When I was a child, Lent for me was a time to meditate on Jesus’ suffering. I was pretty good at it. I could imagine mountains of suffering far beyond what the Bible describes. And I could imagine loving Jesus all the more because of his extreme suffering for me. When it came to bearing up under his cross of suffering, Jesus rocked – in my imagination. What occasions this memory of my childhood? Two words from The Gospel for... Read more
And some thoughts for Eucharistic Revival Two books by William R. Herzog II have been the subjects of several posts here. At the end of this study I am more convinced than ever of the importance of historical Jesus research. If God became incarnate in particular flesh at a particular time, then we should know about that history. Jesus’ death is a central event for Christians; therefore what Jesus did that led to his crucifixion must be near that center.... Read more
One of the charges against Jesus during his trial is that he forbade payment of the tax to the empire. William R. Herzog II says it’s one of the two charges that probably were true. (The other is threatening to destroy the temple.) But the gospels give us Jesus’ famous statement that seems to endorse paying taxes: “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Ched Myers (see this earlier post) says a Judean theologian would... Read more
These essays on William R. Herzog’s Jesus Justice and the Reign of God have delved into Jesus’ politics and economics. They showed Jesus taking the side of peasants and landless laborers in their struggles under economic, political, and religious oppressors. Jesus castigated these latter groups for not acting justly toward the poor. But what about personal morality? Surely Jesus also expected peasants to act justly in their village lives even as pressures from power centers made that life difficult. Did... Read more
For some time I’ve been working with the conviction that many, if not most, of Jesus’ parables are not what tradition, as I first learned it, has made of them. Jesus did not code heavenly meanings in earthy stories that his peasant listeners could relate to most easily. It was an entirely different kind of coding – of dangerous thoughts that poor subjects of an oppressive system would have loved to say openly but didn’t dare. Oppressed peoples are often... Read more
Many times in the Gospels and, presumably, many times in historical reality Jesus gets in trouble with authorities over Sabbath rules. Rather, perhaps, than getting in trouble like an inattentive schoolboy, Jesus seems to jump at any chance to stir things up. That, at any rate, is the hypothesis of this post. Jesus courts controversy over the Sabbath and subverts an oppressive social order in the process. This is the seventh post on William R. Herzog II’s Jesus, Justice and... Read more
In a section of Mark’s Gospel that my Bible calls “The Tradition of the Elders,” Jesus argues Sacred Scripture with some Scribes and Pharisees. To argue Scripture is to take a stand in a larger polemic about the nature of God. Often it also envisages divine support for one side or another on a hot-button political issue. Both of these factors animate to Jesus’ harsh criticism of the tradition of the elders. This is the sixth post on William R.... Read more
A rich man asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. It would seem to be a time for Jesus to come up with some new rules. The laws that the man claims to have followed “since my youth” don’t satisfy. But Jesus didn’t need new laws to support his vision of the God he recognized as Father of the poor. Jesus didn’t replace the old Law, the Torah, with a new one or even upgrade the old Law. What Jesus... Read more
“Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.” (John 2:19) Could Jesus, once a village handyman, have meant that literally? What would the temple that he built in three days be like? This is the fourth post on William R. Herzog II’s Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God. Earlier posts in the series are: The Historical Jesus and the Transcendent God in the Work of William Herzog Context Group Continues the Long History of Witnessing to... Read more
The Healing of the Paralytic (Gospel of Mark 2:1-12) is Jesus’ challenge to the oppressive ways of the temple and its officials. This is the third in a series on William R. Herzog II’s Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God. It considers the first half of Chapter 6, “Something Greater than the Temple is Here.” (Pages 111-132) Previous posts in this series are: The Historical Jesus and the Transcendent God in the Work of William Herzog Context Groups Continues... Read more
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