22. Matthew 7:13-14; compare Luke 13:23-24. Matthew 7:24-27. Matthew 6:24. Matthew 6:19-21 and Luke 12:33-34.
23. That is, gluttony, drunkenness, adultery, and so forth. The teaching of Jesus in this respect (as well as many others) differs markedly from the “hot” preaching of some evangelists today.
24. For a systematic contrast between the contemporary American and ancient Mediterranean understandings of the family, see B. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 94-102.
25. Mark 3:33-35.
26. Luke 14:26 = Matthew 10:37. The passage is softened somewhat (but only somewhat) by the fact that “hate” can be an idiom in Hebrew and Aramaic meaning “love less” or “put in second place.”
27. Matthew 10:34-36 = Luke 12:51-53.
28. Luke 9:59-60; see also the closely related saying in verses 61-62. Perrin perhaps overstates the case when he calls the first the most radical of all the sayings of Jesus (see Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 144).
29. Mark 10:23; the passage continues with the famous line, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” Attempts to water this down by speaking of a low gate called “the needle’s eye” through which a camel could go on his knees miss the point. Not only is there no such evidence for such a gate, but the point of the saying is its radicality. Other relevant passages include Luke 6:24-26, 12:13-21, 16:19-31; Mark 10:28; Matthew 6:19-21 = Luke 12:33-34; Matthew 6:24 = Luke 16:13.
30. Mark 1:16-20, 2:13-14, 6:8-9; Luke 9:57-58 = Matthew 8:19-20.
31. The way of “holy poverty,” known in many traditions including the Christian tradition (the preeminent postbiblical example is St. Francis, who embraced “lady poverty”), abolishes one of the fundamental distinctions culture imposes upon the world, the distinction between “mine” and “not-mine.” About that which is mine I will be anxious, seeking to preserve it and perhaps add to it; I then easily become centered in that which is “mine.” “Holy poverty” not only abolishes this distinction, but makes one radically dependent upon God.
32. Luke 8:1-3. Wealthy followers or “sympathizers” would also include Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:43). There is no good reason for regarding him as a literary invention. On the subject of poverty and wealth, see also chapter 7, pages 135-137.
33. On honor, see especially Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, 25-50. A person concerned about honor “constantly thinks about what he or she ought to do, about what is ideally acknowledged in the society as meaningful and valuable,” and expects others to acknowledge his or her achievement of such ideals (28). Indeed, “honor is all about the tribunal or court of public opinion and the reputation that court bestows” (36). Malina speaks of two kinds of honor: it may be one’s by birth, but may also be acquired by “excelling over others in…social interaction” (29). Honor was the product of excellence as defined by the canons of conventional wisdom.
34. Luke 14:7-10, Mark 12:38-39, Luke 11:43 = Matthew 23:6-7.
35. Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18. Other practices mentioned include prayer and fasting: one is to practice both “in secret,” and not for the sake of being seen.
36. Matthew 3:9 = Luke 3:8.
37. Jesus’ teaching continued the emphasis sounded by the Baptist: many of his hearers (who were children of Abraham) would see others enjoying the banquet of the age to come with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they themselves shut out (Matthew 8:11-12 = Luke 13:28-29). Jesus also applied the notion in reverse; about the “outcasts,” those who had forfeited their standing as children of Abraham, he could say, “Are these not also children of Abraham?” (see Luke 19:9 and 13:16).
38. Luke 18:9-14.
39. This is the radical meaning of self-righteousness: to rest one’s standing before God in the self’s fulfilment of religious requirements, whether one publicly displays that fulfilment or not. It was not simply characteristic of particular individuals in the time of Jesus, but is a perennial temptation of religious people. It is the religious form of living according to the “performance principle” (see chapter 5, page 83 and note 9).
40. See, for example, Mark 4:12, 8:18.
41. Luke 6:39 = Matthew 15:14.
42. Luke 6:41-42 = Matthew 7:3-5. See Robert Tannehill’s excellent commentary on this passage in The Sword of His Mouth (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 114-118.
43. Matthew 6:22-23 = Luke 11:34-36.
44. Matthew 6:25-34 = Luke 12:22-31. See also page 101 above.
45. This “selfishness” need not be thought of in a radically individualistic way, as if it means a concern for one’s self alone. That is, one’s “selfishness” will normally extend to a concern for the communities considered vital to one’s existence (for example, the family and perhaps the nation).
46. To say that humans are “selfish” can easily become a cliché. For a powerful and persuasive description of this “root” selfishness in humans, flowing out of our anxiety and distorting both our vision and our thinking, see Langdon Gilkey’s reflective account of his experience in a civilian internment camp in China during World War II: Shantung Compound (New York: Harper & Row, 1966).
47. The last sentence of the paragraph builds on a statement from Abraham Heschel, quoted from memory: “God is not dead; we are.”
48. For a compact statement of this generally held view, see The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), II. 549b: the heart was “the psyche at its deepest level,” “the innermost spring of individual life, the ultimate source of all its physical, intellectual, emotional, and volitional energies.”
49. Luke 6:43-45; see also Matthew 7:16-20, 12:34-35. The combination of heart imagery with tree and fruit imagery is also found in Jeremiah 17:5-8, one of many points of contact between Jeremiah and Jesus.
50. Mark 7:6. The words are a quotation from Isaiah, suggesting that the tension between external observance (the way of conventional wisdom) and the condition of the heart runs throughout the history of Israel.
51. Mark 7:14-15; all of Mark 7 deals with the importance of the heart compared to observance of traditional practice.
52. Matthew 23:25-26 = Luke 11:37-41.
53. See Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28. See also Matthew 5:20: “If your virtue goes no deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven” (translation from Jerusalem Bible).
54. Jeremiah 31:31-34. The connection between “new covenant” and “heart” in the Jeremiah passage is striking. With his emphasis upon the heart, it is conceivable that Jesus saw himself as instrumental in bringing about the new covenant spoken of by Jeremiah. The early church clearly made this association in its understanding of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. See 1 Corinthians 11:23-25, Mark 14:24, and Matthew 26:28, all of which use the language of “covenant.” Paul explicitly says “new”; in the synoptic passages, “new” is a textual variant; see also the longer text of Luke in 22:19b-20.
55. Matthew 5:8.
56. Jeremiah 17:5-10. The importance of the heart’s orientation was also stressed within the rabbinic tradition, which spoke of the heart being ruled either by the “evil inclination” (ha-yetzer ha-ra) or “good inclination” (ha-yetzer ha-tob). One’s actions depended upon the inclination of one’s heart—if evil, then evil; if good, then good. See W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress), 20-35. See also E. E. Urbach, The Sages (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975), 471-483. The great power of the evil inclination over the heart is indicated with a variety of images: it is like a king ruling the 248 parts of the body; it ensnares the self like a spider web at the beginning, but its threads soon become as thick as a ship’s rope; the evil inclination begins in the heart as a visitor, then a regular guest, and finally becomes the host—that is, has taken charge.
57. Matthew 6:24 = Luke 16:13. “Mammon” literally meant “wealth,” though it also had the ex
tended meaning of finding one’s security in the world.
58. Matthew 6:19-21 = Luke 12:33-34.
59. It is the way of life (contrasted to the way of death) spoken of by Moses in Deuteronomy 30:15-20, the “choose you this day” of Joshua in Joshua 24 and of Elijah in 1 Kings 18, and the consistent challenge of the prophets.
60. Deuteronomy 6:4-5.
61. Mark 12:28-31 = Matthew 22:34-40; see also Luke 10:25-28, where a “lawyer” (an expert in the Law) recites the “great commandment,” which Jesus then approves. In each case, a second commandment is also added: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
62. The point is an important one. Religious belief does not necessarily relieve anxiety. Indeed, I have seen many cases (and heard of many more) in which embracing a form of Christianity has only heightened anxiety and fearfulness about whether one is really “in the Lord.” When this happens, Christianity is no longer the antidote for anxiety but the intensifier of it. Moreover, if faith is “trusting in God,” then this is not faith.
63. Strikingly, the roots of the Latin verb for faith, credo (with which the creeds of the church begin), reflect this connection to the heart. Credo comes from two words which together mean, “I give my heart to.” See Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 76-78. For an illuminating discussion of the development of the word “belief” in English, see 105-127.
64. The cross as pointing to both life and death is symbolized by the two types of crosses found within the church: the crucifix with the dying Jesus on it, and the empty cross suggestive of the resurrection.
65. Mark 8:34 = Matthew 16:24 = Luke 9:23. See also Luke 14:27 = Matthew 10:38. The specification of the “way of Jesus” as the way of the cross or death is sometimes thought to be a post-Easter creation of the church. In all probability, the highly specific “predictions” of Jesus’ own death and resurrection (see, for example, Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33-34) were created by the church after Easter. But the sayings in which Jesus spoke of the way of transformation as involving death are quite well-authenticated, occurring not only in Mark but also in Q.
66. Specifically, it was the penalty for rebellion or treason against Rome, and was used with great frequency in Palestine.
67. See the statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan, 1963; originally published in German in 1937), 7: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
68. Mark 10:38.
69. Luke 17:33; also found in slightly varying versions in Mark 8:35 = Matthew 16:25 = Luke 9:24; see also Matthew 10:39.
70. Luke 9:23. That Jesus said “daily” is unlikely, since it is clearly Luke’s redactional addition; yet the addition seems accurately to state the sense of Jesus’ saying.
71. Galatians 2:20. Paul also speaks of this experience as common to all Christians. See, for example, Romans 6:1-11, especially verse 3.
72. John 12:24. Immediately thereafter, John adds: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it in eternal life.”
73. See Marcus Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teaching of Jesus (New York and Toronto: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984), 244. Moreover, the “way of Jesus” as the “way of death” is a major structural element in both Mark’s gospel and Luke’s gospel; ibid., 245 and notes 52-53, 378.
74. Other images in the teaching of Jesus make the same point. Repentance did not mean primarily remorse or regret for sin, but a radical turning to God, that is, a radical centering in God. To become as a servant meant to become as a “slave,” that is, a person who had no will of his or her own, but only the will of the master; one could be a slave of either God or “mammon.” The paradoxical sayings about humbling/exalting (Luke 14:11, 18:14b; Matthew 18:4, 23:12) and first/last (Mark 10:31, Matthew 19:30 and 20:16, Luke 13:30) have a similar thrust. To be humble meant to be “empty” of internal possessions and therefore able to be filled with God; those who put themselves first shall be last, and vice-versa. Similarly, the images of becoming as a child and being born anew are frequent and natural images for the new life that flows out of the path of dying: one becomes a new person with a new heart centered in God, and not in self or culture.
75. There is some (though not much) uncertainty about the marital status of Jesus. He clearly seems to have been single during the ministry. William Phipps, Was Jesus Married? (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), argues that Jesus may have been married as a youth and that his wife may have died before the ministry. The basis for the argument is the normal pattern for Jewish males as they grew into adulthood. Marriage, arranged by one’s parents, was so taken for granted that ancient Hebrew does not have a word for “bachelor.” Clearly, however, there were exceptions, including Jeremiah in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 16:1-4). For a treatment of the nonascetic quality of Jesus’ path of renunciation, see especially G. S. Sloyan, Jesus in Focus: A Life in Its Setting (Mystic: Twenty-Third Publications, 1983), chapters 17-18.
76. Mark 10:1-12.
77. Mark 7:19b reports that Jesus abolished the Jewish food laws. However, the parenthetical expression is clearly an addition by the evangelist and reflects the understanding of the church of his day, and not the intention of Jesus. We have no reason to think that Jesus abolished the distinction between clean (“kosher”) and unclean food. Had he done so, we might have expected his opponents to have accused him of this, but there is no such record in the gospels. Moreover, the early church’s struggle with that issue as reflected in Acts and the letters of Paul is inexplicable if Jesus had already resolved it. To put the point more broadly, the conflict between Jesus and his contemporaries did not concern the validity of the Torah, but its interpretation.
78. Because of the history of Jewish-Christian theological polemics, I want to stress that I am seeking to describe a characteristic of conventional wisdom generally, and not something peculiar to a Jewish way of being religious. In most periods of its history, Christianity has been as thoroughly permeated by conventional wisdom’s image of God as the judge and compensator, as well as legitimator of those who “live right,” as Judaism ever was. In short, over time conventional wisdom or enculturated religion intrinsically seems to distort the original view of the founders of the tradition, even as it may continue to mediate the Spirit through its preservation of tradition.
79. Matthew 11:28-30.
80. The story of Job is the story of his transformation from the viewpoint of conventional wisdom (which is represented in the book by his friends, a framework within which Job’s suffering made no sense) to a wisdom based upon the experience or vision of God. See the climax of the book in 42:5: “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear [that is, from conventional wisdom], but now my eye sees thee.” The book of Ecclesiastes denies that life can be so easily ordered as conventional wisdom suggests: “Who can make straight what God has made crooked?” (1:15). Moreover, following the wise path (the way of conventional wisdom) for the sake of reward is included in the category of “vanity,” a “striving after wind” (see, for example, 7:15). Thus both challenge conventional wisdom.
81. Scholars regularly divide the wisdom tradition of Israel into two categories: conventional wisdom, and skeptical or subversive wisdom. Job and Ecclesiastes comprise the latter; included in the former are the books of Proverbs and (in the apocrypha) Sirach (a second-century B.C. work sometimes known as “Ecclesiasticus” or “The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach”). For introductions to the wisdom tradition of Israel, see G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972); R. Murphy, Wisdom Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981); and James Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981).
82. Jesus is also portrayed as a teacher of wisdom in the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus and discovered in Egypt in 1945. Though much in Thomas is consistent with the view sketched above, and though many scholars convincingly argue that some of the sayings in T
homas are as early as the traditions found in the synoptics, I have chosen in this book to base my portrait on the canonical gospels. For an introduction to Thomas, see Stevan Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom (New York: Seabury, 1983).
83. For a description of how the forms of Jesus’ teaching themselves mediated and invited end-of-world, see especially the work of John Crossan and William Beardslee, conveniently reported by Norman Perrin in Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 48-56. The notion of subversive wisdom is used with great effect by Crossan in his book In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus.
84. Wisdom in ancient Israel was taught by teachers of wisdom in special schools. The very fact that Job and Ecclesiastes were put into literary form suggests that they were part of an internal dialogue within the wisdom tradition rather than a direct attempt to “proselytize” the public at large. By the time they were preserved in the canon, both were provided with endings that made them more in conformity with conventional wisdom (see Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 and Job 42:7-17).
1. See chapter 5, page 86.
2. So far as I know, the term “Jesus movement” has come into common use recently through Gerd Theissen’s Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978; published in German in 1977). His focus is on the Jesus movement in the decades between Jesus’ death and the destruction of Jerusalem, and not on the movement during Jesus’ lifetime; but the term is now used quite widely to refer to the movement during the ministry as well. For an important critical and yet appreciative response to Theissen’s work, see John H. Elliott, “Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testament and Its Social World: More on Method and Models,” in Semeia 35 (Decatur, GA: Scholars Press, 1986), 1-33. Other works which emphasize the “Jesus movement” as seeking the renewal or restoration of Judaism include E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985); Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus and Community (New York and Philadelphia: Paulist and Fortress, 1984). A major section of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983) 68-159, treats the theme. See also C. H. Dodd, The Founder of Christianity, who speaks of Jesus’ purpose as creating “a community worthy of the name of a people of God”; Jesus sought to form “the new Israel under his own leadership; he nominated its foundation members, and admitted them into the new ‘covenant,’ and he laid down its new law. That was his mission” (90, 102).
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