V -
That 's the problem (or advantage) of paganism. Ask the right god and get whatever you want. So add garlic if you wish.
[b]Felix - your assignments are not particularly easy.
The death of Jesus was a “blow” to his disciples, as scripture indicates and human nature might prescribe. But Wright’s claim that Jesus, like “all anticipated messiahs” of his era, thought that he “would aid a climactic triumph over evil by exercising leadership here on earth— which meant, for starters, not dying before the climactic triumph over evil” is not verified.
Jesus, as a man, expected to die. On the cross, his disappointment that his God had not intervened to save him (had forsaken him) indicates the slight extent to which he might have bought into the rumor of his being the Messiah of Hebrew scripture. But he was never that kind of messiah who, with sword in hand, would conquer the world and install the Kingdom of God on earth by force. On the cross, he was not urging any kind of violent insurgency, not even in those final desperate moments.
The Jewish culture was prideful of its own history, especially the kingdoms of David and Solomon. The Roman oppression would have instigated a broad yearning for the Messiah promised by scripture to arrive finally and straighten this lack of dominance for the Hebrew people. And, in the traditional Hebrew way, the solution would be violent, for theirs was the God of wrath.
The passing of Jesus, with so little immediate and visible results, posed a problem for some Christians, who invented the pagan solution of a Second Coming of Christ, now a deity, to do the wrath-filled thing he neglected to do the first time around and who hustled to explain what Jesus had been doing, such as dying on the cross to save us from our sins.
I accept the consensus view that an embittered Jewish population would have fostered the growth of more than a handful of messiah-contenders, given the Roman occupation. Each one would or should have had a strategy to bring about a radical change in the world, which for many of them meant violent insurgency against their oppressors.
Reality check: the prospect for defeating Rome by military force in Palestine in the era of Jesus was non-existent and attempts in that direction led to the utter destruction of Jerusalem’s holiest sites and dispersion of the Jews in 70A.D.
Jesus had a different strategy to change the world which relied on realizing the spirit of a loving God through the actions of ordinary people. I have stressed the notion of radical democracy at the local level which Jayson found to be part of the local governance at the village level in historical Galilee as indicative of the power of people to govern and make change. His Way was open to everyone and he believed it would change the world and bring the Kingdom of God to earth.
I find the following summary by Wright acceptable: “The New Testament’s authors, in recounting the life of Jesus, created the illusion that post-Crucifixion belief was basically the same as precrucifixion belief. The Christianity that evolved in the decades and centuries after Jesus’s death— the Christianity that had Crucifixion as its natural core— was made to look like a straightforward extension of what Jesus himself had said and done. And in some cases that meant twisting what Jesus had actually said and done.”
[/b]
Here’s a different and plausible view that explains some of the otherwise mysterious actions Jesus took in Jerusalem before being crucified:
Felix - Thanks for the reference. An amazing article. I have a personal interest in this point of view since I am Jewish by matri-lineal descent from my great grandmother, although she died young and her daughters were raised Protestant. I will have a comment after I have read it a few more times and have digested the concepts and information. I recommend the whole article to all readers
It’s a bit sloppy to assert Luke left anything in as “original”, considering how grammatically stellar Luke is in its Greek.
You can actually teach Greek literary grammar, prose, narrative symbolism, et. al. using nothing more than Luke alone; it’s that good.
Anytime I’m not sure exactly how the grammar should normally appear (let’s say I’m digging through the grammatical consistency mess of John), then I turn to Luke to see what the academic standard was for Greek as a baseline of comparison to the other texts.
As such, I really quite strongly have my reservations of just jumping to a conclusion that “two swords” were purchased in all reality in such a manner et. al. of the situation described; conveniently in prose for the symbol of struggle.
That only two swords is chosen to be listed in such a literarily stellar text, to me, should not be overlooked as an accident, but instead exacting as any such symbolism and foreshadowing mechanic in anything by other artists such as Edger Allan Poe.
Two swords is a very common symbol of conflict and decision.
It was even such in Egypt (Alexandria), as well as in Hellenistic regions.
The author of Luke quite clearly was an academic, and was versed in Hebrew traditions, had quite clearly read the Septuagint to a reasonably detailed level, and was also quite versed in Hellenistic literature and mythology.
Luke appears to be doing two things here, in my opinion, and they are truly very intelligently crafted.
For one, there is the coy play on terms that occurs.
There is a verification that everyone had given up everything and that nothing was needed, and then following this clarification that no one had anything, they were told to then take what they didn’t have and buy swords.
Immediately following, they magically have swords (because it’s convenient for the next part), specifically; just two of them.
I’m quite certain that if this had been a literal account “left in” by Luke, that there would have been 11 swords since everyone had a garment that they could have sold for a sword as per the charge.
But, they had two.
Why two?
Because two, again, is the symbol for a sort of fork in the road, commonly indecision.
Indeed, eventually we see this symbolism working its way into much later iterations of cultural traditions in the “two of swords” where instinct is amplified in an intersection of two options in conflict (one example that eventually shows up and was passed on rather well was in the form of the 14th/15th c CE Tarot, based on its roots in Italian folk traditional symbolisms).
Hebraic texts, of which would have very likely been the Septuagint for the author of Luke, has a long history of bloodshed and swords appearing.
As soon as the swords are brought, the volume satisfaction is used (ikanov), ‘sufficient’.
These are brought to the contest and the decision is openly pointed out by the dialogue in the narrative where we see it directly asked if the swords should be used.
This is essentially taking the implicit mechanic to the explicit mechanic now and our stage is set for the decision to be made in Luke’s narrative telling.
Jesus chooses to not fight.
This, to me, makes far more sense than asserting that Luke left in some account of two swords achieved in an 11 person group of garments that could have easily gained 11 swords by the same merit of the logic of the text itself if taken in the literal, and this also follows far more in line with Luke’s literary style of Greek literary style and talent.
The other view, that he just left it in, is not really justified by any solid logic. It just assumes that because there’s “no reason” for it to be added, that it must therefore be literally true and missing from the other texts even though there’s no logic to that or evidence to support that idea.
There is perfectly good and capable reason for this to be added by Luke, and it would be perfectly reasonable that only the author of Luke could have added this in, in fact.
John is a terrible inconsistent wreck of grammatical accuracy (swinging from pretty good grammar to childish grammar at random as if we’re looking at someone copying and adding onto), Matthew is at times pretty decent and other times terribly Hebrew in grammatical approach to its Greek, and Mark is just terrible for Greek grammar, but excellent for Hebrew grammatical approaches.
Luke stands alone as the Greek literary “genius”, and is thereby the only authorship of these four that could have used such a symbolic mechanic to foreshadow the event of a critical decision of conflict.
[b]
Felix:
Having read your citation from Maccoby, I have the following comments to make:
I question the description of the crucifixion of Jesus as his “failure”, although he failed to be the messiah of Hebrew scripture, as prophesized by Zechariah and possibly others. To have been a failure, Jesus would have to have failed in his purpose and that alleged purpose must be made clear. I have elsewhere in this dialogue outlined the purpose of Jesus’ teachings and the time line has yet to close on its accomplishment. And, although he had no foreknowledge of his crucifixion, he would have been aware of that distinct possibility for his end as any opponent of Roman rule in Palestine would have been.
As a rabbi, Jesus would have been aware of Zechariah’s prophesy of the coming of the Lord and would have hoped the day was close at hand, like many of his Jewish brethren. He and his disciples would have celebrated that prospect and no doubt could have called that celebration “The Last Supper”. On such an occasion, he would have toasted: “Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” For, it was prophesized, that the next meal would be the Messianic feast in heaven celebrating victory over the enemies of Israel. And, in the presence of a wrathful Lord, two swords would be enough to vanquish the heathen nations.
When Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, that pageantry represented symbolism that many Jews would have recognized and roused a cheer and excitement. It also showed respect for the Jewish people. Jesus was one of them.
Nonetheless, the pageantry connected with the hoped-for coming of the Hebrew messiah caused serious alarm to the Jewish authorities, essentially lapdogs for the Roman occupiers who appointed their high priest. They fabricated a threat from their mockery by Jesus, a popular anti-establishment leader, and their machinations led to his crucifixion.
Jesus is depicted as a charismatic but deluded believer in an immediate apocalypse on the day after the Last Supper, but this does not sit well with his belief that only God knows the day and time. “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” This verse is convincing that Jesus did not believe in an imminent apocalypse. So any rendition of the Last Supper as occurring in the context of an immediately expected apocalypse is ill-conceived. All that remains of Maccoby’s analysis, in my opinion, is that Jesus was a charismatic anti-establishment leader who was perceived as a threat by the Jewish priestly leadership and crucified by the Romans at their insistence. [/b]
Jason-I recommend that you read the whole essay that I linked to the citations. There is much more there than the two swords. Lukes grammar as compared to the other gospel writers is irrelevant. Maccoby’s explanation about the two swords is not completely satisfying. But, it’s better than other explanations including yours in my opinion. The two swords are usually cited as a counter-argument to the idea that Jesus was a pacifist. Apart from Maccoby’s explanation, it’s simply perplexing. Your notion that Luke would throw it in for pure symbolic value, I can’t buy. I don’t think any of the gospel writers were throwing in purely symbolic stuff that they didn’t think were significant to the gospel story. But, why would they need swords if God was going to strike the Romans with a plague? I don’t quite get Maccoby’s rationale either. Anyway, it’s just one of the points that Maccoby presents to support his case that Jesus thought that God was about to restore the kingdom of Israel as prophesied. Maccoby’s explanation of why Jesus cursed the fig tree is also the best explanation I’ve read for that otherwise mysterious act. Maccoby’s explanation also gives a fuller explanation for why Jesus was praying at Gesemane.
The basic idea is that the messiah was expected to literally vanquish the Romans and restore the Kingdom of Israel. Jesus failed, because he did not do that. From that point on, everything is spiritualized and pushed into the future in order to rationalize the founder’s untimely execution. Jesus’ failure and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD necessitate the otherworldy religion that Christianity became and opened the door to the Romanization that you decry.
This is exemplified, I believe, in his remark about not drinking wine again until he drinks it in the kingdom of God. I don’t think this was a reference to drinking wine in heaven (there’s wine in heaven 
). No, I think he was saying he’d drink wine in God’s kingdom, that was to be set up on earth. So, I guess he never drank wine again.
I agree that was the basic idea of the whole article but an inaccurate description of the actual role and belief of Jesus in the matter. The rapid growth of Christianity in the face of such an imputed failure cannot be explained but the mental acrobatics of teams of New Testament authors to defend the new, rapidly expanding faith can be. So began the rewrite of the story of Jesus as a deity with an inscrutable plan. I believe that early Christians wanted the story of Jesus written down so they could read, study and pass it along. A Romanized version with paganized insertions and characterizations is what they got from the scholars. The whole endeavor to weave such a complicated cloth culminates with Revelations, the ultimate pagan fantasy.
Good point. The Messianic Feast would take place in the Kingdom of God on earth, according to the prophesy. Heaven on earth?
Why is this so hard to see? The “Last Supper” was a party, at which the participants were drinking wine and probably inebriated. Mary Magdalene might have been there too. It was organized to herald a hoped for intervention by God to end Roman rule but not for an immediate intervention. A lot of memorable things might have been said and some remembered, like at all parties. These were men, after all is said and done. Drunk enough, I might say it would only take two swords to defeat the Roman legions with the help of God, curse a fig tree, make a toast to a hoped for future event like the Messiah’s Feast or say other things for a laugh. Passover was a time of celebration. For Christ’s sake, it was a party! It was not intended to be the doom and gloom event portrayed in the New Testament, but it was part of a package of events including Jesus’ mockery of the Jewish priesthood and riding an ass into Jerusalem that had the dire consequence of his crucifixion. And it would have made Jesus especially vulnerable if Jewish authorities had placed a spy in his midst, which is not unheard of, is it?
So, after you have excised all of what appears to you to be pagan elements from the New Testament, where do you find evidence that Jesus was a democrat?
And why is it so hard to see that the Lord’s Table was a party, with food and drink, not little crackers and sips of wine?
I wasn’t aiming to convince you, I apologize if that was the understanding that I offered.
I only gave a possible and viable alternative reason as simply one example of such, in reference to Maccoby’s action of arriving at a conclusion that it must be left in Luke and removed in the three other Gospels (or any other gospel text) by the premise that he could not imagine a reason for the section to be there aside from it happening.
To Maccoby, that section is benign in any sort of motive (other than literal), and as such, he views it as lacking any possible metaphorical iteration.
If it lacks any possible metaphorical or political motive, then there lacks any motive to Maccoby’s imagination for why this section would be present aside from a motive of accounting actual events.
By comparison, we did that before with the Egyptians and found out that the issue was simply that we hadn’t imagined a motive because we didn’t imagine the way that they could have been looking at the value of the events and situations.
Another example of why such a method for arriving at a conclusion is not terribly convincing or sound is that we haven’t accepted such from Thomas here, nor has anyone accepted such a conclusion from such a premise here from any participant.
As such, I only had to show that we can come up with other solutions, and I only had to offer even just general circumstantial evidence to support any possible alternative since all that Maccoby gave lacked even circumstantial evidence.
For example, Maccoby could have attempted to calculate the going rate for an outer garment tunic in Judah around the 1 c CE to the best of our knowledge, the most common form of sword that one would find in Judah on the open market, created leveraging room by establishing a +/- error rate for assuming the event of ‘even if ad hoc traded from local’s at their homes’ based on the standard open market rates, established the going rate for standard outer garments of which the disciples would have been likely to have worn, and then established how many swords would have likely been received for 11 outer garments.
If the total is between one to three swords, then a case could be logically deduced that it was a given range of likely that only two swords of the considered type would have been possibly gained.
If the total was higher or lower, then a further explanation would have to be posited and examined as to why not everyone sold their outer garments; such as the possibility that some didn’t have outer garments, which could be drafted from examining how likely it was for Galileans to travel down to Judah as disciples without outer garments.
If the conclusion would be possible from here, then the conclusion would be far more convincing.
And this is just an example of what I mean by presenting some form of conjectural logic.
But it is not really convincing to simply rest on, essentially:
“Well…I can’t think of any other reason, so it must have really happened.”
“What about all the other texts not having two sword events?”
“Well…I can’t think of any other reason, so they must have wiped them out of their texts.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, for some reason I can’t think of.”
Oh the two swords!? I’m wondering why MacCoby just didn’t come out and say it. That, Jesus and his gang was crazy. That if Jesus expected God to intervene and He didn’t, doesn’t that mean that Jesus was crazy? And so the two swords is just another expression of his craziness?
Is the reason we want to conjecture about things like the two swords because we just do not want to consider the possibility that Jesus was a crazy madman?
Felix asked:
[b]Some sloppy thoughts (I guess):
I concluded that Jesus synthesized his monotheistic religion with radical democracy, which caused an enormously powerful religious and social movement among his early followers. We know he urged his followers to live within the spirit of a loving God and to access that spirit through individual prayer. But that alone and three bananas do not make a revolutionary social movement, which swept the Roman Empire. The radical democratic part of this integration is the preimminence Jesus gives to the masses: the poor, the meek, the sick, the outcasts and the downtrodden. Jesus levels the moral playing field, making the small contribution of a poor woman to his treasury worth more than the large contributions of the wealthy. She is worth more in the sight of God (and therefore better) than the wealthiest contributor. Time and again Jesus reaches out and shows respect for these people.
People are equal before the Lord, whatever their station in life, until they prove otherwise through their works or lack thereof on behalf of their fellow men. How refreshing to learn that I am better in the eye of the Lord than the richest and most powerful oppressors because I am and know how to be a good and moral person. The Way of Jesus showed everyone how.
We know of Jesus’ condemnation of the hierarchy of the priesthood and of the rich. We know Jesus accepted women into his movement. He respected that the masses could make correct moral decisions. So he defined the base class for a democratic society, in which everyone could be included without distinction based on nationality, race or gender. This base was much broader than the base of Greek democracy. Therefore it is radical. The concept empowered the masses to believe that society could be organized to serve the people without hierarchies based on class and division. And his own Galilean heritage of local self-government showed Jesus that every voice could count (a la Jayson).
Monotheism was essential so that there were no competing gods to guide mankind way from the principles of love, peace, equality and sharing of the bounties of the earth. (Jesus was not endorsing polling stations but communication about the direction a loving God would want us to go in important matters.)
This synthesized philosophy was much more powerful than a monotheism alone and had to be paganized from within in order to be defeated.[/b]
And now, I think, we’ve gotten down to why this thread : “THE PAGANIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY.”
So when John has Jesus saying : “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.”
This was actually a pagan addition “from within”?
God’s kingdom is not a democracy.
Jason–
No need to apologize. Whether you are aiming at it or nor, I’m looking at your statements in terms of whether or not they are convincing to me. That’s what I am doing. It seems more likely that Luke added the sword incident than that he left in what the others removed. But, we don’t know, and we don’t know what his source was.
Here are all the references to swords in Luke:
Luke 2:35
(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
Luke 21:24
And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
Luke 22:36
Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
Luke 22:38
And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.
Luke 22:49
When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword?
Luke 22:52
Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves?
Luke does quote Jesus using the word sword symbolically in Luke 2:35 which affords some support for your hypothesis that the two swords were added for symbolism. When the disciples actually used a sword on a Roman soldier Jesus said “Enough of that” thus supporting the notion that when push came to shove he was a pacifist after all. Anyway, at the moment I don’t see why Luke added the sword references in the 22nd chapter. I don’t see anything particularly compelling about your symbolic interpretation, but I can’t rule it out altogether. Underlying everything I say here is my understanding that the facts concerning the historical Jesus may be more or less plausible, but we don’t know any of this with certainty. Meanwhile, like I said before, I would like to see what you have to say about the rest of the Maccoby essay because there is a lot more than the two sword reference to support his theory.
Actually,I never said it was or should be