Making things happen
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Monday April 12, 2004 Volume VI Number 14
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The Year of Jesus by Ken Kemp |
ost of us Christians would agree, this has been an Easter season like no other in recent memory. Everywhere we turn, people ask about Jesus.
"Why did Jesus have to die?" So reads the bold print question on the cover of the largest national newsmagazine in the world. It’s TIME’s Easter Cover Story.
The
question reveals an interesting assumption – that Jesus’ death indeed had a
purpose. That there was intentionality about his crucifixion. That’s a long
jump from the standard hypothesis that it was a random act of violence on a
young and popular revolutionary in hostile territory. So if the question is
“Why did Jesus have to die,” then from whose point of view? The
Sanhedrin’s? Popular Jerusalem’s? The Roman’s? Or perhaps, even more
intriguing, was it some divine purpose? Was it somehow in God’s
plan? TIME wants to know.
This same week, Jesus as a multi-media, docudrama biography subject appeared all over the TV Guide. ABC News ran a three hour prime time special written and hosted by Anchor Peter Jennings exploring the historical roots of Christianity. If you scanned the channels this week, you saw it, too. Almost every news network and cable outlet has run a special or a biography or an old film on Jesus of Nazareth. Some are simply tagging along behind the enormous commercial success of the Passion movie. Others are openly sincere in their desire to better understand the most consequential character in human history.
People
are wondering about Jesus. Curiosity about his life remains to this very day,
in the Western world at least, as the most poignant of all stories. The
significance of his appearance, his teachings, his demeanor, his ascendance to
the world stage, the flat rejection by his own society, the subsequent embrace
by believers from every nation, every culture, every language group, all of
this triggers every sort of speculation.
And to this day, this man Jesus provokes thoughtful consideration and cynical caricature on the movie screen and on the New York Times bestseller list. How do we sort through and separate fact from fiction?
It’s a curious time.
Until recently, the few remaining serious liberal theologians have worked in relative obscurity. Theological books and lectures are given in musty, forgotten halls on the far end of campus, way out of the mainstream. Most people get their exposure to religion via cable television or radio programming, or perhaps from a popular book. But this is consumer level religion, certainly not academic or scholarly. Mainstream seminaries and graduate schools of theology have fallen on hard times. With dwindling attendance in main-line denominational churches, graduate level theology has suffered a serious case of indifference in modern society. Those rare individuals who have devoted themselves to ancient languages and the history of the church and an understanding of the subtleties of theological nuance exist in poorly funded departments with a handful of students who have to apologize over at the student center when someone asks them about their major. (It’s the evangelical seminaries that are on the growth curve.)
But surprisingly, these are the “experts” chosen by Jennings and others to inform a three hour exploration of Jesus and Paul, whom he calls the Founders of Christianity. It’s as though these old-school liberals, in the shadow of the Passion’s enormous commercial success, have been given their moment in the sun. A year ago, such an ABC Special would have been a ratings also-ran – a forgettable footnote in spring programming.
What Jennings rolled out the Monday after Palm Sunday, is a high budget, on location, slick multi-layered account of the work of The Jesus Seminar.
Don’t
get me wrong, it’s an interesting piece. First of all, to have one of the
three veteran, high profile network Anchors take such a thorough interest in
Jesus Christ and Paul the Apostle is groundbreaking enough in itself. For many
believers, it’s a brand new idea – filling in the gaps of history. For
starters, many barely possess a even cursory understanding of the Gospel
record. Peter Jennings stood on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican
City and asked a series of visitors what they knew about the Apostle Paul.
Almost no one had even the vaguest idea. Paul’s statue stood just a few feet
away, but none understood his role in bringing the message of Jesus to Rome.
If there is biblical illiteracy, how much more - historic
illiteracy? For many new believers, the whole period marked by our calendar’s
Year One is shrouded in mystery. There may be scraps of data, story lines that
emerge with people dressed in robes and sandals, but there are major gaps. The
source of our English text of the Bible remains unknown to many – even
believers. The original languages, the political and economic dynamics brought
to bear on the territories on the shores of the Mediterranean, the clash of
cultures and the struggle for power and independence all bring never before
considered questions to the surface. Peter Jennings, in the tradition of
scholarship and investigative reporting attempts to fill in the gaps, and find
answers.
There was a time when news anchors worked hard to disguise personal biases. Old school news-reporters believed that their independence was their greatest asset. Their credibility depended on their sense of fairness, and what we once called objectivity. Modern culture long ago abandoned the belief that objectivity is a virtue. Pervasive relativism says that objectivity is a harmful illusion. No one can be objective – so don’t even try. And few do. So now, our news anchors have abandoned the Edward R. Morrow School of Journalism and willingly expose their personal opinions. It’s the new badge of courage. If Tom Brokaw can become a World War II buff and write books on the Greatest Generation, then Peter Jennings can go public as a Jesus buff.
The world is hungry for evidence, eager for confirmation of their experience and their beliefs. And as an attorney marshals a team of experts to support his case in a courtroom, so the writer of a documentary assembles his team of experts preparing to make his case in the court of public opinion. Jennings’ team comes from The Jesus Seminar.
In 1996, Robert Funk assembled some two hundred scholars from around the world. Mainline churches needed a fresh new theology to attract members back to the pews. These scholars began with an assumption - that modern secular society abandoned its religious roots because the advance of the knowledge base made most people skeptical about the religious dogma that served as the foundation for religious loyalties. Miracle stories, the fantastic claims Jesus makes and perhaps most offensive, the notion that one religion is right and the rest are wrong. All these make religion interesting to only the ignorant few (they assume), and it’s no surprise that modern men and women find their Christian roots, well, curious but ultimately irrelevant. The Jesus Seminar was an attempt to redefine Christianity in modern terms – to admit the conflicts and contradictions with a current view of reality and hold out a modern, enlightened view.
And in the process, they re-wrote history.
To
appease modernity, they dropped the supernatural. They defined Jesus as a
political revolutionary, caught in the crossfire of iron fisted Roman rule and
regionally oppressed Judaism. They excised the idea of a sacrifice for sin and
his claims of divinity. Like Thomas Jefferson, they simply snipped out the
portions of the Gospels that they found untenable, separating the historical
Jesus from the Christ of faith. In their effort to strip away the myth from
the man, they made him politically correct and palatable for scholarly inquiry.
In the process, they gave priority to the non-canonical (extra-biblical)
documents over the witness of the four gospels as we know them.
So we should interpret the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John through the lens of the little known Gospel of Thomas and the works of Josephus.
One example: the scholars claimed that the Gospel (i.e. New Testament) account of the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate is hopelessly at odds with the extra-biblical “historical” accounts. The source is Josephus, a first century historian who makes a passing reference to Jesus and his followers in his account of the fall of Jerusalem. He talks at length about Pilate, who he describes in graphic detail. The regional Roman governor’s legendary cruelty left scores of opponents and agitators hanging on crosses, flogged, dismembered, and forgotten in dank, damp dungeons. All it took was a whim. So, conclude Jennings’ scholars, this Pilate of the gospels who appears sympathetic with Jesus’ fate and suspicious that he might be falsely accused is hopelessly inconsistent with the Pilate of “history.” But the scholars do not address the point made by the New Testament account that Pilate was influenced not so much by Jesus or his irritation with Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, but by his wife – who was convinced of Jesus’ goodness. I don’t care how hardened you are in life, if the woman you love is convinced you are making a big mistake, it’ll make you think twice.
It’s this sort of bias on the part of Jennings’ experts that create questions. What are their pre-suppositions? What is the unspoken agenda?
I commend Peter Jennings and his friends for their quest. Clearly, they are sincere in their curiosity about the historical Jesus, and certainly taken by the power his story continues to hold over millions from every culture and nation and socio-economic level.
I would wish that Jennings had consulted with scholars beyond the secularists of the Jesus Seminar. There are many highly skilled, knowledgeable academics who have defended the reliability of the gospel record. They should have had the opportunity to make their serious and credible reply to the questions raised in Jenning’s report.
Would that he, in the name of fairness, included them.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
Maybe this talk about Jesus has caught your attention, too. This idea some embrace that the evidence is just too thin for you to have any sure or comprehensive knowledge of him is one, I guess, I feel compelled to challenge.
I’d simply say, check your sources. Look at underlying presuppositions. Gather your data. Make your judgments.
Ultimately, you’ll come back to the question in bold print on this week’s TIME. Why did he have to die?
Think about that one.
Why did he?
Take it beyond theory. Take it beyond stale, academics. Take it beyond scholarly discourse.
You’ll find something there that will take you by surprise.
I did.
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2004
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