Crossings

Christian Century Fall 2011 Books Issue: Hitchhiker's make the list!

2011-10-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

The fall, 2011 books issue of The Christian Century has listed A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jesus as one their ten "take and read" books in New Testament, with a brief review by Beverley Roberts Gaventa of Princeton:

The contents of this book live up to the advertisement in the title. Fisk introduces the academic study of Jesus and the Gospels through the conceit of a college student's journal while traveling through Israel. The journal entries include such diverse items as accounts of conversations with biblical scholars, sticky notes from primary sources, quotes from Monty Python and a recipe for making a volcano. Along the way "Norm" struggles to reconcile his faith with his findings in a journey that many will recognize as their own.

2011-10-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

Nijay Gupta, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Seattle Pacific University, describes my book as "narrative therapy." Here's the relevant paragraph (with italics added).

I think what Fisk understands is that most “backgrounds” books are boring. Also, they don’t engage directly in the personal challenges of faith, the questions that are raised by the mystery of who Jesus is and what he was doing in his life on earth. “Norm” illuminates our thinking not simply by answers discovered, but also in the eagerness to explore every nook and cranny of the Holy Land while reading every bit of the Gospels. This is, in a sense, “narrative therapy” for real students who need to “explore” their own doubts when they engage in historical Jesus studies.

And here's my favorite bit (though I'm pretty sure the tobacco in Norm's hookah was narcotics-free):

You can tell that Fisk is not interested in comfortable, quick, or easy answers. The book points towards a sense of owning the complexity in such a way that faith continues to be an adventure. There is no taming Jesus in faith, there is no taming Jerusalem (today, right now), there is no end to the exploring. And…there is a lot of fun to be had on the way (some of it involving narcotics?).

Nijay writes with a nice touch. Still to come are his "ruminations on the genre of the Gospels." Looking forward to that.

Butler professor has kind words for Duke basketball fan

2011-10-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

Also posting today about Hitchhiker's is James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis. Since my school, Duke, hung on to beat Butler for the national title in 2010, I wouldn't blame James if he tried to even the score. :) He plans to blog about the book's details throughout the week so come back for updates and my response. Meanwhile, his initial assessment includes this remark:

This is a book about exploring the intersection of faith and scholarship, and about learning to live with ambiguity and uncertainty. The first reaction of many people of faith when confronted with critical Biblical scholarship is indeed panic. And so Fisk’s sharing of such reactions, and description of the discovery of a better way, it refreshing and helpful.

UPDATE: Professor McGrath's posted part two on Tuesday (10-4). I much appreciate his attention to matters of pedagogy and to our need to honor the student's journey.

Norm’s journey serves as a helpful reminder of the fact that we all “see from somewhere” . . . And while some of us may try to stick to “just the facts” in our teaching, . . . many of our students will still be interested in whether it is possible to both study and follow. Fisk puts it this way: “Norm…refuses to choose between curiosity and conviction” (p.7). But Norm himself puts it better: “Could I be rigorously honest with the evidence and thoughtfully faithful to the tradition?” (p.16).

Reviews of Hitchhiker's Guide from opposite sides of the globe

2011-10-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

The "blog tour" for A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jesus posted two new reviews today.

John Byron, of The Biblical World, posted here. Byron is Associate Professor of New Testament at Ashland Theological Seminary. This excerpt near the end of his review was particularly encouraging:

Finally, what also makes this book unique, as well as useful, is the honest way in which Norm is allowed to wrestle with the tension between faith and history, between fact and tradition. Fisk does not duck the questions that historical inquiry raises about Jesus and the gospels. Through Norm, he thinks out loud about the implications of a faith that is not always able to find the security of historical moorings. He doesn’t provide any easy answers. Readers are given the materials they need to work with, but they are left to wrestle with the answers for themselves. I think this is the way it should be.

Also blogging today was Michael Bird, over at Euangelion. Bird is Lecturer in Theology and New Testament at Crossway College in Brisbane, Australia. Although I winced when I read the word "cute," I'm glad that Michael thinks the book approaches familiar questions in a fresh way.

I have to confess that this really is a clever and cute little introduction to Jesus. Intro’s to Jesus/Gospels are fairly bountiful, so it takes a bit of straining of the grey matter to come up with something new. Fisk has done just that in this book.

I'm expecting more blog posts throughout the week, so stay tuned!

An October Blog Tour

2011-09-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, fifteen (!) reviews of my book will be posted to Baker's blog site between October 3 and 7: http://hitchhikersblogtour.wordpress.com/. I am profoundly grateful for the attention these scholars will be giving to "Norm" and his quest. Here's the current list of participants.

Michael Bird (PhD, University of Queensland) Blogs at: Euangelion	Dave Brumley Blogs at: This Pilgrim Land
John Byron (PhD, University of Durham) Blogs at: The Biblical World	Tripp Fuller Blogs at: Homebrewed Christianity
Timothy Gombis (PhD, University of St. Andrews) Blogs at: Faith Improvised	Nancy Janisch Blogs at: Conversation in Faith
Mark Goodacre (DPhil, University of Oxford) Blogs at: NT Blog	Matthew Montonini Blogs at: New Testament Perspectives
Michael Gorman (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) Blogs at: Cross Talk – crux probat omnia	Jon Synder Blogs at: Bookleenex
Nijay Gupta (PhD, University of Durham) Blogs at: nijaygupta.wordpress.com	Amy Sondova Blogs at: Backseat Writer
James McGrath (PhD, University of Durham) Blogs at: Exploring Our Matrix	Jacob Sweeney Blogs at: Jacob Sweeney’s Blog
	Joshua Walker Blogs at: Bring the Books

John Byron on Hitchhiker's Guide

2011-09-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

John Byron, New Testament professor at Ashland Theological Seminary, weighed in on my book today. He likes it, and he'll be blogging about it in October. Can't wait. In the mean time:

http://thebiblicalworld.blogspot.com/2011/09/in-mail-bruce-fisk-hitchhikers-guide-to.html

Three reviews of A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jesus

2011-08-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

Reviews of my new book are trickling in. So far so good.

For starters, on June 20 Publishers Weekly posted a very positive review of Hitchhiker's. It would make "Norm" (the main character and "author" of the book) happy. He might pretend to be offended when he reads that he is "sometimes the lovable goof but more often a serious student." But yeah, PW pretty much nails it.

Then there’s a nice blog entry by Professor Benjamin Reynolds, posted on June 7 over on his excellent Divinity United. Ben has given the book a careful read, for which I'm most grateful, and he understands very well the kind of hybrid book it is: part Jesus studies, part Gospel genre analysis, part travelogue, part faith journey. He sees that the book is not only a quest for Jesus but also a quest to understand what sort of books the Gospels are. To my delight, Ben plans to make the book required reading in a course this fall.

Third, just this morning New Testament scholar Ben Witherington posted a review on his influential blog, The Bible and Culture. Turns out he likes the book. A lot. I can't resist quoting a few sound bytes from the review:

The greatest compliment I can give to a book is, that I wish I had written it, and this book falls into that category. It is that good.

This book is full of good critical thinking and discourse, and as such can serve as a good conversation starter. It has also got a lot of fresh new insights into key texts as well, which surprises even me who has read far too many books on the historical Jesus.

The book is well researched, interacts with many of the major players in the historical Jesus discussion, comes to carefully reasoned conclusions, and doesn’t fudge the evidence.

I'm particularly grateful for Ben's commendation since the book fails to interact explicitly with his own substantial body of work about Jesus. Insert awkward pause here.

As for criticism, Ben wishes the book had more on the significance Jesus attached to his death, and more on his messianic self-understanding. Fair enough. I actually think Norm ponders Jesus' self-understanding and messianic calling quite a bit. (See pages 109, 132, 135, 142, 147, 156-7, 162, 165, 168-70, 196-201, 212, 224-27.) But I agree: it should probably have been more prominent and systematic. And Ben is certainly correct that I say relatively little about how Jesus' death brought salvation (see pp.237-40, 254-55). Here I'd point out only that the Gospels (unlike other parts of the New Testament) are similarly reticent on the matter (see page 252), a point that counts in my mind in favor of their historical reliability.

Ben is likewise correct that the book fails to do justice to the Son of Man sayings. (See pages 135, 156, 168-70, 172-6, 179, 242-43.) Most unsatisfying for Ben is the way I handle the Son of Man coming on the clouds from Daniel 7. But here I'm puzzled. I think Ben has in mind the sequence on pages 172-75 which presents the view of N. T. Wright and Scot McKnight in which the coming of the Son of Man is understood to refer to Jesus' heavenly exaltation. But Norm is actually attracted to an alternative view (as am I), the one held by James Dunn and Ben Meyer (see pages 176-78). So I think Norm and Ben are on the same side of this debate.

Finally, although the book’s title indicates that it is about Jesus, it is also very much an exploration of the nature of the Gospels: what kind of books they are and how their authors managed to blend historical fidelity with artistic creativity. (See, e.g., pages 77-79, 91-99, 130, 188-89, 217-221, 256-57.) The title of Ben’s review might suggest, however, that the book focuses exclusively on the so-called Third Quest for Jesus. I am hopeful it will also spark fruitful conversations about the nature of Scripture.

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jesus

2011-05-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce the release of my book, A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jesus (Baker, 2011).

You'll find it on Amazon here and at Baker here.

At the risk of shameless self-promotion, here are a few scholars' blurbs:

"Bruce Fisk has possibly written the most creative, fascinating, and informed book on the Gospels in a generation. My students will love this book. Think Gerd Theissen's Shadow of the Galilean, but in this case the narrator isn't a first-century grain merchant but a hookah-smoking college student named Norm. . . . In countless cases, I found myself amused and impressed with how Fisk could illustrate things. 'Genius' could well describe many of the pages in the book. Fisk is a first-rate scholar as well as a brilliant communicator. Every New Testament teacher owes it to his or her students to consider this as a fresh new text on the Gospels."
-- Gary M. Burge, professor of New Testament, Wheaton College

"This volume introduces students to New Testament scholarship by telling them a story--a lively romp that combines travelogue with quest narrative, spun in a style sparkling with wit and replete with idioms of the Facebook generation. . ."
-- Mark Allan Powell, professor of New Testament, Trinity Lutheran Seminary

"I've never seen (nor imagined!) anything like this book. Following trails with many twists and turns, readers traverse the territories of biblical scholarship, Judaism, Greco-Roman religion, and the Christian tradition in a journey of personal and spiritual reflection. It's an expedition that takes us to a deeper understanding of Scripture and Jesus Christ. Fisk has inaugurated a new genre in biblical studies that deftly combines academic study with the human experience. Readers will love it; scholars will wish they'd written it."
-- Kenton L. Sparks, professor of Hebrew Bible, Eastern University

Christian Zionism: Definitions

2010-11-01T10:35:00.001-07:00

I. Down from the Bleachers onto the Field: The Political Turn

One hundred years have passed since Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921) inscribed the hermeneutics of John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) into the footnotes of the King James Bible. Millions who grew up on the Scofield Reference Bible [1] came to believe that God’s programs for ethnic Israel and the non-ethnic Church were strictly separate, and that Israel, though long on the spiritual back-burner, could look forward to a revived monarchy and resumed Temple sacrifice. Scofield’s dispensationalism was popularized at prophecy conferences, charted at Moody Bible Institute, mass-marketed by Hal Lindsey, scratched onto vinyl by Larry Norman (in the key of D), revised at Dallas Theological Seminary,[2] franchised by Tim LaHaye, projected onto the big screen by Billy Graham, and preached from pulpits everywhere. Indeed as a phenomenon of American culture, Dispensationalism since Scofield has had a remarkably successful run.

The movement owes its longevity to more than a cast of skilled communicators and the margins of the Scofield Bible. Several historical developments encouraged believers to read morning paper and study Bible together. In 1948 from the ashes of the Holocaust rose the modern state of Israel. Two decades later, in 1967, the state of Israel more than doubled its territory to include Gaza, the Golan, the Sinai, the West Bank and, most importantly, East Jerusalem including its Old City and Temple Mount. For Dispensationalists, this migration of Jews to their ancestral homeland was not simply a natural consequence of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse; not just a convenient solution to European anti-Semitism; not merely compensation for the Holocaust[3]: the Chosen Ones were reclaiming centrality in the Divine plan, which reclamation Darby and Scofield had seen coming because, well, they’d read their Bibles. Dispensational hermeneutics was being vindicated, and Biblical prophecy confirmed before our eyes.[4]

During the final third of the 20th century—from Vietnam and the Six-Day War (1967) to the Gulf Wars (1991 & 2003) and 9-11 (or from The Late, Great Planet Earth, 1970[5] to Left Behind, 1996-2007[6])—a number of dispensationalist preachers descended from the hermeneutical bleachers onto the political playing field where they became increasingly engaged, media-savvy and influential.[7] These Christian Zionists[8] were not only spiritually vigilant and evangelistically zealous; they were becoming increasingly active in the political arena and increasingly vocal in support of Israel. CZ today is marked not only by hermeneutical confidence, eschatological urgency and pro-Israel zeal, but also by American-style political engagement. Indeed, some would contend that “Christian Zionism is best understood as political action, informed by specifically Christian commitments.”[9] In a time of international terrorism, regime change, blockades and peace talks, the influence of those who claim to speak for God should interest all of us.[10] I leave to others, however, the challenge of assessing the politic strength of the CZ lobby in this country. My less ambitious goal is to describe the core tenets of CZ and then narrow the focus to one: the belief that the Last Days will witness the Temple rebuilt.

II. You Might Be A Christian Zionist: Seven Affirmations

My sense is that most CZs could happily affirm the following seven propositions.[11]

1. The church does not replace Israel.

This is the sine qua non of Dispensationalism: “the Church is neither the ‘new’, the ‘true’, nor ‘spiritual Israel’.”[12] As John Hagee explains: “Scripture plainly indicates that the church and national Israel exist side by side, and neither replaces the other—ever!”[13] Many of God’s promises to Abraham’s literal descendants remain unfulfilled, including the restoration of Israel’s nationhood and the salvation of many ethnic Jews.[14]

2. All the Land belongs to Israel.

It is difficult to overstate the territorial dimension of modern CZ. God’s covenant promise that Israel would inherit the land was unconditional. Israel’s disobedience may incur exile but never dispossession.

The Land Promised
Gen 15:18-21 from Nile to Euphrates
Gen 17:7-9 all the land of Canaan an everlasting possession
Gen 23 cave in Hebron purchased for Sarah’s burial
Gen 26:2-4 land promise (along with others) confirmed to Isaac
Gen 28:13-15 land promise confirmed to Jacob
Lev 25:1-23 year of Jubilee reminds Israel: “the land is Mine”
Dt 4:25-27, 40 idolatry means perishing from the land; faithfulness means flourishing
Dt 8:17-19 to forget God is to perish from the land

We see God’s ongoing covenantal faithfulness to the Jews in the 20th century migration of Jews to the Land, in the establishment in 1948 of the state of Israel, and in the seizure in 1967 of East Jerusalem and the West Bank (known to Zionists by its biblical name: Judea and Samaria). When Jews today settle in the Occupied Territories, they are simply taking over land that is already theirs by divine entitlement.[15]

The corollary to Israel’s entitlement to the entire land is Palestinian non-entitlement. People who oppose a modern state of Palestine do so for various reasons: some reject the category “Palestinian”;[16] others claim the early Zionists arrived to find the Land virtually empty;[17] still others claim that any future Arab state so close to Israel would be unstable and expansionist.[18]. For their part, CZs oppose a state of “Palestine” principally because it would require expropriating land for Arabs that God promised to Jews.[19]

Those Christians who claim that the land promises were fulfilled in Jesus and the New Covenant community are, say CZs, wrongly “spiritualizing” what God intended for the literal bloodline of Jacob. Indeed, the day is coming when tiny Israel will not only be secure within her present borders but will expand far beyond them to include all the land God promised Abraham.

Christian Zionists claim dividing the Land is risky. Is it?

Christian Zionist zeal for the entire Promised Land including its geographical margins and contested territories went on public display at the time of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in August, 2005. Both Pat Robertson and John Hagee weighed in to suggest that God was angry, and not just with Israel. Hagee famously asked “Washington” a question:

“Is there a connection between the 9,000 Jewish refugees being forcibly removed from their homes in the Gaza Strip now living in tents and the thousands of Americans who have been expelled from their homes by this tremendous work of nature, the hurricane Katrina? Is there a connection there? If you've got a better answer, I'd like to hear it.”[20]

Nor was John Hagee the only Christian Zionist to explain U.S. woes as divine judgment for American pressure on Israel to trade away land for peace with the Palestinians.[21] On Jan. 5, 2006, with reference to the debilitating stroke Ariel Sharon had suffered the day before, Pat Robertson made the following statement on his CBN show, The 700 Club:

“I have said last year that Israel was entering into the most dangerous period of its entire existence as a nation. That is intensifying this year with the loss of Sharon. Sharon was personally a very likeable person. I am sad to see him in this condition. But I think we need to look at the Bible and the Book of Joel. The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who, quote, ‘divide my land.’ God considers this land to be his. You read the Bible, he says, ‘This is my land.’ And for any prime minister of Israel who decides he going carve it up and give it away, God says, ‘No. This is mine.’ And the same thing -- I had a wonderful meeting with Yitzhak Rabin in 1974. He was tragically assassinated, and it was terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless, he was dead. And now Ariel Sharon, who was again a very likeable person, a delightful person to be with. I prayed with him personally. But here he is at the point of death. He was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or United States of America. God said, ‘This land belongs to me, you better leave it alone’.”[22]

3. Israel will build a third Temple.

At the center of all forms of Zionism is the Land of Promise. At the center of the land is Zion, the holy city. At the center of Jerusalem a Temple once stood, with its concentric circles of holiness: the outer courts, the holy place, the Holy of Holies.[23]

As the navel is set in the centre of the human body, so is the land of Israel the navel of the world . . . situated in the centre of the world, and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel, and the sanctuary in the centre of Jerusalem, and the holy place in the centre of the sanctuary, and the ark in the centre of the holy place, and the Foundation Stone before the holy place, because from it the world was founded. Midrash Tanhuma

By way of reminder, the Babylonians destroyed Solomon’s Temple in 586 BCE. Rebuilt under Zerubbabel with the blessing of Darius, and dedicated in 516, the 2nd Temple was desecrated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167 BCE, rededicated in 164 BCE, and expanded and adorned beginning in 19 BCE under Herod and his successors. These restorations of the 2nd Temple were not completed until 64 CE, only 6 years (!) before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70.[24]

A sizeable swath of post-70 CE Jewish tradition, some of it collected in the Mishnah (200 CE) and Talmud (c. 600 CE), anticipates a 3rd Temple, to be built in conjunction with the coming of the Messiah. Generations of religious Jews have prayed “May it be Thy will that the Temple be speedily rebuilt in our days.” Christian Zionists concur: a 3rd Temple will rise where the 1st and 2nd Temples once stood.[25]

4. We live in the Last Days.

Our location along God’s timeline becomes clear when we study developments in the Middle East in the light of Scripture. As mentioned earlier, the key indicators are: the return of Jews to the land, the miraculous birth and stunning growth of the state of Israel, and the capture (or “liberation”) of the Temple Mount.[26] Some CZs dare to declare ours the last generation before Christ’s return; others more modestly contend that the end must be near, that nothing needs to happen before the Rapture,[27] and that the growing number of Jews eager to rebuild the Temple is telling. A global battle is coming, they say, with Israel pitted against the nations. Some suggest that our actions can hasten the end.

Christian Zionists claim Israel’s victory in ‘48 was a miracle. Was it?

A common CZ refrain is that Israel’s victory in 1948 was providential, even miraculous. How else could a handful of Holocaust survivors, blockaded by the British, defeat so vast a force of hostile Arabs from Palestine itself and from nearby Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq and Syria? Has not the God who long ago delivered Goliath and the Philistines into the hands of David ben-Jesse now delivered the Palestinians into the hands of David Ben-Gurion?

Was Israel’s victory historically improbable? Can the birth of the modern state of Israel only be explained as an act of God? Recent scholarship on the 1947-49 Arab-Israeli conflict has made it clear that although Palestinians outnumber Jews 1.3 million to 630,000, or roughly 2:1 (down from 9:1 at the start of the British Mandate) and initially held the high ground, in almost every other metric the Jews come out ahead: organization, motivation, infrastructure, war preparation, weapons production, weapons, trained fighters, command and control and international fund-raising. Local Arab bands were small, unorganized, untrained and poorly supplied. Arab recruits from neighboring countries numbered between 6 and 8,000.[28] Meanwhile, Jewish forces at the outbreak of the war numbered 50, 000, of which 30,000 were fighters.[29] In other words, combat-trained Jews outnumbered ill-equipped Arabs roughly five to one. Numbers don’t tell the whole story, of course. Other factors influenced the outcome of the war, including centuries of Ottoman and British rule, clan and tribal loyalties, factionalism, secret agreements, corruption, misinformation, terrorism (on both sides), collaborators,[30] British troop withdrawals, the aspirations of Transjordan’s King Abdullah, shifting American policies, and other international forces (organizations, foreign governmental pressure, lobbying and diplomacy). Most of these other factors, however, also favored Israel (e.g., by prior agreement Iraqi and Transjordanian forces never crossed the boundaries proposed by the U.N. partition plan into “Israel” proper). But the numbers alone make it difficult to defend the common CZ assertion that the Jews were the underdog in the fight. If it is true that “at each stage of the war, the IDF outnumbered all the Arab forces arrayed against it, and, after the first round of fighting, it outgunned them too,” then perhaps “the final outcome of the war was . . . not a miracle but a faithful reflection of the underlying military balance in the Palestine theater.” In other words, “the stronger side prevailed.”[31]

5. The conflict between Arabs and Jews is spiritual, not political.

No political pressure, no international diplomacy, no economic incentives, no treaty, no “two-state solution” will resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict and create a just and free society for all. Asking Israel to trade “land for peace” (to use a U.N. formulation) won’t work. Indeed, for Americans to pressure Congress, or for the U.S. to pressure Israel, for a political solution only paves the way for the lies, deception and false peace of a coming Antichrist.[32]

6. God calls us to bless and support Israel.

Genesis 12:3 might be called “Christian Zionism in a nutshell.”[33] God has promised to bless those who bless the Chosen People. Has not salvation come from the Jews (Jn 4:22)? Do not Gentiles owe Jews a debt of gratitude (Ro 15:27)? America has been blessed by God for supporting Israel. Should America withdraw that support she will face divine censure (Isa 60:12).[34] The (1909) Scofield Reference Bible, explains that Gen 12:3 (“And curse him that curseth thee [Abraham]”) is:

wonderfully fulfilled in the history of the dispersion. It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Jew—well with those who have protected him. The future will still more remarkably prove this principle.[35]

Seventy years later, at the dawn of the Reagan era, Jerry Falwell transposed Scofield’s vague prediction into a pointed challenge:

God has blessed America because America has blessed the Jews. If this nation wants her fields to remain white with grain, her scientific achievements to remain notable, and her freedom to remain intact, America must continue to stand with Israel.[36]

Similar sentiments are widely and publicly held by CZs today,[37] so much so that a group of 34 evangelical leaders felt obliged to clarify in 2007 in an open letter to President Bush that “blessing” Israel does not mean withholding appropriate criticism.[38]

7. Sound interpretation of Scripture requires a literal hermeneutic.[39]

These days literal can mean many things, including its opposite—as in, “his head literally exploded with rage.” CZs like to define literal hermeneutics as common sense hermeneutics. Take Scripture at face value. Jerusalem means Jerusalem. Throne means throne. Judah means Judah. Texts mean what they say unless context demands otherwise. This principle is particularly important when it comes to Israel’s prophets. The prophets foresaw the end of exile, the restoration of monarchy, the return of prosperity and the resumption of sacrifice (e.g., Isa 66:20; Ezek 37:21-22; 43:18-27; Amos 9:11-14; Mal 3:4; see below). This, then, is precisely what careful interpreters will expect—that Israel’s restoration will not only be spiritual but also ethnic and geographical and religious and economic and political. Can anyone deny that literal Jews are now literally back in the literal Land? Surely Israel’s national rebirth is not only reason to trust Scripture, but also vindication of a literal hermeneutic.[40]

Excursus: Christian Restorationism (= proto-Christian Zionism)

The Christian belief that Israel would one day recover her Land goes back at least to the early Puritans whose interest in Scripture, inspired by the Reformation principle of sola scriptura, contributed to the rise of Restorationism—the belief that Jews would be restored to their former glory and come to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah.[41] Influential representatives include:

Lord (Anthony) Ashley (Cooper), the 7th Earl of Shaftsbury (1801-1885), philanthropist: urged Jews to move to Palestine; wrote Prime Minister Aberdeen; published The State and the Rebirth of the Jews in 1839; may have coined the phrase “a land without a people for a people without a land” (from an 1854 diary entry)

Reverend William Hechler, chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna (1845-1931): lent strong Christian support to Jewish restoration; introduced Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, to the Grand Duke of Baden in 1896, and to his nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, in 1898, to enlist their aid in the Zionist cause; believed the Jews of his day were fulfilling Biblical prophecy and regarded Herzl’s publication of The Jewish State as “a prophetic event”[42]; attended first congress of the Zionist Organization in 1897 in Basel (Aug 29, 1897).

Arthur James Balfour, the 1st Earl of Balfour (1848-1930): believed a Jewish return to the land would fulfill prophecy. As British foreign secretary, Balfour’s thought was shaped by the Zionist Chaim Weitzman. He was instructed by Prime Minister Lloyd George to write the so-called “Balfour Declaration” of 1917 which included the following:

“His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

How shall one assess these seven elements? Does Scripture indicate that we are living in the Last Days? Is modern Israel’s statehood an act of God foreseen by the prophets? Are current events in the Middle East fulfilling Biblical prophecy? Have CZ interpreters made a compelling case for their model of Biblical interpretation? In light of the subliminal message embedded in the title of this paper, you won’t be surprised to learn that I do not find CZ hermeneutics compelling.

In the next post I focus on one of several questions: whether Scripture warrants belief in an eschatological, 3rd Temple.

[1] Oxford, 1909; rev. 1917 & 1967. Helping to disseminate Darby’s ideas were James H. Brookes (1830-1897) of St. Louis, Dwight L Moody of Chicago (1837-1899), William E. Blackstone (1841-1935) also of Chicago, and Arno C. Gaebelein (1861-1945) of New York. On their respective contributions see Victoria Clark, Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism (Yale, 2007), 85-92, and Paul R. Wilkinson, For Zion's Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby. Studies in Evangelical History and Thought (Wipf & Stock, 2007), 251-257.

[2] The founder of DTS, Lewis S. Chafer (1871-1952), was mentored by Scofield until his death in 1921.

[3] Gary Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians are not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2003, 8ff., lists collective guilt about the Holocaust as one of four reasons many evangelical Christians are conflicted about the Israel/Palestine conflict. On the link between the Holocaust and early support for Zionism among liberal Protestants (e.g., Reinhold Niebuhr), see Paul C. Merkley, Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel (Montreal: McGill-Queens, 2001), 161-162. Two recent monographs, both by sons of Holocaust survivors, have advanced the charge that various parties in and outside of Israel have exploited post-Holocaust guilt (sympathy?) to excuse Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and to obstruct the peace process: Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (2^nd ed.; Verso, 2003); Avraham Burg, The Holocaust is Over; We Must Rise from its Ashes (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008).

[4] See Craig A. Blaising, “The Future of Israel as a Theological Question,” JETS 44 (3, 2001), 436. John Hagee, In Defense of Israel (Florida: Front Line, 2007), 11, remarks: “The rebirth of Israel as a nation was an unmistakable milestone on the prophetic timetable leading to the return of Christ.” John F. Walvoord, “Will Israel Build a Temple in Jerusalem?” BibSac 125 (498, 1968) 99-106 (citation pp.102-03): “The fact that Israel is now in their ancient land organized as a nation, and the impressive recent events which have put the city of Jerusalem itself into the hands of Israel, have to a large extent revealed the premises and conclusions of both the amillenarians and postmillenarians to be in error. To claim that this supports the entire premillennial interpretation may be presumptive, but it certainly gives added force to the normal interpretation of Scripture in predicting such a situation.” For other Christian Zionist assessments of the events of ’48 and ’67 (e.g., by Hal Lindsey, Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, Jack Hayford), see summaries in Gary Burge, Whose Land?, 134-35, and Stephen Spector, Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism (Oxford, 2008), 27-28. For one preacher’s struggle to interpret for his people the events of 1967, see Gershom Gorenberg, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount (Oxford, 2000), 105-07.

[5] Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (Zondervan, 1970), quips Victoria Clark, “did for Christian Zionism what the invention of the printing press did for the Bible.” Allies for Armageddon, 154. According to Clark, ibid., 156, both Ronald Reagan and Menachem Begin read it.

[6] The series of sixteen Left Behind volumes were published during this period.

[7] Tracking this shift from observer to participant is Timothy P. Weber, On the Road to Armageddon: How evangelicals became Israel’s best friend (Baker, 2004), chapter 7, esp. pp.187, 196, 212. Merkley, Christian Attitudes, 163-183, provides a useful inventory of CZ organizations that emerged during this period. Cf. John J. Mearsheimer & Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007), 133-34.

[8] The phrase “Christian Zionism” goes back at least to Theodor Herzl who applied it in 1896-97 to various Christian supporters of the Zionist cause (on which see Paul Wilkinson, For Zion's Sake, 16). These days CZ is attracting attention from across the academic disciplines. In 2010 alone CZ was the subject of both an international conference in Bethlehem (“Christ at the Checkpoint” Mar 12-17, 2010) and a new documentary (With God on our Side [Rooftop, 2010]). Assessments since the turn of the millennium include Naim Ateek, Cedar Duaybis and Maurine Tobin, eds., Challenging Christian Zionism: Theology, Politics and the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Melisende, 2005); Gary Burge, Whose Land?; idem., Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to "Holy Land" Theology (Baker, 2010); Colin Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (Baker, 2002); Victoria Clark, Allies for Armageddon; Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Politics of Apocalypse: The History and Influence of Christian Zionism (One World, 2006); Shalom Goldman, Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land (UNC, 2009); Clifford Kiracofe, Jr., Dark Crusade: Christian Zionism and US Foreign Policy. International Library of Political Studies. (I. B. Tauris, 2009); Donald M. Lewis, The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland (Cambridge, 2009); Merkley, Christian Attitudes; Kenneth G. C. Newport & Crawford Gribben, eds., Expecting the End: Millennialism in Social and Historical Context (Waco: Baylor, 2006); Stephen Sizer, Zion’s Christian Soldiers? The Bible, Israel and the Church (Inter-Varsity, 2007); idem, Christian Zionism: Road-Map to Armageddon? (IVP, 2005); Stephen Spector, Evangelicals and Israel; Weber, On the Road.

Recent defenses of Christian Zionism include John Hagee, In Defense of Israel (Frontline, 2007); Barry E. Horner, Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged (B&H, 2007); David Pawson, Defending Christian Zionism (True Potential, 2008); Sandra Teplinsky, Why Care about Israel? (Chosen, 2004); Wilkinson, For Zion's Sake.

[9] Robert O. Smith, “‘Christian Zionism’: It Challenges Our Lutheran Commitments,” The Lutheran 164 (June, 2009), cited by Gary M. Burge, Jesus and the Land, 115. The June, 2009 issue of The Lutheran is devoted to the topic of Christian Zionism, and is available here: www.thelutheran.org/article/article.cfm?article_id=8162.

[10] Somewhat alarmist in tone is Clifford A. Kiracofe, Jr., Dark Crusade: Christian Zionism and US Foreign Policy (International Library of Political Studies). I. B. Tauris, 2009. Pages 155-181 discuss the growing influence of CZ on the Republican Party in the two Bush administrations. Clark, Allies for Armageddon, 176-283, looks at the CZ lobby during G. W. Bush’s presidency, as does Steven Zunes, “The Influence of the Christian Right in U.S. Middle East Policy,” in Naim Ateek, et al., Challenging Christian Zionism (Melisende, 2005), 108-114, who may overstate CZ clout. Robert O. Smith, “Toward a Lutheran Response to Christian Zionism,” Paper, ELCA Conference of Bishops, San Mateo, CA, March, 2008 (www.elcjhl.org/palestine/zionism/08maysmith.pdf), warns against exaggerating the impact of Christian Zionists on American politics: “It is a stretch . . . to say that Christian Zionist leaders actively shape U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Instead, . . . Christian Zionist leaders are open to being used by politicians, politicians who in turn see in Christian Zionist leaders access to an easily mobilized political bloc. In the end, Christian Zionist activism serves to maintain the status quo of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” Likewise, Mearsheimer and Walt, Israel Lobby, 132-39, regard CZ as “a significant adjunct to the Jewish elements of the lobby, but not its most important part” (ibid., 139). The Walt-Mearsheimer thesis concerning the substantive and strategic influence on U.S. foreign policy of the so-called “Israel lobby” (= a collection of pro-Israel individuals and groups like AIPAC, AJC, ZOA, ADL), lies beyond the scope of this study and my expertise.

[11] As this paper neared completion, I discovered a similar list of CZ tenets in Stephen Sizer, “The Theological Basis of Christian Zionism,” in Ateek, Challenging Christian Zionism, 59-76: 1. An Ultra-literalist Biblical Hermeneutic. 2. The Jews Remain God’s “Chosen People.” 3. The Restoration to and Occupation of Eretz Israel. 4. Jerusalem, Eternal and Exclusive Jewish Capital. 5. The Rebuilding of the Jewish Temple. 6. Antipathy toward Arabs and Palestinians. 7. Anxious for Armageddon.

[12] Wilkinson, For Zion’s Sake, 17.

[13] Hagee, In Defense, 179.

[14] This is not to say that CZs affirm Jewish salvation apart from Jesus. See, e.g., Pawson, Defending Christian Zionism, 73-93; Hagee, In Defense, 179. Some of Hagee’s earlier statements (e.g., in Should Christians Support Israel? [1987]; cf. Clark, Allies for Armageddon, 276) appear to envision devout Jews saved apart from faith in Christ. More recently, perhaps in response to criticism, Hagee has distanced himself from “dual covenant” theology. On the post-Holocaust emergence of two-covenant theology, particularly in the context of Jewish-Christian dialogue, see Blaising, “Future of Israel,” 440, n.15.

[15] Horner, Future Israel, 143; Pawson, Defending Christian Zionism, 120-125. Never one to opt for understatement, John Hagee, In Defense of Israel, 181-182, remarks: “On May 15, 1948, a theological earthquake leveled replacement theology when nation Israel was reborn after nearly two millennia of wandering. . . . Their rebirth was living, prophetic proof that Israel has not been replaced.” On the relationship between Dispensationalists and Christian Zionists on the national future of Israel, see Darrell L. Bock and Craig A. Blaising, both Dispensationalists: “One of the most well-known features of the dispensational tradition is the belief in a future for national Israel. That future includes at least the millennial reign of Christ and for some dispensationalists, extends into the eternal state as well. Because of this strong belief, some early dispensationalists, such as W. E. Blackstone, played a key role in garnering support for the Zionist movement. That has carried forward to present times in the pro-Israeli political activities of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. While not all dispensationalists have strongly supported the modern Zionist movement, still they have traditionally held that prophecies regarding the political, national restoration, and blessing of Israel will be fulfilled in the next dispensation. And while other theologies have also come to the point of according the future of Israel serious consideration, it has often been due to the insistence of dispensationalists who have always made national Israel a prominent feature of their biblical interpretation.” Progressive Dispensationalism (Baker, 2000), 21.

[16] See Wilkinson’s discussion of “the Palestinian hoax,” For Zion’s Sake, 41-42.

[17] Phrases like “a land without a people for a people without a land” go back at least to an 1854 diary entry by ardent Restorationist, Lord Ashley, the 7^th Earl of Shaftsbury (1801-1885), on which figure see D. Lewis, Origins of Christian Zionism, 151-52 and V. Clark, Allies for Armageddon, 71-72. The land’s “emptiness” was emphasized in 1891 by Old Testament scholar George A. Smith in The Historical Geography of the Holy Land: especially in relation to the history of Israel and of the early church. (Armstrong & Son, 1902). Consider this excerpt from his description of the shores of the Sea of Galilee:

“Only one town is visible, Tiberias, now a poor fevered place of less than 5000 inhabitants ; besides this there are not more than three or four small villages round all the coast. There are no farmsteads, or crofts, such as break the solitude of our most desolate Highland lochs. The lights which come out at night on shore and hill are the camp-fires of wandering Arabs. It is well known, too, how seldom a sail is seen on the surface of the Lake. How very different it was in the days when Jesus came down from Nazareth to find His home and His disciples upon these shores! Where there are now no trees there were great woods; where there are marshes, there were noble gardens; where there is but a boat or two, there were fleets of sails; where there is one town, there were nine or ten” (pp.445-446).

The claim that waves of Zionist immigrants found the Land virtually “empty” was echoed recently by Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine (1984; JKAP, 2001) and Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel (Wiley, 2003), 22-28. Peters’ work, however, was declared fraudulent by several serious reviewers, including Norman G. Finkelstein (whose assessment of Dershowitz is equally scathing), Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (2005; updated, UC Press, 2008), 273-298. The “empty” land narrative was recounted recently at Westmont by guest lecturer Baruch Maoz (“An Israel-Christian’s Perspective on Israel and Palestine”; Sept. 14, 2010; download available from iTunes U; relevant portion from 10:30 to 14:35). On the vitality of Arab society before and during British Mandate Palestine, see Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (Beacon, 2006), 1-104; Alan Hart, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. Vol.One. The False Messiah (Clarity, 2009), 74; and Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (Bloomsbury, 2007).

[18] As argued by Benny Morris, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict (Yale, 2009), 193-96.

[19] Teplinsky, Why Care? 223-224, cites Biblical reasons to oppose a Palestinian state on Israel’s land.

[20] As heard on Bill Moyers Journal (Oct 5, 2007): pbs.org/moyers/journal/10052007/transcript1.html (accessed 9-3-10).

[21] See, e.g., S. Teplinsky, Why Care? 49, 223, who cites as evidence the side-by-side correlations of land-for-peace diplomacy and domestic disasters in J. McTernan and B. Koenig, Israel: The Blessing or the Curse (Oklahoma City: Hearthstone, 2001), 103-04 and 212-218. For more of the same see William Koenig, Eye to Eye: Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel (rev. ed.; About Him, 2008); J. McTernan, As America Has Done to Israel (Whitaker House, 2008).

[22] Video and transcript posted by Media Matters For America: http://mediamatters.org/research/200601050004.

[23] See graphic in Frederick J. Murphy, Early Judaism: The Exile to the Time of Jesus (Hendrickson, 2002), 46. In an important sense the Temple was regarded as the part that represents the whole. See G. Beale, “The Final Vision of the Apocalypse and its Implications for a Biblical Theology of the Temple,” in T. D. Alexander & S. Gathercole, eds., Heaven on Earth: The Temple in Biblical Theology (Paternoster, 2004), 191-209, who affirms (on pp. 192, 196, 207) the claim of J. D. Levenson (“The Temple and the World,” Journal of Religion 64 [1984], pp. 294-295) that in the OT the city of Jerusalem was often shorthand for the Temple. Likewise, R. E. Clements, God and Temple (Phila.: Fortress, 1965), p.67, cited by Beale, ibid., 194.

[24] For a CZ history of the 1^st and 2^nd Temples and the Jewish hope for a 3^rd, see Price, The Coming Last Days Temple, 59-135; T. Ice and R. Price in Ready to Rebuild: The Imminent Plan to Rebuild the Last Days Temple (Harvest House, 1992), 39-99.

[25] Lindsey, Late Great, 51, 55-58, 152; Ice and Price, Ready to Rebuild; Price, Coming Last Days Temple. Apparently John Hagee is less certain than many CZs on this point. See Clark, Allies for Armageddon, 276-77.

[26] Lindsey, Late Great, 50-55; According to J. Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy, 26 (see pp. 15-26, 115), “few events can claim equal significance as far as Biblical prophecy is concerned with that of the return of Israel to their land. It constitutes preparation for the end of the age, the setting for the coming of the Lord for His church, and the fulfillment of Israel’s prophetic destiny.”

[27] It should be noted that some influential Christian Zionist groups (e.g., the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, ICEJ) do not advocate a pre-tribulation rapture (though they do anticipate a restored Temple). See Merkley, Christian Attitudes, 177.

[28] Benny Morris, 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War (Yale, 2008), 81-93, esp. pp. 81, 85.

[29] Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford, 2006), 44.

[30] See esp. Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 (UC Press, 2008), 260 et passim.

[31] Avi Shlaim, “Israel and the Arab coalition in 1948” in Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim, eds., The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (CUP, 2001), 81. Cf. E. Rogan, “Jordan and 1948: the persistence of an official history,” in ibid., pp.110-116; Jonathan Cook, Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books, 2008), 26-27; Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents. (7^th ed.; St. Martin’s, 2007), 200-01. Shlaim, Morris and Pappe (see previous notes) are among the so-called New Historians whose research has challenged “official” Israeli historiography at many points including its position on the balance of power during the war.

[32] See Hal Lindsey, Late Great, 151-152: “When the Jews re-established their nation in Palestine they created an unsolvable problem: they displaced Arabs who had dwelt in Palestine for several centuries. All the legal debates and logical dissertations that can be advanced will never change the basic state of hostility that exists between the Israelis and the Arabs.” S. Teplinsky, Why Care? 221-24, warns of divine wrath against those who endeavor to “divide the land” by helping establish a Palestinian state. Similarly, Price, The Coming Last Days Temple, 448-49. Britt Merrick of Carpinteria Reality puts it this way: “The conflict in the Middle East is not political and therefore cannot be solved politically” (Aug 6, 2006): (realitymessages.com/notes/StudyNotes-2006-08-06-How_Christians_Should_View_Israel_part_III.pdf). Sizer, Christian Zionism, 252, summarizes his CZ opponents: “To advocate that Israel compromise with Islam or coexist with Palestinians is to identify with those destined to oppose God and Israel in the imminent battle of Armageddon.” See also S. Spector, Evangelicals and Israel, 50-52, 76, 88-95, 109.

[33] David Brog, Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State (Frontline, 2006), 69, cited by Wilkinson, For Zion’s Sake, 69. Another key CZ verse is Ps 122:6-7.

[34] Spector, Evangelicals and Israel, 23, cites Gen 12:3 as “by far the most prominent reason evangelicals cite for their backing of the state of Israel.” Cf. Pawson, Defending Christian Zionism, 150-155; Hagee, In Defense, 95-123. On Hagee’s efforts to “honor” Israel (by forming Christians United For Israel), see ibid., 40-47, and www.cufi.org/site/PageServer. In its literature [cufi.convio.net/blessingisrael/index.html], CUFI speaks of “the Biblical and moral imperatives of supporting Israel.”

[35] From note 3 on p. 25, at Gen 15:18 but referring explicitly to Gen 12:3. The New Scofield Study Bible (1967) moves the note to Gen 12:2 (p.21), updates the wording slightly, and adds an ominous warning: “For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgment.”

[36] Jerry Falwell, Listen, America! (Bantam, 1980), 98, cited in Spector, Evangelicals and Israel, 24.

[37] See Wilkinson, For Zion’s Sake, 37-38, for an inventory of CZ remarks. Also, Clark, Allies for Armageddon, 159-60; Britt Merrick, “How Christians Should View Israel (Part II).” Realitymessages.com/notes/StudyNotes-2006-07-30-How_Christians_Should_View_Israel_part_II.pdf, 2006, pts. 4-5 (accessed 8-21-10). For a CZ account of God’s care for Israel through history, see “The Preservation of the Jewish People” by Will Varner (Bible and Greek professor at The Master’s College) in Israel My Glory 60 (3), available online in two parts: www.foi.org/thepreservationofthejewishpeoplepart1.

[38] Published in the NYT (7-29-07) and online: www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/us/evangelical_letter.html. See also Spector, Evangelicals and Israel, 107-109.

[39] Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy, 30. For CZ interpreters, “literal” stands over against “figurative” and “spiritualizing” readings. This is not to imply that they are oblivious to symbolic language (see ibid., 30); rather, they place the burden of proof on those who would read Scripture in non-literal ways. Gorenberg, The End of Days, 121, recalls the words of Hal Lindsey: “‘If you take the Bible literally’, he says, ‘then you come up with the premillennial point of view. I hate those who read their ideas into the scripture by using allegory’.”

[40] CZs do not hesitate to cite current events as evidence of Scripture’s truthfulness. L. Nelson Bell, editor of Christianity Today, wrote in 1967: “That for the first time in more than 2,000 years Jerusalem is now in the hands of the Jews gives the students of the Bible a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible.” [Cited by Donald Wagner, “Bible and Sword: US Christian Zionists discover Israel,” available at www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4950.htm.] John Hagee, In Defense, 182, ups the ante: “If Israel as a nation had not been reborn, if the Jews had not returned to the land, . . . if Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) had not been settled, . . . there would be a valid reason for every person to doubt that the Word of God is true.” Similarly, Dave Hunt, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” The Berean Call (Sept. 2000), 1, cited by Wilkinson, For Zion’s Sake, 37. Such sentiment may be sincere but it muzzles an important hermeneutical debate.

[41] Paul Richard Wilkinson, For Zion’s Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby (Paternoster, 2007), 135-161, argues that Puritanism (with its renewed interest in scripture) was the source of restorationism. On the Puritan roots of Christian Zionism, see also Clark, Allies for Armageddon, 27-50.

[42] Shalom Goldman, Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land (UNC, 2009), 88-136 (quote from p.105; see further 93, 102-109). Hechler had calculated that the 2^nd coming of Jesus was due in 1897-98.

Walking the 9th Ward

2009-11-25T13:11:00.000-08:00

The police officer hollered at a man driving by in a white pickup. We were standing together on the porch of a young man's house, deep in conversation. "Go with him," said the young man. "He’ll show you."

I approached the man behind the wheel who smiled warmly through the open window. “I’m here to see how the recovery from Katrina is going,” I explained. “I came to New Orleans for a conference but I can’t go home until I see how you all are doing.”

He responded briefly, then told me to climb aboard. “I knew he’d take you,” the young man called. I waved thanks to two new friends, and we drove off.

I’d walked over four miles so was glad to get off my feet. My trek had begun at a fancy hotel on Canal Street in the French Quarter, continued through the charmed French Market (where French toast was my breakfast) and on through the bohemian Bywater district, finally crossing the ancient St. Claude Avenue drawbridge over the industrial canal. On the other side I descended into a desolate neighborhood, looking for people to talk to, hoping to put a human face on an inhuman disaster. I had arrived at the 9th Ward, a low-lying section of New Orleans that was arguably the hardest hit part of the city when Hurricane Katrina came ashore in August, 2005.

My first encounter in the neighborhood was with a man whose t-shirt and clipboard explained why he was peering into the windows of a newly-restored house. Foot soldier in a movement to restore the 9th Ward, he encouraged me to talk to an organizer at nearby Greater Little Zion Baptist Church on Chartres Street. My gaze en route took in an unsettling mix of abandoned homes, overgrown lots and construction projects, punctuated oddly by intact homes, most of them modest—signs of hope four years after the desolation. What I didn’t know was that this area had suffered “only” 3-6 feet of seawater, and that my journey would soon take me north to where broken levees had completely submerged two-story houses.

Three kids were lazily tossing a football in the street. They’d been back for about a year, one explained.

“Where did you go?”

“Tennessee,” he said, with a look and a tone that suggested he’d been exiled to a distant planet. He proudly pointed out his house nearby, a house that displayed few signs of the trauma that had driven him and his family to another world. I greeted other returnees, passed the (closed) Baptist church, then spied a police officer enjoying casual porch conversation with a man in his twenties.

Welcoming me into their circle, the two men took turns telling stories, an antiphonal litany of heroism and suicide, financial ruin and new beginnings, high-level corruption and grassroots brokenness. To my dismay, they both believed the barge that broke loose from its moorings and punched through the flood wall had been purposely used to insure that surging floodwaters poured into the 9th Ward and, more to the point, away from upscale (and less black) sectors of the city. Whatever the “facts” of the matter prove to be—litigation continues—this dark conspiracy is part of reality in the battered and bruised 9th.

That’s when the guy drove by in his truck. With his new cargo on board, "Mack" drove a few blocks to the sole reopened convenience store in town to buy cigarettes. Then, further down and further in, we descended into the lowest, hardest hit section of the Ward, the battlefield of a past Armageddon.

“See the holes in the roofs? That’s how people escaped their attics. Not with pickaxes. With butter knives. And here is where people clung to phone lines waiting for rescue. Over there is where the barge broke through the floodwall. This field here used to be one of our schools, but they’re not rebuilding it. How can families return if there’s nowhere for kids to go to school?”

The scene was depressingly apocalyptic even now, four years after the storm surge had tossed cars and floated houses. Mack pointed to a six-foot high tree claiming territory in the middle of fractured, overgrown pavement.

“This used to be a street. Nature wants the neighborhood back.”

We drove past lot after empty lot, many scraped clean by demolition crews except for the tombstone that was once the front porch. A line from a song by David Wilcox came to mind: “stone steps rise to nothing in the air.”

“Did you notice that man?" Mack asked, as we drove past a few waving returnees. "His three year-old slipped off their roof and drowned.” Everyone in the 9th, it turns out, knows Ward “Mack” McClendon. He is a hurricane of grace. A bundle of honesty and hope. A man on a mission: former owner of auto salvage yard now busy salvaging a community.

We ended our drive at Lower 9th Ward Village, a green and gray warehouse with an arched metal roof that he is transforming into a community center. On a desk inside the front door was a picture of Mack with Jimmy Carter who, I learned, got the same tour I did and even played the videotape version at the 2008 Democratic National Convention to prove it.

Mack showed me around his center—library, computer room, meeting hall, outdoor stage—all built by volunteers without government money. Then, kindly, he sent me on my way. Four miles to the hotel, four hours until my flight—it was time to trade their reality for mine.

The walk back offered time to think but I would need months, not hours, to sort this one out. All I know at this point, one day later, is that years from now when I recall the 2009 Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in New Orleans, I’ll be lucky to recall a single academic paper from the conference. But I will remember Mack.

Pain and Fire and Steel

2008-12-09T09:56:00.000-08:00

This reflection, originally written for Westmont College's student paper, The Horizon, concerns the loss of our house in the Tea Fire of November 13, 2008. The dog in question is our beloved 10 year-old border collie.

She steps over a row of sandbags and pads past a remnant of stucco that stands on charred guard over the cremated remains of her home. Proceeding cautiously, Strider crosses the detritus of cindered rafters, twisted copper and blackened steel, then circles back to the hollow in the yard where she once tracked the tos and fros of our once-bustling, now-quiet neighborhood. On the breeze she smells wisps of wisteria, dampened earth and ash—always the ash—but her ears detect few voices. She looks away from the rubble as if the emptiness were too weighty to bear, as if in her dog brain she could remake the safe place where she once awaited family and welcomed visitors.

In her simple way Strider is learning what many of us have known all along: that all is not well in this world. She knows nothing, of course, of the airborne embers that descended, like enemy paratroopers, onto mulch and woodpile, deck and roof. Nothing of the drama of land scorched and lives saved. Nothing of heroic fire fighters and triumphant soccer players. She knows only that what was safe and secure is gone. She sees the void and responds the only way she can: with silence.

Like Strider, my grasp of what has happened is sharply limited. I know we inhabit an untamed planet, that we have chosen to live on the edge of wild. And now I know that moonlight behind smoke becomes apocalyptic. But I don’t know why an infinitely good and all-powerful God didn’t dial back the winds last month nor summon the winter rains a week early. Like Strider, I look for assurance among trusted companions, chief among them a rabbi named Paul of Tarsus and a troubadour named Bruce Cockburn of Toronto.

Prophets both, in the line of Jeremiah, Paul and Bruce understand well that ours is a wounded, bleeding world in anguished need of redemption. And that redemption is coming. Paul, the apostle of resurrection and herald of Christ’s Lordship, can make sense of the present crisis only in light of the future. In this life, he says, we suffer; in the next we won’t:

The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; … creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:18-23)

November’s firestorm consumed the undergrowth of my personal comfort and security; it burned my pride and laid bare my weakness. But it also gave me cause to yearn more than ever for creation’s redemption. Cockburn, like Paul, imagines a brokenness that extends far beyond ourselves, even beyond our planet. Imagine, he says, a wounded cosmos. If the Milky Way is a spiral, we find ourselves way out on its broken rim.

Way out on the rim of the broken wheel
Bleeding wound that will not heal
Trial comes before truth's revealed
So how am I supposed to feel?
. . . In a world of pain and fire and steel
Way out on the rim of the broken wheel (“Broken Wheel,” 1981)

How are we supposed to feel? We grieve, we groan, we long for healing, for ourselves and for our world. We take grateful shelter in the arms of friends and receive their gifts of quiet hospitality. We smile through tears when we see previews of the redemption we all seek: green shoots already pointing heavenward through charcoal soil, old family photos arriving in the mail, laughter at a Thanksgiving feast, afternoon’s diamonds on the water, the transcendence of poetry and song, a dog’s rough tongue on a sweaty palm, the aftertaste of bread and wine. We receive these gifts, unbidden and undeserved, as a preview of another gift still to come, a Gift that will also ride on the winds, but when this One finally comes the time for tears will be past. Now is the time to mourn. Then it will be time to dance.

Football match ends in cloud of tear gas

2008-06-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

About 12 kilometers west of Ramallah, the village of Bil’in has been home to a weekly protest against the Israeli separation barrier for over three years now. Like the large city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, Bil’in (boasting a scant 1% of Hebron’s population) has become both flashpoint and metaphor for the conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Several differences between the two locations, however, come to mind.

First, whereas the protests in Hebron are led by former IDF soldiers who want the world to see the urban injustice of the apartheid system they once helped to enforce, the weekly protest in Bil’in is led by rural Palestinians who have been cut off from 50% of their farmland by the separation barrier whose route here snakes some 4 kilometers east of the Green Line.

Second, whereas the conflict in Hebron concerns access to an ancient site holy to both Jews and Muslims—the grave of Abraham, Sarah and four other patriarchs—the dispute in Bil’in concerns the location and impact of an Israeli settlement (Modi’in Illit) established on Palestinian farmland.

Third, while Hebron testifies to the power of the Zionist lunatic fringe to manipulate Israeli security forces (both IDF and police) and to prevent them from enforcing Israel’s own High Court rulings, tiny Bil’in shows that the IDF is entirely capable of moral and legal failure all by itself.

I returned to Bil’in a few weeks ago, almost two years after my first visit, to lend timid support to a group of brave local organizers whose recent legal victories in Israel’s Courts have made no practical difference on the ground for olive farmers. Ignoring the Court’s judgment, the IDF has not changed the route of the barrier due, they contend, to “security” concerns. This is what happened.

Around noon on Friday, June 6, about 200 locals and internationals (many of whom were concluding a 3-day conference on non-violent resistance) began our westward march through the village, and beyond, to the vicinity of the barrier. For each weekly demonstration the local committee plans a different theme; the theme for this day was football (i.e., American soccer). It would be Palestine against “the world” (which meant mostly Italian and French men in their early 30s). We halted our march a “safe” ½ kilometer (perhaps more) from the barrier, at the site of the football “field” which was no more than a cleared and furrowed patch of rocks and dirt. A formal beginning gave way to an intense, closely fought match under the non-partisan noonday sun. Local children and weathered grandparents looked on. Cameras clicked. Everyone cheered, specially for the home team. For a few moments all was well.

We were about midway through the second half—as I recall Palestine was up by a goal—when a lone Israeli jeep growled along the road that hugged the opposite side of the barrier and halted, inexplicably, 1/3 kilometer or so from the game. Perhaps they wanted a better vantage point. Perhaps sport had transcended conflict even here in the West Bank. Or perhaps not.

Without warning or provocation—God is my witness—soldiers emerged from the jeep to fire multiple rounds of tear gas, skillfully avoiding the spectators but landing their toxic canisters just upwind. In seconds the game was over. Crowds and athletes alike stumbled toward the village and away from the wind-borne poison. Faces burned. Eyes watered. Chests heaved.

What kind of malice is this wherein soldiers gas, without provocation and with utter impunity, a peaceful, legal public gathering? Which side in this bizarre, asymmetrical contest is terrorizing which?

Daunted(?), we gathered like shell-shocked, novice infantry under the shade of a large tree where one of the organizers, William Wallace-like, offered inspiration and provided (slightly ill-timed) instructions on how to handle the effects of tear gas. I bantered with a Jerusalem-based journalist from CNN who, alas, was not there on assignment. (If only Britney or Angelina had been in attendance.) After 40 minutes of mustering, we were joined by a parade of cheering, flag-waving locals coming directly from prayer at the mosque. Swelling their ranks we proceeded together to the wall. Several leaned on canes. One rode an electric wheelchair.

Bil’in choreography is largely predictable. The crowd gathers at the fence. Someone reads a declaration (in Arabic). Anti-wall chants rise up. Tension mounts as Israeli soldiers move from behind concrete barricades. An IDF commander broadcasts something in Hebrew, no doubt declaring the area a “closed military zone” and charging us to leave at once. We stay. Nonviolently, and well inside the barrier on indisputably Palestinian soil, we stay. Then, percussion grenades followed immediately by tear gas. (Or was it the other way around?) Dozens of canisters launch heavenward, gaseous tails smearing their profanely inhumane graffiti. Civilians, gasping and tearful, fall back. IDF troops, armed and emboldened, reinforce their demands. Off to the side kids start throwing stones. More weapons discharge. Gas forces another retreat. “Rubber” bullets chase the fleeing (not advancing) crowds. A dozen Red Crescent volunteers, until now huddled under a tree, move in to attend the wounded. A siren announces the ambulance’s arrival. As it turns out, among those feeling the effects of the gas were European Parliament Vice-President Luisa Morgantini, Irish Nobel laureate, Mairead Corrigan and an Italian judge, Julio Toscano.

This time differed in small ways from my visit two years ago. The barrier has a new, more permanent look. One cameraman ominously sported a gas mask. Grass fires broke out where several of the canisters landed. (Those who sought to extinguish fires near the barrier were gassed, by the way.) Thankfully, this time I saw no soldiers cross the barrier to seize and beat demonstrators. Oh, and this time I was proudly demonstrating alongside my 19 year-old daughter.

Otherwise the depressing choreography has changed little since 2006. March. Demonstrate. Run. Gasp. Run. Regroup. Watch for vapor trails. Stay upwind. Fall back. Eventually my daughter and I returned to the village and boarded a serveece taxi bound for Ramallah, home of the Stars and Bucks from which perch we could survey the city square, sip coffee and ponder the twisted normalcy of another day in Palestine.

Four Evangelists on a Balcony

2008-06-16T00:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening I was invited to the home of a local Imam (one who leads prayers in a mosque). A student in one of my classes, his stilted English was balanced by his unstinting hospitality. We were joined on his apartment balcony by three other locals: a British-trained medical doctor, an expert in Islamic civil law, and the owner of a pastry shop. The balcony, high on the Mt. Ebal side of Nablus, offers stunning views of the urban sprawl, the Old City and, above it, Gerizim, home to the Samaritans.

Most of the 2-hour conversation was theological, though with regular detours into politics. Here, as in much of the world, to quarantine religion from politics is to defy gravity. Without waiting for my questions they eagerly listed the marks of a good Muslim, narrated the events of the Last Days, and extolled the the wonders of the Qur'an. Fueled by juice and watermelon, coffee and chocolate, we traveled the theological landscape, discussed differences between Judaism and Islam, and pondered the intractable antagonism of the modern conflict.

Equally fascinating were both the substance of their comments and the tone they adopted; it was as if they were praying to see scales fall from my eyes so I could see the truth and spontaneously convert. This uneasy Evangelical was being evangelized.

Notwithstanding my Christian intransigence, these four friends were uncommonly generous tutors in (local) Muslim thought. Here are a few highlights, offered without commentary:

The fact that Muslims worldwide read the Qur'an in Arabic is proof of its divine authority.
The Qur'an has been miraculously preserved by Allah; neither omissions nor additions have crept in.
Jesus did not die. God insured that another man resembled Jesus, allowing Jesus to escape while the other died in his place. God took Jesus to heaven where he now lives.
Jesus is a Muslim. When he returns, an Imam will invite him to be the new Imam but Jesus will refuse. When Christians see Jesus praying behind the Imam, they will all convert to Islam.
To be a good Muslim, one needs to believe in all the prophets without exception (including Jesus), as well as the angels and "the Day After."
Most Muslims in the world today are not good Muslims. This does not simply mean they do not observe the five pillars; it means they are not seeking God.
Islam is a religion of peace, not violence. Non-Arab converts over the years (e.g., in Asia) have embraced Islam in response to the integrity and example of Muslims, not in response to violence.
Both practicing Muslims and religious Jews agree (the doctor explained) that the conflict between these two peoples will continue until the end of history. Any treaty or negotiated settlement will at best offer only temporary reprieve. The "two-state solution"--peaceful, side-by-side co-existence--is (they assured me) not possible.

This last point caught me by surprise. I hear this sort of resignation from Jewish Zionists and know that Chrisitan Zionists defend the eschatological necessity of the conflict in order to justify their political opposition to international peace efforts. But I'd not heard this same perspective advanced so clearly by non-militant, practicing Muslims.

I'd like to think that my quartet of tutors are out of touch with the mainstream. Most locals I've met are profoundly pessimistic about a long-term solution to the Occupation. But they are not fatalistic. For them peace is possible but politically unlikely. By contrast, these four men were resigned to the status quo; ultimate vindication would come in the eschaton but not before.

Our conversation ended rather abruptly as the sun set and as minarets across the city summoned the faithful to prayer. Walking with the Imam to his mosque, I listened and watched through an open window as he, donning a robe, head-covering and lapel mic, sang the evening prayer before a single line of two dozen men. It lasted about 15 minutes, after which he insisted on walking me the mile or so back to my apartment and bidding me God's peace.

Hebron: where Patriarchs lie buried and where matriarchs lie in front of tour buses

2008-06-14T05:32:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I just returned from a quick trip south to Hebron in the southern West Bank, just 30 clicks (that's Canada-speak for kilometers) south of Jerusalem. To get there from here we rode a serveece (shared taxi) to the infamous Huwarra checkpoint outside of Nablus, hailed another one from there to Ramallah, a third to the Qalandia checkpoint north of Jerusalem, and a fourth to Damascus Gate just north of Jerusalem's Old City. After a 30-shekel night in the Hebron Hostel in the Muslim Quarter, and a quick breakfast on the amazing roof of the Hashimi nearby, we set out for the bus station in West Jerusalem where we joined a tour heading to Hebron led by Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers who served in Hebron and have since made public the terror and abuse of Palestinians that went on under their watch. More about that below.

The story of Hebron goes back at least to Abraham. Genesis 23 documents the Patriarch paying full price for the cave of Machpelah where he would bury his wife Sarah. When Abraham himself died, his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the same cave (Gen 25:9). Ditto for Isaac, Rebekah, Leah (49:31) and Jacob (50:13). Which is why the burial site in downtown Hebron, like the Temple Mount (or Noble Sanctuary) in Jerusalem, is sacred to both Muslims and Jews--known by the former as the Ibrahimi Mosque and the latter as the Cave of the Patriarchs--and why Hebron has its share of religion war stories to tell.

Two 20th century Hebron tragedies stand out among the rest. In 1929, riots in Jerusalem spread to Hebron where 67 Jews were brutally killed and 50 more wounded. The surviving 500-ish Jews were evacuated. Then, in 1994, an American-born radical settler, Baruch Goldstein, entered the Patriarchs' shrine with his M-16 and gunned down 29 Palestinians and wounded 150 more, before he was subdued and beaten to death. Since the Goldstein episode the Tomb of the Patriarchs has been militarized, partitioned and strictly controlled. Muslims to the left, Jews to the right. Christian tourists: no guns or knives please.

What makes Hebron unique in the Occupied Territories, however, is not its painful past or its militarized shrine (enclosed by a pristine Herodian wall). The bizarre thing about Hebron is that, since 1968, it has been home to first one and now several Israeli settlements located in the general area of the Tomb, in other words, deep in the heart of a Palestinian city. Nowhere else in the West Bank or Gaza do Jewish settlers and Palestinians live so closely. (Notice in the first picture that settlers, living above Palestinians, have thrown garbage onto wire mesh above the shops in the Old City.) Predictably, with proximity come security measures, enforced by IDF troops, monitored at military check points, surveyed from watchtowers, and implemented through closures, curfews, intimidation and forced population transfer. Hebron is the Occupation under glass.

For the blood-soaked details of the 40-year story of Jewish settlements in and around Hebron, I recommend chapter five of Idith Zertal and Aikva Eldar's Lords of the Land: The War over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007 (Nation, 2007), and bits of chapters 5, 6 & 7 in Gershom Gorenberg's The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 (Times, 2006). For recent stories from Hebron's front lines, see the Breaking the Silence link above.

Back to our tour. Breaking the Silence has been leading Hebron walking tours for several years but in recent months settlers in the area have mobilized against them. This led police to block the tours which in turn push BTS to bring their case to the High Court. Justice prevailed, which means that tours should be able to resume, legally and unencumbered by settler animus. It was precisely that High Court ruling that our tour set out to test.

We approached Hebron through a settlement called Kiriath Arba. (If the name rings a bell, see Genesis 23:2.) We planned to stop first at the settler shrine to Baruch Goldstein, the guy who gunned down 29 worshiping Muslims in the Ibrahimi Mosque--for these settlers Goldstein is a hero--but Yehuda and Mikael (our guides) got word that settlers were waiting for us. So the shrine visit was scrubbed and we proceeded through the settlement to the gate leading directly into Hebron.

And that's as far as we got. Immediately our path was blocked by settlers whose numbers swelled as the first ranks used cell phones to summon their friends. Soon there were dozens: old and young men, women, children, several babies in arms, a pregnant woman, a child in a stroller. A line of women and children (pictured) planted themselves directly in front of the bus. One fellow took to a megaphone, addressing us, his captive, mostly-English-speaking audience, in Hebrew. Police and soldiers arrived in force. No one was going anywhere.

When Mikael wasn't working the phones he was providing running commentary over the bus PA. Meanwhile the unflappable Yehuda, sporting sandals and a cowboy hat, wove among the settlers with a video camera or pressed his case with the authorities. We hapless passengers, embracing our role as witnesses to something simultaneously illegal and outrageous, jostled for the best photo angles or took notes in our Moleskins. One young man--maybe 14 years old--caught my eye. (He's the one in the white shirt with his hand on his chest.) He was pacing up and down beside the bus. Our eyes met. He glanced sideways for cameras and then drew his finger knife-like across his throat. He needn't have worried; settler children his age are not legally responsible for their vandalism and assaults on Palestinians. A faux-threat to murder some international would evoke little more than dismissive hand waving.

So it went for two hours. At first it looked like the tour was over before it began. Then we learned it could proceed if we remained on the bus. Then, we could advance only a few hundred feet before turning around. In the end, we gave up. The lawyer for BTS advised us to reject any limitations (since they had no legal basis) and to turn the bus around. No need to let the settlers argue in court that they had "allowed" the tour to proceed.

Not ready to admit defeat, my daughter and I got the bus to drop us at the northern, Palestinian entrance to Hebron as it passed by. We easily caught a serveece taxi and shortly found ourselves wandering the Old City, sipping drinks in various shops (date juice, coffee, tea), visiting the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and walking the ethnically-cleansed, Palestinian-forbidden Shuhada street where settler vandalism abounds. A young man (again, about 14) approached. In Hebrew, with much hand-waving, he demanded that we turn around and leave the area. Fortunately he had only his kid brother with him and none of his peers. When we refused to comply he gave me a push to which I responded by taking his picture (orange shirt, blue cap) and continuing on our way.

Strange limbo this: we are free to wander Palestinian markets (where Israeli citizens cannot legally go) and along defacto settler streets (from which Palestinians have been cleansed). Moving between two worlds though belonging to neither, we felt the embrace of both hatred and hospitality.

Aaron Miller, The Promised Land, and the Detachment of Diplomacy

2008-06-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

I've read about a quarter of Aaron David Miller's new book, The Much Too Promised Land, about his lengthy stint in the State Department, advising an impressive six Secretaries of State. Born into an affluent Jewish family from Clevland, Miller offers an insider's look at the highs and lows of international diplomacy, with particular attention to the tenures of Kissinger-the-strategist, Carter-the-missionary, and James Baker-the-negotiator. Stories of close encounters with power players like Yasser Arafat and Menachem Begin confirm Miller's rightful place at the negotiating table. The book flirts with self-absorption but anyone contemplating a career in mid-level diplomacy should give it a read.

From my vantage point--my apartment window looks across downtown Nablus and beyond to the Israeli military post high on Mount Ebal--the book confirms a rather disturbing aspect of high level international relations: the isolation and constraints imposed on State Department officials when they visit this place. Consider these remarks:

Any veteran of the road trips will tell you that the most likely threat to American diplomats abroad is not a terrorist attack but an overanxious embassy driver behind the wheel of an armor-plated SUV doing seventy miles an hour, convinced he must remain within two feet of the vehicle in front of him. (34)

Out in the neighborhood we had no expectation of privacy, and none ws given. (34)

The party would take over at least two complete floors of a five-star hotel. . . (35)

I was always acutely aware of how isolated we were and how limited our reach could be. (36)

When we traveled without the secretary [of State], our ability to control our own destiny was even more limited. (37)

On it goes. Perhaps this is how it has to be. Perhaps there is no safe way for diplomats and policy wonks to get out and explore the neighborhood. If so, however, I find it difficult to imagine these folks ever seeing the situation on the ground as it really is. It is one thing to have an official tour of a "terminal" checkpoint (emphasizing the benefits of new levels of security) or to be shown in a helicopter how close the West Bank is to Tel Aviv (advancing the wall-as-security argument). It is something else entirely to listen to Palestinian students who missed class because of military closures, to take a 3-minute trickle-shower to save water, or to be awakened at night by percussion grenades or an IDF helicopter hovering somewhere nearby (presumably as part of a military incursion).

Stories about self-important authorities, high-level pressure tactics and chastened diplomatic expectations make for good (if sometimes depressing) reading, and Miller displays endearing authorial candor. But his account (so far) doesn't inspire me to think that these career negotiators (much less their bosses) who tread the red carpet at Ben Gurion airport, play doubles tennis at the King David Hotel, and stay up all night to nuance the syntax of a press release--that these warriors of diplomacy could possibly understand the daily, monotonous grind of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Without that understanding, with personal, unvarnished experiences of "occupation," without first-hand testimony of the personal impact of American dollars, settler hostility and Israeli military incursions, diplomats and negotiators lack an essential tool in their diplomatic tool pouch: the holy privilege of weeping with those who weep.

Must run. I have an English class to teach.

Sages and Nihilists

2008-06-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

Two quick vignettes about hope.

Yesterday my daughter, returning from teaching in one of Nablus' three refugee camps, was walking through the city with two local volunteers. Whenever we internationals move about the city we wear vests that display the name of our NGO: Project Hope. A local man approached them from behind and, as he began to cross the street, uttered one brief sentence in English: "There is no hope." That was it. Nothing further. He was gone.
After teaching English today in a building downtown, I boarded the elevator to leave. A young man in the elevator looked at my vest and said earnestly: "Hope. Hope for who?" I replied cautiously: "Hope for Palestinians." Then, hesitating, I added: "Do you think there is hope for Palestine?" My caged companion immediately became philosophical. I can't recall his precise words but I will long remember his message. There is no hope without vision and mission, he said. He offered as Exhibits A and B the twin countries of Germany and Japan in the aftermath of World War II. To recover from the War's devastation, he explained, the people of these nations required clear vision, a sense of direction, a shared purpose. The Palestinian people, he said, have no clear vision. How then can they have hope?

The elevator-philosopher was right, of course: hope, like faith, is meaningful only when directed at an object. One must hope in something. Hope is not sunny optimism, nor a function of personality. In this sense, hope is like a vector in mathematics: it must have both magnitude and direction. It is motion towards, not feeling about.

But what about the first man, the nihilist on the street? Was he right as well? Is there no real reason for Palestinians to hope? Is theirs a failed state? Are they fated to remain under Occupation for the next 40 years? In my view it wouldn't be too great a distortion to reduce the conflict in this region to precisely this question: is there hope for Palestinians?

Aaron David Miller, in his new book, The Much Too Promised Land (Bantam, 2008, p.7) describes what he finds so compelling about so many of "the Arabs and Israelis" he worked with over two decades of advising the U.S. Secretary of State:

hardened by conflict and by their own natural prejudices and biases, they managed to struggle on, preserving a sense of humor, fairness, and, most important, hope for the future. In the end this struggle was about good people caught up in a nasty conflict who managed, however imperfectly, to preserve their humanity and faith in the future.

Will a Palestinian statesman or woman emerge, like Moses from the desert, to show the way away from violence and corruption toward statehood? Will the nation of Israel dare take the risks necessary to end apartheid and embrace a just peace? Will the next American president implement policies that offer Palestinians reason to be, or become, hopeful? If not, I fear that more and more Palestinians will slide from profound discouragement into despair. There will be fewer and fewer sages on elevators, and more and more nihilists on the street.

From Distrust to Suspicion to Conspiracy

2008-06-09T01:24:00.001-07:00

In one of my English classes yesterday, we found ourselves discussing the “war on terror.” Not surprisingly, none of my students found this phrase remotely helpful. Not that they leapt to the defense of Saddam Hussein; they simply heard the phrase as an American invention, intended to defend and justify U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.

Nothing in this response surprised me. What did get my attention, however, were their remarks about 9-11. All four students subscribe to a 9-11 conspiracy theory according to which, as Lev Grossman of TIME summarizes,

the entire catastrophe was planned and executed by federal officials in order to provide the U.S. with a pretext for going to war in the Middle East and, by extension, as a means of consolidating and extending the power of the Bush Administration.

(If you don’t know of the many alternative 9-11 historiographies out there, start here and here.)

Thus, according to my uncontrolled, completely unscientific, statistically insignificant sample consisting of four young professionals from Nablus, the question of what exactly happened on 9-11 is not at all straightforward. Did George Bush plan the attacks to garner world support for his campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Iran? Is the CIA still secretly supporting Al Qaeda, as it allegedly did during the ‘80s? Such questions may seem silly to many in the West but they open a window onto “reality” here in the Middle East.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to find 9-11 conspiracy theories in Nablus. After all, Grossman cites a recent poll suggesting 36% of Americans “consider it ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ that government officials either allowed the attacks to be carried out or carried out the attacks themselves.” As Grossman observes,

If we went to war to root out fictional weapons of mass destruction, is staging a fictional terrorist attack such a stretch?

Let me clarify a key point: these students of mine—two men and two women—are not at all the type to be recruited by Islamist radicals to take up arms. They are not “fighters.” They are culturally Muslim but not ideologically Islamist. Nor are they simpletons. They all have university degrees and hold decent jobs. One studied in Germany for a year. Another is an engineer who installs water systems in West Bank villages.

What disturbs me about this discovery is not that speculative theories about 9-11 are popular in Palestine. My concern is with the antecedent distrust of the U.S. government that lends these theories so much credence. So deep are suspicions of American intentions in the region that not even a deadly terrorist attack on New York and Washington can reverse them. Readers may disagree on whether such distrust and suspicion are warranted. But they can’t really deny their existence, even among young, urban, English-speaking, West-looking professionals.

Whoever leads the next U.S. administration, we must hope that they will recognize the central importance of rebuilding trust and restoring credibility in the Middle East. I shall be bold enough to hope, further, that any such campaign will proceed by means of sincere, aggressive, even-handed diplomacy, wisely targeted economic development initiatives, culturally sensitive demands, and a non-combative foreign policy that gives reasonable people in places like Nablus reason to consider giving America the benefit of the doubt.

Thomas Friedman’s Call for "Radical Pragmatism" (Opinion – NYT – June 4, 2008)

2008-06-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

I’m copying here a recent New York Times opinion piece by the renowned columnist and author, Thomas Friedman. Friedman’s words carry weight and his best judgments should be taken seriously. In my opinion, however, his “radical” proposal is not nearly radical enough. Nor do I think it will work. I have intruded my comments between his, in an irenic spirit of dialogue with a man whose work I respect very much. Readers’ comments are most welcome.

TF (NYT): When I reported from Israel in the mid-1980s, the big debate here was whether Israel’s settlement-building in the West Bank had passed a point of no return — a point where any serious withdrawal became virtually impossible to imagine. The question was often framed as: “Is it five minutes to midnight or five minutes after midnight?” Well, having taken a little drive through part of the West Bank, as I always do when I visit, it strikes me more than ever that it’s not only five after midnight, it’s five after midnight and a whole week later.

If by these remarks Friedman means that the settlements and their infrastructure (roads, expropriated land, security barriers, settler-only roads, military closures and checkpoints, lost farmland) has so fractured and fragmented the West Bank that a truly viable, let alone vibrant and autonomous, Palestinian economy is impossible, I agree.

TF (NYT): The West Bank today is an ugly quilt of high walls, Israeli checkpoints, “legal” and “illegal” Jewish settlements, Arab villages, Jewish roads that only Israeli settlers use, Arab roads and roadblocks. This hard and heavy reality on the ground is not going to be reversed by any conventional peace process. “The two-state solution is disappearing,” said Mansour Tahboub, senior editor, at the West Bank newspaper Al-Ayyam.

Once again, I agree: the two-state solution may well be dead. If so, Israeli expansionism has killed it. Friedman’s drive-by assessment of Palestinian “reality,” however, does not begin to describe the grind of life under Occupation. To us outsiders, a “checkpoint” is but an unobtrusive circle on a map. Even for those who enter the West Bank, checkpoints appear as shiny terminal buildings or as a few relatively harmless army jeeps. To Palestinians carrying green ID cards, however, these same checkpoints mean something entirely different: wasted time and lost money, personal humiliation, spoiled produce, inaccessible markets, separation from family, physical danger and more. The problem here is not merely physical—Friedman’s “hard and heavy reality on the ground”—but also psychological and practical: the painful daily reality of millions of Palestinians. I suspect on this point Friedman would agree.

Two further bleats. First, why are Palestinian communities so often called “Arab villages”? There are, of course, many villages in the West Bank populated by Arabic speaking people. But there are also many substantial towns, like Tulkarm (60K), Jenin (36K), Bethlehem (30K), Qalqilya (45K), Jericho (21K), and Ramallah (26K) as well as several modest cities like Nablus (135K) where I’m currently living, Hebron (170K) and of course East Jerusalem (with its c. 242K Palestinians). Those who speak exclusively of “Arab villages” disguise and minimize the demographic impact of Israel’s military occupation.

Second, why “Arab villages”? Why not “Palestinian”? Do we really grant too much when we embrace the term that these indigenous Arabic speakers have chosen for themselves? True: there is currently no autonomous state of Palestine. And true: the term only emerged in modern times after 1967. But designations like Philistia, Palaestina and Filastin have a long history here, a history in which many, many West Bank families have a share. Add to that the struggling, stumbling Palestinian National Authority that needs our financial support and moral encouragement. For us to speak of Palestine and Palestinians is simply to honor the emerging identity of an indigenous people group. Indeed, Friedman does as much in the rest of this piece.

TF (NYT): Indeed, we are at a point now where the only thing that might work is what I would call “radical pragmatism” — a pragmatism that is as radical and energetic as the extremism that it hopes to nullify. Without that, I fear, Israel will remain permanently pregnant with a stillborn Palestinian state in its belly.

Not sure about the pregnancy metaphor, but I’m listening..

TF (NYT): Why we need a radical departure is obvious: the business-as-usual course that Israelis and Palestinians are on right now does not have enough energy or authority to produce a solution. With the encouragement of the Bush administration, Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank are negotiating a draft peace treaty that supposedly will be put on the shelf, until the Palestinians have enough capability to implement it. I seriously doubt that the parties will reach an agreement, let alone have the energy to implement it.

The Israeli-Palestinian energy shortage today is on three levels: First is the level of hope and trust. Ever since the breakdown of the Oslo agreement, the romance has gone out of the peace process. Israelis and Palestinians remind me of a couple who, after a stormy courtship, finally get married and one year after they tie the knot they each cheat on the other: Israelis kept on building settlements and the Palestinians kept on building hate. When you cheat and have war after peace, trust vanishes for a long time.

Hmmm. Israelis build settlements and Palestinians cultivate hatred. When I walk the streets of old Hebron, most of the hatred I witness has been cultivated among Jewish settlers and is directed at Palestinians. Visit the tiny village of Yanoun (15K SE of Nablus) and you will meet one hundred or so inhabitants who have, since 1996, faced violence and hatred from settlers in nearby Itamar and its outposts. Oh, and did you read about the herds of wild boars released this week by Ariel settlers into the region of Salfit where they destroyed fields and terrorized residents?

Yes, there is cultivated hatred among Palestinians. A hatred that comes in many varieties. Palestinians hate checkpoints, like Huwarra outside of Nablus, where they are regularly penned up and humiliated. They hate their lack of freedom. Many refer routinely to the Israelis as their enemies. Palestinian fighters hate the IDF enough to die in combat. Islamist militants have elevated that hatred to a fine and deadly art. But it simply not the case that Palestinians have cornered the market on “hatred,” as Friedman’s remarks seem to imply.

Moreover, most people don’t understand that the settlement industry requires a vast and intrusive infrastructure: security, roads, reallocated water, checkpoints, barriers, stolen land, all of which severely compromises Palestinian life. To outsiders, a settlement would seem modest, unobtrusive, innocuous. A few wagons drawn up in a circle, perhaps. Don’t settlers live on the uncharted frontier and know how to chop wood and use an outhouse? How many people know that the area east of Jerusalem allocated to the “settlement” of Ma’ale Adummim is actually larger in area than the city of Tel Aviv, all of it carved out of the West Bank, and that its presence effectively eliminates the contiguity of a future Palestinian state. One of the principal cultivators of hatred among Palestinians, then, is the Israeli settlement.

TF (NYT): The trust deficit is exacerbated by the fact that after Israel quit the Gaza Strip in 2005, Palestinians, instead of building Singapore there, built Somalia and focused not on how to make microchips, but on how to make rockets to hit Israel.

Hamas’ practice of lobbing Qassam rockets at Israeli communities is evil. Qassams may be primitive and unsophisticated but they are killing innocent people. Moreover, they do little to advance Palestinian wellbeing. On the contrary, they help the IDF justify its siege of Gaza while tempering international criticism of the collective punishment that Israel daily inflicts upon 1½ million Gazans.

But did the residents of Gaza, after the pullout, foolishly opt not to “build Singapore” or “make microchips”? Even allowing for poetic license, Mr. Friedman’s characterization of post-pullout Gaza is a painfully misleading. Israel’s “unilateral disengagement” from Gaza left the tiny territory surrounded, sealed, tightly controlled and without any commercial ties to the West Bank. As several observers have drearily reported, Gaza became the world’s largest open-air prison. A non-viable economy does not suddenly become viable simply because all the prison guards abandon the quad to patrol from the wall.

TF (NYT): The second energy shortage comes from the fact that Israel, with the wall that it has erected around the West Bank, has so effectively shut down Palestinian suicide bombers that the Israeli public right now feels no sense of urgency, especially with the Israeli economy booming. The West Bank behind the wall might as well be in Afghanistan.

“Today, you have neither the romanticism of the peace process before Oslo fell apart nor a visible disaster knocking at the gates of Israel’s consciousness,” noted the Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit.

Mr. Friedman makes an important point here; many Israelis are profoundly ignorant of what goes on behind the Wall. Most never go there. Of those who do, most travel on ethnically cleansed bypass roads to reach subsidized commuter settlements—settlements many don’t even know are built across the “Green Line” on land Israel occupied in 1967 (41 years ago today).

There is, however, some debate about the cause of the decline in suicide bombings. Not everyone agrees that the Wall is principally responsible. I shall leave that to others to sort out. But it does not take a senior analyst to see that the serpentine route of the Wall is mostly about acquiring land, not about insuring security. Security concerns cannot explain, for example, why some Palestinian towns now find themselves on the Israeli side of the Wall, cut off from the rest of Palestine. Predictably, the IDF has responded to these Palestinians trapped in a Twilight Zone between Green Line and “Security Fence” by declaring their enclave a “closed military area” and requiring each adult inhabitant to get a “permanent resident permit” to live in his own home. In my view, we don’t yet know whether, in the long run, Israel will be more or less secure when its Wall/Fence/Barrier is finally complete.

TF (NYT): The third energy shortage is the fact that the political system in both Israel and among the Palestinians is so internally divided that neither one can generate the authority to take a big decision.

Only the U.S. can overcome this diplomatic brownout by offering some radical pragmatism, and the logic would be this: If Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not get control over at least part of the West Bank soon, he will have no authority to sign any draft peace treaty with Israel. He will be totally discredited.

But Israel cannot cede control over any part of the West Bank without being assured that someone credible is in charge. Rockets from Gaza land on the remote Israeli town of Sderot. Rockets from the West Bank could hit, and close, Israel’s international airport. That is an intolerable risk. Israel has got to start ceding control over at least part of the West Bank but in a way that doesn’t expose the Jewish state to closure of its airport.

Radical pragmatism would say that the only way to balance the Palestinians’ need for sovereignty now with Israel’s need for a withdrawal now, but without creating a security vacuum, is to enlist a trusted third party — Jordan — to help the Palestinians control whatever West Bank land is ceded to them. Jordan does not want to rule the Palestinians, but it, too, has a vital interest in not seeing the West Bank fall under Hamas rule.

Without a radically pragmatic new approach — one that gets Israel moving out of the West Bank, gets the Palestinian Authority real control and sovereignty, but one which also addresses the deep mistrust by bringing in Jordan as a Palestinian partner — any draft treaty will be dead on arrival.

I agree that a third party is desperately needed to resolve this intractable stand-off, but I don’t think Jordan is it. The only force on earth strong enough to make both parties in the dispute smarten up, make concessions, live up to treaties and get on with the job of stabilizing the region is the United States of America. Why? Because the U.S. injects more than $3,000,000,000.00 annually into the Israeli economy (one-fifth of the entire U.S. aid budget, according to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs). The road to peace in Israel and Palestine runs through Washington, D.C. with D standing for Dollars and C standing for Cents.

Only Washington, not Jordan, can demand an end to Israeli settlement expansion. Only Washington, not Jordan, can require Israel to halt its inhumane policies of house demolition and collective punishment. Only Washington, not Jordan, can insist upon a contiguous, economically viable Palestinian territory. These demands, tied unequivocally to foreign aid, would not make the state of Israel more vulnerable to attack. They would make it more secure. And it is Washington, not Jordan, whose “radical” diplomacy and “pragmatic” statesmanship, backed up by its checkbook, can provide the level of support non-militants within the Palestinian leadership will need if they are going to stem the violence and win the peace on their side of the Line.

The question I asked my Palestinian students today, as news broke of Clinton’s defeat in the Democratic primary, is whether a McCain or an Obama presidency would make any substantive difference on the ground here in Nablus. Not a single student expressed optimism. Given the campaign rhetoric so far, I have seen little reason to question their judgment.

Student daydreams

2008-06-04T02:16:00.000-07:00

I’m teaching several English classes here for university students and young professionals. Among my students are two lawyers, several engineers, a few studying education, others nursing. One is an aspiring novelist. Another is a talented artist. In the evenings I’ve started tutoring a professional who commutes daily to Ramallah to work for the Palestinian National Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas. Since most of these students have a basic understanding of English, we use a lot of class time to read and discuss news stories drawn from a BBC educational website.

I've never lived more simply and felt more rich. Not only can I delight as my students grow in their language skills and connect through me to a larger world. Beyond this, class discussion opens for me a wide window on Palestinian and Arab culture. Their dreams for the future, personal loyalties, ethical perspectives, analysis of the news, expressions of anguish and anger—all this and more tumbles out in our discussion. They are teaching me far more about life here in Palestine than I am teaching them about subordinate clauses, popular idioms and proper (i.e., Canadian) English pronunciation.

Here are a few insights and observations, in no particular order, that I’ve gleaned from 1½ weeks of teaching:

The most desired superpower here is the ability to become invisible. (Try to guess why. Hint: think about passing through military checkpoints.)
My students do not think McCain, Clinton and Obama differ substantially with respect to their views on Israel and Palestine.
Students—ordinary, non-militant, non-violent university students—casually refer to the Israelis as the “enemy."
There is very little for young people to do here. They long for a change in the sameness of their daily routine. They express very little hope for positive change in the political situation.
Notwithstanding Yasser Arafat’s death in 2004, and the political victory in 2006 of rival party Hamas, Arafat—whose picture is displayed prominently in the town square—remains an iconic figure among Palestinian youth. For them he is a father figure who epitomizes their struggle against Occupation.
Although most women on the streets of Nablus wear the hijab (covering their hair and often neck), my students make it clear that this is a choice, not a requirement as it is, say, in Saudi Arabia. They see the current popularity of head coverings, in Palestine and much of the Muslim world, as symbolic of a general conservative reaction to the influence of Western / American culture and values. (A generation ago Palestinian women did not cover their heads.)
Students here are extremely respectful and grateful to international volunteers and generally very serious about their education.
If students were granted one wish, most would wish to travel. None of my students has the proper ID to let them travel to Jerusalem, let alone beyond.

NOTE: Palestinian IDs come in a green plastic case; Jerusalem IDs in blue. With a Palestinian ID (or huwīya), the only way to get to Jerusalem is with a special temporary permit. This system was introduced in 1993 and tightened at the outbreak of the 2^nd Intifada. If a Palestinian does receive a permit, it is valid at only 4 of the 13 checkpoints between the West Bank and the city. A UN-OCHA report illustrates the challenge Palestinians face simply getting into Jerusalem:

“Since the election of the Hamas government in early 2006, the Israeli authorities have ceased all communication with their Palestinian counterparts and now individuals are forced to apply for permits in person to the Israeli DCL [Palestinian District Liaison Officers] offices. Applying for a permit often involves traveling long distances and waiting in line, only to have to return the next day or following weeks toreceive a permit if it is granted. Applicants who are rejected can re-apply and maybe accepted the second timebut the outcome is always unpredictable. Permits are only issued for a specific reasons i.e. to work, to study, for family reunification or a certain social event and the permit applications are often refused on the basis of security.” [The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements and other Infrastructure in the West Bank. UN-OCHA. July 2007, p.101.]

Listening to my Palestinian friends describe their lives, watching them dream about freedom and travel, I was deeply disturbed by the news this week that Israel has denied exit visas to seven Gaza students seeking to study abroad. The tragedy of their plight is compounded by the fact that each of the Gaza Seven has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright scholarship. These students don’t need money; all they need is for some Israeli bureaucrat to sign and stamp a form. But since education doesn’t qualify as a pressing humanitarian need (?), permission to leave their compound has been denied.

When the story broke, we learned that the US State Department simply canceled their Fulbrights. Serves you right for living in a war zone. More recently, perhaps to save face, they've changed the status of these scholarships to “deferred.” Assuming Israel lifts the siege of Gaza, next year the students may be able to pursue their advanced degrees. And their dreams. Perhaps. One never knows.

Water wells and water wars

2008-06-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

A few hot, dry days ago, on the edge of Nablus and across the street from the entrance to Balata Refugee camp, I lifted a tin cup to my lips to drink cool water from a well said to be 3,700 years old. The forty meter-deep well is in the crypt of a church that rests upon earlier churches going back to the 4^th century. It’s called Jacob’s Well (cf. Gen 33:18-20; Jn 4:12). Gentle Jamal will let you draw water for yourself with a rope and bucket. The usual tourist kitsch—icons, crucifixes and postcards—clutters a nearby table, but there is something undeniably magical about connecting to a place featured in both Genesis and John’s Gospel.

All sides of the Israel / Palestine conflict agree that water access and availability is a major flashpoint. Elena Hansteensen, a Humanitarian Officer in the Nablus OCHA office (United Nations – Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), contends that the locations of major Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been clearly chosen to guarantee access to the aquifers in the Palestinian hill country. An OCHA report details the inequity of water distribution in the region.

“Israeli per capita water consumption is more than five times higher than that of West Bank Palestinians (350 litres per person per day in Israel compared to 60 litres per person per day in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem). West Bank Palestinian water consumption is 40 litres less than the minimum global standards set by the World Health Organization.” (The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements and other Infrastructure in the West Bank, UNOCHA, July 2007, 114.)

A similar picture emerges in a report by BT’selem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories:

The discrimination in utilization of the resources shared by Israel and the Palestinian Authority is clearly seen in the figures on water consumption by the two populations. Per capita water consumption in the West Bank for domestic, urban, and industrial use is only 22 cubic meters a year, which translates into 60 liters per person per day.

There is a huge gap between Israeli and Palestinian consumption. The average Israeli consumes for domestic and urban use approximately 104 cubic meters a year, or 280 liters per person per day. In other words, per capita use in Israel is four and a half times higher than in the Occupied Territories. To make a more precise comparison, by also taking into account industrial water consumption in Israel, per capita use per year reaches 120 cubic meters—330 liters per person a day—or five and a half times Palestinian per capita consumption.

The World Health Organization and the United States Agency for International Development recommend 100 liters of water per person per day as the minimum quantity for basic consumption. This amount includes, in addition to domestic use, consumption in hospitals, schools, businesses, and other public institutions. Palestinian daily consumption is 40 percent less than the recommended quantity.

One front in the Water Wars might come as a surprise:

“For residents of the Occupied Territories, the primary result of the change in the law and transfer of powers over the water sector to Israeli bodies [at the beginning of the Occupation] was the drastic restriction on drilling new wells to meet their water needs. According to military orders, drilling a well required obtaining a permit, which entailed a lengthy and complicated bureaucratic process. The vast majority of applications submitted during the occupation were denied.”

I learned more about this curious state of affairs when I spent Friday with Nasser Abufarha, the Chair of the Palestine Fair Trade Association and the Director of Canaan Fair Trade based in Jenin. An anthropologist-entrepreneur-scholar-humanitarian (Google him some time), Nasser described to me the Israeli policy that forbids Palestinians from digging new wells when old ones run dry. Palestinians are forced, he said, to hide their new wells (e.g., under houses) and to dig them at night. Meanwhile the Israelis conduct aerial surveillance, fill newly-discovered, “illegal” wells with concrete, and restrict the amount Palestinians can draw from “legal” wells by placing regulators on them. To my surprise, Nasser does not believe that these draconian measures are driven by a fundamental water shortage in the region. Rather, he claims, water restrictions are one element of Israel’s systematic campaign to make life difficult for the Palestinians—difficult enough that they’ll want to leave.

I’m hardly qualified to opine on the politics of regional hydrology. But I can say that the water infrastructure in Palestine is woefully inadequate. I passed through a village in the north yesterday where the town well was surrounded by donkey droppings because the locals still transport their water on the backs of animals.

This brings me back to Jacob’s Well. According to ancient tradition, this is the very well where Jesus met the Samaritan woman and, at high noon, scandalously asked her for a drink (Jn 4:6). It’s a compelling story about ethnic tension, patriarchy and gender, sexual infidelity, competing religious claims, prophecy and fulfillment and more. Rereading the story lately I was struck by something else: Jesus’ promise to quench the woman’s thirst:

"Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water'."
"Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life'." (Jn 4:10, 13-14)

Not even a Biblical well can keep physical thirst from returning. But Jesus’ dramatic claim here, interpreted literally by the dusty Samaritan, is that his loyal followers will find a deeper thirst quenched once and for all. For those of us who enjoy a cold beer on a hot day, the thought of never getting thirsty may have little appeal. But for folks over here who must daily draw water by hand and schlep it home on the back of a donkey, this is good news indeed.

Is there something in the water of Jesus’ Gospel for these sons of Abraham—here in Nablus and in nearby Ariel—whose parched souls thirst for peace? Is it foolish to think that the message of Jesus could end a 60 year-old drought in this land? Is it naïve to think that Christians could play a reconciling role between Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land? I don’t know. Perhaps the water we have to offer is simply too muddied—by Crusades, anti-Semitism and Christian Zionism—to be drinkable, let alone thirst-quenching. What do you think?

ADDITIONAL NOTE: A helpful piece on the subject of water by Ron Taylor just appeared today in CounterCurrents. It's called "Water Wars in the West Bank."

WWJBB? (Where would Jesus be born?)

2008-05-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

Today I visited New Askar Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Nablus. There are three such camps in the Nablus area. New Askar is “new” because it was built in1964 as an expansion of the original (or “Old”) Askar, built in 1950. But since New Askar is not an official camp, there are no UNRWA facilities there and its challenges and hardships are accordingly greater.

Here is the UN definition of a Palestinian refugee:

Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. . . . UNRWA's definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948. The number of registered Palestine refugees has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.4 million in 2005, and continues to rise due to natural population growth.

I went to Askar camp observe an English class for young children. The teacher, another volunteer with Project Hope, was nothing short of brilliant. For each new topic (days of the week, adjectives, greetings, etc.) she had a song, an activity, a puppet, a funny sound effect or a picture. Sometimes all of the above. The kids were delightful, as well as squirmy, shy, exuberant, and mostly eager to learn. I’m guessing the teacher would stand out in any high-end suburban school in the U.S., but there she was teaching at her own expense in an unofficial refugee camp in Palestine, offering hope and opportunity to kids trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair.

The camps surrounding Nablus are three of twenty in the West Bank. Thirty-nine more dot the map across Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. I visited Jerash camp in Jordan back in 2004 and have stayed several times in Deheisheh on the edge of Bethlehem. Each camp has its stories to tell. Older residents are glad to reminisce over the cherished farms and villages from which they had to flee some 60 years ago. Many yearn to return.

There are certainly darker places on earth to raise a family There is clearly more deprivation in parts of Africa, Latin America, the Indian sub-continent, the Philippines and elsewhere. I wonder, however, whether you’d find anything similar in countries as developed and sophisticated as Israel, with its world ranking as 22^nd-highest in gross domestic product per capita (at US$33,299). I have my doubts.

What if Christians on holy pilgrimage to the site of Jesus’ birth were to include a side trip to nearby Deheisheh or Aida camps? What if they paused to listen to a few of these displaced Palestinians tell their stories? It is there, I suspect, rather than in the gilded shrine of the Nativity Church in Manger Square, that they would see most clearly what it must have been like for Jesus to embrace humility and to identify, from the very beginning, with “the least of these” (Mt 25:40). And perhaps it is there as well that we would find there is much to be done in the causes of both mercy and justice.

What about the bond?

2008-05-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

Sporting our spiffy volunteer’s vests yesterday, my daughter and I ducked into the Old City to buy fresh vegetables. On our way we paused to chat with a young man whose English was better than average. Immediately his uncle offered coffee. Arabic coffee. The good stuff. Moments later we were balancing on sketchy plastic chairs, surrounded by a dozen young men who wanted to practice their rudimentary English. We learned several new Arabic words, laughed a lot and gave them our vitals: where we were from, why we were here and, of course, how old we were.

One young man had a deep scar in the crook of his arm. Two wore necklaces displaying small pictures of dead family members. A brother. A cousin. An older man pulled at his shirt to reveal what looked like a pair of bullet holes in his neck. Neither our Arabic nor their English was good enough to solve the Middle East crisis but it was obvious to us that these young men—or many of them—were active resisters to the Occupation. “Fighters,” as they say. With us, they were polite, hospitable, gracious, even jovial. Yet when Israeli soldiers come to call—soldiers equally youthful, equally volatile, equally in over their heads—they are deadly serious.

What strikes me in retrospect is the strength of their fraternal bond. Some young men seek brotherhood on a sports team or fraternity or in the ranks of the military. This band of brothers is united by blood—blood of both the inherited and spilled varieties. They fight and sometimes die beside cousins, nephews and brothers. It’s a bond nothing will break. The more Palestinian arrests, injuries and deaths that occur in places like Nablus, the stronger will be the communal resolve to resist.

If Israel’s strategists think they will break the resistance by stepping up incursions, closing more checkpoints, imposing more closures and knocking down more buildings, someone needs to explain to them about the bond.

The difference between night and day

2008-05-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

This is the first of (hopefully) several posts from Palestine during May and June, 2008.

Daytime in Nablus hides its nightly war games fairly well. Markets bustle, children play, horns honk, trucks belch. The signs of conflict are easy enough to spot—buildings destroyed or damaged (by Israeli shelling, bulldozers and tanks), ubiquitous martyr posters, stone shrines to the fallen—but people here, like other peoples in crisis, have an uncanny capacity to project a sense of normalcy. Maybe they do it for the kids. Maybe for their own sanity.

This evening, our walk in the Old City spanned that perfect time of day when the waning sun paints the world in amber hues. Everything, even rubble and garbage, takes on an exquisite glow. In that light we threaded through Ottoman alleyways, toured an aging soap factory, greeted friends in the street and stopped for kanafeh at a small shop. Children giggled “how are you?” or wanted their picture taken. For a brief, sun-drenched moment all was right with the world.

But, of course, it isn’t. Earlier today I sat on the small balcony of our 2^nd floor apartment. Just minutes from the Old City, it’s a flat for Project Hope volunteers like us. From our lookout I watched the city’s white stone buildings cascade down the valley and climb the other side—the southern slope of Mount Ebal, one of the highest peaks in Palestine/Israel (3,084 feet). Clearly visible at Ebal’s summit is the silhouette of an Israeli military outpost—reportedly the largest in the West Bank. Military incursions into the city are a nightly routine; last night’s action apparently included an assault on a restaurant with percussion grenades and bullets. Don’t know what the troops were after. Tracking a “fighter,” perhaps, or delivering payback. A restaurant burned to the ground. Here in our apartment we heard nothing. Saw nothing. Felt no threat. My only source is a somewhat confusing report from the Maan News Agency. Whatever happened, you can bet it won’t get picked up by the NYT or BBC. But that too is part of normal over here. “The trouble with normal” is, as Bruce Cockburn says, that “it always gets worse.”

New Paul and Scripture Seminar page

2007-09-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

I'm developing a blog site for the Society of Biblical Literature Paul and Scripture seminar. You'll find it here:

Paul and Scripture

It is under construction but should be more useful and interactive than the old site. So far it just has seminar paper abstracts (2006, 2007) and papers (2006).

Two Perspectives on Paul

2007-09-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

I'm presenting this table to my students in New Testament Theology and Ethics this fall. Old news to Paul scholars, of course, but radical stuff for the uninitiated. I'm painfully aware of my over-simplification on almost every level. Corrections and suggestions for improvement welcome.

Lutheran / Traditional Perspective
versus
The “New Perspective”

Central Concern

Justification: how can sinners be made right before God?

Gentile inclusion: on what terms may Gentiles join God’s people?

State of 1^st c. Judaism

Burdened by the Law; dead in sin; marked by hypocrisy and legalism; bound up with sin, death & law (in contrast to grace, life & faith).

Vibrant, dynamic, diverse; a religion of grace; pattern of religion: “covenantal nomism*” (Sanders); in (spiritual) exile (Wright)

*"Covenantal Nomism” (according to Sanders): the notion that the Israelite’s place in God’s plan is determined by the covenant which God established with Israel, and that obedience to the law is Israel’s proper response to God’s initial act of grace.

The Law in Judaism

Onerous burden for those who broke it; cause of boasting for those who kept it.

A gracious, delightful gift from God, “holy and righteous and good” (Rom 7:12; Ps 119:97)

Paul’s problem with Judaism

Legalism: it promotes legalistic works righteousness; merit theology; pride in accomplishments; faulty view of grace and works

Nationalism / racism / exclusivism / particularism: the role of the Law in establishing boundary markers, Jewish privilege (Dunn); “It is not Christianity” (Sanders)

Paul’s condition prior to conversion

A frustrated, guilt-ridden sinner who valued works over faith, and who struggled unsuccessfully to measure up to the Law’s demands (Rom 7:14-24).

A Law-keeping (blameless) Pharisee who denied Jesus was God’s Messiah (Gal 1:14; Phil 3:4-8). Images of a distressed Paul are projections of the West’s “introspective conscience.”

Paul’s conversion

Paul leaves his now-dead ancestral religion and its Law to trust and follow Christ. Paul rejects Law-keeping as impossible and/or pride-producing.

Paul is not “converted” from Judaism but “called” within it to be the apostle to the Gentiles (Stendahl). Paul didn’t so much convert from Judaism but to Christianity (Sanders). See 2 Cor 3:4-18; Phil 3:3-11.

Justification by faith

The center / organizing principle of Paul’s Gospel: God’s gracious declaration that a sinner is right before God through his faith in Christ’s work. God’s response to human failure / pride.

A “subsidiary crater” in Paul’s thought (Schweitzer); a polemical / apologetic doctrine developed to defend the full status of Gentile converts and to refute Jewish-Christian efforts to impose circumcision, etc. on them.

Paul’s Gospel

Repent of dead works and trust in Christ’s atoning work to be justified / saved (Rom. 3:21-24). Key antithesis: Law versus Gospel.

Jesus is the anointed, risen and exalted Lord over all nations (Wright; Rom 1:1-5). Salvation comes by transfer to the realm of his lordship, by union with / participation in Christ (Sanders; 2 Cor 5:17; Rom 6:3-7).

Paul’s reasoning

Forward: from plight to solution: Law-sin-guilt à faith in Christ à justification apart from Law

Backward: from solution to plight (Sanders): Christ à various (unsystematic, inconsistent, incompatible) assessments of sin & Law (Gal 2:21; 3:19, 24-25; Rom 3:20; 4:15; 10:4)

Or: From plight to solution to plight (Wright): exile à Christ à sin / law

Theme of Romans

A “compendium of Christian doctrine” (Melancthon).
A theological treatise on justification by grace through faith.
Romans 9-11 are a parenthesis.

An occasional document defending the faithfulness of God (to the nations, to Israel) and the co-equal status of Jews and Gentiles.
Romans 9-11 are the climax of the letter.

Works of the Law (erga nomou, e.g. Rom.3:28)

Striving to do good; good works performed for salvation

Observing Torah; what pious Jews do; only bad when imposed on Gentiles; passé because it excludes Gentiles.

Pistis Christou (e.g., Ga.2:16)

Faith in Christ (objective genitive; anthropological reading) (Dunn)

Faith(fulness) of Christ = subjective genitive; Christological reading (Hays)

Israel as Rome

2007-08-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

I recently spent a month traveling with 19 students through five Middle Eastern countries including Israel/Palestine. (This explains in part my prolonged absence from blogdom.) As we walked the streets of old Jerusalem, passed through checkpoints, visited holy sites, dialogued with religious figures and activists—as we experienced the modern Israel/Palestine conflict, we could not help but notice parallels between 1^st and 21^st century Israel. Much like Jerusalem in the days of Herod and Jesus, today’s Old City pulses with the cries of merchants and the prayers of holy men. Pilgrims flush with foreign currency banter and barter in the streets. Armed soldiers patrol near the Temple Mount. Rumors of foreign incursion or homegrown uprising circulate.

The irony, of course, is that Israel today plays the imperial role once filled by Rome while the Palestinians mirror the part played by the Jews of ancient Galilee and Judea. Yesterday’s Jewish Zealots are today’s Palestinian insurgents. Well, sort of. And Rome’s Legions foreshadow the modern IDF. The-state-of-Israel-qua-Rome justifies its incursions and human rights abuses in the name of security and economics, while perpetuating a caste system that extends full privileges to Jews and only a minority of Israeli Arabs. Palestinian-militants-qua-Zealots justify targeting civilians in the name of honor, clan loyalty and divine mandate, while shamelessly recruiting “peasants” whose harsh living conditions engender only rage, despair and shame. Tragically, eyes on both sides of the conflict seem blind to “the things that make for peace.”

I do not excuse the suicide attacks and summary executions perpetrated by militant Palestinians any more than I endorse the atrocities of the dagger-wielding Sicarii during the Jewish War. But the Palestinians, like the Jews of Roman Judea, are a people under occupation. There is no debate on the streets of Jerusalem about who has the power. I have witnessed a Daewoo bulldozer flatten the home of a Palestinian family who simply lacked a building permit—a permit Jerusalem’s bureaucracy makes it all but impossible for Palestinians to acquire. I have watched armed Israelis compelling middle-aged Palestinian men to drop their pants on a public street to show they wore no explosives. I have seen border police climb out of jeeps to fire live rounds at young children whose only arsenal was the rubble at their feet. I have walked the “sterilized” streets of old Hebron where Palestinians can no longer go and listened to a former Israeli soldier describe how he used to torment civilians there. I have stayed in homes whose rooftop tanks must be refilled by hand when the Israeli authorities cut off electricity and ration water to insure that settlers on nearby hilltops can water their lawns and fill their swimming pools. I have comforted a Palestinian forbidden to enter Jerusalem to visit his hospitalized daughter. I have smelled teargas, felt percussion grenades and looked on as soldiers battered non-violent protesters whose crime was their stubborn presence on Israeli-confiscated Palestinian farmland. I have walked the course of the Wall that knifes through Jerusalem, separating kin from kin, worker from job, farmer from olive grove and people from sunset. And I have read the rage splashed across the Wall’s cold concrete canvas. My favorite graffiti is a hastily sprayed message in green paint: Jesus wept for Jerusalem – we weep for Palestine.

Is anyone else struck by similarities between the two occupations? Is this a useful thought experiment or is it simply stating the obvious?

Blogger of the month!

2007-05-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm honored (and a tad embarrassed) to have been selected by Jim West and Brandon Wason of Biblioblogs as May's blogger of the month! The full (penetrating, incisive, ground-breaking) interview is available here.

You might be a Christian Zionist

2007-04-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, here's my attempt at a description of the modern movement, influential in many conservative evangelical circles, known as Christian Zionism.

You might be a Christian Zionist . . .

If you think the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 and its expansion in 1967 (West Bank, Gaza, Golan and East Jerusalem) are part of God’s prophetic plan for the End Times and added proof of Scripture’s accuracy.
If you support the modern state of Israel largely for theological reasons.
If you believe America has been blessed by God because of its support for the modern state of Israel.
If you enthusiastically support the Israeli policy of building settlements throughout the West Bank and Gaza as their way of laying claim to more of their entitlement.
If you refer to the West Bank with the Biblical names “Judea and Samaria” rather than with phrases like “Occupied Territories.”
If you oppose the founding of a Palestinian state within the borders of Israel and think the U.S. and U.N. should not pressure Israel to trade "land for peace."
If you rejoice in the 6,000 or so Messianic Jewish Christians in Israel but give little or no thought to the 200,000 or so Palestinian Christians in Israel and the West Bank.
If you believe the Last Days will witness the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and the resumption of animal sacrifice.
If you believe that one day Israel’s territory will extend, far beyond their present borders, reaching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
If you believe that trouble in the Middle East between Jews and Arabs is inevitable, and that regional conflict must continue until the return of Christ.

An emergency burial in a temporary location?

2007-04-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

James Tabor is persuaded that the burial of Jesus conducted by Joseph of Arimathea was “temporary”—an “emergency” situation that called for unusual measures. Several comments from his April 1, 2007 post are representative (with bold face and italics added):

[Mark] notes that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses . . . observed this emergency burial

The gospel of John [19:41-42] . . . makes it quite clear that this tomb was a temporary one, chosen in an emergency situation, that just happened to be nearby.

The tomb was chosen because it was close and the Passover Sabbath began at sundown. Things were in a rush and there simply was no time to even decide what to do with Jesus’ body as far an honorable and more permanent burial.

It should not surprise us that the tomb might turn up empty, given that this site near the place of execution was never intended as a permanent place for Jesus’ corpse in the first place, but was used in an emergency fashion until other arrangements could be made.

Likewise in The Jesus Dynasty, in a chapter titled “Dead but Twice Buried,” Tabor says:

given the hasty and temporary nature of Jesus’ burial we should expect that the tomb would be empty. It was never intended that Jesus be left in that tomb (234, underlining added; cf. 224, 228, 230).

From an “emergency” burial we may draw several inferences:

The original tomb would have been found empty (Jesus Dynasty, 230).
Jesus’ body would have been re-buried elsewhere.

In other words if Jesus’ (first) tomb was indeed found empty as the N.T. claims, this was because Jesus’ body was moved—by Joseph of Arimathea and others at day’s end on Saturday—to another tomb for permanent interment. The Talpiot tomb is simply our latest and best guess as to the whereabouts of this secondary location.

Is there evidence that Jesus’ burial was an “emergency” that called for a “temporary” (i.e., one-day) arrangement? Matthew’s Gospel offers no hint of time pressure; the key texts are in Mark, Luke and John (here given in the NRSV).

Mark 15:42-47
42. When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, 43. Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council . . .went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44. Then Pilate . . . 45. . . granted the body to Joseph. 46. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock.

Luke 23:50-56
50. Now . . . Joseph . . . 52. went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 53. Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. 54. It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. 55. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. 56. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

John 19:38-42
38. After these things, Joseph of Arimathea . . . asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. 39. Nicodemus . . . also came . . . 40. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. 41. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. 42. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Mark, our earliest source, does not say Jesus’ burial was hurried. Efficient maybe, but not hurried. We can’t assume, for example, that they deposited the body unwashed simply because Mark is silent on the point. What Mark does say is that evening had “already” (ede) come [omitted by the NRSV] and that Joseph’s move to secure the body happened “since” or “because” (epei) it was the “pre-Sabbath” (15:42). So Mark ties the lateness of the hour not so much to the burial as to Joseph’s bold request for the body perhaps because, as Raymond Brown (The Death of the Messiah 2.1212) suggests, the Romans would have been more likely to grant such requests prior to the Sabbath. Evidently there was time enough to buy linen and wrap the body but not enough to complete the anointing, which task the women returned to perform on Sunday morning (Mk 16:1-2).

The women’s return visit on Sunday morning suggests (to me) several things:

They assumed Jesus’ body would still be there.
They were not expecting a resurrection.
They believed that other bodies would eventually be placed alongside Jesus’ body in that tomb, hence the courtesy/necessity of spices and ointment.

For Tabor’s theory to work it seems we must imagine the two Marys utterly oblivious to the temporary nature of Jesus’ burial, to the necessity of relocating the body and to the details of the corpse transfer. I find this aspect of Tabor’s proposal somewhat implausible. Moreover, if the plan was to transfer Jesus’ body, why not wait a few months until the bones could be collected in an ossuary?

Luke adds a time reference—the burial happened just prior to Sabbath—but little else. John adds the detail that the tomb was in a nearby “garden” and seems to imply that the location was chosen in part because it was close at hand. Unlike the NRSV translation cited above, the Greek of v.42 includes two distinct indicators of cause: “on account of (dia) the Jew’s Day of Preparation, because (hoti) the tomb was near.”

Evidence such as this prompts Tabor to conclude that Jesus’ body was never meant to stay where it initially lay. It helps, I suppose, that Tabor rejects Matthew’s claim (27:60) that Joseph of Arimathea owned the tomb:

This is clearly not history but Matthew’s theological addition to show a fulfillment of prophecy, namely, Isaiah 53:9, where the suffering servant is buried in the tomb of a rich man.

Is it reasonable for Tabor to move from the Gospels' hasty burial to an emergency burial in a temporary tomb? Does this go beyond the evidence? Does the shift answer more questions than it raises? For me, Tabor's proposal is not without its own problems:

Would Joseph of Arimathea really have moved Jesus’ body without alerting family and friends, including the two Marys (Mk 15:47; 16:1)?
Weren’t all Jewish burials relatively hurried? Wouldn’t Jews well practiced in same-day burials usually be able to avoid the inconvenience of reburial?
Do we have any other ancient accounts of reburial prior to decomposition?
How tolerant were the Romans of Jewish scruples on this point? Did the Romans regularly prevent Jews from burying victims of crucifixion? Josephus (War 4.317) confirms that the biblical call for same-day burial (Dt 21:22-23) was taken to apply to crucifixion victims. Was it not until the madness of the Jewish revolt (War 4.380-83; 5.33) that Rome prevented Jews from burying their loved ones?

Thanksgiving from a prison camp

2007-04-07T01:11:00.000-07:00

Gregory Petrov died in 1942 in a Soviet prison camp. About his life I know very little except that he composed, shortly before his death, a remarkable hymn. On Good Friday my wife and I attended All Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal where Petrov's Akathist was performed by a robust, robed male chorus.

Over the years, my low-church Good Fridays have tended to be introspective and somber. More about Jesus' pain and grief than about God's grace. More about darkness than light. Perhaps that's why Petrov's litany of praises was so breathtaking to me. The cross, draped in black, and the crown of thorns gave silent testimony to the horrors of Roman crucifixion. But we were not summoned to writhe in pain, to reenact an execution. We were called, rather, to gratitude.

Here's a sampling:

Glory to Thee for calling me into being
Glory to Thee, showing me the beauty of the universe
Glory to Thee, spreading out before me heaven and earth
Like the pages in a book of eternal wisdom
Glory to Thee for Thine eternity in this fleeting world
Glory to Thee for Thy mercies, seen and unseen
Glory to Thee through every sigh of my sorrow
Glory to Thee for every step of my life's journey
For every moment of glory
Glory to Thee, O God, from age to age

And another:

O Lord, how lovely it is to be Thy guest. Breeze full of scents; mountains reaching to the skies; waters like boundless mirrors, reflecting the sun's golden rays and the scudding clouds. All nature murmurs mysteriously, breathing the depth of tenderness. Birds and beasts of the forest bear the imprint of Thy love. Blessed art thou, mother earth, in thy fleeting loveliness, which wakens our yearning for happiness that will last for ever, in the land where, amid beauty that grows not old, the cry rings out: Alleluia!

For all 23 sparkling, scented stanzas, go here.

Do we get to say stuff like this on Good Friday? Aren't our hearts supposed to grow dim like the sky over Golgotha? Aren't we supposed to identify with Christ in his abandonment? Or can we remind each other, even on Friday, of the glorious goodness and tender mercies of God? I hope so. God knows there's enough pain and loneliness out there. Soviet prisons are not the only places this hymn needs to be heard.

Good Friday at the Holy Sepulcher

2007-04-06T23:52:00.000-07:00

A dear friend of mine recently moved to Jerusalem where he now serves as priest and professor. In his latest e-mail, describing Good Friday in the Holy City, he looks for signs of hope in a conflicted and chaotic place:

Last night at the Holy Sepulcher was a zoo, but a very international and cross-cultural one. The Latins were from every nation. I chatted with a number of the Franciscans (from Poland, Latin America, Ireland, and Italy), lots of the French, the German Benedictines, and even met an Englishman doing research at the Kenyon. Since the Orthodox are celebrating their Easter at the same time we are, the place was unusually crowded and chaotic (which is saying something for the Holy Sepulcher!) Holidays can be frenetic and depressing, but this Triduum has been joyful and prayerful. Thank God. . .

I must admit I have very little hope for the political situation here. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians have governments that are capable of making the pragmatic and honest decisions necessary for peace. . . For mental hygiene, I pray for peace and avoid engaging any passion in the question.

I agree: it is hard to imagine a just and peaceful end to the grinding Israel-Palestine conflict. And hard to imagine the church--so divided and territorial (for which the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the perfect metaphor)--nudging fearful Jews and Muslims toward peace. That would be like a man with a log in his eye pointing out the log in someone else's.

Not that Jesus lacks agents of reconciliation in the Middle East. Archbishop Elias Chacour wages peace through education in Ibillin, Galilee. From the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem, His Beatitude Michel Sabbah challenges Palestinians and Israelis alike to pursue justice. Salim Munayer gently guides Jewish and Arab Christians beyond prejudice, suspicion and sterotype. But lights like these flash against a dark sky.

Dare we hope for a day when Christian unity would be so evident, when Christian dialogue would be so respectful, when Christians convictions would be so clear--across traditions, in Jerusalem--that the world would hasten to invite Christian leaders to broker a lasting peace between warring Middle East factions?

Dare we not?

Commentary Recommendations: Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians

2007-04-01T20:22:00.000-07:00

My commentary suggestions for several of Paul's epistles appeared in the February, 2007 issue of Catalyst On-line, a web journal for United Methodist Seminarians.

Romans

Call me old-fashioned but I still think C. E. B. Cranfield’s 2-volume ICC commentary on Romans (T. & T. Clark, 1975) sets the bar, not because Cranfield always gets it right but because of his sheer mastery of the exegetical craft. For every word or phrase, Cranfield wends through the interpretive maze, lists options, weighs support and defends his own view, combining the technical precision of a master craftsman with the relentless consistency of a trial lawyer. Granted, important questions (e.g., from E. P. Sanders) and new disciplines (e.g., social-scientific and literary criticisms) have emerged in the three decades since this set appeared, such that fresh appraisals are called for, but Cranfield’s work remains foundational. Even though it assumes familiarity with the original languages (only Hebrew is transliterated), one can often “read around” the Greek and still follow the argument.

Taking up Cranfield’s mantle and continuing Durham’s rich tradition of Romans scholarship, James Dunn’s WBC commentary (2 volumes; Word, 1988) built carefully on Sanders’ insights to argue that Paul’s critique of Judaism concerns not legalism but ethnic nationalism or cultural imperialism. A third milestone in Romans scholarship is Douglas Moo’s NICNT volume (Eerdmans, 1996), a 1000-page model of clarity and judicious scholarship that, while affirming certain elements of the “new perspective,” defends a modified Lutheran approach to Paul. Honorable mention goes to Thomas Schreiner’s BECNT volume (Baker, 1998) for its accessibility, comprehensiveness and thoughtful interaction with the secondary literature, and to Charles Talbert’s Smyth and Helwys tome (2002) for its aesthetic appeal and CD-ROM, and for its interest in the rhetoric of Paul’s argument and the social location of the letter.

1 Corinthians

The 1987 publication of Gordon Fee’s NICNT volume was another commentary milestone. Fee’s honed skills as text critic and exegete serve, but never overwhelm, his larger goal of illuminating Paul’s argument and celebrating the abiding relevance of Paul’s theology. Pastoral reflections at the end of each thought unit remain relevant 20 years after they went to press.

Subsequent studies of 1 Corinthians, including Richard Hays’ contribution to the Interpretation series (Westminster/John Knox, 1997), stand on Fee’s shoulders. Hays’ volume is an elegant blend of exegesis, imagination and Biblical theology. In keeping with the pastoral tone of the series, Hays invites preachers to watch and learn as Paul responds to urgent pastoral problems, reshapes pagan imaginations, forms Christian community and reasserts the centrality of the cross. Hays’ reading of 1 Corinthians highlights the Scriptural foundations of Paul’s theology and the ecclesiological, communal nature of his ethics: the desperate need for unity, love and selflessness within the Corinthian community cannot be separated from the community’s New Covenant identity as the people of God. This will preach.

David Garland’s volume in the BECNT series (Baker, 2003) is up to date, heavily indexed with a stellar bibliography. If it does not exhaust every last technical question—for that consult Anthony Thiselton’s 1446-page NIGTC volume (Eerdmans, 2000), it is eminently readable and fair-minded, and moves seamlessly between high-level exegetical debates and practical, pastoral concerns. Greek words are both transliterated and translated so no one is excluded from the conversation.

2 Corinthians

Among commentaries on 2^nd Corinthians, Victor Furnish’s Anchor Bible volume (Doubleday, 1984) remains seminal. The puzzle of Paul’s complex historical relationship to the Corinthians, along with the striking shifts in the letter’s tone prompt Furnish to argue that the canonical epistle originally existed as two separate letters, with 1-9 earlier than 10-13. (This partition theory is tame compared to, e.g., W. Schmithals’.) Whether or not one finds such theories persuasive, the strength of Furnish’s exegetical insights remains. A nice feature of this series is how it separates technical “notes” from general and detailed “comments.”

Also aging well is Ralph Martin’s Word commentary (Word, 1986). Martin, who affirms a temporal gap between the composition of 1-9 and 10-13, attends carefully to Paul’s use of scripture, to early Jewish hermeneutics and to the urgent messianic eschatology that drives Paul’s argument. As with all Word commentaries, each unit includes an extensive bibliography.

Murray Harris’ NIGTC opus (Eerdmans, 2005) is to 2 Corinthians what Cranfield’s is to Romans. Harris has inhabited this epistle for over 30 years (cf. Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 10 [Zondervan, 1976]) and it shows: no grammatical detail or exegetical debate escapes his attention. Analysis is crystal clear and conclusions are well-reasoned, but readers will need to read closely and pull their weight. The introduction includes all the usual issues plus a summary of the letter’s theology. Perhaps the only omission concerns recent archaeological finds at Corinth. One might hope that the author’s “expanded paraphrase,” creatively inscribing the conclusions of his exegesis, will catch on.

Honorable mention goes to Scott J. Hafemann’s NIVAC volume (Zondervan, 2000), a sound and practical guide to the letter by another long-term scholar of this epistle.

Galatians

Several recent commentaries on Galatians have shifted the spotlight away from the letter’s rhetorical-epistolary framework—central to Hans Dieter Betz’s seminal work (Hermeneia, 1979; cf. Richard Longenecker’s [Word, 1990] and B. Witherington [T. & T. Clark, 1998])—to its homiletical and theological agenda. In my view, this is good news, and not just for preachers.

J. Louis Martyn’s acclaimed Anchor Bible commentary (Doubleday, 1997) is theologically penetrating, artful and ground-breaking. With 4:3-5 as the letter’s center, Martyn finds the polarity with which Paul struggles to be, not Christianity versus Judaism, but “God’s apocalyptic act in Christ versus religion” (37). Even if Martyn poses too stark a contrast between Paul’s Jewish heritage and his Christian convictions, every page demonstrates Martyn’s passion to think Paul’s thoughts after him, and to dismantle the contemporary wall between theology and exegesis.

Richard B. Hays’ Galatians (New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. IX; Abingdon, 2000), though a modest 165 pages, takes up all the pressing issues of the letter with elegance and passion. As with Martyn, Hays takes Paul’s principal beef to be with those who require Gentile followers of Jesus to submit to circumcision and keep the Law of Moses. Martyn calls Paul’s opponents “the Teachers;” Hays, following Dunn, calls them “Missionaries.” Both terms avoid the confusion and pejorative tone of older terms (e.g., “Judaizers,” “agitators”).

Hays is well known for his defense of the “subjective genitive” in the pistis Christou wars. Thus, Hays would say (with Martyn) that we are justified (or “rectified”) through “the faithfulness of Jesus,” as demonstrated in his death (cf. Gal 2:16, 20; 3:22). Although this volume includes practical, often moving “Reflections” at the end of each unit, rich resources for preachers and teachers may be found on every page.

Ephesians

My three choices for Ephesians all hail from the nineties. Andrew T. Lincoln (WBC; Word, 1990) is a faithful guide to the argument of the letter, its predominantly “realized” eschatology and its “universal” ecclesiology. Though Lincoln defends pseudonymous authorship—one of Paul’s students expanded and adapted Colossians, offering us “an updating of Paul’s Gospel” (lviii)—he is eager to affirm the authority of the letter within the NT canon.

Ernest Best’s 1998 contribution to T. & T. Clark’s ICC series replaces the century-old volume on Ephesians and Colossians by T. K. Abbott. Best defends at length the pseudonymous authorship of Ephesians but, unlike Lincoln, finds Ephesians and Colossians to be independent compositions from the same Pauline school. Complementing the detailed, often technical but always clear, running commentary are six “detached notes”: The Heavenlies; In Christ; The Powers; The Body of Christ; Israel, and the Church; The Haustafel; and two essays: The Church; Moral Teaching.

Peter T. O’Brien begins his excellent Ephesians volume in the Pillar series (Eerdmans, 1999) with a lengthy defense of Pauline authorship. Intended for pastors and teachers, O’Brien’s commentary is the easiest of the three to use. It is scholarly but not scholastic (Greek is confined to the notes) and moves easily from exegesis to biblical theology and contemporary relevance. The epistle’s central message, we learn, is “cosmic reconciliation and unity in Christ” (58).

Resurrecting Mary Magdalene and excavating Migdal

2007-03-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

In his latest contribution to the Talpiot tomb debate, James Tabor commends to us Jane Schaberg's 2002 monograph, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament. I agree: Schaberg's work is a delightful read. She is a wordsmith whose passion and imagination serve, rather than obscure, her scholarship. Stitching traditions to texts to physical remains to meditations, she advances a savvy feminist agenda, a "Magdalene Christianity" meant to challenge the prevailing "Petrine Christianity" (p.19).

Toward that end Schaberg's second chapter is a poignant lament over Migdal, home to the Magdalene. In sharp contrast to the attention (and money) lavished on Capernaum, Migdal, a few miles down Galilee's shore, suffers from severe neglect. Pilgrims descend from their tour buses at Capernaum only to ascend into a modern "(magnificent? tasteless? expensive)" (p.59) church that memorializes and protects what may well be the ancient house of St. Peter. By contrast, the excavations at Migdal lie overgrown and abandoned (ostensibly due to flooding), the desolation of the site summoning Schaberg to the "feminist task" (p.48) of reclamation and recovery. The difference between the opulent Franciscan church at Capernaum and the barbed wire of Migdal illustrates, for Schaberg, "the sexual politics of archaeology" (p.60).

I'm inclined to agree. Even if archaeologists have shied away from Migdal because of its high water table, and even if New Testament ties to the site are limited to references to Mary Magdalene's provenance (Mk 15:40, 47; 16:1; Matt 27:56, 61; 28:1; Lk 8:2; 24:10; Jn 19:25; 20:1, 11-18) and perhaps to Jesus' port of call after feeding the crowds (Dalmanutha/Magadan in Mk 8:10; Mt 15:39), I'm betting the ruins would have received much more attention had Migdal been, say, home to one of Jesus' male disciples.

Tabor's interest in the home of Mary Magdalene is principally driven, it seems, by the Talpiot tomb ossuary bearing the name Mariamenou Mara. Is there anything about ancient Migdal that might encourage us to link this Greek inscription to Mary of Migdal? Tabor's summary of Schaberg's chapter (pp.47-64) on Migdal hints that there might well be.

Schaberg’s treatment surveys the material/archaeological evidence on the city of Migdal, home of Mary Magdalene. That portion of the book alone recast things for me as much as beginning to factor in Jesus’ hometown Nazareth being just outside Sepphoris, the urban capital of the Galilee. Migdal, according to our sources, had a large aqueduct system, a theatre, hippodrome, and a market. Josephus describes it in some detail and made the city his headquarters when he became commander of the Galilean revolt. It was culturally and commercially diverse, opulent, and “wild.” Meyers and Strange concluded that the city was more “Romanized” than Capernaum or Chorazin, and thus closer to Sepphoris, Tiberius, and Beth Shean as a Roman polis.

This summary of Schaberg is close enough to be considered fair, though the phrase "Roman polis" seems to be Tabor's (somewhat loaded) paraphrase of J. F. Strange's suggestion (cited by Schaberg, p.57) that places like Migdal show us "the imprint of the Roman idea of the city" (p.57). And terms like "opulent" and "wild" are apt only as descriptions of Migdal's reputation in the Talmud and Midrashim (p.55), which later rabbinic reputation likely derives (according to Schaberg) from evolving Christian legends about Mary Magdalene rather than from historical knowledge about the town.

In any case, the implication seems to be that Migdal's "Romanized" character may well explain the Greek on the Mariamene ossuary inscription. Recall Tabor's comments from a week ago:

We don’t know much about Mary Magdalene in our N. T. sources, but she does seem to be a woman of means and she is associated with several other women of standing (Luke 8: 1-3). The Mariamene ossuary is decorated and the inscription is in Greek, which surely fits this data, and Migdal, according to the record of Josephus, was a large, thriving, and culturally diverse “Romanized” city with theatre, hippodrome, and a large aqueduct system.

Was Migdal as "Roman" as, say, nearby Tiberias? Should we perhaps even expect that the ossuary of someone from such a town would be inscribed in Greek? Does the size and significance of the town lend credence to the translation of Mara as master or honorable lady?

Scholars these days (Tabor included) know better than to dichotomize sharply between Hellenism and Judaism. All 1st century "Judaisms" were Hellenized to some degree. Nevertheless, the emerging consensus is that pre-70 Galilee was much less Hellenized than previously thought. Mark Chancey's recent monographs (The Myth of a Gentile Galilee and Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus), for example, show how most evidence for Roman culture in Galilee dates to the time of Hadrian. Even the use of Greek seems to have been limited in earlier periods.

But if Roman culture and influence (including the use of Greek) were limited in the Galilee, and not evenly distributed, can we say anything specific about Migdal? Was it uncharacteristically cultured, cosmopolitan and Hellenized for pre-70 Galilee? Ben Witherington's assessment of Mary Magdalene's hometown seems to differ sharply from Tabor's:

As for Migdal, it is simply false that it was a major cosmopolitan commercial center. It was a tiny Jewish fishing village---give me a break! No one who has been there and compare it to Bethsaida just up the road could ever come to that conclusion about Migdal. Their explanation is one based on ignorance apparently.

Unfortunately, the overgrown, unfinished state of affairs at Migdal makes it difficult for visitors to assess just how "major" or how "tiny" the town was; surely there was far more there than now meets the eye. Witherington seems to underestimate the economic heft of the place, perhaps to offset overstatements in the Jesus Tomb documentary.

Dennis Duling describes the first century town as a noteworthy "boat building and fish processing center." Chancey's analysis, however, highlights the city's "adherence to Jewish tradition" and its apparently enthusiastic support of Josephus' mobilization against Rome during the first revolt (Myth, 99). Although Josephus mentions a theater and a large hippodrome in Migdal (a.k.a. Taricheae; cf. War 2.598-599), the lack of corroborating archaeological evidence has led some (including Schaberg) to declare Josephus' description and population estimates exaggerated. For her part, Schaberg bemoans the lack of a full-scale scholarly treatment of the site but she does find enough evidence to suggest that Migdal was a place of "traffic, commerce, and the flow of ideas and information" (57, citing J. F. Strange). Fair enough. But when she says that Migdal was "a place where Jews and non-Jews met" (idem), she seems to move beyond the evidence she herself has so carefully mustered. The idea that Migdal's Jews in the early 1st century would have spoken and written principally in Greek rather than Aramaic or Hebrew moves us even further beyond that evidence.

Robert Gundry on the physicality of Jesus' resurrection in earliest Christian proclamation

2007-03-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

In the following guest post, Robert H. Gundry, Scholar-in-residence & professor of New Testament & Greek at Westmont College, enters the Jesus tomb debate by examining James Tabor's claim that the earliest Christians did not proclaim a physical resurrection.

Robert Gundry

There’s an element in the current discussion of Jesus’ family tomb, so-called, that needs more scrutiny, it seems to me. I have in mind the agreement or disagreement between the earliest oral and literary traditions of what happened to Jesus’ corpse, on the one hand, and the interpretation of an ossuary found at Talpiot as having contained the secondarily buried bones of Jesus of Nazareth, on the other hand. If I understand Professor James Tabor correctly, he believes:

that the said ossuary probably did contain Jesus’ bones;
that Jesus’ brother James revived and carried forward a messianic movement started by John the Baptist and taken over by Jesus;
that because of the removal of Jesus’ corpse from the tomb into which Joseph of Arimathea had put it, and because of a secondary burial of Jesus’ bones about a year later, James and others in the revived messianic movement knew that Jesus hadn’t physically risen from the dead, nor did they proclaim that he had;
that because of visions Paul claimed for himself, he proclaimed that Jesus had risen from the dead;
that Paul presented Jesus’ resurrection (and ours to come) as spiritual rather than physical; and
that in the Pauline offshoot from the messianic movement then headed by James, the notion of a spiritual resurrection morphed into legendary stories of a physical resurrection, such as we have in the canonical Gospels (The Jesus Dynasty [New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006]; idem, jesusdynasty.com/blog/).

With such an understanding, there’s no disagreement between the earliest literary version of Jesus’ resurrection—that is, Paul’s presentation of it as spiritual rather than physical—and an ossuary’s having contained the bones of Jesus.

It would be problematic, though, if the earliest oral and literary versions of Jesus’ resurrection presented it as physical. For the earlier the notion of a physical resurrection of Jesus, the greater the tension between that notion and the knowledge of Jesus’ original followers that his bones lay in an ossuary of nearby, known location, especially if those who held the notion of a physical resurrection and those who had contrary knowledge of Jesus’ ossuary-interred bones were in conversation with each other. On so fundamental a point we should expect some literary evidence of disagreement among them. And the tension becomes even more severe if the original followers of Jesus knew about his bones and some of these followers had themselves interred those bones yet proclaimed him as physically resurrected.

Professor Tabor affirms correctly that Paul and Jesus’ original followers were in conversation with each other: “There is little doubt that the apostle Paul was accepted into the inner circles of Jesus’ original followers,” and they “publicly endorsed his missionary preaching to the Gentile Roman world (Galatians 2:9). It was what he preached and taught that began to create problems” (The Jesus Dynasty, 262). But Tabor immediately goes on to discuss Paul’s view of “a heavenly Christ,” including a nonphysically resurrected one, as though that view of him created problems for Jesus’ original followers. Not so! As Paul clearly points out in Galatians 2, the problems had to do with issues of circumcision, law-keeping in general, and table fellowship. There’s nothing about a problem of disagreement over whether Jesus was physically resurrected.

To support a Pauline presentation of a nonphysically resurrected Jesus, though, Professor Tabor states that Paul “claimed to hear a disembodied ‘voice’ that he identified as ‘words’ of Jesus” (The Jesus Dynasty, 262). But the texts Tabor cites in note 4 on page 262—that is, 2 Corinthians 12:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; 1 Corinthians 11:23—say nothing about a disembodied voice. (Nor, for that matter, does the word voice appear in those texts despite Tabor’s putting quotation marks around it.)

Professor Tabor’s view that Paul presented a nonphysically resurrected Jesus rests above all, however, on Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 15:44, 46, 50, about which Tabor states, “Paul, our earliest witness to the resurrection, speaks of a ‘physical body’ and a ‘spiritual body,’ and though it is a body, he clearly presents both the resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of the dead at the end of the age, as putting off the flesh like a garment and being transformed into a higher spirit life.” Likewise, Tabor writes that according to Paul, at the second coming the Christian dead will be resurrected “in gloriously transformed spiritual bodies” (The Jesus Dynasty, 264), that Christians still living at the time “will likewise be instantaneously changed from flesh to spirit” (ibid.), and that “Paul seems to be willing to use the term ‘resurrection’ to refer to something akin to an apparition or vision. And when he does mention Jesus’ body he says it was a ‘spiritual’ body. But a ‘spiritual body' and an ‘embodied spirit’ could be seen as very much the same phenomenon” (ibid., 232). (Actually, Paul talks about a spiritual body only in connection with Christians’ resurrection, but the parallel with Jesus’ resurrection, which Tabor draws, is to be accepted.)

Has Professor Tabor understood Paul’s discussion of resurrection correctly? I think not. In the first place, Paul contrasts “a spiritual body” with “a soulish body,” not with a “physical body” (1 Cor 15:44, 46). But what do these expressions mean? Take first the adjective “spiritual.” When Paul describes some Christians in Corinth as “spiritual” rather than “fleshly” or “carnal,” he doesn’t mean that some Christians in Corinth are floating around its streets in a ghostly form as opposed to others who are pounding the pavement with their feet. No, he’s describing some Christians as taught, filled, and led by the Holy Spirit, whose temple is their present physical bodies, as opposed to others dominated by their sinful proclivities despite the indwelling Spirit (1 Cor 2:10–16; 3:1; 6:19; 14:37; Gal 6:1). When Paul speaks of “spiritual gifts,” he means gifts given by the Holy Spirit (Rom 1:11; 1 Cor 12:1; 14:1). The manna, the water-supplying rock, and the Mosaic law—all in the Old Testament—are “spiritual” in that the Holy Spirit gave them to the Israelites (Rom 7:14; 1 Cor 10:3–4). And the gospel is “spiritual” as given by the Holy Spirit (Rom 15:27; 1 Cor 9:11). So we should capitalize the adjective Spiritual and dismiss the notion that it indicates nonphysicality. In Paul’s view, that is to say, the resurrected body is Spiritual not in the sense of nonphysicality (he even switches back and forth between “body” and “flesh” in 1 Cor 15:35–41) but in the sense of its having been raised by God’s Spirit, which is none other than Christ’s Spirit, rather than procreated, as in the case of our present bodies, animated as they are by the soul—hence the contrast with “soulish bodies.” But let Paul speak for himself to the effect that in resurrection a Spiritual body is a body raised by the Holy Spirit: “The last Adam [Christ] became a life-making Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45); “But if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will make alive also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8:11).

Ah, but what about 1 Corinthians15:50, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”? Professor Tabor appeals also to this text for a nonphysical understanding of resurrection on Paul’s part (The Jesus Dynasty, 264). Well, the immediately following statement reads, “Nor does perishability inherit imperishability.” These two statements parallel each other, so that the phrase “flesh and blood” corresponds to “perishability.” Together, the terms refer to the present body in respect to the perishability of its flesh and blood, not in respect to the physicality of its flesh and blood. For Paul proceeds to say that it is “this perishable body” that will put on imperishability and “this mortal body” that will put on immortality (1 Cor 15:51–55, especially verse 53). And since for Paul the resurrection of Christians will follow the pattern of Christ’s resurrection, as Tabor recognizes, Paul must have thought that when Christ was raised, it was the perishable, mortal body of his earthly lifetime that put on imperishability and immortality, not that he was raised and exalted to heaven in some nonphysical form.

According to 1 Corinthians 15:1–7 Paul “received” information about Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and appearances as resurrected to Cephas (Peter) and others, including James. On the basis of Galatians 1:10–23 Professor Tabor interprets this reception as a direct revelation from heaven rather than as the passing on of tradition by one or more earlier followers of Jesus. But in Galatians Paul is talking about the gospel he preached before going to Jerusalem and conversing with Cephas three years after that direct revelation, whereas in 1 Corinthians he’s talking about the sort of information he’d get from one or more earlier believers. So contrary to Tabor’s earlier cited identification of Paul as “our earliest witness to the resurrection,” our earliest witnesses to it are the ones or one (probably Cephas) who passed this information on to Paul. Or, rather, our earliest witnesses are those who claimed to have seen Jesus as resurrected before Paul did, as admitted by Paul in his phrases, “And last of all . . . also to me” (1 Cor 15:8). Therefore we have to investigate not only Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ resurrection, whether it was physical or nonphysical, but also what was the understanding of it by the earlier witnesses and traditioner(s). “Cephas,” the Aramaic form of “Peter,” and the two instances of “according to the Scriptures” in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7 favor that the tradition stemmed from Jesus’ original followers, Jews still closely tied to their ancestral faith, Judaism. Now Tabor correctly writes, “In Judaism to claim that someone has been ‘raised from the dead’ is not the same as to claim that one has died and exists as a spirit or soul in the heavenly world. What the gospels [here we might substitute the witnesses and traditioners behind 1 Cor 15:3–7] claim about Jesus is that the tomb [in which he ‘was buried,’ according to the pre-Pauline tradition] was empty, and that his dead body was revived to life [‘raised,’ according to that same tradition]—wounds and all. He was not a phantom or a ghost . . .” (The Jesus Dynasty, 232). So it looks as though those witnesses and traditioners, given their Judaistic upbringing, would have understood Jesus’ resurrection as physical just as Paul did and just as we should expect in that by definition “resurrection” means the “standing up” of a formerly a supine corpse.

We’re left with this question: If Jesus’ bones were known to be lying in an ossuary near Jerusalem, how is it that the earliest literary tradition in 1 Corinthian 15:1–7, the even earlier oral tradition stemming from Jesus’ original disciples, and Paul’s properly exegeted understanding—how is it that all of them presented Jesus’ resurrection as physical? This question seems to me hard to answer.

Jesus' tomb: impossible, unlikely, possible or probable?

2007-03-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

James Tabor's latest post, Clearing the air: Rational Thinking on the Talpiot Tomb, distinguishes helpfully between Jacobovici and Cameron's The Lost Tomb of Jesus (with all its strengths and flaws) and the underlying question: whether or not the Jesus-son-of-Joseph of the Talpiot tomb was Jesus-of-Nazareth. Ultimately it is the latter question, not the media event, that matters. Tabor can imagine four possible positions among responsible academics:

There is good evidence that this Jesus son of Joseph cannot be Jesus of Nazareth
The identification is inconclusive, or even unlikely; there is not enough evidence to draw a solid conclusion.
Such an identification is possible, even likely, though not conclusively proven.
There is evidence that such an identification is probable or even highly probable.

Four thoughts.

First, some will complain that Tabor unfairly excludes the view that "this could not be the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth since he ascended bodily to heaven." But since historians can only trade in probabilities and since the bodily ascension of Jesus surely qualifies as an extremely improbable historical event, I'm not sure Tabor's exclusion can be faulted, given the context of an academic debate. Moreover, he seems to be excluding only the view that says, up front and without concern for possible physical evidence, that historical and archaeological data are irrelvant to questions about the historical Jesus.

Second, Tabor suggests that "the only scholar who has argued the 1st option in print is Jodi Magness." A key phrase here is "in print," the meaning of which is becoming increasingly opaque in our digital information age. Evidently Tabor would include articles published in academic e-journals and posted on e-bulletin boards like SBL's Forum,where Jodi Magness' piece appears. But what are we to make of the negative verdicts handed down by generally respected academics who, only since the Jacobovic documentary and thus not yet "in print," have posted on websites and blogs, or spoken out on television, radio and in the press? I'm thinking of Richard Bauckham, Eric Meyers, Craig Evans, Ben Witherington, Stephen Pfann, Jonathan Reed, Joe Zias, Byron McCane, Darrell Bock, Randy Ingermanson, Chris Heard and others, all of whom reject the link between the Jesus tomb and Jesus of Nazareth. Perhaps I need to re-read their statements more closely, but my sense is (a) that many statements are effectively "in print" and (b) that these statements lean much more toward option one than Tabor implies.

UPDATE: Thanks to James Tabor who clarifies his meaning in the comments section below. By "in print," he had in mind what he calls "solid and sustained academic treatments."

Third, the wording of option two may create confusion. Some of those who adopt it--Christopher Rollston, for example--may actually be much closer to position one than Tabor allows. Take Rollston as an example:

Based on the prosopographic evidence, it is simply not possible to make assumptions about the relationships of those buried therein, and it is certainly not tenable to suggest that the data are sufficient to posit that this is the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.

Tabor is technically correct--Rollston doesn't say the identification is impossible--but I wonder if Tabor's position two would be more accurate if it read as follows:

2. The identification is inconclusive, or even unlikely; there is not enough evidence to draw a solid conclusion and plenty to warrant profound skepticism.

Fourth, the phrase "even likely" in option three all but removes the distinction between three and four. How are we to distinguish betwen position three (the identification is "likely") and position four (the identification is "probable")? Perhaps the four views should simply be: essentially impossible, unlikely, possible and probable.

Israel, Palestine and the pitfalls of rhetoric

2007-03-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

In order for international aid to flow once again to the Palestinian people, the four major international players—the E.U., U.N., U.S.A. and Russia—stipulated last year the following conditions:

“All members of the future Palestinian government must be committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the roadmap.”

Having witnessed first hand various acts of violence directed, with Israeli sanction, against unarmed Palestinians (e.g., tear gas, “rubber” bullets, percussion grenades, clubs, house demolition), I have to ask: why are not both sides being held to standards of non-violence? I strongly oppose Palestinian suicide bombers and lament the tragic loss of Israeli lives. I also strongly oppose Israeli acts of collective punishment and the excessive, disproportionate use of force displayed by the Israeli Defense Forces. Argue if you like about which side started it or which side should stop first, but it’s hard to dispute which side is causing more loss of life and property.

My second question concerns the Quartet's demand that the Palestinian government “recognize” Israel. (Even the famous roadmap only required the Palestinian leadership to affirm Israel's "right to exist in peace and security," which amounted to their accepting the political status quo and rejecting violence.) A recent L.A.Times opinion piece by U.C.L.A. professor Saree Makdisi has drawn intense fire (metaphorically speaking) for disputing the fairness of this demand:

[T]he formal diplomatic language of "recognition" is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to "recognize" a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine.

She continues:

[W]hich Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to "recognize?" Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, "Israel" is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years — and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of "Israel"?

Provocative stuff. Persuasive to some, no doubt, but perverse to others. I wonder, though, if we can agree that Makdisi articulates nicely how it is that many, even most, Palestinians see things. This is their reality. To demand that Palestinians "recognize" Israel—to demand that they acknowledge her "right to exist"—is to require them to say (again quoting Makdisi)

that it was right for them to have been dispossessed of their homes, their property and their livelihoods so that a Jewish state could be created on their land.

Part of the problem is that acknowledging someone’s "right to exist" (the language of Condoleeza Rice, among others) seems so basic, so reasonable, so innocuous. From this, as John Whitbeck (Christian Science Monitor, Feb.2) explains, it follows that

if the "right to exist" is reasonable, then refusing to accept it must represent perversity, rather than Palestinians' deeply felt need to cling to their self-respect and dignity as full-fledged human beings.

To Palestinians, ordinary non-militant, struggling Palestinians, it is like demanding that they acknowledge that they deserve what has been done to them. I suppose some people think they do indeed deserve what the last 60 years have wrought, but can anyone seriously expect the Palestinians themselves to concur?

I pray for the day when Israelis and Palestinians finally live together in peace, security and dignity. To get there, however, the international community needs to respect the power, and avoid the pitfalls, of ill-chosen rhetoric.

Crunching the Jesus tomb numbers, once again

2007-03-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

Add Jack Poirier to the list of those ready to challenge the "Jesus tomb" number crunchers. Poirier's piece, published at Jerusalem Perspective Online, takes its place along side Randy Ingermanson's and Jay Cost's as another (ostensibly independent) attempt to assess the statistical probability that the Talpiot tomb belonged to Jesus' family. Poirier seems to know what he's doing (though I'm no judge in such matters) and his essay is worth a read. A few soundbites:

Multiplying the odds of one being named “Jesus” by the odds of one being named “Joseph,” one finds that the odds of a given male patronymic being “Jesus son of Joseph” is about .38%. Since there are two patronymic ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb, the odds of one reading “Jesus son of Joseph” is about 0.75%.

. . . it is necessary to address the “after the fact” nature of many of the statistical studies made in connection with this tomb. That is, what obtains in this tomb’s sampling is sometimes being treated as the only combination of names that could foster the suspicion that this is the tomb of Jesus’ family, when in fact a number of other combinations of names could do so just as impressively. . . . the same arguments that have been made in connection with the appearance of “Yose” would then have been made in connection with “Judah,” “Simeon,” or “James.” A more meaningful approach would calculate the odds of finding one patronymic relation known to obtain within Jesus’ family, together with one other male family name and one known female family name, within a sampling of ossuary inscriptions featuring two patronymic male inscriptions, two non-patronymic male inscriptions, and two female inscriptions.

. . . we need to determine the odds of finding “Jesus son of Joseph,” “Mary,” and the name of any one of Jesus’ brothers. Now the odds of finding one of Jesus’ brothers’ names on one of the three remaining male ossuaries can be calculated [note] to yield a probability of 63.26%, or odds of one in 1.6. Multiplying that figure by the above-determined figures for finding “Jesus son of Joseph” and “Mary,” we arrive at a probability for the full package of 0.21% (that is, 63.26% x 0.75% x 44.10%), or, more precisely, of odds of one in 475.1. Considering that there are some 1,000 tombs similar to “the Tomb,” it should hardly be surprising that one should yield this cluster of names. On average (and holding the number of inscribed ossuaries to be typical), we might actually expect to find two or more.

Though some of Poirier's charges are not new, both his logic and his results are distinctive. He likens Jacobovici's argument to watching someone pick several wild cards after being dealt a hand of cards and then brag about his royal flush.

At the end of the day there are surely countless wrong ways to run the numbers (Jacobovici's evidently among them). Poirier's model, alongside several others, suggests there may be several right ways as well.

UPDATE (9:52 a.m.): Mark Goodacre's latest post is a useful catalog of contributions to the Talpiot tomb statistics debate.

Paul and Scripture: An on-line collaborative Bibliography

2007-03-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

Some of us in the Paul and Scripture Seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature are developing an on-line wiki bibliography on Paul's use of Scripture. We're still working out the bugs but as of today the database includes 351 sources. Anyone can search it (using various criteria) but you need clearance to post entries. Those interested in helping to build the database should contact me by e-mail.

To poke around, click on Resources, then List. Feedback is most welcome.

WWJB? (Where Would Jesus be Buried?)

2007-03-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics fame has weighed in on the "Jesus Tomb" debate on the side of the skeptics. His principal target is the argument from statistics and probability. It differs from Randy Ingermanson's argument in significant respects (I like Randy's better) but others will have to assess its merits. His case includes, however, some historical claims that I think are problematic. Like,

Few scholars - including those who think Jesus was not bodily resurrected - believe that he was buried at all.

Actually, almost all scholars think he was buried. A few (e.g., J. D. Crossan) suggest the Romans might have denied Jesus' body a proper burial, but most believe his body was buried either in a shallow trench grave or (more likely) in a tomb, as indicated by the Gospels.

Even if we assume that Jesus was buried, it is exceedingly unlikely that he would be buried in or around Jerusalem. . . . One would expect the Jesus family tomb, if it did exist, to be either in the north (the family's first century A.D. home), or in the south (the family's ancestral home). There is no reason to expect it to be in or near Jerusalem.

First, all four N.T. Gospels agree that Jesus was buried immediately just outside of Jerusalem. John (19:41) adds that the tomb was near the place of execution. The Gospels give no indication that Jesus' family and friends intended to move his body, certainly not to Galilee or down to Bethlehem. I can picture a regal procession bearing Herod the Great's body south to the Herodion (near Bethlehem), but surely his was the exception to the rule that people in Jesus' day were buried more or less where they died. (I'll happily stand corrected on this one.)

Second, the N. T. (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; Gal 1:19) seems to indicate that James, Jesus' brother, remained in Jerusalem after Jesus' death. It seems quite plausible that others in Jesus family would have settled there as well. The "Jesus tomb" folks like to point out that there is no ossuary for Joseph in the Talpiot tomb--only one for Jesus-son-of-Joseph. So, the theory goes, Joseph died earlier in Galilee and was buried there. Thereafter the clan moved south.

Everybody had an interest in finding his body. It would have been a prize "get" for early Christian opponents - who were of course centered in Jerusalem - to produce it. How did they miss it when it was so close by?

This may well be right (cf. Mt 27:64; 28:11-15). Charlesworth makes a similar point. But we need to keep in mind that the "Jesus tomb" hypothesis proceeds by challenging the reliability of the Gospels' testimony. That is, the Gospels preserve later traditions and pious embellishments rather than (or mixed with) authentic history. In the aftermath of Jesus' death, says Tabor, none of Jesus' followers was claiming that Jesus' physical body had risen. That all came later, after 70, when the whereabouts of the Jesus family tomb were unknown. So the important historical question is: how soon after the crucifixion were Jesus' followers publicly proclaiming his resurrection?

Jesus' was a lower-class family from Galilee. Where did they acquire the resources to purchase what the original investigators call a tomb for a middle-class family?

The claim that Jesus' family could not have owned the Talpiot tomb may well be correct, though two of James Tabor's claims (here or here) weigh against it: (a) that the tomb itself is rather plain and (b) that Jesus had friends and supporters whose means could have made up for his lack (cf. Luke 8:3; 23:50; John 11:38; ).

Jay Cost's statistical argument may ultimately be persuasive, but some of its historical pillars need shoring up.

How many Jesus-son-of-Joseph ossuaries are there?

2007-03-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

Swirling around the blogosphere today is the report of another cluster of ossuaries with the very same group of Jesus-related (and rather common) names: Mary, Martha, Matthew, Joseph, Jesus. It looks to me, however, that this second cluster is simply a confused reference to the first--to the Talpiot tomb ossuaries themselves. James Tabor pointed out on March 5, in response to Eric Meyers' interview on NPR, that:

the second example Prof. Meyers cited, supposedly from a tomb on the Mt. of Offense, is in fact not from the Mt. of Offense at all, it is the very Talpiot ossuary under discussion. I have pointed this out privately to Tal Ilan, and I noticed it two years ago, and made all the corrections in my copy of the book, but now that all these things are in the public it can be very confusing if anyone wants to do a bit of research, which many want to do.

I'd like clarification on this point. If Tabor is right, then the Tal Ilan catalogue of Jewish names (published in 2002) confuses ossuaries found on the "Mt. of Offense" with the ones in the news from "East Talpiot." Assuming the "Mt. of Offense" is identical with the "Mount of Olives," it looks like posts like this one may require revision and we may be back to one "Jesus family." Or am I confused?

UPDATE (10:00 PM): I think the fog is lifting. In a comment James Tabor posted today on Jim West's site, he commends Jack Finnegan's Archaeology of the New Testament (which I'll track down) for the Dominus Flevit ossuaries as well as the nearby Mt. of Offense tombs. He describes

a vast Jewish/Christian burial “track” running from the Mt. of Olives, past the Mt. of Offense, to Talpiot, east and west.

My understanding has been that the Mount of Olives is a ridge that includes, as one of its southernmost knolls or "summits," the "Mount of Offense," which explains my confusion. In The Jesus Dynasty, p.236, Tabor describes the 40 Dominus Flevit ossuaries (inscribed with names like Lazarus, John, Joseph, Juda, Martha, Miriam, Matthew, Salome, Simeon, Yeshua and . . . wait for it . . . Simon bar Jonah) and then says:

There are similar clusters of names at burial places nearby, but further south, on the Mount of Offense and in Talpiot.

So let's see: the names from the Dominus Flevit necropolis that one might want to associate with Jesus were never confused with those from the Talpiot tomb. Not far away, however, roughly between Dominus Flevit and Talpiot, are the Mt. of Offense tombs which, notwithstanding the Tal Ilan catalogue, do not include ossuaries inscribed with names like Jesus-son-of-Joseph, Jose, Mariamne, etc.

A final note: it isn't as clear to me as it is to Mike Heiser that "the statistical odds touted in such assured terms have taken a sound beating – fifty years ago" (i.e., when the Dominus Flevit necropolis was excavated). A cemetery and a (family?) tomb are not at all the same thing. One would expect (wouldn't one?) that the large Mt. of Olives necropolis would contain bones from unrelated people. By contrast, the cluster of names that has impressed Jacobovici and Tabor all come from the same tomb.

James Tabor's curious appeal to Randy Ingermanson

2007-03-10T20:02:00.000-08:00

James Tabor's latest post is a plug for the book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino that accompanies the Discovery Channel documentary. As someone who bought the book (before watching the film), I agree with Tabor that the book moves along nicely and tells a good tale. It's a fun read with great graphics.

For additional praise of the book, Tabor points us to Randy Ingermanson, self-described physicist (U. C. Berkeley Ph.D.) and author whose work lies at the interesection of faith and science. But here's the thing: the page (posted March 3, 2007) that contains Ingermanson's brief commendation of the book is also the page where he lays out, in great detail, what I consider to be the most damning critique to date of the statistical argument for identifying the Talpiot tomb with Jesus and his family. Ingermanson writes as a Christian (so one could suspect him of bias against the documentary) but there isn't a hint of defensiveness or righteous indignation. And he uses phrases like "binomial distribution"without breaking a sweat.

Bottom line: Ingermanson's statistical argument (which you really should read in its entirety) reaches a stunning conclusion: the odds are 10,000 to 1 against this being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. I'll let others (hopefully including Andrey Feuerverger) respond to Ingermanson's math. All I'll say is that his calculations (using the same basic data) do not bode well for the Jesus family tomb proposal.

Tabor has read enough of the post to know that Ingermanson disputes the book's thesis. But what puzzles me is that he cites the incidental comment about the book but completely ignores the substance of a potentially damning argument. Hopefully Feuerverger (and qualified others) will respond.

In the mean time, here are a few of Ingermanson's points. For the rest, do see for yourself.

Since Maria and Mariamenon are two of many variants of the name Mary, they should be treated as such. (If one ossuary had read, say, Mariam, Jacobovici would have been just as inclined to investigate the Jesus family connection.)To treat Mariamenon as more than a variant of Mary, and thus as more statistically significant, one has to show that this variant is distinctly appropriate as a designation for Mary Magdalene. This is precisely what they have not done.
The correct factor to use when estimating the probability that we have found Jesus' tomb is 80,000, not 1,000. That is, we want to know "how many men in Jerusalem could have conceivably had a father named Joseph and who could have been buried with five persons with a given set of names related to Jesus of Nazareth (2 Marys, 3 males with names chosen from the known brothers and disciples of Jesus)." The number of males who lived during the relevant period is estimated at 80,000.
The proper question is not: "How many such men might have existed and then been buried in family tombs of the type we've found?" Feuerverger "effectively added a factor that is irrelevant -- being buried in a family tomb. There is no reason to believe that the family of Jesus of Nazareth was more likely to have a family tomb than other families."
"The probability is VERY low that Jesus of Nazareth had a son." This fact should have been included in the Feuerverger's calculations.

UPDATE (March 12, 2007): In a comment posted on Mark Goodacre's NTGateway blog James Tabor, gentle and respectful as ever, has promised a reply to the substance of Ingermanson's critique:

What a model of sensibility and good taste. I do not think he is correct on his statistical analysis as far as I can follow it, but I want to consider it further and run it by the people I am working with. I have a take on the historical circumstances that I think really adds to the picture considerably from the work I have done on the Jesus Family.

Charlesworth: Jesus' bones? No. Jesus' family tomb? Maybe.

2007-03-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

Perhaps to qualify or clarify his earlier statements that seemed to validate Jacobovici's claims, James H. Charlesworth, George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary has posted a statement on the seminary webpage that includes seven observations about the "Jesus, son of Joseph" ossuary. I like them because they span the disciplines from epigraphy to archaeology to social science to history to biblical studies. Here they are, as they appear on Deinde:

The scribbling is not an inscription, it is a sloppy graffiti.
The name "Jesus" before "son of Joseph" is the most difficult name to read among all the names in the tomb.
All archaeologists and historians know that the names "Jesus" and "Joseph" are two of the most common names in first-century Jerusalem.
The ossuary is remarkably ordinary without any ornamentation; this may indicate that the remains placed inside belonged to someone rather common.
After Jesus' crucifixion as a common criminal, some priests wanted to stop (even kill) those who were claiming that Jesus was the Son of God because God had raised him from the dead. They could have produced the bones of Jesus rather easily and thus thwarted those who claimed that God had raised Jesus from the dead.
The so-called "Jesus tomb" is not far from the place where Caiaphas's ossuary was recovered. The "Jesus tomb" is decorated and elegant and would have been clearly visible before 70 CE when Roman soldiers destroyed the area. The priests who sought to stop the Palestinian Jesus Movement would have known about this tomb, regardless of who was placed inside.
The authors of the Gospels report that Jesus was placed in a tomb prepared for the family of Joseph of Arimathea; there is no New Testament evidence that Jesus' family had a tomb.

Points 1, 2, 4 & 6 are more substantive together than separately. For the Jacobovici hypothesis to be true, we would have to imagine that although the family tomb was "decorated and elegant," Jesus' clan did almost nothing to honor the bones of their most honorable member. Indeed, his ossuary was more hastily and less carefully "inscribed" than any of the others, including the one belonging to little "brother" Jose.

Points 5, 6 & 7, in combination, amount to a historical argument that Jesus' enemies would likely have known where his family tomb was. This has not, to my knowledge, received an adequate response from the documentary's proponents. To be fair, though, the claim that the tomb's location and association with Jesus would have been public knowledge involves a measure of speculation.

Point number 3 (the commonness of two names) is not in disupte but carries little weight if the issue is the statistical probability of a cluster of names.

Two additional thoughts relate to other remarks by Charlesworth. First, about Jesus' "clan":

a good case has been made for the possibility that the tomb of Jesus' "clan" may have been discovered. By "clan" I mean "extended family group". This possibility needs to be researched and debated in a scholarly symposium.

This puzzles me. If Charlesworth doesn't think the "Jesus, son of Joseph" bone box held the bones of Jesus of Nazareth, how would the Talpiot ossuary evidence amount to a "good case" that this particular tomb belonged to Jesus' "clan"? Perhaps he doesn't view his seven observations as ultimately decisive.

Second, about his closing word:

There is nothing that archaeology can provide that can be damaging to Christian faith. Archaeology cannot form faith; it can only inform faith.

This notion that nothing unearthed by archaeology can be damaging to Christian faith is entirely unpersuasive to me. If Christianity is a fundamentally historical faith--a faith that rests on claims about events that really happened--and if archaeology sometimes overturns the way we understand history, shouldn't we be open in principle to archaeological discoveries that undermine faith? What if the Talpiot tomb had been found, intact and undisturbed, with ossuaries inscribed with the names of all known members of Jesus' family (but no one else), each one containing bones (one with nail holes in all the right places)? And what if the same tomb held jars containing previously unknown scrolls (whose authenticity and dates could not be denied) that offered a narrative that completely challenged the Gospels credibility? Would Charlesworth's faith still come through unscathed? It's a crazy hypothetical, of course, so maybe it doesn't help. But I still have to wonder.

Who's your daddy? The contribution of Patronymics to the Talpiot ossuary inscriptions

2007-03-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

The ancient practice of patronymics--of naming people based on their fathers--spans both continents and centuries. Examples from four different languages are Johnson, Ben-Gurion, Ibn Ezra, and Barnabas. On the Society of Biblical Literature Forum, Christopher Rollston, Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Emmanuel School of Relgion, helpfully explains the significance of patronymics for the current Jesus tomb debate. Rollston's point is simply that it is irresponsible to imply that we can know how the tomb's various occupants are related since only two of the inscribed names (Yehudah bar Yeshua and Yeshua bar Yosep) have patronymics:

without patronymics it is not possible for someone in the modern period to ascertain the precise kinship relationships of antiquity

He is not the first to note that the nuclear family the Jacobovici team claims to have found is only one of many possible configurations. But he may be the first to press the point based on the regretable lack of explicit father-child relationships among the inscriptions. Here's what Rollston has to say about Jose/Josah, the name Jacobovici matches with Jesus' brother Jose (Mark 6:3):

Yoseh could be the son of Mattiyah, or the son of Yehudah, or the son of Yeshua'. Perhaps, he was the father of Maryah, or the father of Miriamne, or Mattiyah. Maybe he is the uncle of one of these. Perhaps, Yoseh was the son or father or brother or uncle of someone who was buried in one of the ossuaries that does not contain an inscription. It is possible to suggest that he was a cousin of someone in the tomb. Not all of these are mutually exclusive, but ultimately, because there is neither patronymic, statement of relationship (e.g., brother), or title, any suggestion about the relationship of Yoseh to those interred here remains conjecture and speculation. (emphasis added)

You get the idea: the lack of patronymics dooms us to uncertainty regarding the various family relationships in the Talpiot tomb. But it seems to me that James Tabor, Simcha Jacobovici and Andrey Feuerverger would conceed the point. Their argument only requires that the collocation of these four names--Jesus, Joseph, Mary and Jose (with only one father-child relationship specified)--be sufficiently improbable that it would not have occured more than once in, say, every 600 familes. Rollston's point carries weight: we can only guess at how to draw the family tree. But it is not clear to me that it defeats the argument from probability.

Was the Talpiot tomb robbed in antiquity?

2007-03-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to James Tabor for posting the preliminary report written by the late Yosef Gath, the archaeologist who was assigned to the Talpiot excavation in 1980. Shimon Gibson is credited for the English translation. It confirms that when excavated the tomb floor lay buried under a meter of soil. Two other lines caught my eye:

It appeared that the blocking stone for the entrance had been removed

This seems to be describing the state of the tomb before it was discovered by construction workers (though this point should be confirmed). Consistent with this, the report also notes that:

Two ossuary lids, found on the floor of the central room, under the fill of soil, indicate an ancient disturbance.

Presumably these two points complicate an argument that the remains (including DNA material) in each box must correspond to the names on the lid. And they raise other questions. Do we know to which ossuaries the two lids belonged? Can we know when the grave was disturbed? And for how long it stood open? Tabor promises to add his own comments that may address some of these points.

James Tabor on the 10th ossuary

2007-03-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

I posted earlier on the shifting fortunes of the so-called "James ossuary." Apart from its role in the on-going antiquities fraud trial of Oded Golan, the issue garnering attention on the blogs is whether or not it might have come from the Talpiot tomb. Even if someone forged brother of Jesus, the first half of the inscription--James, son of Joseph--could be significant in its own right. Two recent blog entries by James Tabor are sure to add fuel to this debate.

In the first, from March 6, 2007, Tabor takes issue with the story (recounted, e.g., here) that Joe Zias claims the 10th Talpiot ossuary was plain, un-inscribed, and thus relegated to the lowly courtyard of the IAA warehouse where it cannot now be located. According to Tabor, Zias acknowledged to him on June 30, 2006, that

he had no idea what might have happened to it but it was possible, in those days, that it was put back in the courtyard and just left and forgotten. He also suggested it might have just been misplaced in the IAA warehouse and gave me examples of other things that had just gone missing, or were just misshelved and could not be found.

So we have two versions of what happened back in 1980, both attributed to the same source: Joe Zias. Curious.

In the second post, dated Mary 7, 2007, Tabor explains that the designation "missing," as applied to the 10th ossuary, was not coined by him or Jacobovici for dramatic effect. Rather, it was used by the curator of the IAA warehouse in Bet Shemesh, when Tabor and Shimon Gibson inquired about the 10th bone box in 2005. And in response to suggestions that the 10th box was placed outside because it was plain, Tabor observes:

the other “plain” ossuary (80.506), of the four listed “uninscribed,” is not much to look at, yet it was retained and is on the shelves today, and there is a photo and description of it in the files. In contrast there is no photo nor description of the “10th.”

Why would some plain boxes be catalogued and photographed while others are not?

I'm struck by three things in reading Tabor's latest posts. One, he knows more than he is telling. Two, back in the 70s and 80s the IAA may have had difficulty handling the influx of archaeological artifacts. And three, Tabor (at least in print) is remaining remarkably gracious, irenic and non-combative, in the face of harsh criticism. If only the rest of us were as well-behaved.

Ground Zero in the Jesus Tomb Debate

2007-03-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

Whether due to fatigue or the onset of March Madness, "Jesus tomb" blogging is definitely slowing. The key issues continue to be two:

1. The statistical improbability of the collection of names inscribed on the Talpiot ossuaries.

How significant is it that we would have in one tomb the names Jesus son of Joseph, Maria and Jose, all of which are known to belong to Jesus' nuclear family? [Far less clear is the statistical relevance of the other three Talpiot names: Mariamenou Mara, Mati and Judah son of Jesus. As for James son of Joseph brother of Jesus on the separate James ossuary, the jury is literally out.] Evidently Andrey Feuerverger, Professor of Statistics at U. of T., has been quoted and misquoted, understood and misunderstood. Alas, most of us know just enough to know that we don't know enough to add anything useful to the debate. Meanwhile the beseiged James Tabor, aided by statistical "advisors," continues to find the stats in the documentary persuasive and promises more blog entries to come.

2. The historical improbability of several key claims.
These claims include:

that Jesus' family would have had a family tomb in Jerusalem
that Jesus' family would have continued to use a tomb (containing Jesus' bones) between 30 and 70 C.E. while the Jesus movement was emerging
that Jesus of Nazareth was married
that Jesus of Nazareth had a son
that Mariamenon was a name applied to Mary Magdalene in the 1st century
that Magdala (Mary's home town on the Sea of Galilee) was a center of Greek language and trade (thus explaining why her inscription is in Greek while her "husband's" is in Hebrew characters)

Lingering Questions and Loose Ends

2007-03-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of lingering questions about the Jesus tomb controversy. Several of them were prompted by remarks from archaeologist Joe Zias whose "viewer's guide" I noted earlier:

1. What are the odds that a DNA sample taken from any given ossuary is from the name of the person inscribed on it? Joe Zias says he "published in 1992 a tomb with 15 ossuaries, 88 people and one name." That's almost six skeletons per ossuary, likely added over a period of decades.

2. Was secondary burial (i.e., the use of ossuaries) practiced only by the conservative religious fringe of Jewish society, as Eric Meyers (a renowned archaeologist and former professor of mine) seemed to suggest on NPR today? Here's a quote from his interview:

Secondary burial was practiced by Jews in the first century, first century BCE as well, by very, very pious--the most pious--individuals whom many identify with [an] extreme version of the Pharisees. This is an odd group for Jesus to be associated with.

3. Can we verify that a dated (and undisputed) picture of the James ossuary confirms it was in Oded Golan's collection in 1976, four years before the Talpiot tomb was opened? According to Joe Zias:

last week . . . Oded Golan the owner of the ossuary in question, who is on trial for forging objects, produced a photograph of the ossuary with a time stamp 1976, four years before the Talpiot tomb was accidentally discovered!

In one post Ben Witherington refers to a "1970s-era picture"; in another, dated Feb 26, 2007, he is more specific:

Former FBI agent Gerald Richard testified that a photo of the James ossuary, showing it in Golan's home, was taken in the 1970s, based on tests done by the FBI photo lab.

So one version of this story suggests a date-stamped picture, and another has the FBI doing tests to determine the date.

UPDATE (Mar. 8, 2007): This article in Haaretz, dated Feb. 9, 2007 (o.k. I'm slow), appears to have answers to my questions. The relevant part is this:

In the defense's photographs, dated 1976, the ossuary is shown on a shelf, apparently in Golan's home. In an enlargement, the whole inscription can be seen with great difficulty. The photo was examined by Gerald Richard, a former FBI agent and an expert for the defense. Richard testified that "Nothing was noted that would indicate or suggest that they were not produced in March 1976 as indicated on the stamps appearing on the reverse side of each print."

Golan's attorney, Lior Beringer, told Haaretz that the photos support the defense's position. "The prosecution claims that Golan forged the inscription after the beginning of 2000. But here is a detailed report from an FBI photo lab that states that the inscription existed at least since the 70s," Beringer said. "It is unreasonable that someone would forge an inscription like this in the 70s and suddenly decide to come out with it in 2002," he added.

The date of the photo is also significant legally because any antiquity discovered in Israel since the passage of the 1978 Antiquities Law belongs to the state.

If this withstands scrutiny it could conceivably accomplish two things simultaneously:
1. Exonerate Golan of charges that he forged the James ossuary.
2. Preclude the possibility that the James ossuary was originally found in the Talpiot tomb.
Fascinating.

On a related note, Jonathan Reed was adamant on Ted Koppel's panel last night that the archaeologists who removed all ten ossuaries would not have missed an inscription on the 10th one, as Jacobovici and Tabor are suggesting. Of course, if it were blank, the James ossuary must be eliminated from the equation.

4. Can we confirm that the James ossuary is indeed 20% different in (at least) one dimension compared to the so-called 10th ossuary from the Talpiot cave? Here's Zias once more:

an enterprising skeptic here in Jerusalem checked the dimensions of the two 'identical' ossuaries and found that the Talpiot plain white "missing" ossuary is approximately 20% longer than the James brother of Jesus ossuary.

Who was this "enterprising skeptic"? Where is this information available? This is important because James Tabor, in The Jesus Dynasty, p.32, says otherwise:

Just recently I noticed that the dimensions of the missing tenth ossuary are precisely the same, to the centimeter, to those of the James ossuary.

UPDATE (March 12, 2007): J. D. Walters points us to the relevant measurements of the "James" bone box) on his site, Theory of Everything: God.

according to the Biblical Archeology Review reportof the James ossuary, these are the dimensions given: "This ossuary is . . . 20 inches long (50.5 cm) at the base and flairs out to almost 22 inches (56 cm) at the top. . . The ossuary is 10 inches (25 cm) wide and 12 inches (30.5 cm) high.

As for the missing "10th" ossuary, its measurements are given in Amos Kloner's 1996 report, conveniently available on the Discovery Channel site, as 60 x 26 x 30 cm. Given this discrepancy--roughly 10 cm difference in length at the base, 1 cm difference in width--Walters presses Tabor to back his claim that the two ossuaries are the same size in a lively exchange (sizzling by academic standards) in the comments of Mark Goodacre's March 8 post:

Kloner 1996, based on the original notes of Yosef Gat, states the dimensions of the 10th ossuary as 60-26-30 (cm). The official report on the James Ossuary at BAR lists the dimensions of the James Ossuary as 50.5-25-30.5(cm). Yet Dr Tabor claimed in his book that the dimensions of the 10th missing ossuary match those of the James Ossuary "to the centimeter". So the question is, does he have measurements of the 10th ossuary and the James Ossuary different from those cited in the literature, and if so where did he get them from? And if not, how does he justify this claim?

In response, Tabor indicates that he isn't free or ready to give a fuller account. This seems strange but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps there are conflicting accounts of who measured what (and how carefully) during the 1980 dig. And there's always politics. In Isael, archaeology is always political.

5. What is the evidence that this tomb, or any other, was a family tomb? I don't doubt that family tombs existed, but I'm wondering how we know. Were all tombs family tombs? And how common would it be to have non-family buried in a family tomb?

6. Is there any evidence from ancient Jewish sources of Friday (pre-Sabbath) burials in tombs that were only intended to store the body until after the Sabbath? Is there any evidence at all of any body being buried with the full intention of retrieving and re-burying it in another tomb?

7. According to the Gospels (Luke 23:50-54; John 19:38-42), Jesus was buried in a new tomb near the site of execution--a tomb that presumably belonged to someone other than Jesus' family since the burial was arranged by council member Joseph from the town of Arimathea. Doesn't this story imply that Jesus' family did not have a family tomb in the Jerusalem area?

8. What do we know about the relationship of social class to burial practice? In general the literature suggests that rich people had tombs and poor people used trenches (and thus no secondary burial). Jodi Magness' recent article on the SBL Forum makes precisely this claim. (Magness' article is also now available on the Biblical Archaeology Review site.) Do we know how rich one had to be to have a family tomb? What other factors (besides wealth) might cause one to be buried in a tomb rather than a trench?

9. What do we really know about the social standing or class of Jesus' Galilean family? Were Jesus and his disciples lower class as Jodi Magness and most scholars contend or is James Tabor right that they weren't as poor as Christian tradition tends to assume?

Archaeo-p_o_r_n

2007-03-05T01:25:00.000-08:00

I guess I was hoping for more from Ted Koppel and the post-game discussion of the Lost Tomb of Jesus documentary. He did show that he'd done his homework; he'd called a number of the scholars quoted in the film and learned that they weren't nearly so supportive of the film's thesis than they appeared to be on screen.

But Koppel spent so much time challenging Simcha for his lavish historical re-enactments. Apparently they were too well done (or something) and too "powerful" (so, Professor Judy Fentress-Williams from Virginia Theological seminary, one of Koppel's panelists). This is curious to me for two reasons.

First, what's wrong with dramatizing what you are describing? As Darrell Bock rightly pointed out, preachers do it all the time. The film was clearly advocating (commending, proposing) a particular reading of the evidence; it did so explicitly through the journalistic bits and implicitly through the dramatic scenes. I disagree with the film's findings but I thought the acted bits were nicely done. James Cameron knows what he is doing. (Indeed, many of the scientific and archaeological scenes were re-enactments as well. And superbly done. Nothing wrong with telling a well-wrought tale.) The problem is that The Lost Tomb of Jesus consistently fails to live up to the ideals of dispassionate journalism. It isn't an even-handed documentary, it's one-sided advocacy bordering on propaganda.

Second, I thought this angle took valuable time away from more important matters. William Devers and Jonathan Reed were woefully underused. They should have been given much more air time than they got. Rather than have Koppel ask the questions, why not let Dever and Reed pose a few? Both seemed to have much more to say and, from all I've read, their negative assessments of the project are typical of the academy at large, so they spoke on behalf of the (vast?) majority of religion scholars and archaeologists.

Jonathan Reed, archaeologist and University of La Verne professor (and friend), had one of the best phrases of the night. He called the documentary "archaeo-p_o_r_n." I don't know if he coined the term but it's a keeper. Dever leveled a similar charge but used less colorful language. The complaint is that the film makes archaeology look like an Indiana Jones movie or a Dan Brown novel. Real archaeologists, scientists and historians labor in relative obscurity and poverty trying to say only what the evidence requires. And no more. By contrast, the wild speculations of the Jacobovici documentary are to responsible investigation what promiscuous sex is to faithful monogamy.

Stats anyone?

2007-03-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

The key statistician used in the Talpiot documentary research was Andrey Feuerverger whose reply to critics and inquirers is now available on his website. Mark Goodacre reflects on some of his comments.

UPDATE (3-9-07): All agree that Feuerverger's statistics can only be as good as the assumptions underlying them. Chris Heard, over at Higgaion, notes problems with some of those assumptions. He links to posts by Mark Goodacre and Richard Bauckham but also offers his own insights. For example, on Feuerverger's assumption that Yose/Yosah on ossuary #4 (allegedly the Joses of Mark 6:3) is not the same person as Yehosef (father of Yeshua) on ossuary #1 (allegedly Joseph, the father of Jesus of Nazareth), Heard observes:

I’m not sure why this should be assumed. I suppose that it seems common-sensical to think that the same person wouldn’t be named in two different ways on ossuaries in the same tomb, but then again, it’s hardly a slam-dunk case. The filmmakers argue that יוסה is a diminutive form of יהוסף, but that the Talpiot יוסה is not the Talpiot יהוסף, but at the very same time, they want you to believe that the Talpiot Μαριαμήνου Μἀρα is Mary Magdalene, even though no early Christian source—not even the apocryphal Acts of Philip, on which the filmmakers apparently rely—calls Mary Magdalene by this name. This double-standard—the same man couldn’t possibly be known by his full name on one ossuary and a nickname on the other, but a woman could be known on her ossuary by an otherwise completely unattested name—undermines the entire case.

Jacobovici may be right that Yehosef and Yose are different people, but it does seem to be a case of assuming what you set out to prove.

Viewers' Guide to The Lost Tomb of Jesus

2007-03-04T09:01:00.000-08:00

Joe Zias has posted a very useful (and highly critical) "viewers guide" to the Talpiot tomb documentary. Among many interesting comments you'll find remarks like this:

Whereas their attempt as probability looks impressive, a 600 to 1 chance that it is the 'Family', it falls flat when one realizes that the info. given to the statistician was that of a nuclear family of ca 10 people whereas the truth of the matter is that the family of 10 is an extended family of maybe 50 or more comprising 4-5 generations, as a result it simply cannot be computed. They knew this and I have the feeling that this info. was not divulged to the mathematician.

Joe Zias is a highly respected anthropologist/archaeologist known for his sound judgment and solid scholarship. Here's a nice piece by Zias on ancient crucifixion (in case you've had enough of the Talpiot tomb).

DNA Test proves Virgin Birth!

2007-03-03T23:23:00.000-08:00

Well, no. Not yet, anyway. But as Allessandra Stanley says in today's New York Times, the same logic driving the Lost Family Tomb findings could be put to use in other ways:

forensic research could solve all kinds of mysteries. If Y-chromosome samples from Joseph and Jesus showed no genetic link between father and son, then the Discovery Channel could take credit for proving the Virgin birth.

She's kidding, of course, but still.

The Beloved Disciple: Not John or Mary Magdalene but Judas, son of Jesus (?)

2007-03-03T16:07:00.000-08:00

O.K. so I bought the book. I was in Chaucer's yesterday buying travel books about the Middle East for a trip this summer when I spied it prominently displayed on a table by the door. Since I'll be screening the documentary with my students Sunday night, I sheepishly added The Jesus Family Tomb to my stack of books and got in line to check out.

Skimming the book, I landed on the Conclusion in which Simcha Jacobovici muses over how the and film came to be, and what it all means. Several bits caught my eye including this recollection of how the media executives reacted when they first screened the film:

There was nervous laughter in the room, and then the executives fell back on executive-type talk: How close to Easter should we play this? How long should it run? And my favorite: We should adopt a skeptical tone throughout (p.193).

It's just a brief glimpse behind the curtain, to be sure, but it's also a good reminder that television is, above all, a commercial enterprise cloaked in a veneer of sober minded journalism. If I were Simcha, I would have left that part out.

Simcha uses his Conclusion to boil down and press the book's thesis. It also contains, however, several howlers. Like this:

"the only reason two unrelated individuals, male and female, would appear together in a family tomb in first-century Jerusalem is if they were husband and wife."

This is so palpably illogical that I read it multiple times looking for a typo. Let's see: we haven't established that it is a family tomb in the first place, and the filmmakers only ran DNA tests on two of the nine ossuaries, and no one knows how many people's bones were stored in each one, and either of the two DNA contributors could be related by blood, or by marriage, to someone else in the tomb (including someone in the same bone box!). Perhaps I'm missing something or maybe Simcha was suffering from authorial fatigue. Even James Tabor, one of very few religion scholars to publicly support the project, acknowledges that

any family tomb of this type, whether that of Jesus or anyone else, can have individuals not related by blood to the main clan.

Here's one more example of how bold indeed is Simcha's thesis (and why I should have saved my $27.95). It turns out according to Simcha that Didymus Thomas (see Jn 11:16; 20:24; 21:2), who is explicitly numbered among the Twelve in John's Gospel, is Jesus' son, whose real name, as inscribed on the Judah-bar-Jeshua ossuary, is now known to be Judah.

Does the fact that "Thomas" and "Didymus" mean "twin" mean that the Gospels are hiding something? Could it be that "the Twin" wasn't actually a twin but was Jesus' son? Could "twin" be code language designed to protect the child from Roman rulers who were inclined to kill not only royal pretenders but their offspring as well?

Breathless stuff, this. But there's more. This son of Jesus is also the cryptic "Beloved Disciple" of John's Gospel, the one who famously reclined on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper (Jn 13:23). How do we know? Because, as Simcha explains, no one but a son would snuggle up to Jesus like that:

Unless your eating habits are very different from mine, at my dinner table only my kids cuddle with me and lean against my chest. The Beloved Disciple, therefore, is clearly very young.

To what authority does Jacobovici turn to bolster his argument? To a woodcut of 16th century German artist, Albrecht Durer. So there you go: it must be true. So Dan Brown's hypothesis that the breast-leaner was Jesus' wife must give way to another--it was his child. (Perhaps Mary Magdalene was nearby, serving drinks.)

I'm surprised that Simcha doesn't seem to know that Jesus and his disciples did indeed have different eating habits from ours: they ate reclining, leaning on one elbow, so that pretty much everyone was reclining on someone else's breast.

Given that his story has by this point taken on a Fletch-like quality, we shouldn't be surprise that we are invited to identify Didymus-Judas-Thomas (i.e., Judah, son of Jesus a.k.a. the "Beloved Disciple") as the unnamed young man who fled naked from the scene of Jesus' arrest (Mk 14:51-52). Here was Jesus' son, watching in horror as his father is arrested, then fleeing the scene to relate through tears what he saw to his mother who is, of course, Mary Magdalene.

This connection between three historical figures--Thomas, the Beloved Disciple and the young, fleeing disciple (bracketing, for the moment, its corollary that Jesus of Nazareth was a father)--is wildly speculative, historically problematic and sure to be ranked among the least serious elements of Jacobovici's proposal.

UPDATE (3-6-07): Danny Zacharias has a nice post on the "supposed literary evidence for Jesus' son" in which the identities of the various figures here mentioned are examined.

Married, with children? Or buried, with family?

2007-03-03T10:32:00.000-08:00

In today's Ventura County Star, journalist John Scheibe weighs in on the "Jesus Family Tomb". Having spent an hour with John on the phone two days ago, I am one of the local scholars he features in the piece.

Which is why I'd like to follow up, not because I was misquoted but because of the way the article frames the controversy in terms of two key issues:

The claims are an assault on two of Christianity's central tenets: The first is that Jesus was resurrected after his brutal crucifixion and ascended to heaven in his earthly body some 40 days after he arose from his tomb. The second is that Christ lived a celibate life on Earth free of any knowledge of the flesh.

Apart from the odd way the final sentence is formulated, the quote suggests that the celibate status of Jesus is a "central tenet" of Christianity. So whether or not Jesus was "married with children" ranks right up there with whether or not Jesus' body remained in the grave.

In fact Scheibe credits Julia Fogg, assistant professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at California Lutheran University, with the idea that whether Jesus was a family man is "the deeper question" raised by the documentary.

Jesus' celibacy is a "central tenet"? It's "the deeper question"? Even though my favorite comedian, Jon Stewart, apparently agrees, this seems to me to be a fundamental misreading of the New Testament story. Even Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code, p.245) knows that the New Testament is completely silent on Jesus' marital status. But for Brown and a few others, this silence counts as evidence that Jesus was married. Every good Jewish boy got married, the argument runs. So we should assume marriage unless told otherwise. The burden of proof is on those who argue for Jesus' celibacy.

This is problematic on several levels. As Bart Ehrman, religion professor at UNC Chapel Hill, points out:

Not a single one of our ancient sources indicates that Jesus was married, let alone married to Mary Magdalene. All such claims are part of modern fictional reconstructions of Jesus’ life, not rooted in the surviving accounts themselves.

More positively, there is good reason to believe that a Jewish apocalyptic prophet who was fully convinced that God was present and active in his ministry would forego marriage for the Cause. Since others have posted at length on the subject, you can read more at "Religion Facts" as well as the BeliefNet comments of Darrell Bock and Bart Ehrman.

My point in this post is that, in contrast to the New Testament's silence on Jesus' marital status, the noise it makes about Jesus resurrection is deafening. Not only do the Gospels contain stories about the empty tomb and about Jesus' appearances, but the book of Acts makes it clear that early Christian proclamation could be boiled down to a simple one-liner: God raised Jesus from the dead. Here's a sampling:

Acts 2:24; 3:15, 26; 4:10; 5:30; 13:30, 33, 34, 37; 17:30-31; 23:6; 24:15, 21; 25:19; 26:8, 22-23.

Was Jesus married, with children? I don't think so. If he were I'd be surprised (and would feel for his wife), but nothing essential to my faith would change. Was Jesus buried, in the family tomb, and were his bones collected and tucked into an ossuary? I don't think so. But if he were, the ground would move under my feet. My first moves would be to resign my teaching post at an evangelical college and cancel my membership at church. After that I'm not sure what I would do. Probably go back to carpentry.

If they had different moms they must be married (?)

2007-02-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

The Discovery Channel documentary website deserves some kind of award for the way it lays out the issues, among them the role of DNA in the investigation of the Talpiot ossuaries.

Turns out a lab up in Ontario (my home province) tested residue from two (and only two) ossuaries: the one inscribed Yeshua bar Yosef and the one inscribed Mariamene Mara. Chris Heard, religion professor at Pepperdine, does a nice job sorting out what these tests can, and cannot, show. Chris points out that:

the only DNA-based claim made by the filmmakers is that the Talpiot tomb’s Mariamne Mara was neither Yeshua bar Yehosef’s sister nor mother.

I'll wait until I see the documentary to decide whether or not they imply more than they claim. I'm betting they do.

Even with this modest claim, however, there are problems, like the apparent assumption that the DNA residue the Canadian scientists retrieved belonged to the person whose name is on the box. As Chris puts it:

Unless the DNA in question can be shown to have come from the person named in the ossuary’s inscription, the DNA evidence is absolutely meaningless for reconstructing the relationship between the parties buried in the tomb.

Chris would be correct, of course, if we were trying to solve a murder case. The jury would have reasonable doubt. Whether the same standard of proof should apply to this case is, I suppose, an interesting question.

Moving on, Chris outlines the logic of their argument as he understands it:

(1) The Talpiot tomb is a family tomb. (2) The only women buried in a family tomb would be (a) women who married into the family or (b) women born into the family who, at the time of their death, had never been married. (3) Since Yeshua and Miriamne were not related, Miriamne must have married into the family.

Oddly enough, the filmmakers apparently assume that

if Miriamne married into the family, she married Yeshua. Four of the six ossuary inscriptions name men. Why should it be assumed that Miriamne was Yeshua’s wife? Why not Yehudah’s wife, or Yose’s wife, or Matia’s wife? And, of course, the possibility would still remain that she was Yeshua’s daughter, or Yehudah’s or Yose’s or Matia’s daughter, and so on down the line. The full range of possibilities has not been explored. Rather, the filmmakers have jumped to a "sexy" conclusion that is not contravened by the available evidence, but neither is it really supported by the evidence.

Interesting stuff. For more, read Chris' full post and check back; I'm guessing he'll have more to say before long.

Early Christianity's Dirty Little Secret?

2007-02-28T17:37:00.000-08:00

My good friend and Biblical scholar, Brian Schultz (Ph.D. Bar Ilan University), poses the following question about the Jesus-family-tomb hypothesis:

How could Christianity spread as a religion about a resurrected messiah when the entire Jerusalem community, including James, brother of Jesus and leader of the church, knew where Jesus' tomb could be found?

Good question. Brian is assuming, with good reason, that the location of any given family tomb would not be a secret. He continues:

Even discussing the possibility that this tomb could be of Jesus is an insult to the intelligence of 1st century people, both Christians who believed the message, and Jews who felt they had to fight against it without ever appealing to his existing tomb that continued to be in use for at least another generation!

The point is that as Jesus' family tomb, it would have been used and reused over the next generation, presumably up until 70 C.E. Is there any evidence anywhere that this location, or any location, was rumored to be the final resting place of Jesus? The closest we have, I suspect, are texts that hint at the possibility that the body was moved from somewhere else (Mt 28:13; Jn 20:2, 13, 15). Which isn't very close.

As Schultz reminds us, the Jesus-family-tomb hypothesis requires that this tomb be used by Jesus' family over several generations precisely when his family and others are proclaiming that Jesus' body did not stay in the grave. Personally, I find the idea that Jesus' family had a dirty little secret about as plausible as the idea that Mary Magdalene snuck off to France so her daughter could marry into the French royal bloodline.