The Gospel of Jesus' Wife

I haven't really paid much attention to the whole brouhaha surrounding the sensationalistic presentation of the coptic text presented as potentially purporting to indicate that Jesus was married. But I just watched a great discussion provided around this issue, presented by Darrell Bock and Richard Taylor (both faculty at Dallas Theological Seminary); their presentation takes place at a DTS chapel. These kinds of things seem to be popping up every now and again, and they are presented in a way, that, again, is sensationalistic and not careful; it is simply intended to eventually sell books, and make the ratings for the media. Anyway, if you are interested in watching this, I am providing the video below of the presentation. Here it is:

If you are interested in gaining further access into this whole type of discussion --- like on critical New Testament scholarship, and Jesus Studies in particular, then a great little introductory book you should read is Craig A. Evans' newer book Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. 

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife 4th Century Papyrus

It is always interesting to me how hard people charge toward discrediting the Jesus of the Apostles. We don't see people trying to do this with Muhammed (except for a few here and there); we don't see people trying to do this with Buddah; but Jesus is a different story. The back story on all of this is that this is a spiritually instigated thing; a battle between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of the son of his love (of Christ). Some scholars, for various reasons, would love nothing better than to be able to undercut the historic teaching and person of Jesus Christ; and some of them will go to great and inventive lengths to achieve their goal. I am not saying, necessarily, that this was/is Karen King's intent (the Harvard faculty member who made this coptic fragmentary text public); but I am saying that there are many (Bart Ehrman, for example) who are on a mission to discredit the Christian faith at all costs.

It should be noted, in closing, that the fragmentary Coptic text that was disclosed by King, even if it turns out to be authentic, is a text that can be situated in the genre of Coptic and/or Gnostic Gospels (like Thomas, Judas, Mary etc.). So it does not give us insight into the historical Jesus of the Gospels, instead it could give us a tiny bit more insight into the theology of fourth century (and maybe even second century) Gnostic Christianity (which really isn't Christianity at all). If you watch the video you will hear these gents discussing these same points with further elaboration.

Who was Simon the 'Zealot'?: Something New About Him

Simon the 'Zealot'

Here is something new I just learned about Simon the 'Zealot', and I bet it will be something new for you; unless of course you have read Richard Bauckham on this, or maybe other critical New Testament historians. I am currently reading Bauckham's book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, and in particular I am currently reading his chapter 12 entitled The Twelve. Here Bauckham is discussing the names of the Twelve and how they have come to be and function in the Gospel narratives; in the particular instance I am going to quote, Bauckham is talking about Simon the Zealot, and what in fact would have characterized Simon's kind of zealotry situated as he was in his historical context (this point is contrary to how I have been taught, in the past, to think of Simon's zealotry, and thus represents something new that I have learned about Simon the Zealot). Here is Bauckham:

[...] It is now widely recognized that, since a specific political party with the name Zealots does not appear in our sources until after the outbreak of the Jewish revolt in 66 CE, the term applied to Simon here must have the broader sense, current in this period, of "zealot for the law" (cf. Acts 21:20; 22:3, 19), often implying that such a person would take violent action to punish flagrant violation of the Torah. Such violence, however, would normally be aimed against fellow Jews rather than the Romans. We should probably presume that Simon already bore this nickname before becoming a disciple of Jesus. Meir points out that "the only instance in prerabbinic Judaism of an individual Israelite bearing the additional name of 'the Zealot'  is found in 4 Macc 18:12, where Phinehas (the grandson of Aaron) is called 'the Zealot of Phinehas' (ton zeloten Phinees). Perhaps Simon's nickname amounts to calling him "a new Phinehas." However, although Phinheas was indeed, for Jews of this period, the archetypal "zealot," the usage in 4 Maccabees 18:12 is probably a description rather than strictly a nickname. Another possible parallel that has not previously been noticed is the name of the owner inscribed on a stone jar from Masada. The two words (yhwsp qny) can be translated either as "Joseph (the) zealot" (qannay) or as "Joseph (the) silversmith" (qenay). [Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 104-05.]

This is an interesting tid bit of historical insight that helps me to re-think what kind of zealotry characterized Simon's, Jesus' disciple, and one the the Twelve Apostles. This would, interpretively, be significant to me in the sense that it would make even more sense for Simon to align with Jesus; only if he (Simon) believed that Jesus was the meaning and fulfillment of the 'Torah' in a very depth dimension kind of way. Such that Jesus' person would finally make sense of the Torah in ways that Simon the 'Zealot' had never considered before; providing a Zealotry filled with a true knowledge of the God and Yahweh of the Torah which he felt he must defend with utter stridency.

For those unclear, the typical way of understanding Zealotry in relation to Simon, has usually been to think of him as someone who was looking for a Messianic figure to come in and overthrow the Roman empire (so an anti-Imperialist) [which Bauckham highlights as well in the quote above]. But in point of case, if Bauckham is correct, to be a zealot in the period that Simon, Jesus, and the others inhabited, would mean to be a vigorous defender of a text; God's text given to the Jewish people. This insight, from Bauckham, definitely re-situates Simon's person and aspirations; and it helps me, at least, to think about Simon in ways differently than I had been taught to, heretofore.

What Is 'The Great Tribulation?': An Index on Matthew 24:15-28

Destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70

Matthew 24:15-28 offers the pericope best known for describing 'The Great Tribulation' period. As a kid, young adult, and even adult; I had believed this Great Tribulation was solely in reference to a future eschatological outcome. In reference to a future time wherein the nation of Israel would experience Jeremiah's (chapter 30) 'Jacob's Trouble' and be judged for rejecting Jesus as their promised Messiah; as a corollary, this time of 'Great Tribulation' would spill over to a universal extent, such that Jacob's Trouble would become the whole World's Trouble, which would finally eventuate in the battle of Armageddon at the time of Jesus' second coming (cf. Rev. 19). My views have changed over the years, as some of you know; but I still hold that an aspect of Jesus' Olivet prophecy is still yet future; but much of what he was referring to was in reference to a more near referent (relative to Jesus' earthly time) in the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian in and around 70 A.D. Craig S. Keener in his exhaustive critical commentary on the Gospel of Matthew offers a very helpful index on the various views (as he personally understands the options) that have bubbled up over the years in regard to nuancing various interpretations of what in fact constitutes the enigmatic (for some) referent of 'The Great Tribulation'; he writes:

In Matthew, the tribulation seems to begin with the sanctuary's destruction in A.D. 66 and concludes with Jesus' return (24:29). If, as I think most likely, Matthew writes some years after 70, this allows several interpretive options: in Matthew 24 Jesus (1) skips from this tribulation to the next eschatologically significant event, his return (Fuller 1966;  cf. Lk. 21:24; especially compare Mt 24:21, "nor ever shall," with Dan 12:1; cf. Jos. War pref. 1); (2) regards the whole interim between the Temple's demise and his return as an extended tribulation period ("immediately" -- 24:29; e.g., Carson 1984b: 507); (3) prophetically blends the tribulation of 66-70 with the final one, which it prefigures (see Bock 1994: 332-33); (4) begins the tribulation in 66 but postpones the rest of it until the end time; (5) intends his "return" in 24:29-31 symbollically for the fall of Jerusalem. [pp. 577-78]

Keener continues in the next paragraph to identify his preferences, relative to the index he just provided, and then he provides a fuller interpretive justification for why he prefers what he does; he continues to write:

I currently favor (1) or (2) with elements of (3). (Against the view of a "spiritual" coming are the many emphatic statements  about a personal, visible coming in the context -- 24:27; Gundry 1982: 491). The third option may in fact deserve more attention than my current inclination has given it: certainly the prophetic perspective naturally viewed nearer historical events as precursors of the final events. Early Jewish texts also telescope the generations of history with the final generation (Jub. 23:11-32). As in Mark, the tribulation of 66-70 remains somehow connected with the future parousia (Hare 1967: 179), if only as a final prerequisite. Further, the context may suggest that Jesus employs his description eschatologically, as in some Jewish end-time texts; in this case, the disasters of 66-73 could not have exhausted the point of his words (cf. Harrington 1982: 96). In any case, the view (circulated mainly in current popular circles) that Matthew 24 addresses only a tribulation that even readers after 70 assumed to be wholly future is not tenable; Matthew understands that "all these things" (probably referring to the question about the temple's demise -- 24:2; Mk 13:4) will happen within a generation (Mt 24:34), language throughout Jesus' teachings in Matthew refers to the generation then living (e.g., 11:16; 12:39, 45; 16:4; 23:36; cf. 27:25). Further, Luke dispenses with much of the symbolism and lays the emphasis almost entirely on the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, in which Judean slaves were carried among the nations. For Luke, the "abomination" that brings about desolation becomes simply the Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem, promising desolation (Lk 21:20; A. B. Bruce 1979: 292; Cole 1961: 202). [Craig S. Keener, A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew, 577-78.]

I am in line with Keener's preferences as well; I hold to a combination of his (1), (2), and (3). This would mean, for me anyway, that I understand that much of the Tribulation referents are grounded in the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem; but this would also mean that I see this kind of Tribulation as characteristic of a yet future and final Tribulation which the world has been moving towards in birth pangs ever since this initial fulfillment and aspect of this prophecy provided by Jesus in 70 A.D. This also means that I do not necessarily believe that the Great Tribulation at the end (yet future) requires that it be physically located in Jerusalem (although it might be). I am still considering some of this, and so this is all I will communicate for now.

How might you parse your views on 'The Great Tribulation' if you were to use Keener's index as a guide?

'Testimony' as The Category for Accessing the New Testament Gospels

To kick off this new blog of mine, we will jump into some reading I have been doing with Richard Bauckham; it is a very exciting book for me to read because it gets us back to the sources (the cry of Christian Humanism and what helped foster the Protestant Reformation, ad fontes). In other words, Bauckham's book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, is developing an account of New Testament criticism that places eyewitness testimony as the category through which we should approach the New Testament and Gospels witness to Jesus Christ. What I appreciate about Bauckham, and his own background (which resonates with my own interests, really), is that he represents a nice colash of biblical/New Testament scholar and Systematic and Dogmatic theologian. Anyway, what I want to share from Bauckham, first, comes from his opening chapter; he is discussing the significance of the category of 'testimony' for New Testament criticism, and how it naturally fits into a theological paradigm for engaging the Christian God revealed in Jesus Christ. He writes:

Testimony offers us, I wish to suggest, both a reputable historiographic category for reading the Gospels as history, and also a theological model for understanding the Gospels as the entirely appropriate means of access to the historical reality of Jesus. Theologically speaking, the category of testimony enables us to read the Gospels as precisely the kind of text we need in order to recognize the disclosure of God in the history of Jesus. Understanding the Gospels as testimony, we can recognize this theological meaning of the history not as an arbitrary imposition on the objective facts, but as the way the witnesses perceived the history, in an inextricable coinherence of observable event and perceptible meaning. Testimony is the category that enables us to read the Gospels in a properly historical way and a properly theological way. It is where history and theology meet. [Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 5-6.]

This is great to consider! As we get further into Bauckham's book, something that stands out about the kind of personal testimony that Bauckham is highlighting is the nature of the testimony; in other words, these were real life people who bore witness to the theological reality they encountered in the person of Jesus Christ. What I like about this reality and emphasis of testimony is that it has the affect of personalizing and humanizing the scriptures, and the Gospels in particular, that is often lost when we usually think of the higher criticism that usually attends New Testament studies. This category of 'testimony' provides a sense of continuity and genealogy to the witness of scripture that interpolates the original witnesses with the present witnesses (us) to the Jesus of Faith and History whom we all have encountered in unique ways. Of course there is a distinction between the kind of witness and testimony that these original eyewitnesses had, and what we have; but the shared reality between the two is the same, that is the living and resurrected Jesus Christ.

Expect to hear more from Bauckham from me.