Handout 3

Vermes about Paul”

Of the collection of 14 letters ascribed to Paul, more than half, namely, the letters to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 and probably 2 Thessalonians, are recognized by contemporary scholars of the New Testament as written by Paul, and as early as in the fifties. Some of the letters contain incidental autobiographical features which allow a deeper grasp of his mentality and motivation. Also, about half the Acts of the Apostles is actually an account of the life and missionary activity of Paul, that supplements, - confirming or contradicting (!), - the information from Paul himself. All these facts, preserved in this way, help a careful and critical observer to discover the inspiration that underlies Paul's portrait of Jesus.

Paul's Bio

Vermes gives first some biographical information about Paul,

- that his name, for the Jews was Saul,

- where he was born, in Tarsus in southern Turkey,

- that he must have been a 10-15 years younger than Jesus,

- and that he was a Roman citizen by birth.

Paul himself never refers in any of his letters to his birthplace or his citizenship; this silence is surprising since these two factors must have played an important a part in Paul's story as the author of the Acts implies.

Paul describes himself as a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin and an adherent of the religious party of the Pharisees (Rom. 11:1; 2 Cor. 11:22; Phil. 3:5). Acts 22:3 adds that he studied in Jerusalem 'at the feet of Gamaliel', one of the leaders of the Pharisees in the first half of the first century. Nevertheless, Paul's persistent silence on this subject adds a question mark to the validity of the information given to us by Acts.

How good a Pharisee he had become or remained, is a question, bearing in mind how easily he could allow his Gentile followers (and himself) dispensation from observance of Jewish dietary rules and other Mosaic ritual precepts.

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Acts provides us with more colorful, but historically sometimes problematic, details. On one occasion he acted as the accredited envoy of the high priest to the Jewish synagogues of Damascus, with as purpose, to cleanse the local community from the followers of Jesus (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2). Acts also tells us that Paul took a passive part in the stoning of the Jesus follower, Stephen, in Jerusalem, by keeping an eye on the clothes of the executioners. (Acts 7:58; 8:1; 26:9-11).

Conversion or Revelation

Then something extraordinary happened to Paul, which occasioned a complete about-face. His own account in Gal 1:16 is very sober: 'God was pleased to reveal his Son to me'. The place where it happened is not identified but it is by implication on the way to Damascus (Gal. 1:17). The story in Acts is enriched with legendary features: Paul, approaching Damascus, is blinded by a light from heaven and is addressed in Aramaic by a voice which identifies itself as that of Jesus (Acts 26:14). In a single instant, Paul the persecutor becomes an enthusiastic follower, so much so that the letter to the Galatians (1:16) defines Paul's vocation immediately as the 'preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles'. In Acts he at once confronts the Jews of Damascus and upsets them so much by his teaching on Jesus that he has to escape the city by night, being lowered from the wall in a basket (9:20-25). According to Acts Paul then right away joined the church in Jerusalem, where he is introduced to the apostles by his co-patriot Barnabas. But here too - by arguing with the Hellenists or Greek speaking Jews - he made them so furious that to save his life the members of the church speedily spirited him away from Jerusalem to his home town, Tarsus (Acts 9:26-30). He reappeared again later in Antioch 'as the assistant of Barnabas', but in no time Paul took over the leading role. He always refers to himself before Barnabas (1 Cor. 9:6; Gal. 2:1, 9). Within a short time they twice clashed in Antioch and finally parted company (Gal. 2:13; Acts 15:36-40). Paul was not an easy partner unless he was the boss.

This is Acts' story:

Paul himself has given indications that things went differently. Getting away from Damascus was for him a need to elude the guards of the governor of Damascus appointed by the Nabataean king Aretas (9 B.C.-A.D. 40; cf. 2 Cor. 11:32-33). If so, the real reason for Paul's get-away was that his original task of arresting Jewish residents of Damascus was considered by the secular authority as a threat to law and order. Paul also expressly denies that he went from Damascus to Jerusalem to visit the apostles; rather he went to the Arabian desert in Transjordan (Gal. 1:17), where he had a mystical experience (2 C 12:2-4). From there he returned to Damascus (Gal. 1:17), and three years later had his first brief meeting in Jerusalem with Peter (Cephas) and James, the brother of Jesus. From there he departed for his mission in Syria and Cilicia (Gal. 1:18-21). He must have felt like the odd man among the apostles, which would inevitably have influenced his depiction of Jesus.

As we have seen, he opposed those wanting to be Jews under the Law, Jewish members of the Jerusalem church headed by James, the brother of the Lord, who could not accept Paul's willingness to offer dispensation to Gentile believers from the observance of Mosaic Law. Paul must have realized at that visit that he could not be an 'apostle' in the way some in the movement saw this function. He was not one who 'accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John'. (Acts 1:21-22). Still he felt 'fully commissioned by Jesus', needing no appointment, but only recognition by the earlier apostles. He saw himself as 'directly chosen by the will of God' (1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1), and he could ask: 'Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?' (1 Cor. 9:1).

According to Paul's accounts he first visited with Peter (Cephas) and James, the brother of Jesus, but not with other leaders of various communities. (Gal 1:18-21). When he returned to Jerusalem fourteen years later with Barnabas it was to inform the apostles of his gospel to the Gentiles. He behaved that time like Peter's equal:

'I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised' (Gal. 2:7).

He firmly let it be known that he had received approval from the 'pillars' of the church, James, Cephas (Peter), and John (Gal. 2:1-9).

Both Paul and Acts tell us how Paul later opposed Peter. As usual, Acts offers a smoother representation of the conflict that happened at that time, referring to an 'apostolic synod', that culminated in a diplomatic settlement, nowhere mentioned by Paul.

It was declared that Gentile Christians were acknowledged as members of the church as long as they observed the commandments which entailed abstention from 'meat sacrificed to idols', from the flesh of strangled animals, and from the eating of blood, as well as from gross sexual immorality (Acts 15:1-29).

As a headstrong personality, Paul was often at the center of conflicts throughout his missionary career. The church of Corinth founded by him soon split into competing factions. On the other hand, Paul's devotion to his mission knew no limits where the success of his gospel was at stake. He willingly suffered hunger, thirst, cold, exposure, dangerous journeys, shipwrecks, imprisonment, beatings, and stoning (2 Cor. 11:23-27). He could also be calculating and ready to compromise:

'To the Jews I became as a Jew ... to those under the law I became as one under the law ... To those outside the law I became as one outside the law ... I have become all things to all men' (1 Cor. 9:20-22).

Or in short,

    'I try to please all men in everything I do' (1 Cor. 10:33).

Kingdom  and Parousia

We owe it to Paul to mention a few items that help us to sketch his limited picture of Jesus.

One item is his expectation of the Kingdom of God that he saw simultaneously with the Parousia, the return of Christ.

The imminent coming of the Kingdom of God still plays a notable role in Paul's thinking and is reflected in his letters ( Thess, Gal, 1 Cor, and Rom) written between A.D. 50 and 56.

In regard to the 'impending onset of the eschatological age', or as he saw it: 'the day of (the returning) our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Cor. 1:8; Phil. 2:16), Paul's hope differed only slightly from the expectation of Jesus. Urgency characterized both. Jesus saw the Kingdom of God lurking just around the corner, and showing itself from time to time.

In Paul's letters we can find reflected a variety of thinking about the 'returning of the Lord', such as: 'a sure faith that the return of the Lord would occur at any moment' (1 Thess. 4:15, 5:2), and certainly 'during their lifetime'. (1 Cor. 7:29)

A little later in the early fifties rumors began to spread in Thessalonica that Christ had already returned and that this event had been announced in a letter from Paul. As a result some Christians in that area stopped working in the certainty of an instant manifestation of the Lord. Paul reacted and send them back to work (2 Thess. 2:1-8; 3:6-12).

Says Vermes: 'Paul's faith in the fast-approaching second coming, obvious in Thess 1 & 2 and 1 Cor, affected not only his representation of Jesus Christ, but also the manner in which he instructed and led his flock'.

Both Jesus and Paul lived through the same conditions of 'feverish insecurity', not knowing what would happen next, also because of the fact that they were surrounded by followers of different backgrounds.

Jesus' disciples were Jews trained from childhood in how to behave and how to distinguish between good and evil in the light of centuries of Jewish religious tradition. All they had to learn was the meaning of absolute urgency, a total concentration on the needs of the present moment. While he was alive and leading his followers, Jesus did not need any specific communal organization.

Paul, on the other hand, had to care for freshly disciplined Gentile Christians who came from a totally different religious and moral environment. Despite the proximity of 'the day of the Lord', they needed constant guidance and supervision by their own leaders, and when necessary, by Paul himself.

Vermes gives a long list of advice and prescriptions Paul gives to his embattled church communities (76-78).

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Handout 2

Short history of philosophy/theology of early Christianity

This will be a short bit of history of philosophy/theology of the early centuries.

A look back as an introduction:

Alexander the Great created a Middle East empire which spoke a single language and became, - what culture was concerned, -unified as never before. That unifying culture is the 'Hellenism of Homer and Plato'. [for Hellenization see RCh 24-28]

We have seen how at the time of the Maccabees this Hellenism had started to work itself into Jewish life in the 2^nd c. BCE

2 Mac 4:13-15 “So Hellenism reached a high point with the introduction of foreign customs through the boundless wickedness of the impious Jason, no true High Priest.

In the following two centuries there are further clear signs how Judaism became influenced by Greco-Roman thinking because of the expansion of the empire. Cf Potok Wanderings 250

The following thoughts are based on the article by J.Harold Ellens Hellenism from: in The Ancient Library of Alexandria BR 2/97

Under the Romans there was a disturbing time in Alexandria which caused an intense turn towards religion. Hellenistic Jews (mostly Jews in the Diaspora) were experimenting with various kinds of theologies. In Greco-Roman culture, mystery religions were popular despite the prominence of the emperor cult.

The roots of rabbinic Judaism, Christianity and Gnosticism were gradually bending towards the rich soil of mystery cults in this uneasy world.

This “sea change” [Ellens] change of climate, ushered in a newly productive era of Hellenistic Judaism as the one

- of Philo Judaeus (30BCE-50CE) CfG 75

- of Hellenistic Christianity of Pantaenus (100-160CE), Clement (150-215), Origen (185-254), Tertullian (155-225) and the Hellenistic Neoplatonism of Plotinus (205-270CE).

- and later that of Athanasius (293-373) and Cyril of Alexandria (375-44) and of Hypatia (355-415CE)

[Hypatia was murdered under the authority of Cyril of Alexandria for political reasons and because he was jealous; Says Socrates: "She was so learned that she surpassed all contemporary philosophers." cf BR 2/97 p.19 - Noteworthy is "that though Hypatia was brutally mnurdered by Cyril for advocating a philosophy he thought was antithetical to "orthodox" Christianity, her brand of Neo-Platonism became increasingly attractive to Christian philosophers." ibid 28]

Philo ‘the Jew’ (30BCE-50CE)

In Alexandria, Jews exercised in the gymnasium with the Greeks, taking part in the spiritual and intellectual exercises that always accompanied athletic training. Philo (c. 30 bce - 45 ce), a Jewish Platonist, made the immensely important and influential distinction between God's ousia, his essential nature, and his dunamis ("powers") or energeiai ("energies").⁸³ We could never know God's ousia, but in order to adapt his indescribable nature to our limited intellect, God communicated with us through his activities in the world. They were not God itself but the highest realities that the human mind could grasp, and they enabled us to catch a glimpse of a transcendent reality beyond anything we could conceive. Philo also allegorized the stories of the Hebrew Bible in the same way as the Greeks were allegorizing the epics of Homer in order to make them conform to the philosophic ideal. He suggested that God's master plan (logos) of creation corresponded to the world of the forms that had been incarnated in the physical universe. ARMSTRONG CfG 75

Philo sought to demonstrate that Judaism could be accepted by the Greeks because Judaism had 'universal wisdom and superior insight into ultimate truth'. He treated the Greek notion of Logos as the universal expression of what the Hebrews called Wisdom (khokhma ) vs the Greek (sophia) as God’s self-expression in the material world. [cf O’M EF 70]

The primary question for Platonic-minded scholars and lay persons alike was, how a transcendent, ineffable God or pure spirit, could be linked to a material universe ... a world shot through with pain and evil. How could a perfect God create a flawed world?

In both Jewish and Greek traditions, the problem was solved by a model of the world in which God was separated from the created universe by a series of intermediaries, divine forces, the main intermediary being the Logos.

Philo understood the Logos as being responsible for creating the material universe, supervising it providentially, and redeeming it. Logos was God’s rationality, both in God’s own mind and in the rational structure of creation.

Sophia was the ‘Understanding that God 'has' , and that humans 'acquire' when they discover God’s Logos. Philo sees Logos/Sophia allegorically as an angel, rarely as 'second God'. He characterizes God as a trinity of agencies.

One of the earliest of these apologists was Justin (ioo-i6o), a pagan convert from Samaria in the Holy Land. He had dabbled in Stoicism and Pythagorean spirituality but found what he was looking for in Christianity, which he regarded as the culmination of both Judaism and Greek philosophy. Philosophers also saw their great sagesSocrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus-as "sons of God," and Christians used the same kind of terminology-Logos, Spirit, and God-as the Stoics. In the prologue to his gospel, Saint John had said that Jesus was the incarnate "Word" or "Logos" of God⁷²-the very same Logos, Justin argued, that had inspired Plato and Socrates. There was no Greek equivalent to the Hebrew Shekhinah, so increasingly Christians used the term Logos to describe the divine Presence that they could experience but that was essentially separate from God's inmost nature. Justin was not an intellectual of the first caliber, but his conception of Christ as the eternal Logos was crucial to the theologians who developed the seminal ideas of Christianity and are therefore known as the "fathers" of the Church. CfG 94

Clement and Origin

The 'Christian' Clement and Origen seem to have taken over Philo’s model of God’s relationship to the created world, particularly the function of the Logos in creation, providence and salvation.

Clement’s (+ 101) theological and philosophical emphasis differed little from that of Philo, except that the orientation of his notion of the Logos/Sophia doctrine was Christian rather than Jewish.

Origen (185-254) advanced Clement’s ideas and directly identified the Logos with the person of Jesus of Nazareth, thus personifying the Logos, a relatively common practice in both Jewish and Greek tradition to conceive divine powers or agents as identified at various times with specific extraordinary persons. [makes you suspect that the opening vss of Jn's gospel are from a much later date (one mss (J) 2^nd c.)] As the divine agency was personified in a human person, the divine was 'humanized' and the human 'deified'.

It was this significant North-African theological perspective in the theology of Clement and Origen that dominated Christian thought during the Council of Nicea (325) and the council of Chalcedon (451). (At these councils the doctrines of the deity of Christ and the trinitarian nature of God were worked out.)

Thus, there is a straight line between

- the Alexandra Library ["an institution that may be conceived of as a library in the modern sense ... but was much more: it stimulated an intensive editorial program that spawned the development of critical editions... it gave us the works of Aristotle and Demosthenes ... BR ibid]

- and its Alexandrian scholars,

- Philo’s Hellenistic Judaism and

- the Christian doctrines of the deity of Christ (Origin) and the nature of the trinity. [see BR ibid. 30 for the stages of philosophical development of the Library/University of Alexandria, where Philo find his place]

This connection is of course very complex, and there were other forces that also affected the development. However, says Küng, it is the influence of Philo’s theological and philosophical model (mediated through Clement and Origen to the bishops who met at the great councils), combined with the very speculative allegorical interpretation of scripture under the influence of Neoplatonism (typical of the outlook in Alexandria), that explains the theological move of the councils from a Jesus who was filled with the Logos, to a Christ who was the 'being of God'. [there is more in HK’s OBC Interpretations of the origin 436ff]

Too easily we assess the NT in hindsight, looking backward from the traditional dogmatic belief, and seeing signs of these dogmas in the NT writings. This is incorrect!

The dogma was not the result of the NT , but of a philosophical development already started a long time before, and showing signs of it in the NT writings.

With Hans Küng we can ask ourselves:

'Does Christ really become intelligible for us today, if we simply start out dogmatically from the established teaching on the Trinity?' ??? (OBC 132)

Like the first disciples we must start out from the real human being Jesus, his historical message and manifestation, his life and fate, his historical reality and historical activity, and then ask about the relationship of this human being to God, about his unity with the Father. (133)

Thus we must seek a Christology from 'below' - the Jesus in history - rather than one from 'above' - the dogma. [Spong]

A Side Note - As was mentioned before (Part II) Is 7:14 played an significant role in the development of Christology: It is the interpretation of the alto recitative of Bach's Messiah,

"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel: GOD WITH US."

The text comes from the famous oracle in Isaiah 7:14, which literally says,

"Behold, the young woman [Hebrew, alma (not a virgo, virgin)] is pregnant and about to bear a son; and she shall call his name 'God-Is-With-Us' [in Hebrew 'Immanuel'].

The text is used by Mt, but it is Miller who suspected and now proves that this does not mean that Mt believed in the Virgin Birth. He argues that first of all, we have to separate Lk from Mt. Lk is the one who let the angel announce to Mary that the H. Spirit would come upon her and she would conceive and bare a son Lk 1:34. The tradition got stuck with this notion and transferred it easily to Mt.

Miller looks at a much broader perspective and with the help of several text proves that Mt was not talking about a Virgin Birth. He did not have a virgin birth in mind when he wrote his gospel. The whole article is published in www.gsmorespace.com Go to 'authors articles' and 'Miller'.

With this reference to Miller's writing in mind the following is my note on the Isaiah text.

In this quote, the young woman seems to be the prophet's contemporary - she may be his wife, a queen or a person of no importance, - at any rate not a figure to be born seven centuries in the future.

Moreover, the Hebrew alma denotes any female past puberty, irrespective of her reputation.

And her son's name is a reminder of trust in God's support in a dangerous political situation (namely: 'God is with us'), thus not a claim that the son 'is' God (that the son is 'the God who is with us').

The mistranslation has its roots in the 3^rd century BCE, when an anonymous Jewish translator gave us the Hebrew verse in this Greek version:

"Behold, the virgin (parthenos) will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall (!) call his name Emmanuel."

Note the two mistakes made by the translator: the use of the 'future tense' where none is indicated in the original Hebrew, and his choice of Greek parthenos - which refers to a virgin - replacing the Hebrew alma (young woman).

Recall, this is 'a Jew' writing/translating before Christianity.

Was there already an expectation of a significant virgin birth, possibly inspired by Greek or Egyptian mythology? (Miller refers to this.)

Or did the translator intend for parthenos to mean 'young woman'?

Or might the Greek suggest that a woman who is currently a virgin will have intercourse and become pregnant?

Today's commentators are in disagreement. But to the early church it seemed inescapable that Isaiah of Jerusalem was predicting the birth of a child who is a 'God with us'. (But that's not what Mt had in mind) Refer to text "But, if Mt..... (is highlighted) - JPMeier MJ I, 222 - 'One's acceptance or rejection of the doctrine (of the virgin birth) will be largely influenced by one's own philosophical and theological presuppositions, as well as the weight one gives Church teaching.' (about this see nt 76)

 

Back to the Hellenistic influence

The struggle in that period of the 1^st c., between Judaism and Hellenism, ... projected itself in the early church, first in Jewish Christianity (the early Jewish followers of Jesus in Q and the Jerusalem community) and of course later more easily in Hellenistic Christianity, the Greek converts of the diaspora.

Many scholars hold that early Christianity was in essence more Hellenistic than Jewish ... its main lines run rather through the Hellenistic world.

Note! - says NTW: “At the time of the early 1^st c., if Jesus had wanted to take his disciples to see Euripídes’ plays performed, he might have had only to walk down the road from Capernaum to Bethsaida.” NTPG 157

One example to show the difference in Hellenistic vs Aramaic thinking:

Jesus advises in the Sermon on the Mount

Mt 5:48 "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect".

The Greek word for perfect is teleios , meaning: 'finished or flawless', or 'with nothing lacking', is probably the Greek translation of the traditional saying of the Jews: 'Be holy as God is holy'.

The New Jerusalem Bible gives us what Jesus certainly wanted to express:               'You must therefore set no bounds to your love, just as your heavenly Father sets none for his'. The ‘preceding verses’ would indicate that's what Jesus wanted to say. (JPM MJ I; cf TJQ 103 about Borg)

A further Note on Hellenism in Christian Thinking by Hans Küng [from his book ‟Christianity" p.111/2, passim]

“The ecumenical Hellenistic paradigm (as a context of beliefs) started in Paul to replace the apocalyptic paradigm of the earliest church; all this was initiated by persons and circumstances already at work in the first century. ... The consequence of this shift was that ‛Paul wanted the Gentiles, who did not belong to God's elect people (the Jews), also to have unconditional access to belief in the universal God of Israel without first having to submit to circumcision and thus to the Jewish commands related to cleanliness, the halakhah (kosher) regulations about food and the sabbath. In other words, a Gentile was able to become a Christian without first having to become a Jew and then having to fulfill the specific 'works of the Law'.

[GCS: I used the same principle in my teaching at RCIA, letting the people know that one can become a Christian (living according to Jesus' teaching) without becoming a Catholic]

Bernard Lee remarks: Through Paul there was an authentic inculturation of the Christian message in the world of Hellenistic culture. ... Paul, a Roman citizen of Tarsus with a Hellenistic education, made use not only of his rabbinic training and exegesis, but also of concepts and notions from the Hellenistic environment... And this led at a very early stage to a shift within Christianity, from Jewish Christianity to a Gentile Christianity with a Hellenistic stamp. ... Later Origen (185-254) aimed at a definitive reconciliation between Christianity and the Greek world, ... adapting the Greek world to Christianity. But this Christianizing of Hellenism inevitably resulted in an Hellenization of Christianity ... which eventually adapted itself to Hellenistic metaphysics, influencing the completion of the shift from ‟low" christology to ‟high" christology and its final dogmatization at the Councils of Nicea and Constantinopel. Connecting with the conclusions from this 'recap' I can say with Bernard Lee: ‟Looking at the earliest testimonies about Jesus they show him as having his followers standing 'with him' facing the Father, where the tradition soon made his followers face him (Jesus) and Lee adds: ‟I must admit my suspicion that the later tradition would have shocked the "Galilean" Jewish Jesus." JMG 138

 

C. Estrangement from Judaism

A worthwhile quote: !!There is no such thing as a simple encounter between a Jew and a professing Christian. When a Christian meets a Jew, a Christian is meeting someone who, on the one hand, gave to the Christian, from his or her very own flesh: Jesus of Nazareth, and then rejected him.

!!And when a Jew encounters a Christian, a Jew is encountering someone born out of her very own womb, who then turned upon her mother.” NCR 2-'07 Ed.Note

A further thought: Like the Hebrew prophets before them, Jesus and Paul bitterly criticized some of their fellow Jews, even though they considered themselves Jewish. A clear ‘split’ between Judaism and the Jesus movement would not occur until the late first and early second century, as Jesus' followers and other Jewish groups chose radically different methods of survival in the face of Roman domination. [Georgi]
Some observations:

The estrangement was not simply an internal, one-sided-Christian development [NJBC 23]. Judaism itself had also undergone a dividing transition [cf above p.66 Diversity in Judaism]. The Jewish revolt against Rome in the late 60s, did not get uniform support within Judaism, for the Pharisees were less eager to engage in violence than f.ex., the Zealots.

Apparently the Jewish Christians of the Jerusalem community were at that time also not eager to join the revolt, which might have been the reason why they withdrew from Jerusalem to Pella across the Jordan. [66-70 cf NTPG 353]

But not joining the ‘national cause’ had its influence on further alienation between the Jews who did not believe in Jesus, could not accept Jesus as Messiah, and those early Jewish followers of Jesus who did accept him that way.

Other signs of estrangement

There is Paul's different view on the circumcision: he speaks about the circumcision of the heart rather than of the flesh.

Rom 2:28f For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart - it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God. Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?

On the other hand Peter had his trouble in accepting a different view on kosher food. He needed a special revelation about all food being clean.

Notice also that Jesus never spoke about the circumcision and its value for the Jewish religion, as reflected in the fact that circumcision is not mentioned in the synoptics, except for Jesus’ own circumcision [Cf Propp’s broad and detail study on ‘circumcision’ in BR 08/04] With that in mind we can say that Paul, - by proposing his own teaching, - did not stick to the early ‘oral tradition’.

Jesus did speak, however, - in a general way - about food , it not being unclean, while he was discussing Jewish traditions:

Mk 7:18 "Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, [he apparently meant to say: no food is 'unclean' and it cannot therefore defile you].

Had Peter not heard this? Or did he not understand?

Or, was he só traditional Jewish, that he just could not accept what Jesus was teaching, and needed therefore to be reminded by a vision?

Christians as a 'sext' being pushed out

Some time later Jewish antagonism started to cause inequality between the parties. [NTPG 164; also Davies CEJ 197] It happened between 85 and 130 that the rabbis were frowning on those belonging to what they called the 'sects' (minim), and this dislike was formulated in a curse against them in the synagogue prayer ("may the minim perish" CS 131). According to Davies this is a reference to the expanded 12th of the Eighteen Benedictions (Tefillah CEJ 198). It was said that: ‘Anyone who was called upon to recite the Tefillah, the Benedictions, and stumbled on the twelfth could easily be detected’ (as belonging to a minim).

Jewish Christians of that period were considered belonging to the minim, and were therefore gradually excluded from synagogue worship. This should, however, not be taken as an ‘general excommunication edict' from the Rabbis in Jamnia. In fact it must have been a practice that was spreading depending on how numerous and assertive the Jewish Christians were in a given local synagogue. [cf CS 131ff] Where it was their own strong conviction that they didn't belong anymore to the Jewish religion, it caused their own exclusion.

The community of John, - calling Jesus 'my Lord and my God' (Jn 20:28), - may have been among the first to provoke such exclusion by the synagogue authorities. To these authorities this declaration would have sounded as if a human being was being elevated to a status that challenged the conviction of Israel: 'The Lord our God is one' (Deut 6:4).

The answer in John’s gospel was that Jesus was not a man who was being "made" God

Jn 5:16-19 Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, "My Father is still working, and I also am working." For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

Jn 10:33-38 The Jews answered, "It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God. "Jesus answered, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, you are gods'?[Ps 82.6] If those to whom the word of God came were called 'gods' - and the scripture cannot be annulled - can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, 'I am God's Son'? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."

The author of Jn's gospel rather pictures Jesus as a Son whom the Father loved and to whom the Father gave all things,

Jn 5:20-23 The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. - The equality with God was thus only in the words: ‘that whoever saw him, saw the Father’

14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Phillip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? - But this “answer” to Phillip would hardly have satisfied the synagogue authorities. They declared themselves being ‘disciples of Moses ’, while the Christians were seen as the disciples of Jesus. The synagogue authorities knew God had spoken to Moses, but as they said: they did not know where "that fellow" (Jesus) came from

Jn 9:28-29 Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from."

Accordingly, those Christians of John’s community - who confessed Jesus this way - were thrown out of the synagogue (clues can be found in Jn 9:22,34; 12:42) those ... who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue ... and they drove him out ... for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; The result was that John‘s community of Christians understood themselves as 'being killed'

16:2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.

This should not be seen as a direct killing of Christians by Jewish authorities, but rather an indirect one, in the sense that, without the umbrella of the synagogue and being acknowledged as Jews - who had a certain preferential status in the Roman state, - the expelled Christians were now exposed to Roman investigation and possible persecution for not accepting the Roman gods.

Certainly the situation of being exposed to investigation and persecution is apparent in Letter 96 of Pliny, a governor in Bithynia (ca.112BCE), writing shortly after John's gospel.[CS 315]

Davies makes this appropriate observation:

'Only very gradually did the attitude of Christian leadership 'of aversion against Judaism' trickle down to the general population. This took place to any significant degree only after 315, when the Emperor Constantine sponsored Christianity, and when, in 392, Theodosius I made that faith the official state religion.

The social and economic consequences of these political developments, just mentioned, led to the Christianization of 'the Jerusalem' of that time, in particular, but also of all Palestine as a whole, now becoming to be called 'The Holy Land'.

Jews were squeezed out of that country, and it made the Diaspora almost complete. As a consequence of this expulsion from their own country one can see the gradual emergence of the notion of the 'commercial' Jew. Cf. CEJ 256

D. Early Christianity becoming its own

[Schillebeeckx TCHF The Church with a Human Face 1992 Church and Ministry - has interesting points; cf Chilton RJ 290/1]

With its members made unwelcome in synagogues

- because of the decision of the Rabbis at Jamnia [cf CS 131 concerning the minim],

- and the early followers of Jesus gradually becoming more Gentile by percentage,

Christianity starts now more distinctly emerging as a new religion.

Later on in the development one can see signs that the early church regarded the religion of Israel as 'finished', ended, its time had passed. As Carroll puts it: [(CS 50,58-9) 'what started as 'sibling rivalry' became 'super-sessionism'; Christianity 'overtook' Judaism.

And when that happened, - what was considered permanently worthwhile, was taken over and made 'Christian', and thus considered not anymore pertaining to the 'unbelieving Jews'.

F.ex. 1 Peter tells the 'Gentile' Christian readers:

2:9-10 "YOU are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" [titular privileges of Israel in the OT Ex 9:6].

Barnabas [4:6-7 from the same period] suggests that the covenant is "ours not theirs". Indeed Christians are God's new people (7:5).

By the end of the 1^st c. there was also a growing understanding that the 'eucharist' was taking the place of the ritual sacrifices of Israel.

The Eucharist was for the early Christian the ‘pure oblation' magnifying God's name among the Gentiles, as 'foretold' by Mal 1:ll (cf Did. 14:3 [end 90's],

”for this sacrifice it is that was spoken of by the Lord; In every place and at every time offer me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great king, says the Lord, and My name is wonderful among the nations”.

The final action in 'replacing Judaism' was done by Marcion in mid 2nd c., who rejected all Jewish Scriptures and the Jewish God, and accepted as his Scriptures only those 'Christian writings' that can be interpreted 'as repudiating the OT' such as 10 Pauline letters and Luke without the infancy narrative. His views will later be rejected by the church at large as an extreme to the point of heresy.

There were also those Jewish 'believers-in-Jesus' who did 'not' want estrangement from Judaism, [26] this because the principles of the Pharisees did not disappear with destruction of Jerusalem [we mentioned that when we talked about the Pharisees p.65f]. It is indeed quite possible that the move of the community of Jewish Christian-believers to Pella, after the destruction of Jerusalem, helped to preserve this strong element in Jewish Christianity.

In the early-Christian literature of 65-95, the author of Mt moves

from the earthly Jesus' mission 'involving only the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (10:6), to 'the risen Jesus' mission to all nations' (28:19).

Still, ' the Jesus in Mt' is remembered as an observant Jew, stressing every, even the smallest part of the Law (5:18), and sticking to the observance of what the Pharisees and the scribes prescribe because - as Mt let Jesus say - 'they sit on the chair of Moses' (23:2-3) - an indication that the Christian mindset, based on Pharisaism, was still an important factor.

And another example:

Paul was against imposing the Jewish law on Gentile Christians:

Rom 3:28 "A human being is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law".

But James gives evidence that some Jewish Christians would correct this, by expressing:

2:24 A human being is justified by works and not by faith alone."

Even if 'faith' and 'works' do not have the same meaning in the two affirmations, still, one might detect here a different outlook, and a sign of development.

One can ask: Didn’t Orthodoxy succeed at the expense of the rich pluralistic diversity of the early Jesus movements?

And also: Isn’t later Orthodoxy, - now considered 'true Christianity', - actually only a 'surviving wing of competing movements'?

And for us, this following question is of utmost importance: What does first century diversity mean for someone who aspires to be a follower of Jesus in the twenty-first century?

Adapted from Westar Jesus Seminar 02/16-17/07 Arthur D. Dewey & Charles W. Hedrick

 
 
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HANDOUT 1

Jamnia became a great Jewish cultural center. At the prayer of Johanan ben Zakkai , Vespasian spared Jamnia and permitted Johanan to settle there as leader of the Jewish community after the fall of Jerusalem. The Great Sanhedrin was moved to Jamnia, and the city became the capital of the Jews until the rise of Simon Bar Kokba. [Col.Enc.]

A few other items

that can be seen as signs of Hellenization:

By 65, the 3 best known Jewish figures of the early church - James, Peter and Paul - had died as martyrs respectively in Jerusalem and Rome.

Gospel documentation for the years from 65-100, gives us few names of Christian leaders. The texts were written in Greek, but there is still a tendency of association with the deceased Jewish leading figures and to speak in their name (that’s how the gospels got their name), indicating in that way 'implicitly', what 'they ' would have said to a new generation of the Jesus’ movement. For instance, though Col, Eph, and the Pastoral letters were written after Paul's death, each writer continues to speak in Paul's name.

The mss of the oldest Gospel, Mark, bears no name, but by the 2nd c. there was a tradition attributing it to (John) Mark, a companion of Peter and Paul. It is not an acceptable position to see Matthew, as one of the Twelve, or Luke, a disciple of Paul, to have written the Gospels attributed to them. But the purpose of the name-giving was for these Gospels to have authority and to preserve 'apostolic tradition'. This is the same for the Fourth Gospel that claims to contain eyewitness tradition from the 'unnamed disciple whom Jesus loved' tying it this way also to an apostle, John.

       [cf Moloney in "Raymond Brown's New Introduction to the Gospel of John: A Presentation and some Questions CBQ 1/03]

"I am aware that in Brown's work we are dealing with two written texts, and that this differentiates its development from that of the Gospel of John, which (one must speculate) had a long preliterary history. It must always be remembered that respect for received traditions may have caused a certain awkwardness in an evangelist's use of them.48 But what was the relationship between the evangelist and the Beloved Disciple, whose traditions the former forged into a coherent narrative? Jesus, the tradition, an evangelist, and a redactor must surely be posited. The enigma remains, however, of the historical figure and the literary and even theological function of the Beloved Disciple in the development of the Johannine tradition. I am personally attracted to Brown's understanding of the role of the Beloved Disciple as the chief witness and storyteller in the pre-literary stage of the Gospel. But in the light of Brown's three decades of work on the major introductory questions that surround the Gospel of John, could the Beloved Disciple and the evangelist be one and the same figure? Is this perhaps what is meant by 21:24: "This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true"? Should we perhaps take these words, obviously from the redactor ("we know that his testimony is true"), more seriously: the one who bore witness also wrote?" (What about the -time element? John must have been 100+ yrs old)

In this later period of the 4^th gospel the purpose of the early church is less missionary, proclaiming; it had become more pastoral, shepherding, caring for the community [diakonein]. The development is illustrated in an emphasis on shepherd imagery in the later Peter and Paul’s writings:

1 Pet 5:1-4 (abt 112) Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort the elders among you to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you do it - not for sordid gain but eagerly. Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away.

John 21:15-17 (abt 100) When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.

Acts 20:28-30 (abt 125) Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them.

 Another sign of internal transition in early Christianity from Jewish to Gentile/Greek influence NJBC §22 can be found in the fact that before 65, the known leaders of the early church were Jews. After 100, when new names become prominent, like Ignatius, Polycarp etc., apparently many of them were not Jewish. In the 65-100 period, the majority in the early church changed from Jews to Gentiles.

The destruction of Jerusalem had the side effect that the Jerusalem church no longer had its pre-65 central role; this is evident in Acts and even in Paul’s Gal 1-2 where mention is made of the collection for the Jerusalem church. Where Acts 15:23 describes the 'Jerusalem church-in-49' as ‘speaking to the Christians of Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia’,

With them they sent the following letter: The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings.

by the late 1st c. the church of Rome speaks to the Christians of N. Asia Minor and Corinth this way:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, [1 Peter] (and the later 1 Clem does the same)

And one more sign of transition: Even though there were large Jewish colonies in Rome and other major Christian centers such as Antioch and Ephese, none of these cities gave Judaism the status the way Jerusalem had done. Accordingly, less attention was given in the diaspora to converting Jews to belief in Christ. Rom 11:8-16 passim

Openness to Greek Gentiles

A further detail that shows the direction toward the Greek Gentiles:

In the late 50s Paul could have hoped for the full inclusion of Israel (“my fellow Jews" R 11:14), while in the 80s or 90s the 'Paul of Luke's Acts' proclaims in the last words of that work, that

'this (Jewish) people shall never understand nor perceive; rather, salvation has been sent to the Gentiles who will listen'

Acts 28:25-28 [In Rome] they [the Jewish brethren] disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this (his) final statement:

The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said through Isaiah the prophet: Go to this people and say, "You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving." For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.' Now you must realize that this salvation of God has been transmitted to the Gentiles - who will heed it.

Though there still is an occasional sign of optimism that the wall of hostility has been broken down, when we hear f.ex. Lk & company say in (Acts 28):

14 There we found some [Jewish] brothers who invited us to spend a week with them. And so we came to Rome,

more often, one can notice an increasingly dominant argument against what the book of Revelation would call 'the synagogue of Satan'

Rev 2:9; 3:9 I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but (they) are a synagogue of Satan. - they are Jews whose father is the devil.

Let me conclude this section of ‘signs of Greek influence’ with the following noteworthy remarks by Ben Meyer [The Early Christians 68]

'The Greek-speaking Christians (hellenistai) were separated from the Hebrew-speaking ones (hebraioi) by:

- the use of different language (Greek vs Hebrew),

- a different text of the Bible (Greek Septuagint vs Hebrew Targum)

- a different 'synagogue' with its own 'tradition of explaining' (house-gathering vs synagogue)

- and the intangible but persuasive impact of cultural orientations and styles of the Greek-speaking communities.

Can it then be surprising that they should have appropriated in their own way their new faith in the risen Christ?

Whatever it was that set them apart from the Hebrews at this level, it appears to have found expression in hostility to Torah and Temple [Acts 6:14], and in openness to the Samaritans [7:5] and gentiles [11:20].

[Hypatia was murdered under the authority of Cyril of Alexandria for political reasons and because he was jealous; Says Socrates: "She was so learned that she surpassed all contemporary philosophers." cf BR 2/97 p.19 - Noteworthy is "that though Hypatia was brutally mnurdered by Cyril for advocating a philosophy he thought was antithetical to "orthodox" Christianity, her brand of Neo-Platonism became increasingly attractive to Christian philosophers." ibid 28]

[christology - systematic theological reflection on Jesus Christ as the object of Christian faith - JPM adds on p.15 nt 16: some move in the theological and christological rather than the historical realm cf L.T.Johnson The Real Jesus "the real Jesus for Christianity is the resurrected Jesus" - adds JPM 'I have no problem with such definition when it is operating in the realm of faith and theology ... there is another sense of 'real' proper to modern historical investigation which Johnson seems unwilling to affirm. - The Creed states: "Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate and suffered death" - this is historically acceptable - but not the added words: "for us human beings", "for our salvation", "for our sake" - these are expressions of faith and christ ology.]

NTPG 342; also: ‘four creeds’ FC 271 n4 (Schill); ’christology’ 271 n10; see also FC, Part II p.177 “How Jesus became God” ; also \revWhen Jesus became God (Rubenstein with excellent details); further cf Chrystology, Controversy and Community: NT essays in honour of David Catchpole 2000 rev CBQ 7/02 p.608; and: The Ancient Library of Alexandria Harold Ellens BR 2/97 and cf 6/97 From Logos to Christ and the + the response by Ellens. It gives a good background on “titles” !! - BB 45 “John’s gospel represents a transition from a lower to a higher Christology - an increasingly elevated view of Jesus” (this vs Thomas) - Geering CwG ch 6 How didJesus become God?p.73ff]

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Later added ‘Lord Supper’ Notes in Lecture 5

Again, I like you to keep in mind, that it is very probable that Jesus did not eat this meal with disciples as a ‘last’ supper; there are several indications that the purpose of the meal was a Passover celebration.

Yes, Jesus could have used the occasion to connect with the kingdom message, but the parallel between the slaughter of the ‘pascal lamb’ and Jesus’s own death with the shedding of his blood seems to be more of an post resurrection application. Nevertheless, here are the texts involved. There are two slightly different forms, which have reached us through two independent channels, a letter of Paul and the synoptic tradition.

Mk 14.22-5 And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, 'Take; this is my body.' And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, 'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. /Mt 26:26-30 (gray - is helpful)

Lk 22.17-20 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, 'Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.' And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' And likewise the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.' (Black)

   I Cor 11:24-6 And when he had given thanks, he broke [the bread] and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

It is difficult to completely reconcile the versions with one another. Jesus said something about the cup, the bread, his body and his blood.

Mt and Mk let Jesus say when passing a cup of wine: 'this is my blood of the covenant'(Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24). Luke has: ‘this cup ... is the new covenant in my blood' (22:20), and Paul uses the same wording (1 Cor. 14:25).

For present purposes I do not need to try to decide precisely what Jesus said about his blood and the cup. The texts seem to indicate that he regarded the meal as symbolic gesture, pointing to the 'future kingdom' - again, we don't know if that was Jesus' intention.

'I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God' (Mk 14:25; Mt 26:29).

'I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes' (Lk 22:18).

Paul instructed his readers that when they ate the bread and drank from the cup, they were proclaiming 'the Lord's death until he comes' (1 C 14.26).

In view of these texts the meal pointed forward, to the new age, like Jesus' eating and drinking with sinners (Mt 14:18f) probably might have pointed in the same direction. As one of the parables put it: 'the kingdom of God is like a wedding feast' (Mt 22:1-14).

I noted before, that we remain in the dark how Jesus thought, - literally -, about 'drinking wine in the kingdom'. The entire theme could well be a metaphorical use by the later writers. Even so, it found a place as his last symbolic gesture, and probably almost his last words to his closest followers.

According to the gospels he solemnly proclaimed, that the kingdom was at hand and that he would share in it.

Was Jesus aware at that Passover meal that he was “a marked man”?

Some scholars may assume he thought that God would intervene before he was arrested and executed. In any case he did not flee. He went to the Mount of Olives to pray and to wait - to wait for the reaction of the authorities and possibly the intervention of God. According to the gospels, he prayed to be spared, but he did so in private:

Abba, ... take this cup away from me, but let it be as you would have it, not as I (Mk 14:32-42 par).

The prayer that the gospels attribute to Jesus, however, is perfectly reasonable. He hoped that he would not die, but he resigned himself to what would be coming, always submitting himself to the plan of God, till the end.

Body and Blood

The Jewish scholar Vermes makes this observation RJJ 16 paraph:

At the description of the last Passover celebration of Jesus with his friends - which was a typical Palestinian Jewish cultural setting - the words ‘body and blood’ were mentioned by later writers. However, for Jesus talking about ‘eating his body and drinking his blood’ would have been a ‘totally foreign note, which would have made Jesus’ companions at the Passover meal have overcome with nausea at hearing such words’, says Vermes.

This subject, however, is hotly debated.

Assuming Jesus used those words, Chilton observes:

‘Jesus' point was rather, -that in the absence of a Temple - it would be permitted to practice his view of purity; 'wine' was his blood of sacrifice and 'bread' was his flesh of sacrifice.

More difficult is it to assume that Jesus had a clear foreknowledge of his impending death, and even more of a strain that he had a theological interpretation of his death as expiatory sacrifice. That the righteous suffer before the coming of the Kingdom is, - as we have seen -, one of the motives of Jewish eschatological thinking; and Jesus, - to the degree that he did foresee his own death -, may have viewed it in this light. Did he then specifically associate the bread and wine of the meal with his own body and blood, and these with the eschatological, i.e. "new" covenant? (cf. Jer 31:31)

Again, we cannot be certain; but the early Christian communities certainly did see it that way, as they too celebrated by eating together in anticipation of a messianic banquet that would signify not their messiah's arrival but his glorious return (as we see reflected in Paul).’ FJC 144

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Handout: Date and Time of Jesus' death (Lecture notes copied)

Arrest and ‘Trial’

As was noted before, all four Gospel narratives about this event, pack a remarkable - not to say improbable - amount of activity into 'one single night'. The closer we come to the Passion, the stronger becomes the theological interpretation of the gospel writers in their presentation of events. And as the activities increase, the details take different directions.

Date and Time

Keep in mind that the 'arrest and trial' followed Jesus' last meal with his disciples.

JPM makes the following observations JPM MJ I 386f concerning date and time of the Last Supper, details that can easily be overlooked or ignored.

It all starts with the disagreements between the Synoptics and John on the dates of the Last Supper and the crucifixion, which are caused by the difficulty of calculating the year of Jesus' crucifixion that can easily be overlooked or ignored.

All the Gospels place the Last Supper on Thursday evening, and the crucifixion, death, and burial on Friday before sunset. The day after Jesus' crucifixion was the Jewish Sabbath, i.e., Saturday.

Mt agrees with Mark that Jesus died on Friday and celebrated the Last Supper on Thursday evening.

Lk presents the same basic scenario, though perhaps more by 'hinting'; here is why. Looking backward, we see that the women came to the tomb on Sunday (specifically mentioned by Lk) (24:1), rested on Saturday, the Sabbath (23:56), and were around when Jesus executed, and buried on Friday (24:54). Accordingly, the Last Supper on the previous evening took place on Thursday.

Jn represents an independent passion tradition, which makes his vision interesting and important. The day of the crucifixion was in Jn 'the day of preparation' (19:31, cf 42). The next verse tells us how 'on the first day of the week', Mary Magdalene came to the tomb (20:1), indicating thus indirectly that Jesus died on Friday with the 'farewell meal' (not considered 'last' or Lord's supper') the night before on Thursday as the synoptic gospels also reported.

Date of death and Jewish calendar The following confusing data will be in Handout 3 Date of death and Jewish calendar

BUT ... there is the question how do these Thursday and Friday fit into the Jewish calendar?

Based on Exodus 12, Josephus’ testimony, and the Book of Jubilees, JPM feels that he can pinpoint the exact time of the Passover celebration in the Jewish calendar. And this becomes the cause of conflict between the synoptics and Jn.

The synoptics report that the arrest, trial, crucifixion, death and burial of Jesus took place on a Friday which was (until sunset) the 15^th of Nisan, called Passover Day. This Passover Day had started the evening before on Thursday after sunset, at which time the Pascal/Seder meal was observed and lasted until sunset that Friday.

At sunset Friday the Sabbath started which was the 16^th of Nisan.

Nissan 14 - Thursday: after sunset Passover Day starts with Pascal/Seder meal, arrest

  Nissan 15 - Friday = Passover Day - trial crucifixion, death, burial.

  Nissan 16 - Saturday/Sabbath, day of rest

  Nissan 17 - Sunday-first day of the week - empty tomb

Jn presents a different chronology. First of all: there is nothing in Jn that specifies 'Jesus’ Last Supper' as a 'Passover meal', even though it is taking place on the evening between Thursday and Friday , thus: Thursday evening.

These are some of the reasons why the Last Supper can not be seen as a Passover meal in Jn :

early Friday morning (18:28) Jewish authorities bring Jesus from Caiphas to Pilate’s pretorium, but they did not enter 'lest they be rendered unclean', so that they might eat the Passover. Clearly in Jn the Passover meal has not yet been celebrated.

Jn figured the Thursday as the 13^th of Nisan (until sunset), and with the Last Supper being held that evening when the 14^th of Nissan began, it was not a Passover meal, since Passover was on the 15^th, starting on Friday after sunset.

Jesus was crucified, died and was buried on Friday (14^th of Nissan until sunset). The Passover Day began (with the Passover meal) at sunset on Friday as the 15^th of Nissan began and continued on the following Saturday.

According to Jn the Passover Day fell that year on the Sabbath, reason why Jn mentions that the corpses had to be taken down 'for great was the day of the Sabbath' (19:31), a special solemn day, because it was also Passover day.

Nissan 13 - Thursday, Jesus shared his final meal with his friends, arrest,

Nissan 14 - Friday, trial, crucifixion, death, burial - after sunset Passover starts

    Nissan 15 - Saturday, Sabbath and Passover day

    Nissan 16 - Sunday, first day of the week

Summary:

So what causes the confusion is the fact that Jn and the synoptics disagree on the dating of the Passover.

Synoptics report Passover as celebrated on Friday, the 14^th of Nissan, - Jn places it on Saturday, the 15^th of Nissan. For him Friday was that year ‘preparation day’ for both Passover and the Sabbath - the two observances coincided that year on Saturday, the 15^th of Nissan.

A note by JPM: I p.427 n.100

'At times commentators will speak of a Passover tone, mood or character visible in John's portrayal of the Last Supper. In so far as John pointedly place the meal just before Passover (13:1), the Passover 'tone', which indeed permeates the whole Gospel, is indisputable. But I deny, says JPM, that in John the meal itself has any characteristics that necessarily refer to Passover. I maintain, he says, that such an idea would not have crossed the minds of exegetes - if they did not also know the Synoptic Last Supper in its present Marcan form'.