Read Part 1 here.
The New Testament books make up for a smaller section of canon yet they read much more densely because of the theological implications of the words and actions of a Jewish preacher named Yeshua bar Yoseph, which is the original Aramaic name for Jesus Christ. Instead of the religious regulations, historical accounts, and poetry of the Old Testament we have four accounts of Yeshua’s life as a preacher, followed by letters written mostly by a Jewish preacher named Paul, to various other groups of fellow followers. Closing out everything is a strange apocalyptic prophesy written by an exiled disciple.
Yeshua was probably one of many Jewish ascetic preachers of the time, and he had gained a significant following despite the controversial theology. I don’t know to what degree his teachings were different than his contemporaries, but he seems to have constantly invited antagonism, intentionally or not, from fellow Jewish leaders and, to a lesser degree, the Roman government.
Though he was quite culturally and religiously Jewish, he did and said some very non-Jewish things: he talked to non-Jews and women publicly, openly dealt with undesirables (even going so far as to invite them into his inner circle of apostles), labored on the Sabbath, and spoke some intense words to religious leaders. He preached at length about money, hell, moral and religious duty, and the arrival of the Jewish God’s kingdom on earth. There were many accounts of his miracles, which were very body-centric in nature in that they involved the recovery from sickness or food and drink.
This garnered him a lot of attention for sure, but nothing did more than Jesus’ claims, both implicit and explicit claims, to be God. Jesus’ insistence on the matter looks to be what got him in the most trouble, since equating oneself with God was a big no-no in Judaism. Enough religious leaders with influence within the Roman government wanted him dead. Nothing unusual there, as criminals, insurrectionists and sundry “problem citizens” were executed daily by the Roman state.
Besides claiming equality with God, nothing caused an uproar more than the claims that Jesus rose, very literally it seems, from the dead after his execution. After his death, Jesus’ followers, calling themselves “The Way”, were hell-bent (sorry) on carrying on his teachings using the resurrection as the capstone theological event that made everything make sense. Paul, in his letters to groups of believers abroad, takes a cue from the Greeks and Socratically develops the logical implications of Jesus’ resurrection and how it should be regarded by this growing new strain of Judaism.
A wonderful example of Paul’s method and a summary of the importance of the resurrection is in his first letter to the believers in Corinth, and it also makes clear the theological weightiness of the event:
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Like I said in the first part, there were many ways this review could go. This ended more like a book report (remember those?) rather than a review because I didn’t want to turn this into a marathon of didactics. There are, however, a few things I wanted to say about criticisms of the Bible and Judeo-Christian thought in general. There are some that believe the Bible promotes slavery, subjugation of women, or racism, or anti-scientific thought, or some other undesirable belief or institution drawn from the grab-bag of historical ills — ills that very few today would purport to endorse. In my reading I saw very little of this, and most of it was non-prescriptive accounts of “what happened” rather than “God commanded” such things. With such a large collection of texts written pre-Galileo and in pre-hyper-egalitarian Eastern social climates, someone is bound to find something unsettling if they look hard enough, neverminding the chronological/anthropological snobbery that accompanies it. I don’t expect 21st century Americans to think and act like 30th century French neo-feudalist (how would we begin?), so why would I expect Jews from 1st century, Roman-occupied Israel to think and act like me?
Even if all of these charges were true, it doesn’t really breach the question of whether the supernatural events — the ones meant to be taken literally, such as the resurrection — actually happened. In a strange way that’s not even my concern here. It’s rather the idea that, throughout the millennia and passing through many different hands, that the religious thought presented in in Judeo-Christianity is a product of a conspiracy to control people. Though, who is doing the controlling, why they chose to exploit people’s tendency toward the supernatural, and to what purpose or end people are being controlled, is not crystal clear, but that doesn’t stop people from creating all sorts of pretzel-logic backstories to explain away misguided religious belief. It seems to me that the amount of effort to keep whatever it is secret from the millions of Jews and Christians would not be worth the benefit. If such a cabal of conspirators of had the resources to keep their true purposes secret, why would they need to control anyone? The details of such a claim would need immense e support — support that I don’t think has been found yet.
The easiest and most sensible explanation, based upon what we know, is that the writers of Biblical supernatural events sincerely believed what they saw and experienced. Whether or not the some or all of the writers were under mass hypnosis, suffering from a delusion or psychosis, or just plain mistaken, depends on our own individual bank of knowledge and belief system.