Heretical Readings #1

Currently I am reading Geza Vermes "The Resurrection", Marcus Borg "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time", Finkelstein & Silberman "David and Solomon", and Bart Ehrman "Misquoting Jesus".

I'm also planning a detailed post on Colin Humphreys "The Miracles of Exodus", which is an excellent read and a compelling defense of the Exodus account in the Torah. Okay, so that's a tendentious comment, but I'm very impressed with the case that Humphreys makes for the basic historicity of most (all?) of the Exodus account - at least the bits that are not obviously interpolations of Temple Priest-work... the Ark, the Tent, the gold-work etc etc., which read like 10th Century Levitical instruction manuals from Solomon's (or Hezekiah's) era.

But, for now, I'm just making a few passing comments. Firstly, Geza Vermes' book takes apart the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, and looks critically at the understanding of the Resurrection evident in the Christian Bible and late Second Temple Judaism. Does he successfully destroy the Resurrection as a historical event? His preferred view is that the Resurrection is Jesus Risen to Life in the hearts of his believers - not in a non-spiritual ideological way, but as the Holy Spirit. A very personal Resurrection evidenced by a personal experience of the Living Jesus, however that might be experienced. I've read similar things in Crossan, Borg and Peter Carnley's books before. I'm sympathetic with a point Crossan made, in debate with Tom Wright, that a Resurrection in the far past, without an experience of Jesus in the present, isn't what drove the Disciples and their followers. They faced death because Jesus was alive for them in the here-and-now.

But... if we "feel" Jesus is alive Now, then what about Then? And what does a Resurrection mean without an Empty Tomb? However Vermes book re-emphasised for me just how very odd our accounts are in the Gospels - none cover the event itself, so it has no witnesses. It can't ever be history without some solid testimony - instead it will be a whole bunch of often contradictory "vision" accounts, just like St.Paul's list versus the different Gospels. Let's look at those...

Mark: Jesus isn't seen, just an Empty Tomb and some words from Angels, who say "You'll see Him in Galilee as He said..."

Matthew: the women do see Jesus, after some angels, but the disciples have to wait until a (dubious) mountain top experience

Luke: different people see Jesus, at different places, but none far from Jerusalem (what happened to Galilee?)

John: all over... Mary sees him as a Gardener, Peter and the Beloved (Lazarus?) see his burial cloths, and the disciples see him in a locked room, twice! Then in Galilee, as a post-script.

...question is: how did Mark really end? Before the last page was lost, and some well meaning scribes wrote a few different endings? James McGrath makes the interesting suggestion that we have the ending redacted onto "John" as chapter 21 - the Galilee fishing trip and Jesus pericope. This makes sense to me, especially since that's where "The Gospel of Peter" is heading before it too loses the last few pages (but don't ask me if I think Crossan's "Cross Gospel" is legit.)

With all that disagreement, plus a different list of "visions"/"appearances" in 1 Corinthians, is it any wonder that critical scholars get uptight about the whole thing? There's whole parking-lots of room to fit reasonable doubt into. But perhaps we do have a Witness to the event itself - the Shroud/s...

Bart Ehrman's book is a big challenge to anyone who has succumbed to the temptation of Bibliolatry and believes in "100% Inerrancy" - there's no such thing as an untouched Biblical text. Every version we have of the Christian Bible has been scholarly restored from flawed exemplars, and Ehrman makes a strong case that many popular verses about Jesus or by Paul are interpolations by over-zealous scribes. One surprise was just how flimsy the Pauline nature of several contentious "proof-texts", about women and their roles in Church, really are. I had heard such, but Ehrman demonstrates there's sufficient doubt to throw the whole lump Greco-Roman misogyny out of Christian discourse.

More later