You are hereBishop Spong's Articles April 2010
Bishop Spong's Articles April 2010
The Origins of the New Testament, Part XVIII: Mark, the First Gospel
The Origins of the New Testament, Part XIX: How the Synagogue Shaped the Gospel of Mark
The Origins of the New Testament, Part XX: Seeing the Crucifixion as Related Liturgically to the Passover
Rabbi Jack Daniel Spiro
The Origins of the New Testament, Part XXI: Introducing the Gospel of Matthew
| Thursday April 01, 2010 |
| The Origins of the New Testament Part XVIII: Mark, the First Gospel |
| The original gospel, the one we know as Mark, was written, I believe, after the fall of Jerusalem and its subsequent destruction by the Roman army under the command of a general named Titus, in 70 CE. It was the climax of a war that began in Galilee in 66 and would finally culminate in a mass suicide of the final defenders of the Jewish cause at a place called Masada in 73. The echoes of this fall of the "eternal" city are heard in a number of places throughout Mark's text. The apocalyptic words recorded in Chapter 13 seem to describe the pain endured by the residents of the holy city in that catastrophe and includes the suggestion that they must flee into the hills of Judea and perhaps even to Galilee. The story of Jesus being transfigured on a mountain in Chapter 9 a lso suggests that in the minds of his disciples he has now replaced the Temple as the meeting place between God and human life. On him the "shekinah," the light of God, that once was believed to have enveloped the Temple as a sign of God's presence now shines on him. I do not believe that a story like that of the Transfiguration would have been written unless the Temple itself had not already been destroyed. Even the rise of the story of a traitor named Judas, introduced for the first time in Christian history by Mark's gospel, suggests that those Jews, who were followers of Jesus, wanted to put some distance between themselves and the Temple authorities. To make the name of the traitor identical to the name of the now defeated nation, Judah, over which the Temple authorities had once exercised authority, accomplished that task. These are just a few of the things that cause me to date the writing of the first gospel around the years 71-72.
We have previously suggested that the synagogue had to be the setting in which the story of Jesus was remembered, recalled and retold during the time that we call the "oral period" of Christian history. That assertion is based on the fact that when this first gospel appears the story of Jesus has already been wrapped inside the sacred scriptures of the Jews. This could only have happened in the synagogue, since that would be the only place in which first-century people would ever hear the Jewish Scriptures read, taught or engaged. There was no such thing in that day as a "family Bible." Books, which had to be copied by hand, were far too expensive to be individually owned, so the scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures were community property — treasured, kept and read only in the sacred setting of the synagogue. When Mark's Gospel appeared, its text revealed that the memory of Jesus had already been incorporated into those Jewish scriptures. The story of Jesus had been orally transmitted in and through the synagogue. Mark reveals this in the first verse of his gospel when he announces that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ "as it is written in the prophets." Then he starts his story by quoting first Malachi and then Isaiah. When this gospel introduces John the Baptist for the first time it is clear that John has already been interpreted as the Old Testament figure of Elijah, who in the expectations of the Jews had to precede the coming of the messiah. John is clothed by Mark in the raiment of Elijah, camel's hair and a girdle around his waist. He is placed in the desert where Elijah was said to dwell. He was given the diet of locusts and wild honey that the Hebrew Scriptures said was the diet that Elijah ate. Then Mark relates the story of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River at the hands of John the Baptist. That was the moment, Mark asserts, when the power of God in the form of the Holy Spirit entered into the human Jesus and he was acclaimed to be God's son. Mark has obviously never heard of the story of the virgin birth, which offers a different way for this divine presence to enter Jesus. Next Mark moves on to tell the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness for forty days, but he gives no content to those temptations. That was destined to come in later gospels that expanded Mark with developing stories. One can see the oral period at work here, for in the synagogue on the Sabbath first the law was read, then the prophets and then the disciples of Jesus would relate Jesus stories that seemed appropriate to those readings. Increasingly they saw in the Hebrew Scriptures the anticipation of the messiah's life and when they became convinced that Jesus was the expected messiah, they began to interpret these scriptures as antici patory of their day and the life of Jesus became more and more the one to whom all the Hebrew Scriptures pointed. The second clue that reveals the synagogue as the place in which the story of Jesus was remembered, told and retold is that the gospel of Mark reflects the liturgical year of the Jews and thus has an appropriate story about Jesus designed to be read at each of the great liturgical observances of that year. One cannot see this, however, if one is not familiar with these liturgical synagogue patterns relived annually by the Jews. So let me file, almost by title, the major events recalled in the worship life of the Jewish people during their liturgy. The first worship event in the synagogue, which marked liturgically the birth of the Jewish nation, was called "the Passover." It re-enacted annually the Jewish flight from slavery in Egypt and thus their beginnings as a separate and distinct people. Passover is to the Jews what the Fourth of July is to the citizens of the United States. It was celebrated on the 14th and 15th days of the Jewish month of Nisan which, according to the book of Leviticus, was the first month of the Jewish calendar, although Jewish practice was not consistent as to when the year began. The second great observance of the Jewish year was Shavuot, or Pentecost, which comes fifty days after Passover, hence the name Pentecost, which means fifty days. On this day the Jews commemorated God's giving of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai, and it was observed in traditional Jewish circles with a 24-hour vigil dedicated to recalling and celebrating the beauty and wonder of the Torah. The law represented to the Jews God's greatest gift to God's people. After Shavuot there were no major holidays in the Jewish year for about four months. Then in the seventh month of their calendar, a month known as Tishri, three major observances occurred in rapid succession. The celebration began on the first day of Tishri with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah was observed by blowing the shofar, the ram's horn, to gather the people together. When they gathered the announcement was made that the Kingdom of God was at hand and the people were urged to prepare for its arrival. It was the promise of each new year that the Kingdom of God would someday come. On the tenth day of Tishri came the observance of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This was a day of deep penitence that included both confession and sacrifice. Liturgically this was an attempt to cleanse the people of their sins and thus to allow them to have their sins borne away, which would, of course, leave them fit to enter the presence of God as only the High Priest could now do and he only once a year at Yom Kippur. Beginning on the fifteenth day of the month of Tishri and lasting for eight days was the Festival of Booths, also called Tabernacles, or Sukkoth. This was the harvest festival, the Jewish day of Thanksgiving, but it also recalled the years of Jewish history when the people were homeless wanderers in the wilderness between Egypt and the land they regarded as their promised destiny. It was, therefore, observed by the erection of booths or temporary shelters, which recalled their wilderness years. Sukkoth was the happiest and most anticipated holiday of the Jewish year. It was also the last Jewish festival for about two months. When the month of Kislev arrived, located as it was in the dead of winter, the Jews observed a "festival of lights" known then as Dedication, but known today as Hanukkah. This was a celebration born in the Maccabean period of Jewish history (167-63 BCE) and it recalled the restoration of the light of God to the Temple after it had been defiled by the Seleucid King of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes, who was defeated in battle by Judas Maccabeus. The end of the Jewish year came in the early spring with the month of Adar, which brought the people back liturgically to the month of Nisan and its celebration of the birth of their nation. Every year the people of the synagogue relived this cycle of feasts and fasts and every year for at least forty years the followers of Jesus, who were still part of the synagogue, thought of him and spoke of him inside this liturgical framework. When the first gospel of Mark was written, this liturgical framework was clearly present and it became, probably quite unconsciously, the organizing principle of Mark's gospel — and because both Matthew and Luke built their gospels on Mark's model it became the organizing principle of all three. We know that Mark began the custom of setting the story of the crucifixion inside the celebration of Passover and because of this Jesus was increasingly seen as the new paschal lamb who, like the lamb of Passover, died to dispel the power of death. What we do not see so clearly is that if we attach Mark's story of Jesus' passion to the Jewish season of Passover and then roll Mark's gospel backward across the liturgical year of the Jews, we will discover that an appropriate Jesus narrative falls at exactly the right spot in the gospel to fit the calendar to enable it to illumine the festivals and fasts of the Jewish year and in their proper order. Next week I will develop that correlation, and then I trust it will become clear that Mark was written as a liturgical book to be read in the synagogue with the purpose of revealing Jesus as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. It is not a history book. It incorporates the memory of Jesus into the ongoing life of the synagogue. If you, my readers, are like me, then once this key unlocks the story, the gospel of Mark will never be the same. –John Shelby Spong
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| Question and Answer With John Shelby Spong |
| John from Llansadwm, Wales, UK, writes:
There is a great deal in the liturgy that cannot be taken literally. How can someone recite the words with a good conscience? |
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Dear John, Literalism is not the only way to understand words. Words are also pointers to a truth, which they cannot articulate. Words are symbols designed to free the mind from culturally imposed straitjackets. Why is it that religion's quest for security seems to dictate that if something is not literally true, it is not true at all? Is the story of Little Red Riding Hood literally true? Of course not. Isn't it an attempt to translate a human experience that is profoundly true in a story form? Of course. The experience is puberty. The Red Riding Hood is the symbol of the menstrual flow of adolescence. The pubescent young girl is instructed to keep on the "straight and narrow" path through the woods or the wolf will get her. Is that not a way to address a true experience in non-literal story form? I doubt if Humpty Dumpty ever sat on a great wall only to fall and be shattered in such a way that all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. I do think it is literally true, however, that some human actions have irrevocable consequences, which can never be overcome, so this nursery rhyme points to truth that mere words cannot capture. Much of the religious language of both the Bible and the liturgy is this kind of communication. No, Jesus was not born of a virgin, but people met something in him that they did not believe human life by itself could ever have produced. No, Jesus did not ascend into the sky of a three-tiered universe, but people were convinced that since he had come from God, he had to return to God, and so the ascension was the way they chose to communicate this truth. Liturgy is a series of pointers to that which words cannot embrace. That is why liturgical words are expanded, puffed up and not capable ever of being literalized without being falsified. Take off your blinders, John, and listen to the liturgy with your heart and your emotions. They constitute a song, which I, for one, still find great meaning in singing. – John Shelby Spong
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| Thursday April 08, 2010 |
| The Origins of the New Testament Part XIX: How the Synagogue Shaped the Gospel of Mark |
| Has it ever occurred to you that Mark, the first gospel to be written, was in fact a Jewish book created in the synagogue and organized according to the liturgical pattern of synagogue worship? Such an idea sounds very strange to modern Christian people for it carries our imaginations far beyond the boundaries inside which we Christians are comfortable. I would like, however, in this column to show you that this claim is in fact accurate.
The first thing we need to embrace in order to study the gospels properly is the history of anti-Semitism in the Christian Church. I learned most of my anti-Semitism in my Sunday school as a child. In my printed Sunday school material I was never introduced to a good Jew! All of the Jews in the Jesus story appeared to me to be sinister and hostile; the bad guys in the drama, always out to get Jesus. They had names that I was taught to disrespect like Judas Iscariot, Annas, Caiaphas, Sadducees, Pharisees and scribes. No one in my Sunday school ever told me that Jesus was a Jew. When I saw pictures of him, he looked rather Nordic, with blond hair, blue eyes and a fair skin. I thought he must have been a Swede! I was also never told that the twelve disciples were Jews, that Paul and Mary Magdalene were Jews, that all of the writers of the books in the Bible were Jews, with the only possible exception being Luke, who appears to have been born a Gentile, but to have conv erted to Judaism. Our cultural anti-Semitism has actually served to blind us to the deep roots in Judaism that the Christian story possesses. All Christians are "spiritual Semites." Judaism is the womb in which we were conceived and the faith tradition in which Christianity was nurtured until the church and the synagogue parted company in a rather unpleasant manner around the year 88 CE. Embrace that date if you will. The Christian movement did not separate itself from Judaism until some 58 years after the crucifixion of Jesus! This means that, at the very least, the gospel of Mark and the gospel of Matthew were written before the Christians separated from the synagogue. While Luke's gospel may have come after the split, it is based so deeply on Mark that it too bears the stamp of the time when Christians and Jews both worshiped together Sabbath by Sabbath in the synagogue. The disciples of Jesus at this time were not called "Christians" but "The Followers of the Way," and they were reg arded by the Orthodox power center of Judaism as a group of Jewish Revisionists who were dedicated to incorporating Jesus into the ongoing Jewish story as prophets like Isaiah, Amos and Micah had themselves once been incorporated. All of this means that the primary place the stories of Jesus were remembered and recalled during the "oral period" of Christian history was in the synagogue at a Sabbath day service. In that liturgy, first the Torah and then the prophets would be read, interspersed with Psalms. Next, the assembled worshipers would be solicited for their comments on the scripture readings. In this manner, the disciples of Jesus recalled events and teachings in Jesus' life and related these to the lessons just read. Soon the scriptures began to be understood by these disciples as pointing to Jesus and even to being fulfilled in Jesus. Inevitably, these Jesus stories were also incorporated into the annual cycle of feasts and fasts regularly observed in the synagogue. Ultimately, forming a consistent and set body of material, these stories were gathered together in the order of the Jewish liturgical year. It was this custom that ultimately shaped the gospel of Mark. With this order in place in Mark, when Matthew and Luke used Mark as the basis of their volumes they inevitably adopted the same liturgical frame of reference. Even with Mark in common, Matthew and Luke differed since they reflected two very different Jewish world views, Matthew being traditional and Luke reflecting the world of dispersed Jews into whose life gentiles were constantly coming. Still the first three gospels had so many similarities that the three of them came to be known as the "synoptic gospels," the reflections of those who had seen (optic) with (syn) their own eyes. While that eyewitness claim is now dismissed as factually accurate, the essential unity and internal dependency of these three gospels is still widely asserted. Matthew has in fact included about 90% of Mark in his narrative and most of it almost verbatim. Luke, a bit less dependent on Mark, has still included about 50% of Mark's content in his narrative. Both of these later gospels also adopt Mark's outline, which was the telling of the Jesus story against the background of a one-year cycle of synagogue liturgical observances. That is why each of these gospels presents Jesus' public ministry as a one year phenomenon — not because that ministry was one year long, but because the story of his public life, from his baptism to his crucifixion, was told against the background of a one year synagogue cycle. Unfortunately, this background material is not seen unless and until a reader is knowledgeable about that liturgical pattern. Let me try to lift it to the awareness of my readers. The climax of Mark is the story of the passion and crucifixion of Jesus. In Mark, almost 40% of his gospel deals with the last week in the life of Jesus. Of Mark's 16 chapters, chapters one to ten are dedicated to the life of Jesus from his baptism up to his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, five days prior to Good Friday and just seven days prior to the story of the resurrection. That last week becomes the context of chapters 11-16. To draw the contrast even more sharply, the story of the last twenty-four hours of Jesus' earthly life consumes 105 verses of Mark's text, while the Easter story is relegated to only eight verses. The first and most obvious fact is that the crucifixion of Jesus is told against the background of the Jewish observance of the Passover celebration. Jesus had been identified as the new paschal lamb by Paul when he wrote some fifteen years before Mark that "Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed for us (I Cor. 5:7)." People have assumed for centuries that the crucifixion had occurred during the Passover season when the fact was that it was more probable that the Passover had been used by the followers of Jesus to interpret the death of Jesus and that this is what pulled the two observances together. There is a body of data in the gospels that suggests that the crucifixion occurred not in the spring, but rather in the fall of the year. (That data is beyond the scope of this column, but for those who might be interested I outlined it in my book: Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes) The death of the paschal lamb was believed by the Jews to have broken the power of death at the time of the Exodus. The death of Jesus was believed by his disciples to have broken the power of death at the time of his cross and resurrection. So, the story of the death of Jesus was purposefully designed to be observed during the Passover season. That was not history so much as it was liturgy. Once we connect the Passover with the crucifixion, it is possible to see that, in the whole gospel of Mark, the story of Jesus is being retold against the events of the Jewish holy days. So place the crucifixion of Jesus at the time of the Passover and then roll Mark's gospel backward across the synagogue's liturgical year and it becomes obvious that this is how Mark organized his gospel. The Jewish celebration, about three months prior to Passover, is called Dedication or Hanukkah. This holy day recalls the time when the light of God was restored to the Temple during the period of the Maccabees. The story in Mark's gospel that occurs at exactly that time is the story of Jesus' Transfiguration in which the light of God falls not on the Temple as the Jews asserted, but on Jesus first and then Moses and Elijah, transfiguring them all. This story further suggests that Moses, a symbol for the Law, and Elijah, a symbol for the prophets, are subsumed into the meaning of Jesus , who is then interpreted as the new Temple. Presumably, the old Temple, which had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, was no more and the disciples of Jesus were interpreting him as the new meeting place between God and human life. If one keeps rolling Mark backward, the next Jewish feast is Sukkoth or Tabernacles which was the eight-day celebration of the harvest. The Jesus story which Mark relates in chapter four comes exactly at that place where Sukkoth is being observed. It is the parable of the sower, who sowed the seed on four different kinds of soil, yielding four different types of harvest, and is then followed by Jesus' explanation of that parable. Indeed, this chapter with its clear harvest theme contains sufficient material to cover the eight days of the harvest festival. Keep rolling Mark backward and one comes next to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, observed some five days before Sukkoth begins. Here one discovers in Mark's chapters two and three a series of healing, cleansing stories, including the call of Levi into discipleship from the unclean world of being a tax collector for the Gentile conqueror. These are perfect Jesus stories to carry the meaning of Yom Kippur. Once again, Mark's order fits the synagogue's liturgical year. Finally, Mark runs out with chapter one that occurs at the time when the Jews were celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The Jews observed that day by blowing the shofar, gathering the people, announcing that the Kingdom of God was at hand and urging them to prepare for it by repenting. Here, Mark's gospel opens with the story of John the Baptist, portrayed as the human shofar, gathering the people, announcing to them that the Kingdom of God is dawning in the life of Jesus and urging them to pre pare for his coming with repentance. The unrecognized organizing principle in the first gospel to be written reveals that Mark has crafted Jesus stories for use in the synagogue from Rosh Hashanah to Passover, or for six and a half months of the Jewish liturgical year. Have you ever wondered why Mark is shorter than Matthew or Luke? Mark only covered six and a half months of the calendar year. Both Matthew and Luke would stretch Mark by providing stories for the other five and a half months. First, grasp the concept. Then we will fill in the details. – John Shelby Spong
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| Question and Answer With John Shelby Spong |
| Richard from Albuquerque, New Mexico, writes:
I read with great enthusiasm, Eternal Life: A New Vision. It moved me deeply and I found that our lives have some similarities. My mother passed on when I was nine and my father when I was thirteen. I sang in a church choir for over five years and I became a confirmed Episcopalian. I wasn't much into sports. I attended church regularly and found security and warmth in the sermons and the hymns that came my way. However, as I grew, I became, as you so well state, a member of the Church Alumni Association. I have read the Bible in its entirety as well as anyone without training can. I came away disheartened and confused. Our paths then went different ways. You pursued a good education while I took mundane, repetitive jobs that consisted of doing mostly what one was told and little think ing. It was through your lectures and later book on The Sins of the Scripture that I began to think and reason. I am now a very avid reader on things about Science, Religion, History and Human Secularism. Currently, I am into Alex Fillipenko's outstanding course on "Understanding the Universe." Why I waited until I had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel to start learning, I will never know. Some say it's better late than never. I strongly believe in evolution and I do have that wonderful feeling of being one with the universe. I do hope you have more books forthcoming. Perhaps with the help of your wife and others you might attempt some children's books. They are much more impressionable at their young ages. Thank you for your honest, open thought and keep your weekly newsletters coming. |
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Dear Richard, Thank you for your letter and for the way in which you shared your life story. One of the justifications for writing a "spiritual autobiography," which is what my most recent book really is, is that I can chronicle the journey of many people other than myself. Your letter is a justification of that hope. Thank you for the suggestion that Christine and I try our hand at children's books. I wish we had the talent to do that. Many people do and I hope others with that skill will respond to your invitation. There is a great need for this, but it's not in the scope of my expertise. I have a hard enough time responding to the religious questions of my 7 year old grandchildren who actually debate whether there is a God.< BR> – John Shelby Spong
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The Origins of the New Testament |
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The first narrative of Jesus' crucifixion to be written achieved its shape and form in Mark's gospel, specifically in 14:17-15:47. Prior to this, all the Christians had in writing was one line from Paul: "Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures." Not a single narrative detail was given by Paul. Perhaps there were no narrative details to be given since Mark's gospel is quite specific in 14:50 that, when Jesus was arrested, "They all took flight and fled." This would mean that Jesus died alone without any eye witnesses. That would be a shattering insight to many since we have literalized the details we have in Mark's gospel down to recording not just what Jesus said from the cross, but what Jesus and the high priest said to each other, and even what Jesus and the crowd said to each other. One might wonder who was present to record all of these words of conversation. The overwhelming probability is that the familiar details of the cross are not the result of historic memory at all, but are rather liturgical interpretations of who it was who died on the cross and what his death meant. A quick analysis of the details from this narrative reveals that they were drawn not from the memory of eye witnesses, but from the scriptures of the Jewish people, primarily from Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. So even the central story of the final events in Jesus' life now looks more like the work of an interpretative imagination than it does the work of a historian. From Psalm 22, Mark drew many of the familiar elements of his story, including first the cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" with which that psalm opens. Next Mark refers to the attitude of the mocking crowd, "shaking their heads" and stating that, "since he trusted in God, let God deliver him," which Mark has incorporated almost verbatim into his narrative (Ps. 22:8). The notion of disjointed bones (Ps. 22:14), the reality of thirst (Ps. 22:15) and the "piercing of his hands and feet" (Ps. 22:16) are notes also found in this psalm which Mark has clearly drawn into his portrait, as well as the reference to the soldier's parting his garments and casting lots for his robe (Ps. 22:18). When it becomes obvious that the words used to describe the crucifixion are drawn from a work written at least 400 years before the events being described, then it is surely clear that this is not "eye-witness" reporting. From Isaiah 53, which is part of a portrait that this author, called II Isaiah, paints of a figure he calls the "Servant," or the "Suffering Servant" of the Lord, Mark incorporates into his account of the death of Jesus the picture of one "despised and rejected," a "man of sorrows and one acquainted with grief (Is. 53:3)," to say nothing of the image of being "wounded for our transgressions" and "bruised for our iniquities (Is. 53:5)." The "Servant" in Isaiah, like Jesus in Mark, "is silent before his accuser (Is. 53:7)." Of Isaiah's "Servant" it was said, "with his stripes we are healed (Is. 53:5)," language that later informed the Christian idea of Jesus in the substitutionary theory of the atonement. This identification becomes even more exact when we read in Isaiah that the "Servant" will be numbered among the transgressors (Is. 53:12), which in time gave substance to the story introduced by Mark of Jesus being crucified between two thieves. Isaiah also stated that this "Servant" would, in his death, "make his grave with the rich (Is. 53:9)," which eventually led to Mark's story of his being buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, who was "a ruler of the Jews" and thus a person of means. As much as this knowledge flies in the face of a familiar literalism, which has been carved in stone for us in such artifacts of our worship as the "Passion of Jesus" set to music by J. S. Bach, the traditional Good Friday liturgies of the church through the ages and in such ecclesiastical habits as sermons preached on the "seven last words" supposedly spoken by Jesus from the cross, the truth is that Mark's story of the crucifixion is not the remembered history of an eye witness at all, but second generation interpretations of Jesus' death shaped by biblical sources that had fed Jewish messianic expectations through the ages drawn, as they were, directly from the Hebrew Scriptures. So our first step in understanding the familiar story of the cross is to free our minds from any assumption that we are reading history. What we are reading is the interpretation of Jesus' death as his Jewish disciples had come to understand it. The second step in this eye-opening process is to notice that this first narrative story of the cross was itself crafted by Mark to serve as a liturgical reenactment of the meaning of Jesus' passion. Current studies of 1st century Judaism inform us that the Jews observed Passover in a family setting that usually consumed about three hours. Included in these three hours were the family gathering, various games played to enhance the holiday spirit, the meal itself which included feeding "on the body of the lamb of God," as well as the use of the various symbols of their past like bitter herbs and unleavened bread, which reminded them of their life in slavery and their hasty exodus from Egypt. Following the meal the youngest boy in the family would say to the senior patriarch of the family, "Father, why is this night different from all other nights?" which would give the head of the household the chance to relate the story of the Exodus and thus to recount the moment of thei r birth as a nation. The meal would then conclude with the singing of a hymn, and the family members, who did not live in this house, would depart into the night for their own houses. Church historians and liturgical scholars have discovered some evidence that by the latter years of the second century CE, Christians were observing the passion of Jesus by stretching the three-hour Passover celebration of the Jews into a twenty-four hour vigil. The question is, when did that vigil practice begin? I think the evidence in Mark's story of the Passion is that it began very early, certainly prior to the writing of this first gospel, for the outline of a twenty-four hour vigil is in the text of Mark itself. If we look at Mark's story of the Passion (Mark 14:17-15:47) and if we study the text carefully we can see the outline of a twenty-four hour vigil. It is a twenty-four hour narrative that runs from sundown on what we now call Maundy Thursday to sundown on what we now call Good Friday. Let me point out the time markers that are in the text itself of Mark's gospel. Mark 14:17 has Jesus arrive with the twelve at a house in Jerusalem for the Passover "in the evening," that is at sundown or approximately 6 pm. Mark has earlier given us the details of the preparation the disciple band has undergone to ready a place for this night. The supper is then described and Mark says the evening ended with the singing of a hymn and Jesus and his disciples went into the night. It is thus now about 9 pm. Then they went to the Garden of Gethsemane where the disciples were not able, without falling asleep, to watch with him "one," "two," or "three" hours, which would carry the vigil to midnight. In 14:43 Mark then relates the act of betrayal at midnight, making the darkest deed in history occur at the darkest moment of the night. It is dramatically powerful, but hardly historically accurate. Following the arrest comes the trial before the high priest and the chief priest which is told from 14:53-65 and which carries us to 3 am. The watch of the night between 3 am and 6 am is called "cockcrow," and into these three hours Mark has placed the story of Peter's threefold denial (14:66-72), presumably one denial for each hour of that watch until the cock crows and the broken Peter is portrayed as weeping. Then the text says (15:1) that "when morning came," which means it is now about 6 am, and this is the time to which Mark has assigned the trial before Pilate (15:1-14). The story of Barabbas and the torture by the soldiers, complete with purple robe and a crown of thorns, are also described in this segment. Mark then informs us (15:35) that it was the third hour when they crucified him, or 9 am. The drama of the cross reaches its crescendo when, in verse 33, the text says "when the sixth hour," or noon, comes darkness covers the earth until the 9th hour, or 3 pm, when Jesus utters his cry of dereliction and dies. When we arrive at 15:42, we are told of his burial before "evening came," or about 6 pm. For the Jews, Sabbath started at sundown on Friday, not at midnight. The fact that they did not have time to complete the burial process before the Sabbath began, is Mark's segue to explain just why it was that the women had to come with embalming spices at dawn on the first day of the week and thus set the stage for the Easter story. Vestiges of the twenty-four hour vigil still exist in liturgical churches today. The climax of Holy Week begins with the Maundy Thursday service commemorating the establishment of the Eucharist. This is followed by a stripping of the altar until it is left bare and tomblike. The Sacrament is then placed into the ambry and worshipers are invited to keep watch through the night. Sometimes churches organize the vigil to make certain that some members are always present. On Good Friday, the elements are distributed from the Reserved Sacrament since the somberness of the day precludes a "celebration" of the Eucharist. Then comes the three-hour service with worshipers observing that time when darkness was covering the earth between 12 noon and 3 pm. Then Jesus' rest in the tomb is marked on "holy Saturday" until the fires are lit that evening at the first "Mass of Easter." The tradition is ancient. The Easter Vigil was observed, I am now convinced, before the first gospel was written. Mark did not create it; Mark observed it and wrote his gospel account of the Passion to help people act it out. It was thus the liturgical life of the synagogue, and not the remembered life of Jesus, that was the organizing principle in Mark's first written gospel. He in turn set the example for Matthew and Luke to follow. As we turn to consider those two gospels, we will see how both expanded and lengthened Mark, but neither ever challenged his organizing principle, which was and is the annual cycle of the liturgical life of the synagogue. –John Shelby Spong |
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Question and Answer |
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Runningwolf213, via the Internet, writes: It seems to me that the gospels get more "incredible" as they progress because the powers-that-be realized they had to make the story more exotic in order to gain more power and "convince" more people to accept Jesus and therefore, them, as the sole arbiter of their souls which turned them into their sycophants. Of course, the powers were the most educated people and the masses weren't, so they were more vulnerable to superstition. It's amazing that this has carried on into the 21st century, but what is even more amazing is how much of the rest of the world is beginning to respect these beliefs. Americans are tending to believe in it more. |
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Dear Running Wolf, I need to separate your issues. To the first, the evidence certainly points to your conclusion. The later the account of the beginnings of Christianity, the more miraculous the details have become. For example, in the writings of Paul (50-64) there are no miracles, no virgin birth and the resurrection is not understood as physical resuscitation. The miracles are added by Mark when the first gospel is written somewhere after 70 and probably before 72. The virgin birth is introduced by the second gospel to be written, Matthew between 82 and 85. The resurrection, understood as physical resuscitation is introduced, or at least strongly emphasized by Luke (88-93) and by John (95-100). These facts are elementary in reputable Christian learning centers, but for a variety of reasons this knowledge has not filtered down to those who sit in the pews of our churches Sunday after Sunday. On the other issue, I am not sure that America is any different from the rest of the world. The fact is that fundamentalists are louder, but not necessarily stronger. Fundamentalists tend to come from specific pockets of our population like the Bible Belt in America or New South Wales in Australia or in those parts of the world where educational opportunities have been limited and where Christianity was planted by evangelical-fundamentalist missionaries following the flag of colonial conquest. I believe I can still be a Christian and a citizen of the 21st century. I believe that I can embrace the knowledge revolution that has produced our modern world and still be a disciple of Jesus. There is a part of Christianity that is willing to seek truth "come from whence it may, cost what it will." I encourage you to look for churches where that commitment is present. – John Shelby Spong |
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Thursday April 22, 2010
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Rabbi Jack Daniel Spiro
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Earlier this spring I returned to Richmond, Virginia, the place where I had served as rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, located in the heart of that city, until I was elected bishop in Newark in 1976. There is something deep within me that has, and probably always will, bind me to that church and that city. Some of those ties are easy to identify. My first wife is buried there. My children grew up and went to school there and two of them married into Richmond families and still live in that city, along with two of my grandchildren and all three of my granddogs and one grandcat! The congregation at St. Paul's Church was and is deep in my affections, made up, as it is, of people who were open, expansive, bright and willing to walk in new paths. Many of my most treasured friends are sti ll there, growing old as I am doing. There is, however, one other tie that I had with that city, which involved a transforming and life-changing professional relationship. It was with a rabbi whose name is Jack Daniel Spiro. It is about this man that I write this week so that you might be introduced to this rather remarkable human being.
There have been few lives in human history that have influenced the city where those lives have been lived more deeply and more significantly than Jack Spiro has shaped Richmond. He is Richmond's unofficial, but real, "Chief Rabbi." He is known far and wide in Richmond's religious community, by which I include not just its various Christian and Jewish traditions and its small Muslim population, but also that rising tide of secular citizens who find little meaning in organized religions of any description. He came to Richmond to serve as the spiritual leader of Richmond's Reformed Temple Beth Ahabah and, after doing that with great distinction, went on to become the chair of the Department of Judaic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond's growing and influential urban university. Jack Spiro was respected far and wide as an able scholar. He has not one, but two PhD degrees, the first from Hebrew Union in Cincinnati and the second from the University of Vir ginia in Charlottesville. His range of intellectual interests covered the landscape of human knowledge. He was and is articulate, sensitive, caring and concerned about the humanity that all people share and that links each of us to one another in a common bond and a common destiny. For this rabbi it is this humanity that transcends the traditional barriers of race, ethnicity, creed and culture that appear to form the common walls of division that tear regularly at the humanity of us all.
Jack Spiro is also my rabbi. Every bishop should have a rabbi. I believe it is both fair and honest to say that more than any colleague I have ever had, Jack has been the determinative factor in the course of my professional life. I had been in Richmond for about three years without being aware of him at all, when I received a telephone call in my office that was destined to change the focus of my ministry.
"Mr. Spong, this is Rabbi Jack Spiro of Temple Beth Ahabah here in Richmond." the voice said. We went through the normal identity routines before he got to his point. "I have just finished reading your book, This Hebrew Lord," he said, "and I have never read a book by a Christian that paid such homage to the Jews."
I thanked him, but he continued by saying, "Of course, I disagree with your conclusion."
A disagreement with a rabbi on my conclusion in a book about Jesus was hardly surprising and so I replied, "I'm sure you do." Warming to this conversation, I continued, "If you agreed with me, it would make your life rather complicated. There are very few job openings in synagogues for Christian rabbis." It was probably not the most sensitive of comments, given Christian history in which Jews have for centuries been victimized by Christian imperialism.
Undaunted by this, Rabbi Spiro continued, "I wonder if you would be willing to debate your book with me before the members of my congregation?" I think that we could have a great conversation. Would you have any interest in doing that?
The idea intrigued me and so we set a time within the week to meet for lunch to discuss this possibility. That lunch lasted for four hours! I have never met a person whose friendship I felt as quickly and as deeply as I did with Jack Spiro. The more we talked, the more we found levels of agreement. Both of us had been shaped by theologians like Paul Tillich and Martin Buber. Increasingly as we talked, debate seemed not the right word to use for what we were planning. So our word shifted from "debate" to "dialogue." In that moment something was born that we would eventually call "Dialogue in Search of Jewish-Christian Understanding." This Dialogue was conducted over four Sabbaths in his synagogue and four Sundays in my church. The Dialogue drew Rosh Hashanah-type crowds to Temple Beth Ahabah and Easter-type crowds to St. Paul's Church.
The format we adopted was that in the synagogue, in response to Jack Spiro's questions and later to the questions of his congregation, I sought to explain Christianity to a Jewish audience; and in the church, in response to my questions and to those of my congregation, he sought to explain Judaism to a Christian audience. We worked hard to eradicate timeworn and distorting stereotypes. Both of us studied extensively to prepare the content of our dialogue before we shared it with our respective congregations. We did not work alone, but developed this material with a small group of people who pushed us hard to make sure that we hit and maintained a very high level of excellence that would not slip over the course of the Dialogue. Included in this group were Dr. Frank Eakin, the chair of the Religion Department at the University of Richmond and a first-rate scholar of the Jewish Scriptures, who served as our moderator, as well as a quartet of outstanding women: Carter McDowe ll, Lucy Negus, Robin Valentine and Frances Eakin who guided our research, our public relations, our editing and, ultimately, the preparation of our material for publication. Each of us spent about twenty hours a week working on this project. The results amazed us. The Richmond press covered the Dialogue extensively with major stories, frequently on page one, following each session. The Dialogue was later featured in the Washington Post and, through its wire service, became a national story. WRVA Radio in Richmond broadcast each session in its entirety as a public service a couple of days after each session was held. Richmond's PBS TV channel asked us to continue the Dialogue on public television. Later the Dialogue was published as a book and is in print in Korean to this day. St Johann's Press in New Jersey has recently republished it in English.
It was the impact of that experience that drove me into pursuing with renewed passion the Jewish roots of the Christian story, which has dominated my writing career, culminating in what is still my personal favorite of all my books: Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes. It also meant much to me that Jack Spiro was a participant in the service when I was ordained as a bishop in 1976. If I pre-decease him he will also participate in my funeral.
What were the results among the people of Richmond as a result of this Dialogue? I can best answer that question by telling a true story. On Christmas Eve in 1974 about a month after the Dialogue had been completed, I was pleased to see a very prominent Jewish couple in attendance at our midnight service at St. Paul's. The two congregations had worshiped together so often that year that this struck no one as unusual. When it came time to receive communion, this couple came forward to the altar with hands outstretched. Since I believe that the altar is God's table at which all are welcome and that the only prerequisite for receiving communion at a Christian altar is that you be hungry, I placed the communion bread in their palms with a squeeze of welcome and received their smiles in return. It was for me a moving moment, but I could not help but wonder what it meant to them. I did not have to wait long to find out.
I met the husband of this couple on the street in downtown Richmond a few days later and told him how pleased I was that he had attended our Christmas service. He responded immediately by saying, "I bet you were surprised to see us come forward to receive communion." I was, but I was eager to hear what he was about to say.
"Well, Jack," he said, "we did not want to be insensitive to your congregation so we thought about that a lot. Is not the Christian communion service based on the Last Supper which was in fact a Jewish Passover meal?"
"Yes," I said, "that is what three of the gospels assert."
"Well, at that last Supper weren't all of the people around the table Jews?"
"Yes," I responded.
"Had any of them ever been baptized?"
"Not to my knowledge," I answered, fascinated by his thinking and his irrefutable logic.
"Well, if Jewish people could receive communion from the Jewish Jesus at this first Christian communion service, I thought it would not be improper for us as Jewish people today to receive communion from you in gratitude for what the Dialogue has meant in our lives and in the life of this community.
Suddenly for me those human-made religious barriers that separate us from one another faded away and a newly shining set of human values replaced them. My life has never been able to remain inside any religious boundaries since. That was just one among the many life-changing gifts that I received from my rabbi, Jack Daniel Spiro, who remains to this day a close friend, an admired colleague and a treasured soul mate.
–John Shelby Spong
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Question and Answer
With John Shelby Spong |
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Sally and Jon from The Washington Post, write:
Is the news media being fair to the pope? Is the media biased against the Catholic Church or its hierarchy? How would you advise the pope?
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Dear Sally and Jon:
The bias in the media is not against the Catholic Church. That is little more than face-saving defensiveness. The bias is against the abuse of children and young people by priests. The bias is against a systematic cover-up on every level of the Catholic hierarchy. The bias is against saying how deeply this abuse is regretted on one hand and on the other promoting Cardinal Bernard Law, one of the most guilty prelates in America, to a position in the Vatican where he will no longer have to answer questions under oath. The bias is against the way Bishop Geoffrey Robinson of Australia was treated by the hierarchy of his own church after his report on clergy abuse in that country was so overt and honest, that it did not serve their cover-up needs.
It is not an anti-Catholic bias but a universal revulsion against this behavior across the world that finds expression in media coverage. There is also no rejoicing among other Christian groups, since this behavior in the Roman Catholic Church diminishes all Christians and hurts the cause for which all Christians work.
For this Church to pretend that they are somehow the victims of an anti-Catholic bias in the media is simply one more aspect of their unwillingness to see the depth of the problem.
John Shelby Spong
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Thursday April 29, 2010 |
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The Origins of the New Testament |
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The second gospel to be written is called Matthew. It made its debut into the world a decade or so after Mark, which would date it in the 82-85 CE range. Matthew's gospel was heavily dependent on Mark; indeed he incorporated about 90% of Mark into his text with many of these quotations being verbatim. A revealing insight into the mind of this second gospel writer can be gained by analyzing the parts of Mark that Matthew omitted, but that is beyond the scope of this study. One only has to read a book called Gospel Parallels published by Thomas Nelson Co., to become aware of exactly what these omissions are. It is clear that Matthew bends Mark's message toward a more traditional Jewish perspective. Who was Matthew? The early church tradition that linked this gospel with Levi Matthew, the tax collector, is today generally discredited. This gospel was written originally in Greek, indeed a better Greek than that which appears in Mark. A Jewish follower who sold his services as a tax collector to the unclean Gentiles would hardly have been expected to have the educational and scriptural background that is revealed in this book. This gospel also displays a rather sophisticated theological perspective, probably only second to that of John among the gospel writers. We have no reason to believe that any of the twelve were educated or learned men and this would certainly be true of one called Levi-Matthew. From internal evidence we can discern that the author appears to be the leader of a synagogue, which followed the liturgical patterns and observed the high holy days of the ongoing Jewish tradition. Whoever the author was he had a deep knowledge of and appreciation for the Jewish Scriptures as well as the historic Jewish expectation that the messiah would come to and for the Jews. When we analyze the editing of the text of Mark's gospel, from which he copies so freely, we discover that he is prone to remove from Mark things that might offend the Jews. Some scholars have even suggested that he wrote an autobiographical note into his text when he told the brief parable of the householder (Mark 13:51-52). Here he wrote: "Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." Matthew was clearly dedicated to preserving what was old. Matthew at the same time adds a number of things to the developing Christian tradition. Most people do not know the gospels well enough to distinguish what parts of the Jesus story are added by each gospel writer. To make us aware of Matthew's unique contributions, we need to note that this is the first gospel to introduce a genealogy of Jesus (Matt 1:1-17) that begins with Abraham and journeys through the high points of Jewish history to King David, then through the kings of the House of David to the Babylonian Exile and finally to the life of Jesus. Luke, writing 10-15 years after Matthew, also gives us a genealogy but he goes backward from Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, all the way to Adam, the father of all human life. In many details we need to note that these two biblical genealogies are very different and cannot be reconciled. They differ first on who Joseph's father was. Was it Jacob, as Matthew asserts, or Heli (Eli) as Luke contends? Did Jesus' line fl ow through the royal house of kings from David to Solomon to Rehoboam as Matthew states or did it avoid royalty altogether by going from King David to Nathan and skipping all of the Judean kings as Luke states? Luke's genealogy also includes many more generations than Matthew. They cannot both be accurate. The consensus of the scholars is that neither is accurate. There are other distinctions between the two ancestral lists, but that is enough to make the point of their radical incompatibility. Biblical literalists generally simply ignore these differences hoping that no one will notice. Matthew is also the first person to introduce any account of Jesus' miraculous birth into the developing traditions. Once again, Luke, writing 10-15 years after Matthew, also tells us a virgin birth story, but it is quite different from the one in Matthew. Only in Matthew do we have an account of a star in the east and magi who followed that star bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Christ child. Only Matthew involves King Herod in the birth narrative, both by having him give the magi directions to Bethlehem, and later developing the account of Herod sending his soldiers to slaughter all the Jewish boy babies in a vain attempt to wipe out the presumed threat to his throne. Only Matthew has the holy family flee to Egypt to escape this murderous wrath of Herod and then to return to their home in Bethlehem after Herod's death. Later, God was said to have warned Joseph in a dream about the continuing danger represented by Herod's son, who was now on the thr one, and directed him to take the child to the safety of Galilee in order for Jesus to grow up in the village of Nazareth. In each of these episodes in Matthew's birth story, he makes the claim that these maneuvers occurred "in order to fulfill the scriptures," by which he always meant the messianic expectations of the Jewish scriptures. Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem? Matthew says it was to fulfill the expectations of Micah (5:2) that the messiah must be born in the city of David's birth in order to demonstrate that he was the direct heir to David's throne. Why was Jesus born of a virgin? It was, says Matthew, to fulfill a text from Isaiah (7:14), which interestingly enough does not have the word virgin in it. Why did Herod slaughter the male babies of Bethlehem? It was, says Matthew, to fulfill a text in Jeremiah (31:15) that spoke of Rachel weeping for her children who were lost. Why did Mary, Joseph and the child flee to Egypt? It was, says Matthew, to fulfill t he words of Hosea (11:1) that "out of Egypt have I called my son." Why did Jesus move to and grow up in Nazareth? It was, says Matthew, to fulfill a prophecy that he would be called a Nazarene, but we have no idea which prophetic text it was to which Matthew was referring! Were any of these particular texts being properly used by this author? If we are speaking literally, not one of them was! Indeed they are not even close! Micah was referring to a Davidic messiah coming out of Bethlehem who would restore the fortunes of the Jews. In all probability Jesus was born in Nazareth. The first gospel, Mark, assumes that. In Isaiah 7:14, the prophet was referring to a birth in the royal family that would be a sign that Jerusalem would not fall to the foreign armies of Kings Pekah and Resin that were surrounding the holy city as Isaiah wrote. He was certainly not referring to an event 700 years in the future. Jeremiah was referring to Rachel, the tribal mother of the Northern Kingdom, weeping for her children who were lost to the Assyrians when they conquered the Northern Kingdom in 721 BCE. Hosea was referring to the Exodus in which God called his people out of slavery in Egypt, not to a trip of safety engineered by Joseph for Jesus centuries later. Finally, we know of no expectation that messiah will be related to Nazareth. The fact is that Matthew quoted scripture in a fast and loose way. Matthew was also the first gospel writer to give content to the story of the temptations in the wilderness. Mark had only said that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days being tempted. Matthew spells out the content of each of the three temptations and recorded Jesus' response to each. To the surprise of many when they first hear it said, Matthew is the only gospel to record Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount. Luke scatters some of the Sermon on the Mount material throughout his gospel, but only Matthew pulls it together in the form that we know best. Parables unique to Matthew include the parable of the weeds (13:24-30) and its interpretation (13:36-43); the parable of the hidden treasure and the "pearl of great price" (13:44-46); the parable of the net (13:47-50); the parable of the unmerciful servant (18:23-25); the parable of the wise and foolish maidens (25:1-13), and the parable of the Judgment where the sheep are separated from the goats (25:31-46). When we come to the narrative of the final events in Jesus' life, Matthew adds the unique notes that the betrayal by Judas was for thirty pieces of silver and that Judas hurled that money back into the Temple when he repented of his deed. Matthew alone tells us that Judas then went and hanged himself. Matthew is also the first gospel writer to portray Jesus as appearing to the disciples in Galilee following the resurrection. He said this appearance occurred on a mountain top and in this narrative we have the first occasion that the risen Jesus was quoted as saying anything to anyone. Those words you may recall are what we now call the "Great Commission." Go into all the world. There is no Pentecost moment in Matthew, but only the promise that Jesus is "Emmanuel" which means "God with us," "Lo, I am with you always" is as close to the coming of the Holy Spirit as Matthew gets. I believe it is necessary to absorb these special Matthean touches before we can begin to put this gospel into an interpretive context. For now, I ask you simply to embrace these special Matthew contributions to the developing Christian story. Try to isolate Matthew's point of view as it is revealed in his additions to the story. Then we will begin the process of penetrating the mind of this writer of the second gospel in order to discern just how he perceived Jesus. To that story we will turn next. –John Shelby Spong |
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Question and Answer |
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Max Rippetoe from Dallas, Texas, writes: I have a question about the timing of the writing of the epistles and gospels, most of them being done between 50-100 CE. The Temple was destroyed in 70, but this major event doesn't seem to appear in the writings. As important as this event must have been, why is it not mentioned? |
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Dear Max, I do not believe you are correct in your suggestion that the fall of the Temple, which was part of the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE, is not mentioned in the New Testament. Indeed I see it all over that text, but we need to know what we are looking for in order to see it. Let me outline what I mean. Paul is generally thought to have done his writing between 50 at the earliest and 64 at the latest. There would obviously be no reference to the fall of Jerusalem in his writing since it had not yet occurred. The gospels, on the other hand, fall between 70 and 100 and I do think you will find reference to the fall of Jerusalem in all of them. It is more overt in Mark, Matthew and Luke. It is present in John, but John was written 25-30 years after Jerusalem's fall so it is not quite as vivid. In Mark, I see references to the destruction of the Temple in two places. In chapter 13, I believe the fall of the Temple is the context and provides some of the data included in that apocalyptic "end of the world" chapter. In Mark 9, the story of the Transfiguration in which the light of God comes on Jesus, not the Temple, is a clear indication that the Temple does not exist anymore and the followers of Jesus are offering Jesus as the "Human Temple," the new meeting place between God and human life. The theme of Jesus as a substitute for the Temple grows and becomes quite obvious in John's gospel where Jesus, referring to his own body, says at his trial, "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." It is because I am convinced that the fall of Jerusalem in that story that I date Mark after the fall of Jerusalem or between 70-72. The apocalyptic chapters of both Matthew (28) and Luke (21) also seem to draw their images and content from the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. What amazes me about the New Testament record is not the absence of any content from the fall of Jerusalem in it, but rather why we have such a hard time seeing it, for it shaped dramatically the way the Christian story was understood. John Shelby Spong |