neusner, who is an American academic scholar of Judaism and Distinguished Service Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism and Senior Fellow Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College.  He is the author of A Rabbi Talks with Jesus.

Dr. Brant Pitre, Catholic theologian and Professor of Sacred Scripture from Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana, and author of Jesus the Tribulation and The End of The Exile and Jesus and The Jewish Routes of the Eucharist, Unlocking The Secrets of The Last Supper.

Next we have Father Thomas Weinandy, Capuchin Franciscan Priest and Executive Director for The Secretariat for Doctrine at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops where he has served since 2005.  Father Weinandy has written or edited 16 books including In The Likeness of Sinful Flesh, an essay on The Humanity of Christ, and Jesus The Christ.

Finally, we are joined by Dr. Ben Witherington III, Protestant Biblical Scholar an Amos Professor of The New Testament for Doctor Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

At this time I’d like to begin with Father Fessio and invite you Father to present opening remarks on Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week.

Father Joseph Fessio:  Thank you Alexis.  First I’d like to express my appreciation for being here but also I don’t know whose idea this was but I think it’s an extraordinary opportunity for people whom – different perspectives to come and talk about something which I think is a major publication in our time.  Since I’m the first one to speak let me just give a general overview which the Holy Father does himself in his forward, but as he says there, good teacher that he is – he clearly describes what he’s going to do, he wants to combine a historical community with a faith community – you know that’s – those are large words but basically it means that he wants to take the results of the historical criticism and the scientific history that’s been done on Jesus and on the bible in the late 19^th century and compliment that with an understanding based on faith and an awareness of what the disciples of Jesus have thought and said over the century and in doing that he’s not writing as he says a Christology or even a life of Christ in the traditional sense, but rather he’s trying to present the figure and the message of Jesus as he says, the figure, the message of Jesus in a way that can lead to a personal encounter with him.

For me that was very beautifully exemplified in a passage that was related to the one that the media has mainly spoken about since the extraction made available mainly who is responsible for the death of Christ, and in that section he talks about in Matthew’s gospel where the whole people say, ‘His blood be upon us and on our children.’  And of course that’s been misunderstood and used in a way that has (inaudible) a lot of anti-Semitic attitudes on the part of Christians over the centuries, but very beautifully the Holy Father stresses it, the blood of Christ is not the same as the blood of Abel.

He simply speaks a different language and to quote him here he says, ‘It does not cry out for vengeance and punishment, it brings reconciliation.  It is not poured out against anyone; it is poured out for many, for all.’  And then he concludes his section by saying, ‘When in light of faith.’  And again here he is emphasizing the faith community and trying to integrate with the historical community (inaudible) of faith; it means that we all end in either the purifying power of love, which His blood.

These words are not a curse but rather redemption, salvation.  I don’t think he is simply making that up, I think that arises from the text but it exemplifies the way he’s reading with the eyes of faith these scriptural passages which the scholars have mined over the last couple of centuries to (gain) the meaning.  So that I’ll kind of stop right there, that’s just an overview of what he, intends to do and I think he achieves it in the book.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Wonderful, thank you Father Fessio.  And we’ll now move to Mark Brumley.

Mark Brumley:      Thank you Father Fessio and thank you Alexis and all the featured participants in this discussion, listening to all those scholars and all their credentials made me feel smarter just by being here.  So I hope – I hope that we’re able to facilitate a good discussion.  I don’t have too much to add to what Father Fessio said he did a very fine job of introducing and overviewing the father, excuse me the Holy Father’s goals and writing not just Jesus of Nazareth II Holy Week but the first volume as well.

I will say what I appreciate about this book and I think it’s one of its key newsworthy elements is the fact that so many people can come to this work from different perspectives.  We have here representatives from Jewish, Protestant, Catholic communities of faith and different theological commitments and I think each of those perspectives or even perspectives within those various communities can take from this something that’s valuable.  I’d also say we have – we have theologians, we have pastors, we have laymen, I’m a layman, we have people who have expertise in Scripture scholarship, all bringing to their consideration this work different gifts and different perspectives.  So I think that’s very important.

I would add that – it seems to me that this book is – as the figure of Jesus himself is, is someone who can both bring people together and also he’s a point of division but the way in which Jesus has been a point of division in the past is not I’ll say an authentic way.  I think that reading this book helps Christians, especially Protestants and Catholics, and Christians and Jews, and believers and unbelievers overcome unnecessary differences, differences that arise from misunderstandings, misreading, and I would say even within our own Christian tradition misreading of the gospel passages, the father did a great job of summarizing one of those misreading, but also they’re going to be – our differences will be clearer.

And I think that actually serves the cause of unity when we are clear about the things that we disagree about where our fundamental theological convictions take us where we must stand apart and there is an interesting sort of Ratzinger perspective here and in an essay that he wrote on Christian unity speaking in the Christian context.  He said that there are musts that we have to uphold – points of difference that we have to stand for if we’re going to be meaningful participants to any kind of discussion with people with whom we disagree – we can’t just cave on everything.

But it’s that fundamental commitment because we see this must of division on a particular point as coming from God that actually unites us, that we can actually respect one another.  So Catholics and Protestants can actually respect one another on points of difference even though we don’t agree but we can see that the other approaches this matter as a matter of integrity with respect to the Word of God.

Likewise Christians and Jews will have disagreements over the person of Jesus.  Who he was, what his significance is, but we can respect one another because of our commitment to a belief that God has revealed himself and God has spoken in human history.  So I see this as a book that brings us together even though we have these differences, it brings us together in a way that’s perhaps paradoxical.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Excellent, thank you Mr. Brumley.  And on a side note the study guide for Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week will be available in a couple of weeks.  Next we go to Dr. Craig Evans.

Dr. Craig Evans:   Thank you very much; you know I enjoyed reading this book.  I spent the weekend – just previous weekend reading it.  It was a blessing, I enjoyed it as an academic, as a scholar reading it very critically, but on the other hand, as a Christian too in reading it – I was impressed by the exegetical insight, the historical critical insight, and yet at the same time the attempt to always keep in line the big picture, what Christian faith is all about, the history of the church and how some of Jesus’ teachings and things that He did, and things that happened to Him contributed to major Christian teachings and some of the great creeds.

It was just a – it’s a remarkable achievement.  It’s the best book I’ve read on Jesus in years.  A couple of things that stuck – that stood out to me too was the sensitivity and I think historical accuracy in the assessment of the factors leading up to the Jewish revolt, the destruction of the temple.  I think Benedict is quite right in seeing how the policy of the aristocratic priesthood was just almost faded to result in that catastrophe.

And the way he talks about it, there’s nothing anti-Semitic, there’s nothing anti-Jewish here.  He could have documented further if he had wanted to but the dislike that many – very pious Jewish people, rabbis and sages, the dislike they had for the aristocratic priesthood and of course that legacy is still seen in the rabbinic literature and so – which leads to my next point and that is Benedict was very, very right and I think in – just well-spoken and making it clear that the death of Jesus was not the responsibility or because of the Jewish people in general.

He rightly talked of the Roman authority and also a small handful of temple aristocrats and these were the people that opposed Jesus, these were the ones who felt threatened by him, these are the ones ultimately who are responsible for maintaining law and order in their collaboration with Rome and therein is the irony, in their attempt to maintain law and order as they understood it, in their fearful reaction to Jesus and the popularity that he enjoyed and that enthusiasm that swept into Jerusalem, the Passover time, their reaction to it, their reaction to him enabled them to maintain this policy of power and coercion that in the end would explode 40 years later in revolt and eventually destruction.

I appreciated how the Pope made it clear that there were many Jewish people who were supportive of Jesus, in one place he refers to them I think as the other Israel, and that a point that needs to be made crystal clear, especially for Christians who might not understand that.

In the end, this is a book that I think all Christians should read, be they Protestant or Catholic, and it’s a book that I think any Jewish person who’s interested in the Christian story and who Jesus was, I think would profit from it.  So I say it’s a great book, it’s a remarkable achievement and it will be a benefit to everyone and anyone who reads it.  Thank you very much.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Thank you Doctor.  Next we’ll go to Dr. Jacob Neusner.

Dr. Jacob Neusner:      The perspective that I bring to the work of Cardinal Ratzinger goes back for about 25 years when he wrote an article in which he took issue with the quest for the historical Jesus, and he – and I began a correspondence which went on for – from that time to this on how we can turn an ancient text into a biography of a living human being.

This is a radical claim, he asked for the union of theology and critical history, a response to the failure of critical historical scholarship during the last century.  The work (based) upon the study of a variety of religious documents, of Judaism and Islam as well as of Christianity.  Since all three religions claim to represent a prophesy and holy revealed truth, he figured – the figures of Moses and the Torah Muhammad and the Quran, as well and Jesus and the bible, enter into the program of study.  And he’s accomplished something that no one else has achieved in the modern study of Scripture.

How are we to transcend the outcome of critical history with its paralyzing obstacles, theological affirmation?  That’s a question that he answered in this book.

I of course agree with what was said earlier about the importance of the teaching concerning Mathew, ‘His blood be on our hands’.  And that’s a very courageous and very learned allegation which I think is going to have a lot of impact.  So it’s a book of – which a Jewish reader can benefit from and which I think will do a lot of good in general.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Thank you Dr. Neusner, now we move to Dr. Brant Pitre.

Dr. Brant Pitre:     Thank you so much for having me here, I am very excited about this book.  As a catholic I have to admit that one of the (most) things that struck me about this work is how unprecedented it is.  That never before in the history of the Church have we had a reigning Pope write a full-length study of the life of Jesus.

So just on that level this is truly a historic publication, and for me as a catholic very gratifying to be able to listen to the Pope work through and meditate on the mysteries of the life of Jesus, especially these mysteries of Holy Week.

Now that said, I also found – and I was really struck by in the second volume, the fact that in the (prefix), and Father Fessio already alluded to this, Pope Benedict clarifies exactly what kind of book he sees himself as writing.  As a biblical scholar, as a (historical) Jesus scholar, that was my question when I heard that the Pope was coming out with a book on Jesus.  What I asked is, is it going to be a historical Jesus book, the kind of book that tries to get behind the gospel of what Jesus really did and said, or is it going to be more of a Christology, written from the perspective of faith, and looking at the mysteries of faith?

And as usual, Benedict in his usual style surprised us by offering us really both.  He really is combining history, historical reason as he puts it, and hermeneutical faith in approaching the gospel from the light of the canon of Scripture, especially Old Testament background, anyone who reads this book will see very clearly that Benedict pays close attention to the Old Testament background of Jesus’ words and deeds, the living traditions of the Church and also the doctrines of faith.

Ultimately what he seems to be a pastoral goal, which is this personal encounter with Jesus through the study of the gospel.  So that was very interesting to me that Benedict here is trying to hold together in both Volume 1 and then even more explicitly in Volume 2, what in the modern period has often been divided, namely faith and history.

So – and what’s interesting about that too is that in that forward, at the very beginning of the book, Benedict says that the reason he’s doing this is because this is what the second Vatican council in the 1960s actually called for Catholics to do whenever we interpret sacred Scripture, that we would throw on the very best fruits of history, language, culture or historical – modern historical study of Scripture, but that way we’d unite these things, to a hermeneutical faith that draw on the canon of Scripture, the tradition of the Church, and the doctrines of the faith.

And what struck me about the beginning of Pope Benedict’s book is that he says, and I’m quoting him here on Page 15, he says that this is essentially a matter of putting into practice the principle interpretation formulated by Vatican II “a task that is unfortunately scarcely been attempted this far”.  So it’s very interesting because sometimes Benedict is presented as the Pope that’s trying to turn back the clock on Vatican II.  But to the contrary, he sees himself actually in this book as trying to implement, particularly the biblical renewal – the renewal of biblical studies that the Second Vatican council called for more than 40 years ago, but which in his opinion has not yet taken root.

And as any of the other panelists who work in Scripture scholarship can attest to this, this is really been a question in the last 20 or 30 years, how do biblical scholars study the text using the tool of historical criticism, historical reason, and yet do it from a perspective of faith.  How can faith and history go together?

And I think that in his book Benedict has very successfully shown us how to do that, and then applied it to, what are arguably some of the most difficult, but also rich, exegetical and historical questions in the gospel.  Things like what did Jesus teach about the end of the world, how did He understand His own suffering and death?  Did He see His death as an atonement for the sins of Israel and of the nations?  And why was He put to death, what were the reasons for His execution as the king of the Jews in Jerusalem?

And he takes up all these questions, not to mention the bodily resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, was that a historical event, was it a transcendent event, how do we understand it?  Was the tomb really empty?  He applies all of these to the gospel, through the light of faith and gives us something that is a truly remarkable book.  I think that long after the myriads of other books on Jesus have been forgotten, his is going to stand and will be read for many centuries to come.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Wonderful, thank you Dr. Petri.  We now move to Father Thomas Weinandy.

Father Thomas Weinandy:      Thank you Alexis.  I’m going to reiterate what has already been said a number of times, and that is Pope Benedict’s book testifies that he possesses a profound understanding of Scripture, I think we usually think of Benedict as being more of a systematic theologian – a doctrinal theologian, but what’s impressed in this book as well as the first is his deep knowledge of Scripture, both the Old and New Testament.

And having said that, his knowledge of the Old Testament is so profound, he sees it as essential for understanding the New Testament.  It’s impressive how much insight he gives to the New Testament passages through his use of the Old Testament.  I really marveled at the insights that he had concerning this – concerning the writings of Paul, the sayings of Jesus, the gospels, really came to light in light of his use of the Old Testament in illuminating those passages.

Pope Benedict also in his book demonstrates that there’s a close relationship between doctrine and Scripture, between doing theology and doing Scripture studies.  So often today systematic philosophical theologians – doctoral theologians just sort of do the doctorate and stay away from the Scripture and the Scripture people stay away from doctrine, but Pope Benedict sees that there’s a fruitful relationship between doctrine and Scripture, that Scripture really gives life to theology and to the Church’s doctrine, but doctrine is also seen as a guide that helps us deeper understand the sacred text.  And again, I think that’s something that very few theologians have done successfully in recent time and Pope Benedict has done that very, very well.

The other thing that was mentioned by Dr. Petri was that I’m just surprised how often Pope Benedict talks about the true Scripture and the study of Theology, we can come to encounter Jesus in person, that we can have a personal relationship with him.  He doesn’t see his book or the study of Scripture or the study of Theology as just an intellectual exercise, but he sees it as a means of growing in faith and coming to faith, and I think that’s very important and had that impact when readers, especially lay readers, who think that the Scripture or Theology is just beyond them, I think Benedict’s book will help them grasp that they can really come to know Jesus through the study of Scripture and Theology and that this book will help them.

And lastly, this is – besides (being a) book of Theology and Scripture, it’s very pastoral.  He tries to apply the Scriptures to the daily lives of people and to our world situations.  And he is not just again doing an academic exercise, he sees Jesus as something that the world is longing to meet and get to know and he’s doing his best to try to provide that opportunity.  Thank you.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         (Perfect).  Thank you Father, and last but not least, Dr. Ben Witherington III.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       Well, I could just pronounce the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur on what’s been said before, but I would like to say a few extra things.  I was very impressed with this book, and like Craig Evans said I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and one of the thoughts that occurred to me is I don’t think could have happened before Vatican II.

I mean I’ve spent a lot of time in Jesus scholarship and writing books about Jesus, and one of the things I have seen in the (guild) of biblical scholars worldwide is that Catholic and Protestant exegetes have come closer and closer together in their understanding of both historical Jesus and the Christ of faith, and then worked together to better understanding of  Jesus taking the approach of  faith, seeking understanding.  And I think this book is a very significant book that does precisely that, it helps us both with our knowledge and understanding of Jesus from a historical and critical point of view, but also with our faith, you see knowledge and vital piety in this book, and it’s a very welcome sight indeed.

My one desiderata or wish for this book is I do wish that the Pope had been able to interact more with the last 30 or so years of biblical scholarship in this book because he is basically interacting with scholars from the fifties, the sixties, the seventies primarily, including my doctor father,  C.K. Barrett with whom I was very pleased shows up in various places in this book, but I understand he’s been more than a little busy the last few years.

But I think this is a wonderful book, it’s a book I would very happily assign to my students to read as a book about both the Jesus history and the Christ of faith.  I was impressed with his scholarly acumen, I mean his knowledge not only of medieval theology but ancient Greek philosophy, historical scholarship, exegesis, intertextuality between the Old and New Testament, I mean this is a remarkable book and it led me to ask the question has there ever been a Pope who was capable of writing a book like this at a scholarly and yet pastoral level, and honestly, my lack of knowledge doesn’t allow me to answer that question, my guess would be no.  And so I was very excited by this and thankful for what the Holy Father has done.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Wonderful, thank you so much Doctor.  At this time I just want to make everyone aware of the time, it’s 30 minutes after the hour and we have about 30 minutes remaining for this call.  We will now open this up to questions and (Andrea) could you give instructions to the members of the media who might need to have a refresher for how to approach?

Operator:               And so this time I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question please press Star one on your telephone keypad, the first question comes from the line of Rabbi Seidman with the Orange County Register.  Your line is open.

Rabbi Seidman:     Thank you, I really appreciated the scholars commentary frequently about the integration of critical approaches to bible study and the faith approach, and the Pope himself in the text refers – makes statements like redaction criticism, literary criticism, and highlights for example, discrepancy between John and the synoptic gospels about the Last Supper.  So what’s striking is acknowledgement – we’re moving towards acknowledgement that perhaps the-

Male:                     Hello?

Male:                     Hello?

Male:                     Hello?

Male:                     I think we’ve lost him, hello?

Operator:               Sorry, (inaudible) has been promoted, (Kevin Clarke) from the (Zenith) News Agency, your line is open.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         We can go to Rabbi so he can finish, I’m not sure what happened.

Male:                     Yes, I can go to the Rabbi (unless you want to) pass me through later.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Is it – Rabbi are you still on the line?

Rabbi Seidman:     I’m on the line, are you not hearing me?

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         (Inaudible) continue.

Rabbi Seidman:     How far – how much let’s say did you hear?

Male:                     The last words were something to the effect that are we moving towards.

Rabbi Seidman:     OK, so are we moving towards acknowledgement that perhaps the text is not literally correct, that perhaps there are words here that were not in fact spoken by Jesus or are not contemporary, that perhaps the Mathew citation was inserted later as part of the rivalry between the Roman Church and the Jerusalem Church?  What’s your expectation of where the Church is going to go in those kinds of acceptance to criticism?

Male:                     To whom is the question directed?

Rabbi Seidman:     Anybody who cares to answer.

Male:                     I can (inaudible) this is – go ahead (inaudible).

Mark Brumley:      I was just going to say my reading of this is – this is Mark Brumley, is the particular passages that you’re referring to I think Benedict certainly acknowledges that Mathew’s comment is a theological comment when he speaks of the response of the crowd as being the response of the whole people.  And that he sees given a theological reading of that.

I don’t know that that necessarily underwrites the other points that you were making in your – you made with respect to your question is this the Jerusalem community versus that community or something of that sort, but there is an acknowledgement that – it’s an implicit acknowledgement that sometimes the sayings of the Lord or sayings of other people recounted in the gospels are given a theological spin that if you were standing there and you were just to – you were a historical observer hear what is said you wouldn’t’ necessarily come away with that theological spin.

But the theological spin is not given as a way of distorting the historical record, but to help its meaning be more deeply appreciated.  At least that’s my take on reading the book.

Male:                     Something else I wanted to ask you, several times in the book where he does acknowledge (surface) contradictions between say the synoptics and John, or between one of the synoptics, he always points out the (inter unity) that’s there and that’s it’s true that people are writing for different audiences and different concerns and so on, but he sees that as an even greater witness to the (entire) Scripture, that you have these witnesses who did not come together to make sure they were saying exactly the same thing.

But that when they reported on the sayings of Jesus or the deeds of Jesus, they were substantially correct even though you have these inconsistencies on the surface.  Is that (inaudible) discussing in the book?

Dr. Brant Pitre:     This is Dr. Petri; yes he actually does address this on Page 27.  In the first chapter on the (exegetical) discourses, the Holy Father points out that if you compare the all of the discourses in Mathew and Mark and Luke, there are three versions of them there, and the synoptic, there are to be sure differences of details and differences of content, and he attributes these to the work of the redactors, editing the material, synthesizing the material for their perspective audiences, clarifying certain things like when Luke says the time of the Gentiles, clarifying what that time of the spreading of the gospel among nations means.

But he does say on Page 27, he says “the redactors (inaudible) could take the continuation a stage further in light of their particular situations and the audience’s capacity to understand, while taking care to remain true to the essential content of Jesus’ message”.  And I think that’s the way the Holy Father sees this, it’s very much based on the (inaudible) document of Vatican II on the (inaudible) to the gospel, which said the same thing, that there are differences in detail but that in synthesizing and editing the material for their respective audiences.

The gospel writers have always told us the truth about what Jesus did and said while he lived among men.  So I think that’s what the Holy Father is getting at here.  Difference is the detail but true to essential content of Jesus’ message.

Rabbi Seidman:     Thank you very much.

Mark Brumley:      You’re welcome.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Nicole Winfield with the Associated Press, your line is open.

Nicole Winfield:   Hi thanks, two questions.  First one I guess directed to Mark Brumley or Father Fessio, just on numbers – I know that there have been 1.2 million books printed, how does that compare with the first part of Jesus of Nazareth?  Is this a similar print run or greater?  And then a second question to Dr. Evans, could you speak a bit about the part of the book where the Pope goes into the whole question of Christian unity, the need for the visible unity that he’s spoken about before but how do you read that in light of this book – in light of what we know the Pope has said in the past, in light of (inaudible) et cetera.

Father Joseph Fessio:  Well this is Father Fessio for the first part.  Ignatius Press is not the publisher of the original hardback edition of volume 1 and I wasn’t involved therefore at the time when they discussed the initial print run.  But I do know that the seven languages that are now available already are already in print, 200,000 copies have been printed.  We got about 90,000 in the US and then we’ve got partners in Asia, Africa, England, and in Australia we’ve got about 40,000 more and Germany has done 200,000, Italy is doing 300,000, France is doing 120,000 so those are the basic numbers for the print run on Volume 2, but I can’t answer your question on how it compares with volume one.

Dr. Craig Evans:   Hello, this is Craig Evans here, could you repeat that question?  I’m not too sure I understood it.

Nicole Winfield:   OK just, there is a section in the book I think at least in one version of it around pages 97 to 103 where he talks about Christian unity and the need for a visible, that the unity between – among Christians must be visible and I’m just wondering how that strikes non-Catholic Christians and in light of what we know the Pope believes about the ecumenical process, ecumenical dialogue, so it was just a question on – if you could respond to that section of and that argument of the book.

Dr. Craig Evans:   Well I think presenting to the world a unity, a unity in purpose but also a unity in respect and mutual support, I think that’s very important and I say that as a Protestant.  How exactly that gets worked out especially in terms of ecclesiastical structures or lines of authority or connections I have a feeling they’ll be some significant differences on that point, but Ben Witherington alluded to this earlier when he talked about Catholic and Protestant scholars working in this area on the historical Jesus have drawn together and I often find myself closer in academic perspective, faith commitment to people like (John Myer) whom the Pope quotes and refers to many times in this book and the late Raymond Brown and a number of other Roman Catholic scholars and I think from a scholarly point of view this is exhibiting an important element of unity but that doesn’t mean structurally or ecclesiastically there is that kind of unity and so in any case that’s a very important way of showing the world that we may be Protestants, we may be Catholics and Protestants of different stripes and so on but there is a unity of purpose and witness and commitment, a working together, a striving together for truth and for getting at the essence of faith and what it is we believe and why we believe it in a way that I think, you know, from my Christian point of view in a way that would make Jesus happy to exhibit – exemplify true discipleship.  And I’m sure the Pope has a little more in mind than just that but I think that’s a very important part of this whole question of unity.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       And this is Ben Witherington, I would just add to that even at the ecclesiastical level,  you may know already about the wonderful discussions between Lutherans and Catholics on the Doctrine of Justification by Grace through Faith and some of the concord that came out of the that and remarkable documents that came through that and so it’s not just the informal level between scholars but there have been since Vatican II very significant discussions about unity in doctrine and in faith pushing towards the goal that I think the Holy Father has in mind and certainly I think most of us would say this is a very good thing and it needs to continue to happen.  So I’m happy to see an element in the book continues to nudge us in that direction.

(Tom Wayne Eddy):   This is (Tom Wayne Eddy), the point I think that the Pope was making here was that the Lord Jesus said that by doing – by being one, the world will come to believe in me and so there has to be a visible unity, you can’t have a spiritual church that the world cannot see, you have to have a visible church, a visible unity that the world can see so that they come to know that Jesus is the savior.

Father Joseph Fessio:  This is Father Fessio briefly here, I was wondering how Dr. Evans and (inaudible) would respond to this because when I read it I thought, you know, he’s using a (scalpel) which is very sharp and I think it might not be so but he even though he talks about the (both man)’s idea of unity there is a proclamation and a faith but then Benedict very gently goes on to say, you know, the son of God became flesh, became visible, became man that we could see and touch and then when you (inaudible) one there’s also got to be a unity which is somehow tangible and visible, you said (inaudible) but apparently to (inaudible) our two (inaudible) and friends here didn’t see it quite as sharply as I thought it was (inaudible).

Nicole Winfield:   Thank you.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of (John Alan) with the National (Classical) (inaudible).  Your line is open.

John Allen:            Thank you, this question is directed in the first place to Father Weinandy although anyone who wants to respond I’d be very grateful.  Father I’m interested in the section of the book that the Benedict refers to as the time for the Gentiles pages 27 and the following in which he talks about among other things Israel’s role in evangelization and it seems he quotes Hildegard of Bingen to the effect that the Church must not concern herself with the conversion of the Jew.

It would seem the Holy Father is saying that at least in this order of history – it’s the Church should not be worrying about the conversion of the Jew.  I’m wondering first of all, is that an accurate reading, do you think, of what the Holy Father is saying?  Secondly, what would the theological significance of that be?

Father Thomas Weinandy:      John that struck me too when I read it, I think the context in which the Pope is quoting both Hildegard of Bingen and also Bernard of Calvo is he’s talking about the age of the Gentiles that we first need to have the true number, the full number of Gentiles coming to faith in Christ and after we have the full number of Gentiles coming to faith in Christ then in the Lord’s own time the conversion of the Jews will be accomplished.

But he’s stressing here first of all, that to say should not concern herself with the Jews because it’s a fixed time for God is that our major concern right now should be with regards to the Gentiles but he’s also saying I think that there’s no specific program that the Catholic Church has to convert the Jews, again that’s in God’s time, leaving open the freedom of the conscience that Jews can become Christians as Christians could become Jews.  So that would be my overall answer, now did you have – what was your second part of it again John?

John Allen:            Well the point was the theological significance of that and of course what I have in mind with that is you’re very familiar obviously with the debate over covenant (admission), the criticism that was raised by Cardinal (Douglas), the debates around the so called dual-covenant theology and I’m just wondering if anything the Pope says here bears any of that.

Father Thomas Weinandy:      Well I don’t think the Pope would be here sanctioning a dual-covenant kind of theology, I think he would very much uphold the fact that the Lord Jesus came to save all peoples and nations, both Jews and Gentiles and that while the emphasis, the desire is that all be converted at this point in time we don’t know when the conversion of the Jews will take place and it one sense we shouldn’t be too anxious about that because that’s going to happen at the Lord’s time but I don’t think (inaudible) anything about the dual-covenant theory or that we should not at least have any care or whether or not Jews become Christian or not.

Dr. Ben Witherington:            This is Witherington again, I read what the Holy Father said as a reasonably clear exegesis of Romans 11 and in specific where Paul says that in terms of the timetable we’re on, this is the age in which Gentiles are added to the people of God which is from Paul’s vision Jew and Gentile united in Christ but that as far as Jews are concerned there will be a time specifically when Christ returns when there would be a large number of Jews who would respond to Jesus when He returns so that that was in Jesus’ hands.

Now that seems to me to be a perfectly possible reading of Romans 11:25, for example.  And I took the Holy Father to be referring to that the timing to that is in God’s hands and therefore it doesn’t need to be a direct mission program of the Church.

Operator:               So our next question from a line of (Kevin Clarke) with (The Zenith) News Agency, your line is open.

(Kevin Clarke):     First thanks to our panelists.  My question primarily is for Father Fessio and then also for the panel.  First of all Father Fessio the Pope reference is St.  Maximus the Monothelite controversy and (Cardinal Farn Bourne’s text).  What do you think – why do you think he is highlighting this controversy as relevant to our day?  And then to our panel just in general, in what way does this book discontinue with the caucus of Joseph Ratzinger’s writing?  Like has he adjusted anything in his opinions about this or that?  What would you comment on that?

Father Joseph Fessio:  Well, let me comment on the second one first.  I’m preparing some online courses that are based on some of (Cardinal) (inaudible) works, and I was reading on the plane here to Rome re-reading (intellectual) Christianity.  And I was struck by the fact that that’s one of his earliest works and how close it is to what he says in (inaudible).  I mean surely he’s more widely read now and he’s older and wiser but I did not detect any change not even a minor change in his approach to scripture, in his approach to theology, in the way he’s treating these questions.

So others who are maybe better scholars than I am may have some nuances there but I did not – I saw this perfectly in line with what he’s been teaching for as long as he’s been teaching.  And then as far as bringing (inaudible) especially the question of the two worlds in Christ, again he’s trying to – he’s a (synthesizer) I mean he’s the one who brings unity here.

He’s trying to show that you can’t have Jesus be who He is as both God and man unless he has two worlds, and yet they’re not two worlds that are in opposition to each other or of the same order, one is elevated by the other within the other and (of course that) he focuses on the classical place there regarding Gethsemane where Jesus says not my will but thy will be done.

So I don’t think he has any particular agenda in (hiding) that issue.  It’s just that that is a very crucial part of Christology and he takes it with a very scriptural, biblical approach to show the unity in Christ at the same time the distinct with his human and His divine natures.

Mark Brumley:      This is Mark Brumley, very good answer Father; I was very impressed by your ability to recall that passage and to articulate it so clearly.  One thing I would add is that he also sets for us an example of what Vatican II talks about when it talks about scriptures being the heart and soul of theology because on the one hand he articulates formulation of an issue, a theological issue regarding the nature of Christ that in a way that comes much later on.  In fact he refers not just to Maximus but the (forming) of Leo the Great and so on.  This is something that comes much later on in the history of theology and yet he wants to root our understanding of that more refined theological concept in the Scripture.

So it’s not like he’s saying well this is all spelled out there sort of in a kind of simplistic fashion in the Bible.  He’s not just kind of proof texting but at the same time he’s trying to show that our faith in this wonderful theological expression that comes much, much later in theological development are rooted in the scripture they should be rooted in the scripture.

(Tom Wayne):       This is (Tom Wayne).  One of the things that I noticed that was in conformity with his earlier writings is his emphasis on liturgy and worship.  And he does this a number of times when he speaks about the Old Testament prayer and worship, how Jesus passioned death and – in a sense it’s a liturgy of his offering, of his life and how we’re all drawn into this liturgy and prayer of Jesus.

And so I think his emphasis on liturgy within this book is based upon and builds upon his previous interest in writing on the liturgy as well.

Dr. Brant Pitre:     This is Dr. Brant Pitre I was just going to add along those lines.  I feel a remarkable line of continuity between Joseph Ratzinger’s earlier writings in this book particularly with regard to the Gethsemane chapter that you mentioned.  In one of his earlier writings Joseph Ratzinger said that the church’s dogma and the Christological council they’re really nothing other than the working out of the Church’s interpretation of the scripture.

I think he really exemplified that in his discussion of Maximus the Confessor and of the Christological council regarding the will of Christ, showing that these are really at the end of the day – I mean they’re very theological and philosophical in the way they’re formulated but they are exegetical debates too.

How do we understand the revelation of who Jesus was, what He did, what He said, in particular how He prayed to the Father not my will but Thine be done in Gethsemane.  How do we understand that in the light of the Church’s dogma and see the dogma really as a working out of exegesis, and exegesis scripture?

Operator:               And we have 15 minutes left.  And your next question comes from the line of Kevin J.  Jones with the Catholic News Agency, your line is open.

Kevin J.  Jones:     Yes, my question is primarily directed to Father Weinandy but I would also appreciate any input from Ignatius Press folk.  Father, you spoke how this book helps to bring together doctrine and scripture.  Can you suggest how a parish priest, religion teachers and catechists can use this to help bring together doctrine and scripture for those they are educating?  And for the Ignatius Press people can you speak more about the study guide?  Thank you.

Father Thomas Weinandy:      I don’t know if I have a real clear answer on your question of how parish priests or religion teachers could use – but I think they could – what they need to learn from this book is how they themselves in the classroom can synthesize Catholic doctrine and the sacred text.  And I think the catechism of the Catholic church already does this for them in a way because all the doctrines in the catechism have multiple scripture passages and multiple references and I think since Cardinal Ratzinger was very much involved in that catechism we see him applying the same methodology in his book that as it was just said like with the doctrine of the incarnation, that’s really a Biblical doctrine that rose out of the scripture.  And so it’s a matter of the teachers helping the students see that when they recite the creed on Sunday, all those Biblical truths all those truths that we proclaim are found within Scripture itself.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of (Anna Vasquez) with the (phoenix.org).  your line is open.

(Anna Vasquez):   Please reiterate to me what you said a little bit about how people generally see Pope Benedict as the one trying to turn back the clock in Vatican II – maybe to expand on that a little bit.  And why that point is significant to Christians.

Male:                     Is this (inaudible)?

(Anna Vasquez):   Yes.

Male:                     I missed the beginning of your question.  I couldn’t hear you.

(Anna Vasquez):   OK.  Please reiterate to me what – that point you made about how people generally see this Pope as trying to turn back the clock on Vatican II and just expand on it a little how you feel that might be of significant to Christians.

Male:                     OK great, yes.  What I meant by that comment was in the wake of the Holy Father’s promulgation of the Motu Proprio Letter, Summorum Pontificum where he approved the use of the traditional – what you call the traditional Latin Mass Pius V from before the Vatican II council.

Some people were disturbed by the Holy Father’s promulgation of the extraordinary form in Latin Mass and were worried that he was somehow trying to undo the liturgical reforms of the second Vatican Council.  And that was a misapprehension of his intentions on that part.

I’m sure Father Fessio could say a lot more about that liturgical renewal and what Cardinal Ratzinger and now Pope Benedict had – what role he had to play in it.  What I was trying to show in that comment was that when you look at what the Holy Father has done with sacred scripture in light of the second Vatican Council you see that the idea that he was somehow opposed to Vatican II; undoing Vatican II simply is baseless.

But there is one of the other renewals which is sometimes gets less press that the Vatican II called for was a Biblical renewal to really make sacred scripture the soul of sacred theology and to unite history and faith in the interpretation of sacred scripture.

And so what I was trying to say is in the same way that Paul VI was the one who implemented the liturgical reforms of Vatican II and you can say John Paul II really built upon the social teachings of Vatican II (inaudible) and other writings.  So too Pope Benedict XVI is really the Pope of the second Vatican Council when it comes to sacred scripture.  That he is – sees himself exclusively as implementing the directives of Vatican II with regard to how Catholics read the Bible, how we interpret scripture, both with history, language, culture and literature, but uniting those to tradition, to dogma and to the canon and the sacred scripture.

I think the implications are broad both for ecumenical directives in terms of unity between the Christians and finding common ground in scripture, but also in calling for a real return to scripture in the lives of Catholic faithful, really making sacred scripture a part of our lives which you see very clearly in this new apostolic letter – 200 pages Verbum Domini on the word of God and the life and mission of the Church.

This is very, very important to the Holy Father’s heart, very close to his heart, the sacred scripture.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Phillip Pullella with Reuters, your line is open.

Phillip Pullella:      Hi, I’ve got two questions primarily directed to Father Fessio and Dr. Neusner.  When I spoke to the Chief Rabbi of Rome last week about this book, he basically said about the section of repudiating the idea of collective Jewish guilt for Christ’s death.  He said so what’s all the fuss about?  He said this has been the position since (inaudible).  And I put it to him well most Catholics probably don’t even know what (inaudible) is, so I’d like to ask you – the first question is, how do you think that this will play in the (inaudible) and improve Catholic Jewish relations on the grassroots level and help to reduce the amount of anti Judaism which still exists in the church at a grassroot’s level and second I’ve stopped counting the number of times I’ve heard the word exegesis, eschatology and hermeneutics in the book and in the conversation.  Is this book directed at people who are on this call of that level?  Is it directed to Mrs. (McGill Cuddy) on the streets of Brooklyn who will understand this or both?  And could you address that please.

Father Joseph Fessio:  Well Mrs. (McGill Cuddy) is probably a very intelligent woman I mean being of Irish descent and living in New York.  I don’t think it’s for people in the pews in the sense of anybody who happens to wonder in a church but if someone is probably well educated, you know, and reads books of a serious nature from time to time I think this is quite intelligible and you can only use words like eschatology, hermeneutics and so on, he explains what they are and what he means and even when he refers to, you know, (Hago), or (March) or you know other figures that may not be as well known to someone who’s not in the academic life.

But his naming is it’s pretty clear so it may not be translucent, transparent to all but I was struck by how we were (inaudible) in fact I had such as lent.  I had (inaudible) water with Nicole Winfield earlier early this afternoon and I asked her and she had had the same experience reading it that was not difficult to get through.  As far as your question about what was affected grassroots in terms of a better Jewish-Christian relations again well again it depends if the grassroots read the book and even if a million people read it there’s a lot more people out there that won’t.

It’s one of the advantages of having the media taking interest in this because those who don’t read the book will still at least hear instead; the Jews are not responsible as collectively for the death of Christ.  That’s already been pretty well spread in the media.  So it surely cannot hurt the Jewish-Christian relations.  The rabbi was correct there’s nothing new here not even from (inaudible) but the council itself was a organic development of previous Jewish teaching so even the emphasis was different.

So I think it will help and the more people read the book itself or hear the press accounts to it are going to recognize that there’s no basis in Scripture and there’s no basis in the teachings in Catholic Church for this (inaudible).

Mark Brumley.  This is Mark Brumley and if Mrs. (McGill Cuddy) is having any trouble whatsoever reading Jesus of Nazareth II she can always get our study guide.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       This is Ben Witherington and I just like to say I evaluated this in terms of level as to what level of college or seminary students or various Christian persons might think.  They  might be able to get the vast majority of the sense of this book.  And for one thing there is a big glossary at the back of the book.  So in terms of technical terms you’ve got help with that at the back as well as key figures.

But my guess would be that this is book specifically user-friendly for entry level seminary students, educated lay people with a lot of theological acumen, and that kind of audience.  Obviously clergy of various kinds and it’s certainly not just at the scholarly level of discussion; it’s accessible at a level below that.

Operator:               Your next question come from the line of Mike McManus a syndicated columnist, your line is open.

Mike McManus:    What’s the impact ultimately do you think this book will have, will it in effect prompt Protestants to rethink their relationship with Catholics for example?  Some of the people on this call are implying that but Protestants have rather jaundice the view of Catholics in general it seems to me.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       This is Ben Witherington and I’ll be happy to respond to that.  I think it depends on what kind of Protestants we are talking about.  What are usually called high church Protestants or mainline Protestants, whether we are dealing with Presbyterians, Lutherans, United Methodists,  Episcopalians.  I myself am ordained in the United Methodist Church. I think this effort would certainly be well received by a lot them and it could help promote further discussion and conferencing together about various things.

But I also think that there is a large segment of evangelical Protestantism as well that will receive this book with gladness and joy and maybe it will disabuse some of jaundiced views that some Protestants have of Catholics as their brothers and sisters in Christ and I would certainly hope that that would help.

Dr. Craig Evans:   High (sir), this is Craig Evans I second what Ben just said.  My impression is that Protestants too are fairly well read and have some sense of biblical theology, what Christian faith is all about, some sense of the historical Jesus.  They would read the Pope’s new book and they would be astonished how Protestant and how evangelical he sounds.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       Exactly.

Dr. Craig Evans:   That would surprise them and I would not have any hesitation to put this book on the syllabus as required reading for my seminary students and these are mostly Baptists, are very evangelical, are fairly conservative, I wouldn’t hesitate at all to say this is the book you ought to read.  And if it didn’t say Pope Benedict on the cover they might not even be sure they are reading a catholic book, they would read and say this is pretty good.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       And I would say exactly the same thing.

Dr. Craig Evans:   Yes, that’s why we are so excited about this book, it’s a great book but it’s amazing how it has bridged a variety of gaps, scholarly and practical and spiritual and devotional and yet at the same time there is an ecumenicity here but yet catholic doctrine has not been sacrificed – compromised either and these comments have been made in relationship to Vatican II and I just think it’s a remarkable achievement on many levels.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       The one thing I would say in addition to that which I think would be helpful is that I agree with the Holy Father that Vatican II has not been fully implemented at least in some quarters and in terms of biblical interpretation. I can only think that his further push to  spin out what Vatican II said we ought to be doing, would only further help the accord and ecumenical discussions between Protestants and Catholics.

Mike McManus:    Thank you.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Sister Ann Flannagan with the Daughters of Saint Paul and the Chicago Tribune.  Your line is open.

Sister Ann Flannagan: Hi, actually my more explicit questions have already been handled especially by John Allen, thank you very much.  I would especially like to direct this to Dr. Evans and Dr. Witherington because it’s a follow up on the question we just hand.  It seems to me that with the Holy Father not, we could say teaching from on high as the Pope but writing as a private theologian and offering to initiate a kind of a dialogue engaging with Rabbi Neusner in the first volume, engaging thoughts, what is your kind of your reaction as protestant professors to the possibilities that this has coming from the Pope of Rome.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       First of all I consider it an honor to be a part of this discussion and honored to be considered as a person that the Pope or the Catholic Church would want to have at such a discussion and I will be very happy to await my invitation to come have further talks.

Dr. Craig Evans:   This is Craig Evans thank you for your question.  Let me put it to you this way.  If this book had been written this way by (John Myer) or Raymond Brown or Joseph Fitzmyer I would read it and say well done this is a very fine book by a very capable Roman Catholic New Testament scholar I just love it.

But what is such a present surprise for me is that actually it is written by somebody who isn’t just a Roman Catholic Scholar but he is the Pope.  And so he writes within a context and he might not be writing ex-cathedral which we might say but he is writing as a scholar but he still is the Pope and he is writing in the context of the Vatican and in context of the Catholic Church around the world.

And there are expectations, there are pressures, there are however you want to put it and yet he has written this book this way which I think is in my opinion, it is true to the highest ideals of Roman Catholic biblical scholarship and theology and to step with Vatican II and advances this important area of discussion and thinking and he does it in a way that I find as a Protestant scholar very compelling, very refreshing and very stimulating.

So I just repeat what I said a moment ago, this is a remarkable achievement.

Sister Ann Flannagan: Thank you very much.

Operator:               Your next question comes from the line of Matt Swaim with the Sunday – sorry The Sunrise Morning Show, EWTN Radio, your line is open.

Matt Swaim:         Thank you very much and I apologize for quarreling the Protestants continually here but this question is particularly for Dr. Witherington because as a graduate of Asbury College myself I’m acutely interested in your perspective on the question how the pope talks about the historical criticalness.  This is obviously something that’s been very controversial both in catholic and protestant circles and I wonder what do you think this book will contribute to the ecumenical discussion of the historical method particularly as it pertains to the person of Jesus.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       Well there is a very pregnant remark he makes at one point in the book where he says he feels like the historical critical study of Jesus has  certainly not run its course but it’s gotten pretty much as far as we can go at least at this juncture with the historically reconstructable Jesus,  the Jesus of the past based on the limitations of the method and he seems very clear about the value of the method but also the limitations of the method.

And so I think that kind of critical realism about the methodology would simply be amend by most protestant biblical scholars of faith as well that it’s a useful tool but it’s not an unlimited tool and it has its drawbacks and limitations which we need to recognize.

And so his concern that we go forward and try concentrating on things like the figure of Christ, the character of Christ, the theologies significance of the overall impact of the portraits of Christ in the gospel is exactly right because what’s happened in biblical scholarship is this, old form criticism has been gradually dyeing on the line and more genre studies of the gospels as biographies or like ancient historical monograph is what producing more and more fresh insights.

And the Pope is aware of this so I think that what he says would just be further impetus to the right kind of trajectory in further studies of Jesus.

Matt Swaim:         All right, thank you very much.

Operator:               Your final question due to time constraints comes from the line of John Allen with the National Catholic Reporter.  Your line is open.

John Allen:            Thank you.  Rabbi Neusner, are you still on the call?

Dr. Jacob Neusner:      Yes I am.

John Allen:            Rabbi thank you for your remarks at the top of the conversation about the Holy Father’s comments on the question of responsibility for the death of Jesus.  I’m wondering if you could just talk more generally about Pope Benedict’s treatment of Judaism in the book and what maybe you think is distinctive about the way he approaches his thinking about Judaism.

Dr. Jacob Neusner:      The purpose of the book where he discusses the historical Jesus and which we are being open now is I think a key to the relationship to Jesus to the Jews too.  Because his reading of the crucifixion and all of the narrative concerned with that is exculpatory and but it’s based on scholarships.  I have in front of me the – I will in a minute, the – when in Mathew’s account of the whole people he – the Christians will remember that Jesus blood speaks of a different language from the blood of Abel.  It does not cry out for vengeance and punishment, it brings reconciliation.  Now what’s important there is that this is – this represents a scholarly judgment not something that is of a political value and he is talking about truth and not about convenience.

John Allen:            Thank you.

Operator:               There are no further questions in the queue I turn the call back over to the presenters for any closing comments.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Hi, this is Alexis Walkenstein and I just wanted to invite Father Fessio, do you have any closing comments that you would like to add before we send off?

Father Joseph Fessio:  Only that I’m very, very encouraged and impressed by this conversation and I wish we could be in the same room but this is the next best thing.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Mark Brumley do you have anything further you would like to add?

Mark Brumley:      Amen.

Ms. Alexis Walkenstein:         Great.  Well I want to thank our panel and the members of the press who turned out for the telephone conference today and for any members of the media who have further follow-up questions with any of our panelist please contact me directly by email or telephone and we’ll try to make arrangements to accommodate anything further that is lingering.  And the same goes for the transcript and the MP3 audio.  We will make those items available as you request them.

So thank you again to everybody for being here today.

Dr. Craig Evans:   Thank you.

Male:                     Thank you.

Dr. Ben Witherington III:       Thanks everybody.

Operator:               This concludes today’s conference you may now disconnect.

END

Moyer V. Hubbard,  Christianity in the Greco-Roman World. A Narrative Introduction, (Baker, 2010), 344 pages,  $24.99.

There are books which are coal mines, all you get out of them is stuff that quickly burns up— lots of heat, not much light, and too much blown smoke.   And you end up with soot on your hands.   Then there are books that are like tin mines— yes, they are useful, but its not the most precious metal and frankly its too fragile and malleable.  And then there are books that are like gold mines— and this book by Moyer Hubbard is one of those.   This is one of those books where you say “sell the dog and buy this book.”  It really is that good.  And for a textbook, its quite creative as well.   It is called a narrative Introduction, because we have four little fictional vignettes about first century life in Paul’s Corinth, each of which are quite charming and helpful in giving a feel for the context and the times.  Dr. Hubbard is a gifted writer.

What are the virtues of this book, besides the use of interesting fictional illustrations?   Well first there is the use of a veritable boat load of citations from the primary Greco-Roman sources.  This collection of apt quotes is alone worth using this book as a textbook for, but there are other good reasons as well.   There is also copious bibliography and footnoting for each chapter,  leaving one plenty of rabbit trails to chase down.  It’s a great resource for further research.

Thirdly,  Hubbard doesn’t merely review the Greco-Roman data that is of relevance to the study of the NT.  In each of the four major sections of the book, he applies the material to specific NT examples,  focusing specially on relevant material especially in Paul and Acts.   One could however have wished for much more of this integration and application to the NT material in each of the four major sections.

While reading the text, you will not get bogged down in the he said she said debates between scholars in this textbook.  If you want that, you can read the endnotes (which would have been more helpful had they been not relegated to the back of the book, but put at the bottom of the page—  (try Kindling that sort of flipping back and forth).   Fifthly, this book is well written indeed and at various points it has a just mot or two worth quoting.  It includes a little glossary of terms for those unfamiliar with some technical terms, useful indexes, guides to who’s who among the Greco-Roman writers, and the like.  Care has been taken in putting this book together, and in writing it.

The four major divisions of the book are topical in character and all  are introduced by the aforementioned little fictional vignettes. The headings are 1)Religion and Superstition; 2) Education, Philosophy, and Oratory; 3) City and Society; and  4) Household and Family.   Though there are a few hand drawings in the book, one could have wished for a lot more drawings, pictures, diagrams, charts, to get a better feel for ancient life and its appearance.

The past, as one wise man said, is indeed like a foreign country, they do things differently there, and this book demonstrates in spades my old axiom about how you can’t afford to read the Bible without studying its context because  ‘a text without a context is just a pretext for whatever you want it to mean’.   Let me first say that it is clear that Moyer has spent a long time in the vineyard of Greco-Roman antiquity, and time and again he reflects good judgment in his assessment of the significance and relevance of these sources.  Now there are certainly things where I would differ with him, when it comes to interpretation of either these sources or the NT, but by and large his judgment is excellent and his reading of the data accurate.   That’s one of the most valuable aspects of this book.  It is one thing to assemble the relevant evidence, it is another to properly critically sift and assess and comment on it.  All this happens in this little book (the text is only 235 pages counting the Introduction and Epilogue).

At this juncture, it will be useful to state some of the ways I think this book could be improved.  There are not many mistakes or typos in this book, and I have sent the author some of them for its next edition (and I hope there will be many such editions).  We will certainly use this book as a textbook at Asbury— no question.   It will be good for most all levels of NT study, including as an Intro text for our doctoral students.

The weakest section in this study, and the one where I find some lapses in good judgment and reading of the evidence is  Part Two on ancient education and oratory.  While it may be true that literacy was only the provenance of about 10-15% of the public in these oral cultures,  it is not true that only that percentage of persons were educated or were consumers or producers of good rhetoric.  The graffiti evidence in Pompeii alone makes clear that all sorts of people  had some level of basic literacy, not just the elite. We have all know good preachers who couldn’t write a good essay if they tried.

Moyer is in fact wrong that rhetoric was not part of elementary education.  Various of the elements of the progymnasmata were already taught to children— including the ability to produce rhetorical comparisons and to form chreiae.   And we need to understand as well that while only the higher status persons were likely to have all three levels of rhetorical education (there was rhetoric involved at every level of education in antiquity) nevertheless, without formal training many people picked up rhetorical skills just from listening to good orators.  These were rhetoric saturated cultures, without any doubt.

A further difficulty with Part Two of this study is that while there were plenty of sophists around using rhetoric mainly as a vehicle to display their oratorical skills,  by no means was all rhetoric in the first century world “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.  The mistaken impression could be gathered from Part Two in this study that almost all rhetoric in Paul’s day was sophistry,  and so Paul is claiming to avoid using rhetoric in 1-2 Corinthians.   This is in fact not what Paul is claiming.  Rather, he is claiming not to use mere verbal pyrotechnics without substance.   That is a different matter.

The rhetoric of the assemblies and the rhetoric of the law courts was not merely exercises in sophistry, in spite of its sophistication.  It was often substantive and serious business.  One could also have wished for a little discussion on the difference between Asiatic rhetoric and Atticizing rhetoric, more preferred in the western end of the Empire.   But these complaints do not negate the fact that even Part Two of this book is full of good information.  The reader wanting to assess rhetoric in the NT itself should have a read of my little textbook entitled New Testament Rhetoric which discusses the relevance of historical rhetorical practice for the study of the NT.

There are a few other places where there are some errors in judgment in this book, for example,  in Part Four, it is unlikely that Paul, a Pharisee, who had not converted to Christianity until well after he was an adult, had not been married.   Indeed, his implicit identification with the widower in 1 Cor. 7 suggests Paul, if not a widower, at least could sympathize with those who found themselves single persons, after having been married.  It is more likely Paul was shunned by his family once he became a follower of Christ, for he says he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, a comment about his father, not just his religious party.  Paul’s affirmation of singleness has to do with spiritual gifting and he believes as a Christian he has the ‘charisma’ to remain single for Christ, and wishes others did as well. But Paul is no ascetic, as the rest of 1 Cor. 7 makes evident. He is just a man on a mission with no time for a family.  John Wesley, my own forebear, would have done well to remain single as well instead of engaging in that train wreck of a marriage with Molly Vazeille.

I think also Moyer’s judgment about the social implications of Paul’s teaching about slavery can be questioned, especially when it comes to Philemon where Paul indeed implies that if someone has become a Christian they should be seen as “no longer a slave, but rather as a brother, and so more than a slave”.  Paul is not just arguing for the manumission of a slave named Onesimus in that little letter.  He is arguing for a paradigm shift in the way Christians view slaves who are also brothers or sisters in Christ, and what one should do about their slave status if one is Christian and a master.  What we have in Philemon is not the same as what we find in Colossians  (first order moral discourse— where one starts with people you don’t know) or what we find in Ephesians (a further step in moral instruction for those who have heard from you before). Rather in Philemon we have third order moral discourse— the discourse between intimates, indeed between co-workers in Christ, and here Paul pulls no punches, but displays his full heart on the subject of Christians and slavery.  We need to let the radical implications of Philemon sink in, and allow them to be what they are— radical for their day.

Despite these quibbles about a decided minority of this fine book,  I can only say this is one of the finest textbooks I have read in a very long time.  It brought joy to my heart to give it a close reading, and to see all the good evidence and judgment applied in it,  and it was a pleasure to read.  After 30 years of teaching it is an especial pleasure to read a basic book like this, and still learn much from it.   This book is in various ways a much better introduction to  Christianity in the Greco-Roman world, than the book I reviewed in multiple posts earlier this year— Luke Johnson’s interesting book on Was Early Christianity a Greco-Roman Religion?.

In closing I would remind you of just how valuable a book like this is when it comes to relating context to Biblical content— Erasmus once said  “when I get a little money I buy books.  If anything is left over, I buy food.”   This is one of those books worth forgoing a meal or two to purchase.

When is a dream a reality and a reality a dream?   When does a movie plant an idea in your head that you just can’t get out.  Well, it would have to be a very special movie, and Inception is such a movie.  We reviewed the movie when it came out, with its discussions of the possibility of extraction (taking an idea out of the mind through dreams) or inception (planting ideas in the mind through dreams)  but this time we need to focus on another feature of the film that is too little discussed— the totems,  which in the case of Cobb and his wife,  is a small metal top.  This was the talisman that kept them sane and let them know when they were dreaming and when what they were seeing was real.   Perhaps an hour into the film  Cobb (aka Di Caprio) says that in her dream his wife would see the little top spin endlessly, which was the way she knew it was a dream.  In a world with gravity, eventually the top will topple.

This bring us to the final scene in the movie— is it real or is it a dream?  Only the top can tell, and the final scene shows the top first spinning, then wobbling and beginning to fall, then fade to black.  We are left with the impression that the homecoming is real, though there is just that slight possibility that the top might go on spinning, for we do not actually see it come to rest.    And this brings us to the leap of faith.

Early in the movie when Cobb is talking to Ariadne (played by the able Ms. Page) he tells her, who is an architect of dream implants, that she should only build the framework  (or the maze) and she must allow the mind and its subconscious to fill in all the details with the information it already has stored, for instance all the people.   In other words, the idea of planting an idea in someone’s brain that will grow and flourish involves a leap of faith, because the brain must believe it is its own idea, originating in that sleeping brain itself.

What we have then in this film is not merely a parable about the shadowy distinctions between dreams and reality,  but the equally shadowy border between science and faith.   Even the scientist must take leaps of faith to discover things, to learn things, to accomplish things.   For example, it is without question a faith assumption that the human senses and the mind  are reliable, through which we perceive everything and without which objective reality is not accessible to us.  How do we know our eyes, ears, mind is reliable?   Frankly, we don’t and at this point we could run down the road of ‘cogito ergo sum’  but we will not.

My point is, that even science is based on a modicum of faith assumptions and leaps of faith.   Indeed,  even modern science in the end is based not only on some unprovable faith hypotheses about there actually being an objective reality, and that our senses can accurately help us perceive it, at least usually,  but science in the end requires certain theological hypotheses as well— for example that nature is not defiled by scientific inquiry, because of course nature is not God and can be distinguished from the creator of the universe, or at least the concept of such a creator.  At the bottom of the scientific subconscious is the creator/ creation distinction, with the added assumption that we ought to and perhaps were meant to explore the latter, even in purely empirical ways.   These are the thoughts that Dawkins and Hawking and others do not wish to entertain.   But if like Cobb they go down in the third level of subconscious, they will discover that the veil between science and faith is in fact diaphanous.   Though reality may have its totems, it’s touchstones that allow us to test and see if something is real,  at the end of the day, all of us must make our leaps of faith, small or great.     Indeed, most of the decisions we make everyday involve a faith postulate.  I trust that my car will start when I race into the garage to run off to school,  I trust (but have not empirically verified) that my chair in my office will hold me when I sit in it,   I trust that the food in the seminary cafeteria will not harm me, and so on and so on.   Everyday, for everyone, leaps of faith are being made right, left and center even by the most skeptical of atheists and agnostics.

Cobb in the end just wanted to come home, wanted to see the faces of his two beautiful children.  Exiled like Cain for an apparent murder (which in Cobb’s case was not deliberate, as he planted an idea in his wife’s brain that led to mayhem and madness) “when he returned to his right mind” and exorcised his demons and dealt with his guilt,  he was allowed to go home, ‘back to the real world’.

I suspect this movie will continue to be analyzed and psychoanalyzed for many years to come as a classic.  It is a testimony not merely to the human imagination, but to human reality, and it teaches us the wisdom of how to tell, and why we need to tell the difference between our dreams, and our reality.  While it is true that without vision, a people perish, it is also true that unless dreams, like that of MLK, become realities, they are just fantasies, figments of the mind, and they do not change the world.  It reminds me of a song from the 70s that was a movie theme song from the Thomas Crown Affair, award winning lyrics by Legrand and Bergman—

Round,
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending on beginning,
On an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain,
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Spinning silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Like the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Spinning silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that I said?
Lovers walk along a shore
And leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway
or the fragment of a song,
half-remembered names and faces
but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair?
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!

And oh yes. That picture at the top of this post----its a blend of the painting of a street artist, and an actual streetscene-- 
half imagination, half 'concrete' reality.

This review appears in this months  Baptist Today News Journal and was written by Tony Cartledge. 

—————-

Readers who would enjoy mystery thrillers while picking up biblical and cultural information from the Middle East will find an emerging series of novels by Ben and Ann Witherington to be just their cup of Turkish coffee. 

Ben Witherington III is an accomplished New Testament professor and author who teaches at Asbury Theological Seminary and St. Andrews University. Ann Witherington teaches biology and environmental sciences at Asbury. Married for 30 years, they have extended their collaboration into a planned series of seven novels based on the adventures of the fictional New Testament scholar-archaeologist Art West and a collection of colleagues and friends whose story lines extend through the series. 

The book’s hero is a peace-loving Methodist who doesn’t fight like Indiana Jones, but has nearly as many close calls, narrowly escaping death in each of the three volumes so far, sometimes more than once. Along the way, West makes discoveries (or interprets others’ finds) that advance various notions relative to New Testament scholarship. For example, the first book (The Lazarus Effect) argues that the “beloved disciple” was not John, but Lazarus. The second (Roman Numerals) seeks evidence for the presence of the Roman emporer cult in Israel early in the first century. The third (Papias and the Mysterious Menorah) uses the early church father Papias to posit an argument (contra those who believe the gospels were far removed from actual witnesses) that all four gospels can be traced to authors who either knew Jesus personally or spent time with those who did. 

Insiders will find occasional humor in recognizing thinly disguised persons, magazines, or scholarly arguments known to contemporary biblical scholarship. West reportedly does a TV show for the Discovery Channel, for instance, and is friendly with the irascible publisher of a popular magazine devoted to biblical archaeology — tips of the hat, perhaps to Simcha Jacobovici’s The Naked Archaeologist progam and Herschel Shanks’ Biblical Archaeology Review magazine.

The books include an entertaining and believable cast of characters from various walks of life — Muslims, Christians, and Jews; antiquities dealers, archaeologists, government officials — and interweave a theme of interfaith appreciation while pointing to the dangers of radical fundamentalism. The novels are unapologetically evangelical in approach — West is constantly seeking to demonstrate Christ’s love or find ways to share his faith, and is sometimes targeted for that reason. Yet, the Witheringtons also appeal for a non-judgmental acceptance of others whatever their faith. 

While I found the story lines somewhat unrealistic at points (it’s amazing how all the clues fall into place at just the right time), and West’s resilience is a bit overdrawn (could he really be bitten by a deadly asp in the morning, make a quick trip to the hospital, and give a lecture that afternoon?), the novels make for a mostly fast-paced, enjoyable read. Chapters are generally short, allowing the authors to move back and forth between multiple strands of the story.

Readers who pick up the series in the middle may struggle to identify characters who were introduced in previous books, and others may find it annoying that the quick pace is occasionally retarded by chapters that involve a long excursus on a Greek document (including the Greek text and translation), or the intricacies and meaning of an Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremony in modern Israel. Others may enjoy the added background information.

The books are published by Pickwick Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock, but poorly edited. I was struck by the occasional repetition of material, and by a few typographical errors — usually homonymns that are clearly wrong but wouldn’t be caught by a spell-checker. The Papias volume, for example, included boners such as “peak” for “peek” (twice), “site” for “sight,” “populous” for “populace,” and “hands” for “hand’s,” among others. 

The Witheringtons may not be quite as adroit in fiction as they are in their primary fields of study, but they are quite good enough to turn out novels that manage to be entertaining, educational, and encouraging all at once, and that is no small accomplishment.

In Chapter 15 Johnson turns to evidence for Religiousness D in 2nd and 3rd century Christianity,  an approach to religion that sees it as a world stabilizing force.   The concern here is for the role of religion in society.  In some ways it is odd to address this subject when one is talking about the pre-Constantinian church.  After all, Christianity was still not a religio licita,  it did not contribute to stabilizing the Roman empire, nor even to stabilizing the religious world within the Empire, so far as we can tell, unless one is talking about Christians being honest and good citizens, and doing charitable works.  But in fact, that is mostly not what Johnson is talking about in this chapter.

In analyzing what Clement, Ignatius, and Justin have to say about episcopal structures, the emerging role of bishops, liturgy and cultic language for the ekklesia something very odd happens.  While Johnson recognizes that Clement (e.g. in 1 Clem. 40.1ff.) is drawing analogies with the priestly praxis of Israel,  not with Greco-Roman praxis,  such that the bishop begins to play the role of high priest, in regard to the Lord’s Supper praxis,  (see pp. 236-37) and he recognizes the indebtedness of a document like the Didache to Jewish sources of thinking about meals and sacrifices and leadership,  reflecting a growing suspicion of prophets and more charismatic forms of leadership, he does not make clear why exactly we should see such adaptation as evidence of an increasingly Greco-Roman character to early Christianity. He concludes for example “It is sufficient, however, to establish that long before Christianity achieved its position as the imperial religion, bishops had emerged as local leaders, some exercising dominance over entire regions, and some met in councils to decide disputed issues. It is also sufficient to show that episcopal power was symbolized in terms of the high priesthood of the Old Testament and that the celebration of the Eucharist by bishops was characterized in terms of sacrifice.”  (p. 245).    Again one must ask,  how exactly is this evidence that Christianity was, or was becoming a Greco-Roman religion?    If we look at Greco-Roman religion of the time, all cults were basically local.  There was no equivalent to the bishop presiding over a region, in Greco-Roman religion unless one counts the pontifex maximus, the Emperor himself,  but Christianity did not yet have popes in this period,  despite anachronistic attempts by some to claim otherwise.   They had monarchial bishops in places like Antioch, and Ephesus, and Rome.

Take the evidence from Irenaeus.  As Johnson says “Irenaeus’ overall strategy, then consisted in establishing the tripod of Christian self-definition: the rule of faith (creed), the collection of Scriptures (canon), and the teaching office of bishops  (council).”  (p. 247).  This is exactly right, and it distinguishes Christianity from Greco-Roman religion or even ways of being religious in various regards.  Greco-Roman religions had no holy books,  nor were their creeds that people went around reciting, and as I have already said, there is no functional equivalent to the monarchial bishop in Greco-Roman religion.   Christianity, it would seem was evolving by developing its own praxis, its own ways of being religious, its own ecclesial structures and offices.   And where did Irenaeus think he got this threefold impetus to define Christianity?  From the apostles and apostolic tradition and from Scripture, and from the newly recognized normative collections of Christian texts, in the first instance a collection of the four Gospels and of Paul’s letters.

Johnson goes on to argue: “Long before it became the imperial religion, Christianity appeared institutionally as a vast network of associations that had developed a distinctive politeia. It’s bishops were elected by the people, but drew their legitimacy from a narrative of apostolic succession that fundamentally identified the visible community with its leaders. Bishops, furthermore, spoke of the church in terms of a sanctuary in which they functioned as divinely ordained priests, offering sacrifices to God through Christ.” (p. 253).   He is entirely right about this, which means, you can’t blame Constantine for all this.  And notice his admission that Christians were developing a distinct politeia in fact based on a taking over of certain things from the OT itself, not from Greco-Roman religion.   Now it is true that by that hermeneutical move, Christianity began to look more like any sort of religion that focused on priests, sacrifices, and sanctuaries, whether Jewish or Greco-Roman.   This however doesn’t make Christianity more like Greco-Roman religion any more than it was more like Jewish religion pre-70 A.D.   And these develops all transpired before: 1) the agreement on the N T canon in the early church; 2) the Christological councils in 325 and 450;  3)  before Christianity became a religio licita, a legal and publicly practiced and endorsed religion in the Empire.   If we want to see Christianity in bed with Greco-Roman politicians and those in power,  we have to wait for the time of Constantine.   But one cannot blame the ecclesial structures of early Christianity on him.    And finally the Greco-Roman associations  are not much of a parallel to what was going on in the ekklesiae. Whether we are talking about trade guilds, or merchant associations, or even the Mysteries, these things don’t walk or talk like what we see in the churches of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Thus far in this book,  Johnson has established that some of the ways early Christian had of being religious, one also finds in early Judaism and in the Greco-Roman world.   There were indeed Christians who focused on divine benefits or moral transformation, and other things.  But frankly one could say ‘that’s just human nature’  which is self-centered and approaches all things, including religion with a what can I get out of this attitude.   What he has not established is his key claim made on pp. 254-55:

Within the framework of the analysis used in this study, Christianity was a ‘Greco-Roman’ religion virtually from the start and grew increasingly closer to forms and expressions of religion found in the Greco-Roman environment. Rather, than a foreign and forced imposition, the Greco-Roman character of  Christianity was a natural development that required no external or political assistance. As the presence and influence of living Judaism receded, moreover, Christianity’s only real connection to its Jewish roots was through the reading of Scripture.  These sacred texts from ancient Israel were being read and interpreted however, as Greek writings  (the LXX) by people whose cultural environment, rhetorical education, and religious expectations were entirely Gentile.”

I think Johnson is right that over time we see more and more influence of Greco-Roman philosophical thought (for example at Nicea) and all along we have seen the use of the Greek language and rhetoric by early Christians.  And he is quite right that the form Christianity took leading into the 4th century was an internal development, and in part we may put some of its shape down to the  increasing influence of Gentiles in the church.   A very large lacunae in this statement however is this— the symbolic universe, the narrative thought world, and the theologizing and ethicizing of Christians owed far more to their Jewish sacred texts, both those written by Jews, and later those written by Jewish Christians or God-fearers like Luke than Johnson allows.  And indeed the influence of the Jewish content of these texts continued to be fundamental to the ‘ways of being religious’  in early Christianity, though in the cult of the martyrs and in the monastic movement, and in the Platonizing reflections on God’s nature, we can see increasing influence from the Greco-Roman thought world.

Buried in the footnotes is a begrudging reference to a seminal work that takes a very different tact and draws very different conclusions on this same subject— the classic study of Robert Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God, (Yale, 2003). If you are looking for a rebuttal of some of Johnson’s major claims in advance of Johnson making them,  you should read Wilken’s book in tandem with Johnson’s.   Rejecting the notion of the hellenization of Christianity, Wilken argues ” a more apt expression would be the Christianization of Hellenism, though that phrase does not capture the originality of Christian thought nor the debt owed to Jewish ways of thinking and to the Jewish Bible.  Neither does it acknowledge the good and right qualities of Hellenic thinking that Christians recognized as valuable for example the moral life understood in terms of the virtues. At the same time, one observes again and again that Christian thinking, while working within patterns of thought and conceptions rooted in Greco-Roman culture, transformed them so profoundly that in the end something quite new came into being”  (pp. xvi-xvii).

It is pity that Johnson doesn’t give due attention and critique to Wilken’s detailed arguments, and I must confess that having read both books,  it appears to me that Wilken definitely has the better of the argument,  not denying the influence of Hellenism on Christianity, but also not making the over-sized claim that Christianity was a Greco-Roman religion from the outset.   This, as Wilken would say is rhetorical hyperbole not demonstrable by the evidence, especially if one is talking about pre-Constantinian Christianity.   Johnson is right that rhetoricians did become church leaders especially after Constantine.  He is right that the evangelistic character of Christianity made it susceptible  to the influence of Greco-Roman praxis, thought, ways and we see evidence of it.    But early Christianity continued to be a development of early Judaism precisely because of the ongoing influence of its sacred texts on its thought world, and its symbol system so much so, that you can tell the difference between the exegesis of the Antioch school and that of Alexandrians like Clement and Origen and it becomes clear which sort of approach is more or less in line with the Jewish substance and character of these texts.   The fact that Philo provides a precedent for Origen and Clement ought to lead us to ask the question— would we want to say that the religion of Philo was straight-forwardly a form of Greco-Roman religion?    I think not, and nor should we claim this about the early Christian writers who adopted and adapted what they had learned from Greco-Roman education and philosophy and ways of interpreting texts to further their essentially Jewish monotheistic and Christocentric religion.    In the end, Johnson’s approach to this subject is, and is intended to be a provocation.  He is arguing a particular case.  He argues well,  but the case has too much neglect of evidence, too much imbalance, too much taking small or individual examples as evidence of large trends.    In our final post on this book,  I will deal with Johnson’s  Epilogue,   where we learn what some of  his real urgencies were for doing this study.

My next book in my little Kingdom Perspectives series for Eerdmans is my book succinctly titled WORK,  and it has just come out this week.  Here below is a little sample for you to tease your mind into active thought.     If you wonder what you are looking for,  you will find the cover below as well.    Yes, it’s available on Kindle (though I hate that format)  and yes its inexpensive—- $12.00 or thereabouts.  You shouldn’t have to do much work to buy this book  🙂

CHAPTER FIVE: WORK AS MINISTRY, MINISTRY AS WORK

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.— John W. Gardner

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.—Pearl S. Buck

Some time ago I wrote a poem about work and ministry that goes as follows:

OPUS MAGNUM

Weary, worn, welts on hand

Work has whittled down the man

To the bare necessities

Of what he is, and what he’ll be

Was this then his destiny?

Defined, refined by what we do,

The toilsome tasks are never through

Thorn and thistle, dirt and dust

Sweeping clean, removing rust

All to earn his upper crust?

Sweat of brow, and carried weight

Rose too early, slept too late

Slaving, striving dawn to dusk

Til the shell is barely husk

Staunch the stench with smell of musk?

But work is not the curse or cure

By which we’re healed, or will endure

It will not save us in the end,

It is no foe, but rather friend

But while it molds us will we mend?

Task Master making all things new

Who makes the most of what we do,

Let our work an offering be

A timely gift from those set free

From earning our eternity.

When work is mission on the move

By those whose efforts serve to prove

That nothing’s wasted in God’s hands

When we respond to his commands

Then we shall hear him say “well done”

To those who worked under the Son.

Oct. 4, 2005

WORK AS AN OFFERING TO GOD,  A RESPONSE TO GRACE AND SALVATION

In this poem I am suggesting work can be a calling, a mission, a ministry, an offering to God, and in any case and at all costs it should never be seen as merely a way to ‘make a living’, which is an exceedingly odd phrase.  We might do well to talk about making a Christian life before we talk about ‘making a living’, if what one means by that phrase is making money so one can survive.  All too often ‘making a living’ really means ‘making a comfortable living’ or even ‘making a killing’ if we are a greedy sort of person.

From a Christian perspective all persons in Christ are called to both ministry and discipleship of various sorts.  Labor is part of this calling some of which is remunerative, some of which will not be.  Paul in 1 Corinthians 9 is insistent that ministers of various sorts should be offered pay for their labors since Jesus says a workman is worthy of his hire, but of course they can refuse pay as well.  If we see work as part of our life stewardship, just as play and worship and prayer and sleep and so many other things are part of our stewardship, we will begin to be on the right track.

Life is a gift from God, and work can be a blessing rather than a curse if it is done to God’s glory and for Christ’s kingdom. Work is part of what we offer to God on a daily basis as we respond to God’s call to do various things that matter in life, even do things that change life for the better, or even save lives.  There are several keys to a proper Christian attitude about work.

Work should be done in full remembrance that initial salvation or conversion is in the first place a gift of God’s grace.  It is not a debt God owed to us. Therefore we can neither work nor worm our way into God’s graces, and we shouldn’t ever see work as a means of doing so, or as a means of making amends, or as a means of atoning for things we’ve done wrong and the like.  Work has no capacity to convert us, nor can it compensate for our lack of salvation, nor can the doing of it make God an offer he can’t refuse.  Work done in service to God, as a grateful response to God’s grace, can however be a great good.  It can even help feed, cloth, and even save the world.   As we have said previously as well, ‘working out our salvation’ that God has worked into us can be said to be part of our work.  The will of God for our lives is sanctification and what we do affects that sanctification (see 1 Thess. 4).  And here is where I add that the ultimate expression of holiness of heart and life, the ultimate expression of sanctification is doing the will of God, which is to say doing the ministry he has called each of us to do.  What is interesting is that if we focus on the doing of the ministry, sanctification happens as a by product of that focus, but if we focus on ourselves and our sanctification, ministry may never happen.  Ministry you see, is other directed, focused on others.

While we are reflecting on the ministry God calls each of us to do, we should avoid the mistake of our culture– defining ourselves by what we do.  We are all creatures created in God’s image (which is not an accomplishment but a gift) and if we are Christians we are creatures renewed in the image of Christ.  This is who we are.  What we do, whether we are doctors, lawyers, scientists, ministers, theologians is important but it does not define or eclipse who we are.  We have all met doctors who had excellent skills but who were not very good persons.  They were good at their tasks but bad at being a real human being, much less a Christian one.  It is no accident that Paul in the Pastoral Epistles, when he is talking about ministers says precious little about what they ought to be doing, and quite a lot about what kind of persons they should be (cf. 1 Tim. 3 to Titus 1).

Furthermore, we should not evaluate the value of our work by how much we are paid to do it, nor by the amount of praise, fame, or kudos garnered for doing it.  We should evaluate our work by whether we have done it well, done it to the best of our ability, done it honestly and in good time, done it to the glory of God, whatever the human response to the work may be.  Unfortunately we live in a world where many people, even Christians, not merely define themselves by what they do, but define their true worth by their financial or net worth.   This is both tragic and it gets in the way of finding out whom and whose we really are.

Lastly, it is right to take satisfaction from a job done well.  This is in itself a reward, but since in the end we are playing to an audience of One, the evaluative voice that really matters when it comes to assessing our work is the one whom hopefully we will one day hear say “Well done good and faithful servant”.  It is no accident that there is a dialectic set up in Genesis between work and rest, between work and play, between work and worship.  Work should never be a be-all and end-all experience, or else it will indeed be the end of us all, prematurely, as we work ourselves to death.

I was visiting the Billy Graham library in Charlotte and had finished the tour and was going to leave but there was one more outside spot to see—the memorial garden for Ruth Graham, Billy’s wife.  There was a very large tomb stone carved with her name and dates and the following words—“Construction Completed.  Thanks for your Patience”.  It dawned on me that there is a whole different way of evaluating work, ministry and time.  What if you evaluate life’s work as something God has been doing in and to you?  What if you conceive of it as a timed process that takes time?  What if “work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to do” is viewed as the most important ‘work’ of all, a work dependent on God’s doings in us which we cannot even work out unless God has first worked it in?  What if this sort of working is the one that really matters and affects our eternal destiny?

WORK AS MINISTRY

With these sort of general considerations we can then begin to look more closely at ministry as work, and work as ministry.  It will be well if we remind ourselves of a few key points before we turn to a text like 1 Cor. 3.    Firstly, it was the concept of the priesthood of all believers which motivated Reformers like Martin Luther to talk about all good work done by Christians as a ministry of sorts, thus breaking down the distinction between work in general and ministerial work in particular, or between sacred and secular work.  I quite agree with Luther on this point.  This in turn leads to an understanding that any sort of good life work is a calling which God gives a person leading to certain tasks assigned according to ability and gifting.  The parable of the talents is as applicable to those we call ministers as to those we call lay persons, as applicable to women as to men. Put succinctly, the parable of the talents is for all believers who have the ability to work!   This of course also means that the Christian is always responsible to God in Christ for what he does with what tasks he has been assigned, and there will be an accounting by Christ when he returns.

What that parable tells us is that Christ is looking for industry, integrity, honesty, loyalty, a striving after excellence, a doing of one’s task to the best of one’s ability, a taking responsibility for one’s own actions, and we could say more.   Regardless of the work a Christian does, it should be seen as a calling not merely a job, and it should be seen as a ministry done in service of the King and his Kingdom, not merely a task.

The way the eschatological situation changes the way we view work, is that now that salvation has been loosed in the world, we all especially have the task to do our work in a way that bears witness to that truth and to the one who said he was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Whether we are talking about lifestyle evangelism, or bearing witness by the integrity of one’s work and work ethic, Christians all know there is a world to be saved, and participating in that is indeed JOB ONE for all of us.  The Great Commission was given to all the post-Easter disciples, not merely the Twelve.  We are to make disciples of all nations and lead them to the point of the ultimate task of all creatures great and small—worshipping the one true God.

Work then from a Christian perspective is not just viewed in light of the original creation order, much less in light of the Fall.  It is primarily viewed in the light of the Christ event, and it looks forward to the completion of that Christ event when He returns.  What the eschatological fact that Christ is returning like a thief in the night does (and we have no idea whether that will transpire sooner or later) when it comes to work, is that it gives a certain urgency to the basic task of making disciples, either directly or indirectly through one’s work.  But there is more.

What the eschatological horizon also does is make the ordinary or mundane things and tasks of this world be seen for just how contingent and temporary they are.  When Paul reflects on how the Christ event has changed “business as usual” for the Christian he says this in 1 Cor. 7.17-20, 29-31—“each of you should live as a believer in whatever [life or social] situation the Lord has assigned to you, just as God has called you. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called?  He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called?  He should not be circumcised.  Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing.  Keeping God’s commands is what counts…What I mean brothers and sisters is that the time has been shortened.  From now on those who are married should live as if they were not, those who mourn as if they did not, those who are happy as if they were not, those who buy things as if it were not theirs to keep, those who use the things of this world as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is already passing away.”

Paul is saying, as plainly as he can, that since Christ and the eschatological situation has come, it will no longer be adequate to live on the basis of the old Wisdom, the old verities about life and death, love and marriage, possessions and property, work and rest.   The things of this world and the people of this world have been put on notice that they have an expiration date.  Things will not continue for ever the way they have always been. This in turn means that one must recognize the contingency of all of earthly life and its institutions and activities, not because, as Qoheleth suggested all was vanity or meaningless, but because all now must be viewed in light of the really important things in life—namely salvation in Christ and his coming Kingdom.  Even marriage or death pales in significance when compared to these eschatological realities now in play, and they must now change how we view work and rest, marriage or singleness, life or death.

The ultimate upshot of this for the Christian is that the old basic priorities of making a living and providing for one’s family and getting ahead in the world, have all been relativized or places further down the list of priorities compared to doing the more basic and essential task of leading people to Christ and into the Kingdom.  As we see from reading 1 Corinthians straight through, Paul does not think those kinds of tasks are just for the paid ministers either.   He is telling the whole audience to think in a new way about their lives, relationships and work in the light of the divine saving activity of God in Christ which keeps happening in their midst.

He is saying that even things like marriage and children are not and should not be the be all and end all of our existence.  Marriage is a temporal institution for our earthly good, as Paul makes clear in Rom. 7.1-4.  When the partner dies, the marriage is over.  Paul simply wants believers to understand the difference between temporal and eternal things, and make the main thing the main thing.  In fact, Paul suggests that with the coming of the Kingdom it requires a calling and a gifting to get married, or to be single for the sake of the Lord. He calls it a charisma—a grace gift, to live in either condition in this life (see 1 Cor. 7.1-10).  In other words, Christians no longer take the creation order mandate to be fruitful and multiply as their necessary marching orders if they are to fulfill God’s purpose for them in life.  In fact Paul suggests we no longer live on the basis of what comes natural or seems natural, or even on the basis of the old creation order Orders.  Instead, we look at life from a Kingdom perspective, which means that we can see either marriage in the Lord or singleness for the Lord as blessed options, not necessities.  Among other things, this view of life allows women to assume all sorts of roles, including those we would call ministerial, which they had no time for before since they were committed full time to producing offspring and raising them.

THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD

But what about those who have been especially called and equipped for teaching and preaching, for evangelizing and proselytizing?   Paul has some specific things to say about such persons, and clearly he would agree with James’ sober assessment that not many should desire to be such educators, as with that task comes more responsibility for the outcome.

Let us hear 1 Cor. 3.5-23:

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. ⁶ I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. ⁹ For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. ¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

¹⁸ Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness” ; ²⁰ and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”  ²¹ So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, ²² whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas  or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, ²³ and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

There are a variety of things about this passage that call for comment.  First of all, these church planters or apostles or leaders are all viewed as servants of God, and indeed servants of God’s people.  They are also called God’s co-workers, and Paul expects them to be honored as such.   They are first called planters and waterers of God’s field then builders of God’s temple, but it is stressed that it is God who gives the growth and in both cases Paul means a living entity that is being built up—the people of God.

Notice what this text says—both the planters and waterers have one and the same purpose, and God is the one who will reward them for work well done.   They are to do their work with care and leave the results and rewards in God’s hands.  The judgment day will bring to light what sort of work Apollos or Paul or Peter or others have done, and “if what has been built survives (the fiery test of the Judgment) “the builder will receive a reward” [when Kingdom comes].  If however the work has not been done with care and not with the right materials, the builder will suffer loss, but himself will be saved, though as one escaping through the fire.”  Notice that it is God who is to ultimately judge the builders work, not the congregation.   The leaders belong to both God and to the people, but then all of the people of God belong to, and are accountable to God for their behavior.  Everything is to be done ‘Coram Deo’ not merely bearing in mind that God is watching, but bearing in mind that God is now working, and also will one day do the quality control test on one’s work.

The second thing to stress about this passage is that Paul is not merely telling us that Christ compels and empowers our ministry, he is saying that God is working at it as well.  We are co-laborers with the Almighty, and there can be no higher privilege.  God has not merely assigned us a job to do, handed us the tools and ability and told us to get on with it.   The Big Boss is always on the job, and we are working along side of Him, which ought to be sufficient motivation to not slack off and always give our best.  It ought also to be an enormous comfort.

William C. Placher, in his anthological volume entitled Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation,[1] reminds us that we should resist the tendency to limit vocation or calling to those who, like a Paul or an Apollos, were evangelists or teachers.  I agree with him and Barbara Brown Taylor that there should be no one definition of what counts as a calling and vocation for a Christian person.  At the same time, we cannot ignore that Paul in 1 Cor. 3 and 7 and 9 is not simply saying that any good task is equally crucial to the Kingdom work as any other, not least because he relativizes the normal or mundane tasks in life in 1 Cor. 7, saying we should live ‘as if not’ when it comes to those sorts of matters.  Clearly there is no higher calling or vocation for anyone than sharing Christ, though this can take many forms, both direct and indirect.

What results from these sorts of reflections is three things: 1) there needs to be a priority list for a Christian person. They need to know what is more and what is less important for them to do or work at in life, and this in part depends on what they have been called and gifted to do, or not.  Let me give a personal example.  While I quite enjoy, and derive exercise benefit from, mowing my grass in due season, it would not be the best use of my time, calling, gifting, vocation even during the summer if I did this task so incessantly that I neglected my higher calling to write and teach and preach.  This would not be an example of me using my ‘talents’ most wisely; 2) One needs to be wise enough to see the difference between work of temporal and of enduring value and this requires discernment, and it may require outside advice and wisdom.  Sometimes we get far too close to what we are doing to step back and evaluate it critically, and we get far to wrapped up in it, to continue to be open to new callings, new directions;  3)  Our work should not be seen as our atonement for sins past, nor as our means of earning our salvation.  Just because we need to view our work in a theological light, as calling and vocation, does not provide a warrant for us to view work in either of these ways.  I put it this way in my poem cited in full above—

Task Master making all things new

Who makes the most of what we do,

Let our work an offering be

A timely gift from those set free

From earning our eternity.

4) Obviously whatever we do, we should only do things that we can do to God’s glory and for the edification of others.  And we should derive our satisfaction from doing the work well, not from whether or how much we get remunerated.  But we need to consider this last matter more closely, and in some detail.

WORK FOR HIRE OR MONEY FOR NOTHING?

The issue of getting paid for what one does is of course a sensitive one in a workaholic culture like ours, so much so that people, even Christians, sadly tend to evaluate their eternal worth on the basis of their net worth, or the value of their work on the amount they get paid to do it.   This is without question a huge mistake.  Some people in Hollywood (and elsewhere) get paid enormous sums to do pedicures, which is not high on the list of necessary and meaningful tasks in life from a Christian point of view.  The remuneration is out of all proportion to the merit and value of the work.  And if we think that is ridiculous we should bear in mind that at least in the case of the pedicurist there is a correlation between work and pay, or laboring and remuneration. In too many cases in our culture, the ‘ideal’ is summed up in the words of the popular song by Mark Knopler—“money for nothing, and the chicks for free”.  This is some American males’ view of the perfect life.  At the other extreme from this would be the cliché which suggests “you don’t get something for nothing” which oddly causes some people in our culture to doubt that salvation could be a free gift.

Let us start this part of our discussion with another parable, the parable of the day laborers in Matthew 20–

For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ² He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work.

³ “At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. ⁴ So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. ⁵ So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same thing.

⁶ “At five o’clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’

⁷ “They replied, ‘Because no one hired us.’

“The landowner told them, ‘Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.’

⁸ “That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. ⁹ When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. ¹⁰ When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. ¹¹ When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, ¹² ‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’

¹³ “He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? ¹⁴ Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. ¹⁵ Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’

¹⁶ “So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.”

First of all, we are indeed talking about day laborers. Those who are hired day to day, and so must sit in the market square hoping to be picked to go into the fields, because otherwise the chances are good they and their family will not eat tomorrow.  This is also why they are paid on a daily basis— ‘give us this day our daily bread’ is the prayer of the day laborer.  The normal pay for a day laborer was a denarius or drachma, and that is precisely what is offered to the first workers in this parable.  To the second group hired he offers to pay them “what is right”, and he says the same to the next two groups hired as well, but not to the last ones hired.

When the grapes are ripe, there is an urgent need to get them picked quickly before they begin to spoil, in order to get the maximum harvest.  The owner goes to the marketplace at dawn, then at 9 a.m. then again at noon, and at 3 p.m., and according to vs. 6 he goes out to market once more at 5 p.m.  He is puzzled to find workers still standing around waiting to be hired at 5.p.m. and he asks “Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?”  Their reply is the simple and obvious one—“because no one hired us.”  What a heartbreaking remark!  This parable is not suggesting these men were lazy.  They were simply unemployed, and it was a clear sign that they desperately wanted to work and earn a crust bread that they were still in the marketplace near sundown.  Nothing is promised to this last group, but they are given permission to go into the fields and work.  The life of the day laborer was quite literally a matter of living hand to mouth, and so even a little pay was better than none.  From the owner’s point of view he was going to do whatever it took to get that harvest of grapes in, in a timely fashion.  If this story takes place in either June or September then sundown is 6-7 p.m. or thereabouts.

According to Lev. 19.13/Deut. 24.14-15 it was the normal thing to pay the day laborer at the end of the day, so we are not surprised when in vs. 8 the owner told his foreman to call the workers from the field, but then interestingly he tells the foreman to pay them in reverse order of their hiring.  The last shall be first.  But then something surprising happens—the workers hired last are paid a full day’s wage.  It is then not surprising that when it came to paying those hired first, they were expecting more than a denarius since they had worked as much as twelve hours.  Yet these too received a denarius and began to grumble. “These workers whom were hired last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”   Suddenly we are in an honor and shame situation.  Those hired first feel shamed by not being paid more than those last hired, when in fact their amount of work was not equal to those hired last.  Notice they do not say “equal pay for equal work” though they could have done so, but rather “you have made them equal to us”.  The issue is one of honor and identity, and perhaps they felt like they must have been the better workers, since they were hired first.

In vs. 13 the owner calls them ‘friends’ and reminds them that he had been perfectly fair with them, paying them exactly what they agreed to at the beginning of the day.  The issue here is not one of violation of contract, and so not of justice or fairness in that sense.  The owner then adds that they should take their pay and go asking “Don’t I have a right to do what I want with (the rest of) my money (once the debt of contract has been met)?  Or are you envious because I am generous?”  Generosity of course frequently goes beyond justice, and the owner chose to be generous to those last hired, perhaps because he knew they and their family needed to eat as badly as any one else.  The grumblers then are seen to be reacting to generosity not to injustice.   Of course this parable is not primarily about money matters but about Kingdom matters and it is true that God’s graciousness always challenges those who think strictly on the basis of merit or quid pro quo. Real ministry goes beyond fairness to meeting the need, and no one should be envious when God is generous.

Our interest in this parable is that it upholds the general principle that “the workman is worthy of his hire” (Mt. 10.10/ Lk. 10.7; cf. 1 Tim. 5.18).   The aphorism presupposes a normal connection between work and pay.  What the aphorism means depends on which form you follow. The Matthean form in fact says that the workman is worthy of his maintenance, as trophos refers not just to food, but room and board.  That is, the Matthean form is talking about a living wage not just something that allows one to buy food.  The Lukan form focuses presumably on the contractual aspect—a person is worthy to be paid for what he has been hired for.  1 Tim. 5.18 applies this principle particularly to church elders (‘workers deserve their wages’) and relates it to the principle in Deut. 25.4 which suggests that even an ox should get some personal benefit from all their hard work.   Paul in 1 Cor. 9.7-18 makes perfectly clear that ministers have a right to make their living by preaching the Gospel, as a particular extension of the teaching of Jesus about the connection between work and fair remuneration.  In fact he is more demonstrative than that saying “the Lord has commanded that those who preach the Gospel should receive their living from the Gospel.”(vs. 14).

The specific ministry of the Gospel, as portrayed by Paul in 1 Cor. 9 and elsewhere is hard work, and work that deserves fair remuneration, not least because it is most directly the fulfillment of the Great Commission, the primary task for every Christian.  Here then we have crossed the line from talking about all work as ministry of a sort, to talking about ministry as a particular kind of work that deserves remuneration, fair remuneration.  Of course the world’s priorities will never be the same as Kingdom priorities between now and when the Lord returns, but at least in Christian circles, Paul is encouraging Christians to think in Christian ways about the employment of those who get their living by the Gospel.

It is of course true that sometimes hard work leads to major remuneration, and then the ethical dilemma comes not in defending the issue of equal pay for equal work, or a fair compensation for crucial work, or the like,  but rather the moral burden shifts from the employer to the employee, from the compensator to the one compensated.  By this I mean that what one does, with what one makes is of course an ethical matter, perhaps more so for a minister than for anyone else.  It is not necessary for a person to live a life of conspicuous consumption just because they have been well paid for what they have done. The issue of the accumulation of wealth, is a serious one for a Christian, and I have dealt with it at length elsewhere.[2] The point to be made here is that the minister of the Gospel has a particular opportunity and responsibility to lead by example when it comes to the issue of what one does with what one is paid or earns and to be sure the congregation will be watching.

Sometimes of course the congregation expects the minister to appear to be prosperous, thus providing them with an excuse or reason to live an opulent lifestyle as well, on the theory that they have a right to it, since all good gifts come from God!    It is of course true that Christians who work hard and honestly do often face the dilemma of doing well, a nice dilemma to have.  John Wesley had to deal with this problem with his Methodists at the rise of the Industrial Revolution and so his most used sermon in the second half of the 18^th century was “On the Use of Money”.   He himself said his goal was to make sure that by the time the grave beckoned he had dispensed or given away all that he had or owned.   What a different attitude to those ministers who spend their time justify a luxurious lifestyle with the so-called prosperity theology.

Most Christians, when they have had their consciousness raised enough, will agree that there must be some ethical discernment on their part to figure out what is a good and godly job for them to do.  They will perhaps agree as well that work can and should be seen as calling, vocation, even ministry, and that a workman is worthy of his hire, and that includes those workmen and women whom we tend to call pastors, ministers, priests, reverends.   They will understand that what work they do and how they do it provides a witness to the Gospel and the coming Kingdom, and so it can be seen as part of a larger evangelistic enterprise fulfilling the Great Commission.  Making a living is one thing, making a life another, and making a Christian life yet a third thing.

But all too few Christians come to the point of realization that they are called in their work to be culture builders or ethos creators.  All Christians even including, perhaps especially including, counter-culture Christians sometimes take such an antagonistic approach to culture that they approach it purely apologetically as something to be deconstructed.  But what if God has gifted Christians to use their abilities in the fine arts, in the domestic arts, in all creative skills, to build a more Christian world?   Andy Crouch has had some good things to say on this subject, and so in our next chapter we must interact with him in detail on the subject of culture making from a Christian perspective.

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[1] Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

[2] See Witherington, Money,

In various ways, what the church became after the NT era is of less importance, than what its foundational NT documents say it should be. There has always been a gap between Christianity on the ground, and the beliefs and behavior and praxis called for in Scripture.  No one, I think, would debate this.  Nor do I think there is much debate that Christianity became increasingly more like other established religions as time went on.  It began to have buildings, it began to have priests,  it began to have pilgrimages, it began to have multiple rituals, it began to have a cult of relics and a cult of the saints which in various ways adopted and adapted some things from the cult of the dead and the magical that characterized popular or folk Greco-Roman religion.   RamsayMacMullen has demonstrated the connections and influence and similarities rather well in his book  The Second Church.   These things are pretty undeniable and they are the source of claims being made about ‘pagan Christianity’  in the post-NT era.     Lest however we get ahead of ourselves.  It is well to review the discussion by Johnson of Christians’ ways of being religious in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D.   I would suggest, to sum up in advance, that the less ‘Jewish’ Christianity became in its makeup and also in its ways of thinking, and the less eschatological it became, the more susceptible it became to influence from pagan ways of being religious.    Nevertheless, this did not lead the church to abandon a Jewish symbol system and narrative thought world, as embodied in both its foundational first century Christian documents and in the OT (in this case the LXX). It did not cause it to abandon either monotheism or a high ethical standard in things like sexual ethics either.  Indeed, it was more apt to go in the other direction towards asceticism, even extreme asceticism in some cases.  The idolatry and immorality banned by the Apostolic decree and the teachings of Paul and other early Jewish Christian thinkers was not reneged on, at least in the second century A.D.,  and we only see the beginnings of the cult of the saints and martyrs  (including Mary as a saint) as a possible compromise of monotheism in the late second third, and early fourth centuries.   Constantine did however fan the flames of such tendencies in various ways with his public endorsement of Christianity.   So again, I would suggest even in the second and third centuries when Christianity was not a religio licita, and was persecuted, prosecuted, and some Christians were executed, it is not really correct to call Christianity another Greco-Roman religion, even at heart in its religious sensibilities, to judge from the documents produced during this period.  Gnosticism was another matter, and as the first full-blown Christian ‘heresy’ it deserves to be treated separately from apostolic Christianity which went back to the movement’s founders.

In the first of his chapters on Religiousness A in the second and third century churches,  Johnson once again chooses to focus on those documents and persons he takes to be representative of the period  (Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (including the Acts of Paul and Thecla) and the Apocryphal Infancy Gospels.   He deals as well with Montanism and martyrs in Chapter 12.    What he concludes is “it was not possible for Christians to partcipate in the regular round of ‘idolatrous’ public worship, and their own rituals were as yet largely undeveloped. The focus for this religious sensibility therefore became the holy person or saint through whom the divine dynamis worked and access to whom yielded benefits for others… those who bear witness to Christ in their violent death demonstrate the working of the same resurrection power in their triumph over imperial power, demonic power, and their own human weakness.” (p. 192). Here I think Johnson is largely correct. The more Gentile the church became, and the less atuned it was to its Jewish roots and theology these sorts of orientations became more possible, indeed anti-Semitic Gnosticism with its radical dualism about matter and spirit became possible.   At the same time, Christianity was recognizably other, not seen as a legitimate Greco-Roman religion, and persecuted accordingly.

Johnson in Chapter 13 demonstrates as well the evidence for Religiousness B in 2nd and 3rd century Christianity, a religion focusing on moral transformation and the moral life.   Here he examines the writings of Clement of Rome and Polycarp of Smyrna, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.  It is not really a surprise that Clement of Alexandria and Origen reflected their own education in that place, and so had Greco-Roman tendencies more than a Justin Marytr or a Polycarp.  And perhaps the influence of Jewish thinkers like Philo of Alexandria also led to the moralistic approaches and emphases we see in these two church fathers, as well, not to mention the way they handled Scripture.   The impression is however that Hellenism affects them in part through the filter and influence of monotheistic Judaism.   Even Clement’s asceticism is tempered by the creation  theology he finds in the OT.   It is thus intriguing that Johnson concludes “Christian Religiousness B therefore became not only the location for piety as moral endeavor but also the place where ‘theology’– the articulation of correct doctrine concerning God— came to be practiced. In the future, the degree of conceptual and verbal ability required to connect doctrine and morality would make Religiousness B the natural source for much of Christian intellectual life, with the accompanying tendency to think in terms of definitions and prescriptions more than in terms of the experience of power.”  (p. 213).   Johnson is sadly right about this.  The move to squash what he calls Religiousness A with its charismatic tendencies– focusing on supernatural healing, prophecy, tongues and other divine gifts or benefits was in motion already in the second century in Christianity, and when such things were seen as typical of a very sectarian movement like Montanism which wrongly predicted the place and time of the second coming (in Turkey no less) and even sucked into its orbit a great thinker like Tertullian, there was bound to be a reaction to the charismatic dimension of early Christianity as it sought to soldify its ideational boundaries about both theology and ethics.    As we shall see in our next post,  Johnson doesn’t find Religiousness C in mainstream Christianity in this period— he finds it in the Gnostic movement.

Let us say from the outset of this post that Luke Johnson is right about a wide variety of things.  For instance, there can be no doubt at all that many Gentiles who became Christians under the aegis of Paul or others brought with them into their Christian communities certain Greco-Roman ways of being religious.  You can see this for example in the reference to proxy baptism for the dead in 1 Cor. 15.  Their approach to Christian initiation rites was no doubt affected by their previous beliefs about such things, whether they had participated in the Mystery religions or not.   They were partially socialized Christians who had not yet fully imbibed a Christian way of viewing things like the ‘sacraments’  to use an anachronistic term.   What is important to notice about this however is that Paul and others corrected such behaviors at various points.  It was not going to be satisfactory for Corinthian Christians to continue to go to dinner parties at pagan temples, and the reasons why they shouldn’t were at once theological, ethical and practical (its a bad witness).  Nor can we dispute that writers like Paul or the author of Hebrews used Greco-Roman philosophy and rhetoric in order to relate to their audiences.  These things, in themselves would not make Christianity a Greco-Roman religion, any more than Philo’s use of Greek philosophy meant he was no longer a Jewish thinker.   And doubtless Johnson is also right that many converts to Christianity went into their new religion with a religious sensibility that predisposed them to see what divine benefits or moral improvement they could get out of the new religion.   All of this is beyond reasonable cavil or doubt.  The issue really becomes whether ‘ways of being religious’ can be studied or should be studied in isolation from the symbolic universe, the narrative thought world and the theologizing and ethicizing we find going on in NT documents?   That is whether such ways or sensibilities can be isolated from questions of the thought world or ideation.    While I think distinctions can be made, I don’t at the end of the day think one can bracket out ‘theology’ for instance and still adequately discuss ‘ways of being religious’.    This whole approach rather reminds me of the story of Jacob and Esau when Jacob sought to steal Esau’s blessing.   The voice is the voice of Jacob but the hands and arms are those of Esau.  That is, Greco-Roman dress or form doesn’t really determine who it is that is wearing the clothing.  The fact that there were priests, temples, and sacrifices prayers and tithes and offerings in almost all ancient religions while not an unimp0rtant similarity does not at the end of the day allow us to neglect the salient differences between say Judaism and Greco-Roman religion, even in regard to praxis.

With this as prolegomena we need to consider Chapters 10-11 on NT Christianity and Religiousness  A and B.  Naturally enough,  Johnson first turns to the ecstatic Corinthians as an example of Religiousness A— those who approach their religion looking for divine benefits including signs, wonders, ecstatic speech, charismatic experiences and the like.    There is something to this, but it is  a mistake to ignore the fact that 1 Corinthians is a letter that is a problem solving and correcting letter, and while Paul doesn’t want to stifle the Spirit in Corinth, he does want to deprogram them from for example mistaking glossolalia for prophecy (a natural mistake in view of what went on at the oracle at Delphi— see my Conflict and Community in Corinth), and he wants them to understand the concept of grace and truth.  There are all sorts of religious experiences, and doubtless many sorts of ‘real’ religious experiences, but not all of them are beneficial, not all of them are of the Lord, not all of them build up the body of Christ.  The ‘realness’ of an experience one can have at the temple of Asklepius in Corinth does tell one anything about the goodness of the experience or the godliness of the experience.   If Paul had heard a  Corinthian say ‘but I cannot deny my experience I had at the Asklepion’  Paul’s response would have been ‘no, but you can deny it was a good or godly experience’  and so he would tell them ‘you cannot dine at the table of the Lord and also at the table of  daimons’.   And when it came to the Christian meal,  Paul busily deconstructs the notion that it should be approached or treated as just another stratified Greco-Roman meal with a symposium to follow.  He talks about taking the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner— an ethical way of processing things.    Johnson at several points in his book wants to say things like the religious experiences of pagans and the experiences of Gnostics and the experiences of Christians seem to be just as genuine and authentic across the board.    But the question is not whether they had ‘genuine’ experiences.  The question is whether it was the one God whom they were experiencing.   You can have a genuine experience and you can be absolutely sincere in your devotion— and you can be experiencing the wrong spiritual reality and in the end it will be bad for you.  You can be sincerely devoted to the wrong thing however real your experiences.    To say this is not mere polemics,  its at the heart of Jewish and Christian thought because they are monotheistic religions.  They do not take a smorgasbordian approach to ‘true’ religious experience or valid and valuable religious sensibilities.  And neither should we.   Thus while it is right to note that Irenaeus and others may well have over-egged the pudding when it comes to polemics against Gnostics and the like,  gone beyond the appropriate bounds of speaking the truth in love, at the end of the day the substance of their critique was correct— there is only one God, and all others are something less or something else.

One of the most helpful points in his analysis of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is when he seeks to get inside of the mindset of some of the recently minted Galatian converts and says “They reasoned by analogy: if the cult of the Messiah was an association (ekklesia) rather than a domestic cult or local cult shrine or civic liturgy, then it can be thought of as a Mystery…And if it was a Mystery then initiations in it would naturally be multiple.   Further initiation (as into the cult of Moses) would require an ordeal (such as circumcision or physical asceticism) to be sure but it would also provide lore not available to others (such as Torah) and an elevated status within the association.” (p. 146).    This seems likely to be right.  Those who came from a polytheistic background would not see a contradiction between being baptized into Jesus and being thereafter initiated into Moses.  Religious exclusivity claims were not part of their religious background or sensibilities, and so Paul had to correct them.

Johnson’s arguments about Paul’s letters have more strength to them, and I think he is right that Gentiles did approach becoming followers of Christ in various ways with the same sort of religious sensibility as they approached pagan religions.   This I think is demonstrable, but it needs to be added that Paul was busily correcting them on various scores whether they approached Christianity from a Religiousness A or B perspective.    More dubious is his analysis of the Synoptic Gospels.    How so?

In the first place the Synoptic Gospels are about Jesus’ relationship with Jews, almost exclusively so.  Did Jews approach Jesus for healing and help and instruction in the same way that Gentiles approached Paul’s communities?   The answer to this question must be yes and no.   Yes, they approached Jesus because they saw he had divine power, and wanted help or healing.  There’s no doubt about that.  But they did not approach Jesus from a polytheistic religious gestalt or world-view that suggested the more initiations, the better.  They took Jesus’ call to discipleship to rule out other calls to discipleship, even other Jewish ones.  It is precisely the monotheistic exclusivity of the religious environment in which Jesus operated which is mirrored in these Synoptic Gospels, not pagan environments.   This explains the intensity of debate between Pharisees and Jesus, indeed of all sorts of people and Jesus, for they understood that if Jesus was right, and indeed was some sort of messianic figure, then they were wrong, and he eclipsed other such figures.   The debate was done in the context where exclusivity of religious claims, not pluralism in the broad sense, was the rule.     The Synoptic Gospels, though of relevance to later discussions in more pluralistic settings, are not transcripts or mirrors of such later Christian settings.  It is certainly right to say however, that we don’t find traces of what Johnson calls type C and D religiosity.   There is no denigration of God’s creation or of the goodness of the body in these Gospels, not even in John, unlike in the later Gnostic Gospels.  They still mirror the strong creation theology of the OT and of early Judaism, caught up as they are in meaningful discussions about resurrection, marriage and family life, children, sexual behavior, and the like.   While it may be true that Gentiles who read these Gospels would not have cavilled at worshipping Jesus as Lord along with the Father, as a result of their non-monotheistic background, it should be added that many Jews who converted felt the same way, and did not see the Christian belief system as a violation of Jewish monotheism.

More successful is the analysis of Johnson of traces of Religiousness B in the letters of Paul and in James and Hebrews.  This is not a surprise since early Jewish teaching was largely ethical and praxis oriented to begin with and the authors of all three of these books are likely Jews who are now followers of Jesus.  Here Johnson is write to stress that the ethics of the NT has been given short shrift,  especially in the analysis of Paul, whereas there is a strong emphasis on virtues and moral exemplars (have this mind in yourself that was in Christ) in this literature, and at this level it is not surprising that Paul’s ethical teaching has been compared to that of Epictetus, and with profit.  The question is,  did the audiences of these documents approach the Christian community hoping for moral instruction and transformation alone? I doubt this. I suspect that the audiences especially of Paul’s letters looked also for divine benefits.   A case can be made that the audience of James and Hebrews was expecting moral information and transformation, and here Johnson’s argument is clearly stronger.    But is it really the case that we find little or no Religiousness C and D in first century Christian documents?   Wouldn’t Romans 12 count as world-stabilizing religious rhetoric, or the similar remarks in 1 Peter?  Were there really no Corinthians who denigrated the flesh and had an other-worldly spirituality?  1 Cor. 7 would suggest there were, though Paul does not approve.

And this brings us to a final major point for this post— to what degree can we take the religious sensibilities of the authors of the NT documents as representative of the communities as wholes especially if most of these documents are busily correcting the audiences on this or that praxis or behavior or belief?  And we must also ask, to what degree can we take what is said about the audiences of these documents as adequate revelations of their actual religious sensibilities?  Take for example a document like Colossians or Romans, written to an audience Paul has never personally met or visited?   Or an encyclical document like Ephesians?   It is very difficult to say how much light can be shed on such subjects by reading between the Pauline or Petrine etc. lines.   And I would say that there is certainly not enough data to warrant calling earliest Christianity already in the first century ‘a Greco-Roman religion’.    It’s more of a Jewish sectarian religion with an evangelistic zeal, prepared to use the philosophy and rhetoric of the culture to further its rather clearly monotheistic, exclusivitic aims in regard to theology, ethics, and praxis, never mind religiosity.