(Gospel of John 2:13 - 2:25)
As the time for the celebration of the Passover was approaching, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem. There, in the very courtyard of the Temple, he found merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices. He also saw tables set up by brokers engaged in the business of currency exchange. Out of some lengths of rope, Jesus made himself a whip and, with it, he drove out all the cattle and the sheep and cleared the area around the Temple. He scattered the brokers' coins and upset their tables. Next, he accosted those who were selling the doves and ordered them, "Get these things out of here! Quit turning the house of my Father into a marketplace!" (This made his disciples remember a passage in scripture: “A passion to protect God's house consumes me.”)
In reaction, the religious authorities demanded, “What miracle are you going to present to us to justify doing this?”
Jesus declared, "Tear this Temple down, and in 3 days time I will raise it up."
The religious authorities responded, "This Temple took 46 years to build, and you tell us you can rebuild it in only 3 days?"
But the temple that Jesus was speaking of was the temple of his own body. After he had risen from the dead, his disciples recalled this exchange and consequently concluded that the passage in scripture referred to this pronouncement made by Jesus.
While he was in Jerusalem during the time of the Passover celebrations, many people became devotees of Jesus when they witnessed the miracles he was performing. Jesus, though, being well acquainted with human nature, was wary of them. (Indeed, he needed no one to tell him about men, for he knew what was in every man's heart.)
Notes
1. As a reformist, Jesus objects to and is strongly offended by the commercialization of religion and regards business conducted on the premises of the Temple as sacrilege, a violation of its sanctity. Here, for the first time in this Gospel, he calls himself the Son of God (earlier he assumed the title Son of Man). And he takes it upon himself to act in the interests of his father and forcibly to expel those who have set up shop in the Temple confines. His actions are those of a vigilante. He does not complain to the authorities or demand that they take action. He does not arouse popular support for his position. Or petition the government. No, he, a decisive, perhaps impulsive man of action, makes himself a whip and takes action on his own. (There is no reference to his disciples helping him, though they were apparently witnesses.) The justification he gives to the religious authorities could scarcely have been satisfying to them. It is a wonder his actions, comprising destruction of personal property and probably assault, did not land him in the clink. They did, of course, give him a certain reputation.
2. There is no implication that selling animals for sacrifice or making currency exchanges are illegitimate enterprises, only that they should not conducted in or around a house of worship. Business and religion should be separate.
3. In the Gospels, Jewish religious authorities are continually referred to as "the Jews." (One can't help thinking that this is an early manifestation of anti-Semitism, a curse upon the people responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.) It is inaccurate and misleading to refer to them as "the Jews" since every person in the Gospels, bar Pontius Pilate, is a Jew, including, of course, Jesus. There was, though, an effort to divorce Christianity from Judaism, beginning at an early date. The authors of the Gospels, writing decades after the crucifixion, wanted to distance Jesus from Judaic orthodoxy, if not from the Jewish nation. Early, as well as later Christianity assayed to de-Jew Jesus and, as Christianity spread to many peoples who shared few traditions with the Jews or even Middle Eastern cultures, it had an interest in doing so. Later, the Jews, as an entire people, would be demonized as the facilitators of Jesus' execution (ignoring the fact that without his crucifixion there would be no Christianity).
4. The prophecy sited comes from the 69th Psalm.
5. Construction of the Temple of Herod was known to have begun in 20 B.C. Therefore, the actions recorded here occurred in 27 A.D.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Thursday, April 24, 2014
The Wedding at Cana
(Gospel of John 2:1 - 2:12)
Two days later there was a wedding feast in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was in attendance and Jesus himself, as well as his disciples, had been invited to the festivities.
When the supply of wine gave out, Jesus' mother informed him, "They have no wine left!"
Jesus responded, "My dear woman, of what concern is that to us? ... My time has not yet come!"
But his mother bid the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
There happened to be standing nearby six stone jars of the type that were used to hold water for Jewish ritual ablutions. (Each had a capacity of from 18 to 27 gallons.) Jesus told the servants, "Fill the jars with water," and they filled them to the brim. "Now draw out some of the water and take it to the steward." They did what he had told them.
When the steward tasted the water, he found that it was now -- wine! He had no idea where it had come from, (though the servants who had drawn the water knew). The steward took the bridegroom aside and remarked, "Hosts generally serve the good wine first and cheaper wine later, after everybody’s had a few. But you have saved the best till now."
This miracle, performed in Cana in Galilee, marked the first time that Jesus had manifested his divine power. And because of it his disciples put their faith in him.
After the wedding, Jesus, accompanied by his mother, his brothers, and his disciples journeyed to Capernaum, where they stayed a few days.
Notes
1. Jesus, his mother, and disciples attend a wedding in Cana. We are not told who the bridegroom is, but he would probably have been a relative or a friend of Jesus' family, and someone of sufficient means to host an ample feast. He and his steward, though, are remiss in furnishing a sufficient supply of wine for the guests, an egregious faux pas. This provides the opportunity for Jesus to perform his first miracle, turning water to wine. Use of his magical powers allows his host to save face and furthers the consumption, if not over consumption, of alcohol. On the surface, is this really the best use of his powers, the most fitting debut to his career as a miracle worker?
2. The interchange between Jesus and his mother (she is not identified as Mary) is enigmatic. The mother mentions that the supply of wine has given out, but her son dismisses it as a matter of no concern to them, it being the responsibility of the host and his servants to make sure everyone has enough to drink. She seems to expect that her son will do something about it. Then he remarks, "My time has not yet come," What does he mean? We can only infer, less from the context than from what will later ensue, that he is not ready to reveal himself as the Messiah by working any miracles. His mother (the ultimate stage mother?) must give him a nudge. She goads him to make a miracle and come out of the closet, so to speak. She, therefore, must have been aware of his powers, aware of his true identity. (Had Jesus been practicing miracles around the house?) Far from desiring to show off, Jesus seems reluctant to do what he does and, it would seem, turns the water to wine only to please his mother. He takes no credit for it, yet his disciples and others are aware of what he had done. And this, according to John, comprises his coming out as miracle worker and Messiah.
3. Looking deeper into the water-into-wine miracle, one can easily see the symbolism in the account. The jars to be filled with water are connected with religious worship. The water turned into wine represents God transformed into man. The transformed water is the last and the best of the wine, as Jesus is to be the last and the best of the prophets. This incident, significantly, is not recounted by any of the other Gospel writers, surprising if it were actually Jesus' first documented miracle. It is presented here to evidence the divinity of Jesus, which John ardently contends. The miracle may be authentic or thought by the authors to be so -- but perhaps not: adding a fictional miracle or two in the interest of proving a point and promoting belief may have seen morally justified to the authors. It is also possible, perhaps most likely, that the account was not intended to be taken literally; the authors may have felt that the story, due to its symbolic significance, merited inclusion in the narrative. (It must always be remembered that the Gospels were written not as historical accounts, but as religious propaganda.)
4. Jesus attends the wedding with his mother. We may, therefore, assume that Jesus is not married and that his father Joseph is deceased. Indeed, few of the figures in the Gospels ever seem to have wives. Yet, in Jewish society at that time marriage was all but mandatory and matches were made at any early age. A bachelor didn't have much standing; even rabbis were expected to be married. It is likely, though, that among many of the religious sects prevalent at that time, men and women remained single and celibate, as would members of most future Christian orders, including the Catholic clergy (although this prohibition would not be strictly enforced until the 11th Century -- the First Lateran Council of 1123). However, if Jesus were a carpenter (or mason), a craftsman, a skilled artisan, perhaps, the inheritor of his father's business, it seems certain that he would be expected to marry, at least after he had established himself professionally. The fact that he has not done so may be excused by the fact that he is still young. There is also the possibility that he cannot yet afford to marry, because his father is not alive to pay the requisite bride price. Or maybe Jesus is considered of illegitimate birth by the community and is therefore a poor matrimonial prospect. (This is negated by the assertion of Philip that Jesus is the son of Joseph, though this could mean “stepson”. The fact that he was socially acceptable enough to be invited to the wedding also militates against this explanation.) And there is the possibility that Jesus may have been indeed married, but that a wife was considered an inconvenient irrelevancy or an embarrassment to Gospel writers who wrote her out of the narrative in the way Hollywood screenwriters excise dramatically superfluous characters from biopics. The canonical Gospel texts shed no light at all on this matter, however, and it must remain an subject of speculation.
5. Even in this brief scene with his mother, there is the impression that Jesus is a young man, certainly no older than early twenties, and not, as is always assumed, a man in his late thirties, which would, at that time, be middle age. If he is really a man in his middle 30’s, then one is faced with the question, “what had he done with himself for the 15 or 20 years of his early maturity.” If he were the Messiah, why would he waste most of his manhood in manual labor? If he was capable of performing miracles, would he wait so long to reveal himself? Why would his mother, who already seems kinda pushy, wait until her son is middle aged until she coaxed him to fulfill himself and his destiny? Or why would a man of such obvious greatness find his calling only in mid life? (This universally accepted older age for Jesus is based entirely upon the Gospel nativity stories, which are, without a doubt, entirely fabulous and should, therefore, be dismissed as chronological guides to his biography.)
6. Cana was probably a small village near Nazareth, It has never been positively identified. Capernaum was a fishing town on the north coast of the Sea of Galilee, northeast of Nazareth.
Two days later there was a wedding feast in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was in attendance and Jesus himself, as well as his disciples, had been invited to the festivities.
When the supply of wine gave out, Jesus' mother informed him, "They have no wine left!"
Jesus responded, "My dear woman, of what concern is that to us? ... My time has not yet come!"
But his mother bid the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
There happened to be standing nearby six stone jars of the type that were used to hold water for Jewish ritual ablutions. (Each had a capacity of from 18 to 27 gallons.) Jesus told the servants, "Fill the jars with water," and they filled them to the brim. "Now draw out some of the water and take it to the steward." They did what he had told them.
When the steward tasted the water, he found that it was now -- wine! He had no idea where it had come from, (though the servants who had drawn the water knew). The steward took the bridegroom aside and remarked, "Hosts generally serve the good wine first and cheaper wine later, after everybody’s had a few. But you have saved the best till now."
This miracle, performed in Cana in Galilee, marked the first time that Jesus had manifested his divine power. And because of it his disciples put their faith in him.
After the wedding, Jesus, accompanied by his mother, his brothers, and his disciples journeyed to Capernaum, where they stayed a few days.
Notes
1. Jesus, his mother, and disciples attend a wedding in Cana. We are not told who the bridegroom is, but he would probably have been a relative or a friend of Jesus' family, and someone of sufficient means to host an ample feast. He and his steward, though, are remiss in furnishing a sufficient supply of wine for the guests, an egregious faux pas. This provides the opportunity for Jesus to perform his first miracle, turning water to wine. Use of his magical powers allows his host to save face and furthers the consumption, if not over consumption, of alcohol. On the surface, is this really the best use of his powers, the most fitting debut to his career as a miracle worker?
2. The interchange between Jesus and his mother (she is not identified as Mary) is enigmatic. The mother mentions that the supply of wine has given out, but her son dismisses it as a matter of no concern to them, it being the responsibility of the host and his servants to make sure everyone has enough to drink. She seems to expect that her son will do something about it. Then he remarks, "My time has not yet come," What does he mean? We can only infer, less from the context than from what will later ensue, that he is not ready to reveal himself as the Messiah by working any miracles. His mother (the ultimate stage mother?) must give him a nudge. She goads him to make a miracle and come out of the closet, so to speak. She, therefore, must have been aware of his powers, aware of his true identity. (Had Jesus been practicing miracles around the house?) Far from desiring to show off, Jesus seems reluctant to do what he does and, it would seem, turns the water to wine only to please his mother. He takes no credit for it, yet his disciples and others are aware of what he had done. And this, according to John, comprises his coming out as miracle worker and Messiah.
3. Looking deeper into the water-into-wine miracle, one can easily see the symbolism in the account. The jars to be filled with water are connected with religious worship. The water turned into wine represents God transformed into man. The transformed water is the last and the best of the wine, as Jesus is to be the last and the best of the prophets. This incident, significantly, is not recounted by any of the other Gospel writers, surprising if it were actually Jesus' first documented miracle. It is presented here to evidence the divinity of Jesus, which John ardently contends. The miracle may be authentic or thought by the authors to be so -- but perhaps not: adding a fictional miracle or two in the interest of proving a point and promoting belief may have seen morally justified to the authors. It is also possible, perhaps most likely, that the account was not intended to be taken literally; the authors may have felt that the story, due to its symbolic significance, merited inclusion in the narrative. (It must always be remembered that the Gospels were written not as historical accounts, but as religious propaganda.)
4. Jesus attends the wedding with his mother. We may, therefore, assume that Jesus is not married and that his father Joseph is deceased. Indeed, few of the figures in the Gospels ever seem to have wives. Yet, in Jewish society at that time marriage was all but mandatory and matches were made at any early age. A bachelor didn't have much standing; even rabbis were expected to be married. It is likely, though, that among many of the religious sects prevalent at that time, men and women remained single and celibate, as would members of most future Christian orders, including the Catholic clergy (although this prohibition would not be strictly enforced until the 11th Century -- the First Lateran Council of 1123). However, if Jesus were a carpenter (or mason), a craftsman, a skilled artisan, perhaps, the inheritor of his father's business, it seems certain that he would be expected to marry, at least after he had established himself professionally. The fact that he has not done so may be excused by the fact that he is still young. There is also the possibility that he cannot yet afford to marry, because his father is not alive to pay the requisite bride price. Or maybe Jesus is considered of illegitimate birth by the community and is therefore a poor matrimonial prospect. (This is negated by the assertion of Philip that Jesus is the son of Joseph, though this could mean “stepson”. The fact that he was socially acceptable enough to be invited to the wedding also militates against this explanation.) And there is the possibility that Jesus may have been indeed married, but that a wife was considered an inconvenient irrelevancy or an embarrassment to Gospel writers who wrote her out of the narrative in the way Hollywood screenwriters excise dramatically superfluous characters from biopics. The canonical Gospel texts shed no light at all on this matter, however, and it must remain an subject of speculation.
5. Even in this brief scene with his mother, there is the impression that Jesus is a young man, certainly no older than early twenties, and not, as is always assumed, a man in his late thirties, which would, at that time, be middle age. If he is really a man in his middle 30’s, then one is faced with the question, “what had he done with himself for the 15 or 20 years of his early maturity.” If he were the Messiah, why would he waste most of his manhood in manual labor? If he was capable of performing miracles, would he wait so long to reveal himself? Why would his mother, who already seems kinda pushy, wait until her son is middle aged until she coaxed him to fulfill himself and his destiny? Or why would a man of such obvious greatness find his calling only in mid life? (This universally accepted older age for Jesus is based entirely upon the Gospel nativity stories, which are, without a doubt, entirely fabulous and should, therefore, be dismissed as chronological guides to his biography.)
6. Cana was probably a small village near Nazareth, It has never been positively identified. Capernaum was a fishing town on the north coast of the Sea of Galilee, northeast of Nazareth.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Appearance of Jesus
(Gospel of John 1:29 - 1:51)
On the following day John saw Jesus approaching and declared, “Look, here is the Lamb of God sent to us as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world! This is the one I was speaking of when I said, ‘The man who succeeds me will be greater than I, because he has lived before me.’ Hitherto he was not known even to me, but that he might become known to Israel is the very reason I have been baptizing with water."
John reported this: "I saw the divine spirit descend from the sky like a dove and light upon him. I myself did not recognize him until then, but he who inspired me to baptize with water told me: "He upon whom you see the spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit." I have personally witnessed this and can attest that this man is God's Chosen One."
On the following day John was in the company of two of his disciples when he saw Jesus again. He commented as Jesus passed by, "There goes the Lamb of God!" Hearing this, the disciples followed Jesus.
Jesus turned to them and asked, "What are you looking for?"
"Tell us, Rabbi, where are you staying?"
“Why don’t you come and see for yourselves," he answered.
They came and saw where he was living. It was about four in the afternoon, and they remained with him for the rest of the day. One of these two men was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. Andrew immediately went to see his brother and announced, "We have found the Messiah!" He then brought Simon to see Jesus. Jesus took one look at him and declared, "You must be Simon, the son of John, -- but henceforth you will be called Peter [meaning rock]."
The next day Jesus decided to travel to Galilee. He found Philip and bid him, "Come with me and be my disciple." (Philip was from the town of Bethsaida, which was where Andrew and Peter were also from.) Philip then went to Nathanael and told him, "We have found the man Moses referred to in the Torah and whom the prophets spoke of as well. He is Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth."
"Nazareth!?” Nathanael retorted, "What good could ever come from that place?"
"Come with us and see," was Philip's challenge.
Jesus saw Nathanael approaching and observed of him, "Here indeed is a true man of Israel, one who is totally honest and sincere."
Nathanael questioned him, "How do you come to know me?"
Jesus replied, "Before Philip invited you here, I saw you ... when you were sitting under the fig tree."
Nathanael told Jesus, "Rabbi, you must indeed be the Son of God, the King of Israel!"
Jesus responded, "You believe that just because I had a vision of you sitting under a fig tree? You'll see greater wonders than that! I tell you truly that you will all witness the very heavens open. Divine messengers will then come up and down to commune with the Son of Man."
Notes
1. In Bethany John points out to his disciples this certain Jesus, the man he has recognized as the Messiah. The Messiah, the spiritual leader, teacher, and savior, has been long anticipated and sought for, especially by at the portion of the Jewish population to which John the Baptist and his followers belong. At the very least they must have felt that their religion had become corrupted by unworthy leadership and that the true teachings needed to be restored by some inspired and dynamic leader, and this was he for whom they awaited. John, however, specifically sees the Messiah as one who will bring atonement for the sins of the world, a claim that Jesus would make. (It would not be unfair to say that the quest for the atonement of sins is an innate obsession among the Jews -- due to a keen and admirable appreciation of right and wrong that was all but unique among ancient peoples.) John felt strongly that he had found that man, Jesus, and told his disciples so. Jesus is identified by the others as a rabbi, a teacher of the Jewish religion. The term was applied loosely to any religious teacher and not necessarily to one ordained by the Jewish religious establishment.
2. John, who does not at first recognize Jesus for who he is, believes he is the Messiah because God, who has bid him to baptize, tells him that he will see the spirit descend upon the man who is the Messiah. If Jesus were the Son of God, the divine spirit would be already within him and would not need to descend upon him. This scenario would make sense only if Jesus were a man who is now come to be possessed by the divine spirit, and John is witnessing the act of that possession. This is, of course, one theory of Jesus' divinity, that he was an ordinary man possessed by the divine spirit, but this is not the assertion of this Gospel's author, who believes that Jesus is the incarnation of Logos, and would have been so since birth, even conception. On the other hand, the descent of the spirit may have been a visible manifestation of the communion, ongoing, one would think, between Logos and Elohim, or God the Son and God the Father.
3. The divine spirit descending upon Jesus is described by John as a dove, or like a dove. The spirit is often described as a dove. Is this meant literally, the spirit assuming avian form, or does the spirit manifest itself as something white and tangible and borne upon the air, giving the impression of being a dove? It is interesting that when Joan of Arc (who called herself the Daughter of God) was burned at the stake, at the moment of her expiration, an English officer, one who was most zealous to see her burn, swore he saw a dove fly out of her body. Was it an hallucination? Was it seen by others? At any rate, the officer was so distraught and dumbfounded by what he had seen his comrades had to drag him off to the nearest tavern to give him a drink or two.
4. The first named disciple of John is Andrew and he is among those who, accosting Jesus on the street, follow him to his home to have a long afternoon's discourse. Andrew, impressed and convinced he must be the Messiah, immediately tells his brother Simon about this man. Simon is very interested and goes to see Jesus, who, for a reason not yet apparent, decides to rename him Peter (Cephas in Greek), meaning "rock." (One is tempted to translate the name as “Rocky"!) Peter will be Jesus's heir, the first Pope, the "rock" upon which will be built the Christian church.
5. When Jesus goes to Galilee, miles to the north of Bethany, he picks up some more disciples, among them Philip, who was from Bethsaida, as were the brothers Andrew and Peter. Bethsaida was a town north of the Sea of Galilee.
6. Philip tells Nathanael (a friend?) that Jesus is the man spoken of by Moses and the Prophets as the Messiah. We learn from him that Jesus is the son of Joseph of Nazareth. Nazareth was an insignificant town with no religious history and, therefore, was not highly thought of by Nathanael, who does not hesitate to say so. Nathanael is a blunt, outspoken fellow, but Jesus likes him and admires his truthfulness and sincerity. Nathanael, skeptical and perhaps resentful of the fact that Jesus claims to know him, is impressed when Jesus says he saw him sitting under a fig tree. One assumes that Nathanael was out of sight when this occurred and that Jesus' perception of him was due to clairvoyant faculties that Nathanael assumes to be of divine origin.
7. Jesus promises Nathanael and the others that they will see visitors come down from Heaven to visit him. This is cryptic and intriguing, a reference to “Jacob’s ladder” mentioned in Genesis. Does Jesus mean material, human-like beings physically descending from the sky and ascending again, -- spirit beings materializing and dematerializing? Or does he mean this figuratively? Does the heaven refer to mean the sky or does he mean Heaven, the abode of God, which would, as we understand it, be in some other, spiritual plane.
On the following day John saw Jesus approaching and declared, “Look, here is the Lamb of God sent to us as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world! This is the one I was speaking of when I said, ‘The man who succeeds me will be greater than I, because he has lived before me.’ Hitherto he was not known even to me, but that he might become known to Israel is the very reason I have been baptizing with water."
John reported this: "I saw the divine spirit descend from the sky like a dove and light upon him. I myself did not recognize him until then, but he who inspired me to baptize with water told me: "He upon whom you see the spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit." I have personally witnessed this and can attest that this man is God's Chosen One."
On the following day John was in the company of two of his disciples when he saw Jesus again. He commented as Jesus passed by, "There goes the Lamb of God!" Hearing this, the disciples followed Jesus.
Jesus turned to them and asked, "What are you looking for?"
"Tell us, Rabbi, where are you staying?"
“Why don’t you come and see for yourselves," he answered.
They came and saw where he was living. It was about four in the afternoon, and they remained with him for the rest of the day. One of these two men was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. Andrew immediately went to see his brother and announced, "We have found the Messiah!" He then brought Simon to see Jesus. Jesus took one look at him and declared, "You must be Simon, the son of John, -- but henceforth you will be called Peter [meaning rock]."
The next day Jesus decided to travel to Galilee. He found Philip and bid him, "Come with me and be my disciple." (Philip was from the town of Bethsaida, which was where Andrew and Peter were also from.) Philip then went to Nathanael and told him, "We have found the man Moses referred to in the Torah and whom the prophets spoke of as well. He is Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth."
"Nazareth!?” Nathanael retorted, "What good could ever come from that place?"
"Come with us and see," was Philip's challenge.
Jesus saw Nathanael approaching and observed of him, "Here indeed is a true man of Israel, one who is totally honest and sincere."
Nathanael questioned him, "How do you come to know me?"
Jesus replied, "Before Philip invited you here, I saw you ... when you were sitting under the fig tree."
Nathanael told Jesus, "Rabbi, you must indeed be the Son of God, the King of Israel!"
Jesus responded, "You believe that just because I had a vision of you sitting under a fig tree? You'll see greater wonders than that! I tell you truly that you will all witness the very heavens open. Divine messengers will then come up and down to commune with the Son of Man."
Notes
1. In Bethany John points out to his disciples this certain Jesus, the man he has recognized as the Messiah. The Messiah, the spiritual leader, teacher, and savior, has been long anticipated and sought for, especially by at the portion of the Jewish population to which John the Baptist and his followers belong. At the very least they must have felt that their religion had become corrupted by unworthy leadership and that the true teachings needed to be restored by some inspired and dynamic leader, and this was he for whom they awaited. John, however, specifically sees the Messiah as one who will bring atonement for the sins of the world, a claim that Jesus would make. (It would not be unfair to say that the quest for the atonement of sins is an innate obsession among the Jews -- due to a keen and admirable appreciation of right and wrong that was all but unique among ancient peoples.) John felt strongly that he had found that man, Jesus, and told his disciples so. Jesus is identified by the others as a rabbi, a teacher of the Jewish religion. The term was applied loosely to any religious teacher and not necessarily to one ordained by the Jewish religious establishment.
2. John, who does not at first recognize Jesus for who he is, believes he is the Messiah because God, who has bid him to baptize, tells him that he will see the spirit descend upon the man who is the Messiah. If Jesus were the Son of God, the divine spirit would be already within him and would not need to descend upon him. This scenario would make sense only if Jesus were a man who is now come to be possessed by the divine spirit, and John is witnessing the act of that possession. This is, of course, one theory of Jesus' divinity, that he was an ordinary man possessed by the divine spirit, but this is not the assertion of this Gospel's author, who believes that Jesus is the incarnation of Logos, and would have been so since birth, even conception. On the other hand, the descent of the spirit may have been a visible manifestation of the communion, ongoing, one would think, between Logos and Elohim, or God the Son and God the Father.
3. The divine spirit descending upon Jesus is described by John as a dove, or like a dove. The spirit is often described as a dove. Is this meant literally, the spirit assuming avian form, or does the spirit manifest itself as something white and tangible and borne upon the air, giving the impression of being a dove? It is interesting that when Joan of Arc (who called herself the Daughter of God) was burned at the stake, at the moment of her expiration, an English officer, one who was most zealous to see her burn, swore he saw a dove fly out of her body. Was it an hallucination? Was it seen by others? At any rate, the officer was so distraught and dumbfounded by what he had seen his comrades had to drag him off to the nearest tavern to give him a drink or two.
4. The first named disciple of John is Andrew and he is among those who, accosting Jesus on the street, follow him to his home to have a long afternoon's discourse. Andrew, impressed and convinced he must be the Messiah, immediately tells his brother Simon about this man. Simon is very interested and goes to see Jesus, who, for a reason not yet apparent, decides to rename him Peter (Cephas in Greek), meaning "rock." (One is tempted to translate the name as “Rocky"!) Peter will be Jesus's heir, the first Pope, the "rock" upon which will be built the Christian church.
5. When Jesus goes to Galilee, miles to the north of Bethany, he picks up some more disciples, among them Philip, who was from Bethsaida, as were the brothers Andrew and Peter. Bethsaida was a town north of the Sea of Galilee.
6. Philip tells Nathanael (a friend?) that Jesus is the man spoken of by Moses and the Prophets as the Messiah. We learn from him that Jesus is the son of Joseph of Nazareth. Nazareth was an insignificant town with no religious history and, therefore, was not highly thought of by Nathanael, who does not hesitate to say so. Nathanael is a blunt, outspoken fellow, but Jesus likes him and admires his truthfulness and sincerity. Nathanael, skeptical and perhaps resentful of the fact that Jesus claims to know him, is impressed when Jesus says he saw him sitting under a fig tree. One assumes that Nathanael was out of sight when this occurred and that Jesus' perception of him was due to clairvoyant faculties that Nathanael assumes to be of divine origin.
7. Jesus promises Nathanael and the others that they will see visitors come down from Heaven to visit him. This is cryptic and intriguing, a reference to “Jacob’s ladder” mentioned in Genesis. Does Jesus mean material, human-like beings physically descending from the sky and ascending again, -- spirit beings materializing and dematerializing? Or does he mean this figuratively? Does the heaven refer to mean the sky or does he mean Heaven, the abode of God, which would, as we understand it, be in some other, spiritual plane.
Interrogation of John the Baptist
(Gospel of John 1:19 - 1:28 )
Here is the testimony of John given when he was summoned to appear before priests and scribes who were tasked by the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem to ascertain his identity:
John was direct and straightforward. "I am not the Messiah," he admitted.
"Well then, who do you claim to be? Are you Elijah?" they queried.
"I am not."
"Are you the long-awaited Prophet?"
"No," he answered.
"Who are you?" they insisted. "We are obliged to take back some sort of response to those who have sent us. What do you have to say for yourself?"
John replied, quoting the words of the prophet Isaiah, "I am a thundering voice proclaiming from the desert, 'Clear the way for the arrival of the Messiah!'"
Pharisees, who were among those in the delegation, demanded of him, "If you aren't Elijah or the Prophet, or the Messiah, by what right do you practice baptism?"
John replied, "I only baptize with water. But here, among you, there is one greater than I. You do not yet recognize him. But he is the one who will succeed me, though I am not worthy even to unlace the straps of his sandals."
(This encounter took place in Bethany, east of the Jordan River, where John was engaged in baptizing.)
Notes
1. We are introduced to John the Baptist in this Gospel, but minus his pedigree. He was what we would regard as an evangelist who did not have the sanction of the religious establishment, but he had apparently created enough of a stir among the populace that the Jewish religious authorities wanted to learn what he was about. (Religious authorities usually demand exclusive rights in dealing with the divine and resent competition.) John would have been regarded as a challenge to them, a rival and possibly a dangerous, seditious heretic. They were probably worried that he might claim to be the Prophet or an incarnation of Elijah, so much so that they sent this delegation to see the man himself and interrogate him. It is interesting to speculate by what means they thought John could have been Elijah -- by spirit possession or reincarnation? Did they believe in either? Or were they merely speaking figuratively?
2. The famous answer of John from the King James Version, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness," is, like most famous biblical quotes, misleading and misunderstood. Firstly, the wilderness referred to is the desert, not expanses of forest lands, streams, and mountains we generally think of as "wilderness.". And he did not claim to be what we mean by a voice crying in the wilderness, that is, a challenge to authority and the status quo, a moral conscience of society. No, he is merely presenting himself as a herald. He is simply saying one thing, "clear the way for the arrival of the Messiah." (A word-for-word translation is "straighten the path," but this is an idiom best rendered by one more common to us, "clear the way.") He is quoting or paraphrasing the prophet Isaiah.
3. The Pharisees belonged to a Jewish sect that strictly practiced the rituals laid out in the Old Testament. They were probably what we would term fundamentalists, although that is unfair to contemporary fundamentalists. The Pharisees were obsessed with ceremonial detail to the detriment of moral values. They were also seekers and persecutors of heresy -- witch hunters. And they were notorious for their hypocrisy.
4. John claims that he had a right to baptize with water, that is, to immerse in water, without church approval. Later, he will acknowledge that a more significant baptism, baptism with the holy spirit, is the prerogative of the Messiah.
Here is the testimony of John given when he was summoned to appear before priests and scribes who were tasked by the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem to ascertain his identity:
John was direct and straightforward. "I am not the Messiah," he admitted.
"Well then, who do you claim to be? Are you Elijah?" they queried.
"I am not."
"Are you the long-awaited Prophet?"
"No," he answered.
"Who are you?" they insisted. "We are obliged to take back some sort of response to those who have sent us. What do you have to say for yourself?"
John replied, quoting the words of the prophet Isaiah, "I am a thundering voice proclaiming from the desert, 'Clear the way for the arrival of the Messiah!'"
Pharisees, who were among those in the delegation, demanded of him, "If you aren't Elijah or the Prophet, or the Messiah, by what right do you practice baptism?"
John replied, "I only baptize with water. But here, among you, there is one greater than I. You do not yet recognize him. But he is the one who will succeed me, though I am not worthy even to unlace the straps of his sandals."
(This encounter took place in Bethany, east of the Jordan River, where John was engaged in baptizing.)
Notes
1. We are introduced to John the Baptist in this Gospel, but minus his pedigree. He was what we would regard as an evangelist who did not have the sanction of the religious establishment, but he had apparently created enough of a stir among the populace that the Jewish religious authorities wanted to learn what he was about. (Religious authorities usually demand exclusive rights in dealing with the divine and resent competition.) John would have been regarded as a challenge to them, a rival and possibly a dangerous, seditious heretic. They were probably worried that he might claim to be the Prophet or an incarnation of Elijah, so much so that they sent this delegation to see the man himself and interrogate him. It is interesting to speculate by what means they thought John could have been Elijah -- by spirit possession or reincarnation? Did they believe in either? Or were they merely speaking figuratively?
2. The famous answer of John from the King James Version, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness," is, like most famous biblical quotes, misleading and misunderstood. Firstly, the wilderness referred to is the desert, not expanses of forest lands, streams, and mountains we generally think of as "wilderness.". And he did not claim to be what we mean by a voice crying in the wilderness, that is, a challenge to authority and the status quo, a moral conscience of society. No, he is merely presenting himself as a herald. He is simply saying one thing, "clear the way for the arrival of the Messiah." (A word-for-word translation is "straighten the path," but this is an idiom best rendered by one more common to us, "clear the way.") He is quoting or paraphrasing the prophet Isaiah.
3. The Pharisees belonged to a Jewish sect that strictly practiced the rituals laid out in the Old Testament. They were probably what we would term fundamentalists, although that is unfair to contemporary fundamentalists. The Pharisees were obsessed with ceremonial detail to the detriment of moral values. They were also seekers and persecutors of heresy -- witch hunters. And they were notorious for their hypocrisy.
4. John claims that he had a right to baptize with water, that is, to immerse in water, without church approval. Later, he will acknowledge that a more significant baptism, baptism with the holy spirit, is the prerogative of the Messiah.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
The Prologue
(The Gospel of John 1:1 - 1:18)
Logos, the embodiment of the divine creative force, existed from the beginning of time. He was not only employed by the eternal God, Elohim, but was an integral part of him and has always been so. It was through Logos that all the things in the universe were brought into existence by Elohim. Indeed, nothing was created save through Logos. From Logos sprung the life force of creation, and through him humankind was endowed with consciousness. A revelation of spiritual enlightenment he brings to the ignorant, but, alas, they will fail to understand it and remain benighted.
There was a man called John who was sent by Elohim to bear witness to the eminent arrival of a divine spiritual teacher, a bringer of enlightenment, so that all might be prepared to receive him. John was not himself that spiritual teacher; his role was to herald his coming. --- “To enlighten all mankind the true spiritual teacher is coming into the world!”
This divine teacher came down into the world that he had created, but that world ignored him. He came to live among the people who were his own, but they did not accept him. Yet, to those who did accept him, who believed in him, he granted the right to become the children of God, not children conceived in the natural, carnal way by a husband’s desire or the whimsical passions of the flesh, but spiritually born through God.
Logos has become man incarnate! And he made his habitation among us. We indeed have witnessed his majesty, the majesty of a father's only son, full of integrity and humanity.
John, reporting truthfully of him, announced to the crowd, "This is the very one I was referring to when I claimed, 'He who comes after me will surpass me. That is because he has lived before me.'"
Because of him, we have been the recipients of great bounty, another means of achieving God's grace. From Moses we have been given the law of the Torah; from Jesus the Messiah we have been given God's love and revealed truth. No mortal man has ever seen God, yet his only son, who is an aspect of the Godhead, has made the divine known to us.
Notes
1. The Greek word "Logos" is often translated as "The Word," but this is a very inadequate and misleading translation even though it is not far from a literal rendering of the Greek word. By the time of the writing of the Gospel, Logos had been employed as a conceptual term by Hellenistic philosophers, though not always in identical ways. The Hebrew philosopher Philo (born about 20 B.C.), who attempted to reconcile and form a synthesis between Greek philosophy and the Old Testament, used Logos to mean a creative force that existed as part of God. Since God was a spiritual being, he could not directly connect with the material world. Philo reasoned that a mediating agent, Logos, was necessary for the creation and manipulation of matter. He saw this force as abstract and impersonal, though, while the author of John regarded it as personal, an intelligence that, though a part of the Godhead, was capable of being incarnated as a human being.
2. Rendering "Logos" as "The Word" gives rise to a common misunderstanding, that "The Word" is synonymous with "The Word of God," that is, revealed knowledge, a set of divinely inspired beliefs, religious doctrine, or moral teachings; this is definitely not the case. "Logos" or "The Word," as it is used here, means the divine creative force that was able to assume human form as Jesus the Messiah.
3. There is no question that the author of John regarded Jesus as divine, an aspect of God, since he was an incarnation of Logos. This, however, negates the commonly accepted view of God, the father, and Jesus, the son. If Jesus, as Logos, had always existed and had always been divine, then how could he be a son, an offspring of God, who would, at some time, have to be born? Technically, Jesus could only be a son of God in a purely physical sense, as would all humans. His spirit and soul did not derive from God, because it was and always was a part of it. Of course, throughout the New Testament Jesus is continually referred to as God's son, his only son, but here this should be interpreted loosely. The philosophical concepts entertained by the author of John were, for the most part, ignored by early Christians whose pronouncements on the nature of the deity and the divine were purely theological, devised to be compatible with an established, if new, religious creed rather than the traditions of Greek philosophy.
4. Jesus, as Logos, had created the world and the people in it; therefore, it is ironic that he is not accepted by his own creations. But he will reward those who do accept him, an early reference to a basic tenet of Christianity, the rewarding those who merely believe.
5. There are two somewhat separate uses of the word "Light'" the Greek "phos." Firstly, it is used to describe a person, the incarnate Logos/Jesus, probably to emphasize his role as a bringer of divinely inspired knowledge and enlightenment. I have chosen to translate "phos" in this context as “divine spiritual teacher,” awkward, but the only words that give an accurate description. Secondly, it is used metaphorically, meaning knowledge, insight, revelation, as opposed to darkness, symbolizing ignorance. Light and dark are sometimes used as symbols of good and evil, but not here -- the context suggests only the contrast between knowledge and ignorance. I have discarded the poetic analogy of light and darkness in order to make the meaning clearer. The famous and elegant verse, rendered in the King James Version, "The light shines into the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not," is not the sole acceptable translation. The first clause is unambiguous, but the second clause can be variously rendered. The darkness ignores, rejects, refutes, or fails to understand the light, or the darkness does not conquer, thwart, suppress, extinguish, quench, put out, overcome, or overpower the light. Since the light we are speaking of is knowledge, or rather the dissemination or revelation of knowledge, and the darkness is ignorance or enmity to that dissemination of knowledge. A light may be put out, but, dropping the analogy, and falling back into a literal expression of the sentence's meaning, knowledge cannot be extinguished, but can only be not understood or rejected. This conforms with the later reference to the rejection of Jesus by the world and people he created.
6. John, later to be called "the Baptist" refers, if obliquely, to the eternal nature of Jesus' spirit -- "he lived before me."
7. Another important Christian concept is presented, a secondary means of attaining God's grace, not only through adherence to the laws promulgated by Moses, but through God's love granted to those who receive and believe in the teachings of Jesus the Messiah.
8. It is interesting that the text unambiguously says that "no man has seen God," yet the Old Testament is full of men seeing God (Jehovah, that is) and having very physical contact with him. One might suggest that the author of John took the accounts of Jehovah in the Old Testament with a grain of salt, even though he obviously believes the Torah was given to man by God. From John one would conclude that Jesus represented the sole earthly communion between man and God.
Logos, the embodiment of the divine creative force, existed from the beginning of time. He was not only employed by the eternal God, Elohim, but was an integral part of him and has always been so. It was through Logos that all the things in the universe were brought into existence by Elohim. Indeed, nothing was created save through Logos. From Logos sprung the life force of creation, and through him humankind was endowed with consciousness. A revelation of spiritual enlightenment he brings to the ignorant, but, alas, they will fail to understand it and remain benighted.
There was a man called John who was sent by Elohim to bear witness to the eminent arrival of a divine spiritual teacher, a bringer of enlightenment, so that all might be prepared to receive him. John was not himself that spiritual teacher; his role was to herald his coming. --- “To enlighten all mankind the true spiritual teacher is coming into the world!”
This divine teacher came down into the world that he had created, but that world ignored him. He came to live among the people who were his own, but they did not accept him. Yet, to those who did accept him, who believed in him, he granted the right to become the children of God, not children conceived in the natural, carnal way by a husband’s desire or the whimsical passions of the flesh, but spiritually born through God.
Logos has become man incarnate! And he made his habitation among us. We indeed have witnessed his majesty, the majesty of a father's only son, full of integrity and humanity.
John, reporting truthfully of him, announced to the crowd, "This is the very one I was referring to when I claimed, 'He who comes after me will surpass me. That is because he has lived before me.'"
Because of him, we have been the recipients of great bounty, another means of achieving God's grace. From Moses we have been given the law of the Torah; from Jesus the Messiah we have been given God's love and revealed truth. No mortal man has ever seen God, yet his only son, who is an aspect of the Godhead, has made the divine known to us.
Notes
1. The Greek word "Logos" is often translated as "The Word," but this is a very inadequate and misleading translation even though it is not far from a literal rendering of the Greek word. By the time of the writing of the Gospel, Logos had been employed as a conceptual term by Hellenistic philosophers, though not always in identical ways. The Hebrew philosopher Philo (born about 20 B.C.), who attempted to reconcile and form a synthesis between Greek philosophy and the Old Testament, used Logos to mean a creative force that existed as part of God. Since God was a spiritual being, he could not directly connect with the material world. Philo reasoned that a mediating agent, Logos, was necessary for the creation and manipulation of matter. He saw this force as abstract and impersonal, though, while the author of John regarded it as personal, an intelligence that, though a part of the Godhead, was capable of being incarnated as a human being.
2. Rendering "Logos" as "The Word" gives rise to a common misunderstanding, that "The Word" is synonymous with "The Word of God," that is, revealed knowledge, a set of divinely inspired beliefs, religious doctrine, or moral teachings; this is definitely not the case. "Logos" or "The Word," as it is used here, means the divine creative force that was able to assume human form as Jesus the Messiah.
3. There is no question that the author of John regarded Jesus as divine, an aspect of God, since he was an incarnation of Logos. This, however, negates the commonly accepted view of God, the father, and Jesus, the son. If Jesus, as Logos, had always existed and had always been divine, then how could he be a son, an offspring of God, who would, at some time, have to be born? Technically, Jesus could only be a son of God in a purely physical sense, as would all humans. His spirit and soul did not derive from God, because it was and always was a part of it. Of course, throughout the New Testament Jesus is continually referred to as God's son, his only son, but here this should be interpreted loosely. The philosophical concepts entertained by the author of John were, for the most part, ignored by early Christians whose pronouncements on the nature of the deity and the divine were purely theological, devised to be compatible with an established, if new, religious creed rather than the traditions of Greek philosophy.
4. Jesus, as Logos, had created the world and the people in it; therefore, it is ironic that he is not accepted by his own creations. But he will reward those who do accept him, an early reference to a basic tenet of Christianity, the rewarding those who merely believe.
5. There are two somewhat separate uses of the word "Light'" the Greek "phos." Firstly, it is used to describe a person, the incarnate Logos/Jesus, probably to emphasize his role as a bringer of divinely inspired knowledge and enlightenment. I have chosen to translate "phos" in this context as “divine spiritual teacher,” awkward, but the only words that give an accurate description. Secondly, it is used metaphorically, meaning knowledge, insight, revelation, as opposed to darkness, symbolizing ignorance. Light and dark are sometimes used as symbols of good and evil, but not here -- the context suggests only the contrast between knowledge and ignorance. I have discarded the poetic analogy of light and darkness in order to make the meaning clearer. The famous and elegant verse, rendered in the King James Version, "The light shines into the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not," is not the sole acceptable translation. The first clause is unambiguous, but the second clause can be variously rendered. The darkness ignores, rejects, refutes, or fails to understand the light, or the darkness does not conquer, thwart, suppress, extinguish, quench, put out, overcome, or overpower the light. Since the light we are speaking of is knowledge, or rather the dissemination or revelation of knowledge, and the darkness is ignorance or enmity to that dissemination of knowledge. A light may be put out, but, dropping the analogy, and falling back into a literal expression of the sentence's meaning, knowledge cannot be extinguished, but can only be not understood or rejected. This conforms with the later reference to the rejection of Jesus by the world and people he created.
6. John, later to be called "the Baptist" refers, if obliquely, to the eternal nature of Jesus' spirit -- "he lived before me."
7. Another important Christian concept is presented, a secondary means of attaining God's grace, not only through adherence to the laws promulgated by Moses, but through God's love granted to those who receive and believe in the teachings of Jesus the Messiah.
8. It is interesting that the text unambiguously says that "no man has seen God," yet the Old Testament is full of men seeing God (Jehovah, that is) and having very physical contact with him. One might suggest that the author of John took the accounts of Jehovah in the Old Testament with a grain of salt, even though he obviously believes the Torah was given to man by God. From John one would conclude that Jesus represented the sole earthly communion between man and God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)