Flusser's The Sage from Galilee-- an Important Jesus Book

There are a variety of important 'biographies' of Jesus written by a variety of scholars, but few of them are Jewish scholars who spent their academic life on the issue of Jesus. David Flusser is the exception to the rule, and we may be grateful his mature thoughts were put together in book form by one of his studies, and brought forth by Eerdmans now. What follows is a detailed summary or precise of the 166 page book, which is well worth the read. The real importance of the book from my vantage point is that we have a Jewish scholar saying that the historical Jesus' self understanding was messianic in various senses. What follows is the detailed summary with a few critical comments by me. See what you think. BW3

The Sage from Galilee. Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius, by David Flusser and R. Steven Notley. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007, pp. xix +191, illus. $20 (paper).

When David Flusser first published a book on the historical Jesus, in German in 1968 it is fair to say that he could not have imagined where this effort on his part would lead. Besides the fact that he was one of the first Jewish scholars in the modern era to attempt such a book written with both cognizance of the scholarly discussion and with critical acumen, he surely did not expect that he would in due course receive such a warm response from a variety of audiences, including even conservative Christian ones, albeit the response was slow in coming, and the work did not fully receive the attention it deserved.

When the book appeared however in English in 1969, the translation was marred by various infelicities and errors, which contributed to its neglect, and in truth it was largely overlooked or ignored. What we have in The Sage from Galilee. Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius is not merely a better English translation of the original work, but rather a thorough revision and improvement of it, reflecting the development and culmination of Flusser’s thinking on the subject before his death in 2000, which is why Eerdmans rightly decided to publish the book under a different title than the original one. Readers familiar with the original German edition of the work will recognize that R. Steven Notley has done us a good service in incorporating some of the supplemental studies material into the existing twelve chapters so that it all reads smoothly now.

If we ask the question, What did David Flusser bring to the study of the historical Jesus that many others could and did not? the answer is severalfold. Firstly his breadth and depth of knowledge of early Judaism and its sources was vast. He was that rare scholar who had a profound grasp of the requisite languages, culture, physical setting, archaeology, as well as the literary sources. Secondly, he had a keen interest in Jesus, and in the intellectual pursuit of the understanding of him as a crucial historical figure. Thirdly, and most importantly as Notley so aptly puts it “Flusser felt no need to deny Jesus his high self-awareness. In his understanding, the historical Jesus was both identified with his people and the cornerstone of the faith of the early Christian community.” (p. xi). Flusser had that rare gift of allowing a person their distinctiveness, not attempting to explain it by explaining it away, while still being able to show how what had come before him had in various ways prepared for and influenced a figure like Jesus. For example, Flusser highlights and stresses the love ethic of Jesus, in particular its command to love one’s enemies, without suggesting that Jesus had any desire to start a new world religion. For Flusser it was axiomatic that Jesus not only was a Jew but wanted to remain within the Jewish faith. At the same time he was insistent on saying “I personally identify myself with Jesus’s Jewish worldview, both moral and political, and I believe that the content of his teachings and the approach he embraced have always had the potential to change our world and prevent the greatest part of evil and suffering.” (p. xviii).

What his students like Notley also tell us is that Flusser to his very last days felt he was still learning, and still needed to modify his views in the light of new evidence. He modeled the virtue of a commitment to life long learning coupled with a commitment to revise one’s views as time went on as the evidence required it. Furthermore, he passionately believed that Jesus had something to say to our current world situation and human dilemmas. Indeed he believed that Jesus’ life and teaching should influence how we conduct our lives today. This is one of the reason so many Christian students wanted to go to Hebrew University and study with Flusser. He was most assuredly Israel’s foremost scholar on Jesus and early Christianity, and his whole-hearted commitment to a historical and philological approach to the subject matter is refreshing when so often today we have scholars who thing ‘all we have are texts’. Flusser gave the lie to that assertion again and again.

In his chapter on methodology and sources, Flusser stakes out his territory clearly. In his view “the most genuine sources concerning a charismatic personality are his utterances and the accounts of the faithful—read critically of course….An impartial reading of the Synoptic Gospels results in a picture not so much of a redeemer of mankind, but of a Jewish miracle worker and preacher.” (p. 2). He is convinced that the Synoptic Gospels do a better job of presenting us with the historical Jesus, whereas John presents us with a post-Easter Christological portrait. In other words, he does not see the Synoptic accounts as samples of early Christian kerygma, the preaching about Jesus. Flusser’s analysis of the Synoptic Gospels however did not lead him to embrace the theory of Markan priority, rather he wanted to suggest that “the Synoptic Gospels are based upon one or more non-extant early documents composed by Jesus’ disciples and the early church in Jerusalem.These texts were originally written in Hebrew. Subsequently they were translated into Greek and passed through various stages of redaction. It is the Greek translation of these early Hebrew sources that were employed by our three Evangelists….Luke preserves, in comparison with Mark (and Matthew when depending on Mark) the more primitive tradition” (pp. 3-4). Few scholars would follow Flusser in this conclusion of Lukan priority though certainly Q scholars tend to prefer the Lukan version of Q over the Matthean one, and recently there has been a detailed study by Maurice Casey showing the Aramaic Vorlage of a good deal of the Gospel of Mark (see his Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel). But this is not all. Flusser also believed that Matthew, when independent of Mark, frequently preserves the earlier sources of the life of Jesus that lie behind Luke’s account. Mark is said to have reworked the material and unfavorably influenced Matthew. So much is this the view of Flusser that he concludes that Mark, presents us with a Jesus who is a supernatural, lonely holy man and wonder worker who is unique, and universally misunderstood even by his disciples. Flusser believes that the cry of dereliction from the cross which encapsulates this portrait is a Markan creation.

The net result of this view was to build a Lukan plus Matthean image of Jesus, whilst not agreeing that Mark presents us with the earliest glimpse of Jesus and the more primitive tradition. One more thing—Flusser did his own translations from what he believed was the Hebrew Vorlage behind the Greek of Jesus’ sayings in the Synoptics. But that assumes Jesus spoke Hebrew instead of Aramaic, which is surely wrong. It is not a surprise that many simply viewed Flusser as eclectic and even eccentric when it came to methodology.

At times Flusser sounds rather like more conventional but radical critics of the Gospel tradition. He argues for example that the birth narratives are not reliable, for Jesus was probably born in Nazareth in Galilee, and his Davidic descent must remain doubtful, despite the two genealogies in Matthew and Luke. Further, Flusser thinks Jesus had about a one year ministry following his baptism by John in either 27/28 A.D. or 28/29 which was followed by his death by crucifixion in A.D. 30. Flusser doubts that John had any intentions of being a historian, and so discards the possibility suggested in the 4^th Gospel that Jesus’ ministry involved several years. He appears to think Jesus was the eldest of some seven children, probably all Mary’s children, though they might be cousins. He also tends to think that Lk. 2.41-51 provides us with a historical anecdote about Jesus the young man, and this is of a piece with his general tendency to think Luke presents the most historical account, rather than the later more Hellenized one for a largely Gentile audience. Flusser has a tendency to see Jesus as rather well educated both in Torah and in the oral traditions, something of a budding Talmudist, who had a Jewish education “incomparably superior to that of St. Paul” (p.12). Flusser accepts the authenticity of the claim of Josephus that Jesus was a sage, and was seen as such in his own day, and he rejects the views of J.D. Crossan and others that Jesus was a simple peasant. In this respect, one is of course reminded of the work of Geza Vermes, who follows a similar line of approach on this matter. Flusser takes this line because he finds in the sayings of Jesus evidence of learning, if not being learned, and he thinks Jesus really was called ‘rabbi’, a term which in his view referred to scholars and teachers. Interestingly, Flusser thinks that the reason Jesus’ own disciples did not call him rabbi, is because Jesus preferred the term ‘lord’, an indication not of deity but of Jesus’ high self-awareness (pp. 13-14). Flusser says that against the opinion of some, the historical evidence suggests that carpenters were considered particularly learned. He opposes the bucolic notion that Jesus was a naïve simple manual worker.

He also affirms the notion that there was a real tension between Jesus’ relationship with his physical family and his understanding of his divine calling (p. 14), but he thinks Mark goes too far in suggesting Jesus rejected his family (p. 15). Rather Jesus’ family did not affirm or believe in Jesus’ mission during his life and were not his followers, and so when he left Nazareth, he never returned, except perhaps once, and that resulted in his being rejected by the town folks. He adds that Jesus’ saying about hating one’s parents (Lk. 14.26) in fact in the Hebrew original simply refers to preference, as does the ‘Jacob I loved but Esau I hated’ saying. It were better translated I preferred Jacob to Esau. Comparison was conveyed by the language of dramatic contrast in Hebrew.

Flusser, like various others, thinks that John the Baptist may have belonged to one of the Essene communities (p. 18). This in turn leads to his viewing John’s Baptism as operating on the same assumptions as Essene baptism, namely that the sinner first had to repent for “water can cleanse the body only if the soul has first been purified through righteousness. The water ritual only provided ritual bodily purity. The real cleansing came through repentance and the work of the Spirit of holiness which preceded the water ritual. Flusser thinks Josephus has it right when he says that John insisted that one had to practice justice towards one’s fellow humans and piety towards God as a preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God (Ant. 18.117). One of the more interesting facets of Flusser’s analysis of the baptism of Jesus is that he thinks that the voice Jesus heard actually was quoting Is. 42.11 “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my Spirit on him…” Here he follows J. Jeremias and others who find in Lk. 3.21/Mt. 3.17 “in whom I am well pleased” an allusion to Is. 42.11. Flusser believes that early Jews often had ecstatic experiences in which they heard words of Scripture (pp. 21-22). Flusser believes that Jesus’ ministry began after his baptism by John, not after John was arrested. The latter idea in Mk. 1.14 he attributes to the Evangelist’s desire to make clear that John was the literal forerunner of Jesus in salvation history (p.25), but he finds a more reliable tradition in John 3.24. What is interesting about this is that while generally discrediting John as a historical source, he draws on John when it suits his own theories about what must have happened.

One of the most interesting aspects of Flusser’s historical reconstruction is his conviction that the Son of Man material holds not only a key to Jesus’ self-understanding but also John’s understanding of Jesus. Thus when John is in prison and sends two messengers to ask Jesus “Are you the One who is to Come” Flusser sees in this an allusion to the coming Son of Man in Dan. 7.13-14. The difference however is that the Baptist’s eschatology was that the Son of Man would come for judgment imminently, whereas Jesus did not see that coming on the clouds and final judgment as imminent. (pp. 26-28). For Flusser the parable of the wheat and tares provides the clue as to Jesus’ view of where things were in the eschatological time line. Now was the time for healings and Good News, not the time for final judgment. And so “Jesus’ doubts about the Baptist were justified, John never accepted Jesus’ claim.” (p. 28). In Jesus’ view healings and exorcisms implicitly demonstrated who he was and that God’s saving righteousness was breaking into human history. Jesus saw himself as the servant who was fulfilling Is. 61.1-2, as is shown not only from Lk. 7.18-23 and para. but also Lk. 4.17-18. Jesus saw John as the Elijah figure, the fiery prophet who came preparing the way of God at time’s end. In other words, with John the endtimes begin, but he is not the messiah. Elijah is the one who opens up the breach which allows the messiah and his followers to come through and possess the kingdom, or put another way Elijah is the one who opens up the breach so the Kingdom may break in. This is based on the suggestion that Jesus’ enigmatic saying about taking the kingdom by force is grounded in Micah 2.13, which in turn suggests that Jesus saw himself as the King coming through the breach that John had made, making way for the Kingdom to come (p.31). Flusser, in comparing and contrasting Jesus and John (the former clearly did not see himself as a messianic figure but looked for another, the latter did seem himself in that light) makes the interesting observation that “each man’s preaching was closely linked with his character. The good news of love was related to Jesus’ Socratic nature; penitential preaching was related to John’s somber inclination toward asceticism.” (p. 33).

One of the major axioms on which Flusser stakes all is that Jesus was a law observant Jew, and that any evidence to the contrary must be the redactional work of the Evangelists or others, with the possible exception of the episode of the Jesus’ disciples plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath (p. 35). The obligatory hand-washing before meals debacle is seen as a debatable issue in Jesus’ day. Remarkably, Flusser thinks Jesus actually did say Mt. 15.11 about what enters a person not defiling them. He asserts “a person’s body does not become ritually impure even when one has eaten animals forbidden by the Law of Moses!” (p. 37). But surely this was not the view of most early Jews, as is shown by the Peter episode in Acts 10. Unclean food, if touched or eaten did indeed defile a person, according to Jewish Law as well as Pharisaic tradition. In other words, Flusser denies that the parenthetical remark in Mk. 7.19 is the correct exegesis of what Jesus said and did, while admitting Jesus said it. He does however think that Jesus’ beef with the Pharisees was that they often exalted ritual purity over moral principle, whereas for Jesus moral values always trumped ritual values (p. 38). In addition, Flusser argues that healing on the Sabbath by word of mouth was always allowed, so Jesus did not violate the Sabbath by that means. This of course would not explain a story like John 9, where Jesus makes little mud pies to place over the man’s eyes. About that story Flusser admits “If Jesus had acted thus, the objection of the Pharisees would have been legitimate” (p. 39). Flusser is quite sensitive to the issue of the Pharisees, and on various occasions argues that the Pharisees are later inserted into the text by the Evangelists or others, but that the bigots Jesus confronted on occasion were usually someone else. So keen is he to defend the Pharisees that he says things like “Fundamentally, the Pharisaic philosophy of life was in line with non-sectarian universal Judaism, while the Sadducees turned into a counter-revolutionary group that denied the validity of the oral tradition and saw belief in a future life as an old wive’s tale. The Pharisess were not identical with with the later rabbis, but the two groups may, in practice be regarded as forming a unity.” (p. 44 emphasis added). It would be much nearer to the mark to say the Sadducees represented the older Hebrew view and values as enshrined in the OT itself, and the Pharisees were in fact the sectarian group that added all sorts of oral traditions into the mix and often expected them to be treated as if they had the force of law. They were also those who affirmed the later Jewish views about the afterlife including resurrection, not the more primitive Hebrew beliefs about Sheol. Furthermore, Flusser here seems almost completely unaware of the work of J. Neusner and others who warns repeatedly and rightly that we cannot simply assume or say that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were like the later Pharisaic tradition, much less like the later rabbinic tradition. We cannot assert there was this sort of unity. And when that is assumed it leads to all sorts of anachronism, the reading back into the pre-70 period of all sorts of traditions and ideas found in the Talmuds and Mishnah, many of which it is doubtful were extant in Jesus’ day. As Flusser has to admit however, there were many persons as critical of the Pharisees as the criticism credited to Jesus, including the Essenes (CD 8.12; 19.25;1 QH 4.6-8). Knowing this, he then distinguished between the true Pharisees and the hypocritical ones who place form over substance.

Knowing that “it would be wrong to describe Jesus as a Pharisee in the broad sense…” Flusser nonetheless recognizes a serious tension between them, but it was a “tension which never implied negation, nor were the views of Jesus and the Pharisees contrary or ever degenerated into enmity” (p. 47). Were this correct it would be exceedingly difficult to explain how Saul as a Pharisee saw it as his mission to persecute the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus. It would be nearer the mark to say there were serious differences between the holiness movement Jesus led, and that of the Pharisees, and that they often clashed on issue of practice, but not over the doctrine of resurrection. Presumably also they clashed with Jesus and his disciples over the role of Jesus himself in Judaism as well, and Saul of Tarsus is just one piece of proof of that hypothesis. Here it would appear Marcus Borg’s older study on early Jewish holiness movements is nearer the mark. But it is right to say that some Pharisees must have thought highly of Jesus, and it is possible to take Nicodemus, and perhaps also Joseph of Arimathea amongst them. Flusser makes much of the basic silence about Pharisaic involvement in the trial of Jesus, but there surely must have been some Pharisees on the Sanhedrin council, even though they did not precipitate the outcome of that hearing, Caiaphas did. It is simply not possible, based on the historical evidence we have to say confidently as Flusser does that “the Pharisees regarded the handing over of Jesus to the Romans as a repulsive act of sacerdotal despotism….We can assume also that Pharisees do not figure as accusers of Jesus at his trial…because at that time people knew that the Pharisees had not agreed to hand Jesus over to the Romans” (p. 49). In a true argument from silence, Flusser thus concludes that anti-Pharisaic bias caused the Gospel writers to leave out the important point that Pharisees protested the handing of Jesus over to the Romans. Thus, Flusser does not come to grips with the considerable evidence of animus between Jesus and at least some Pharisees and their scribes. Not surprisingly, Flusser also minimizes the impact of the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount, even resorting to rhetoric to explain it away. Pointing to the ‘not one jot or tittle’ saying to prove Jesus did not oppose any of the Mosaic Law he adds “It would be absurd to believe that after such statements Jesus intended to say there was a contrast between his teaching and the Mosaic Law.” (p. 49 n. 43). But the jot and tittle saying is about the eschatological fulfillment of the Law, after which it is obsolete, not about obedience to all the Mosaic Law, a very different matter. He is right however that some of Jesus’ more radical teachings such as loving enemies, have some precedent in the teachings of other early Jewish sages. Flusser also concludes that Jesus had a rather low opinion of non-Jews, and only seldom helped them. Doubtless he is correct that Jesus saw it as his mission to work with his fellow Jews within the context of eretz Israel. (cf. Mt. 10.5-7; Rom. 15.8).

Flusser shows without great difficulty that there had been considerable reflection on the OT love commandments before and during the time of Jesus. Jesus was not unique in this. Flusser does thing that there were some distinctive and even revolutionary aspects about Jesus’ teaching—“the radical interpretation of the commandment of mutual love [i.e. its inclusion of the enemy within the scope of ‘neighbor’], the call for a new morality, and the idea of the kingdom of heaven” (p. 55). Flusser shows that the focus on reward for good behavior and punishment for wicked behavior grew out of the Hebrew insistence on justice, and believing in a God of justice, but before the time of Jesus there had been a development in Jewish morality such that doing good without concern for or expecting reward had been seen as a higher form of morality. It has also been recognized that one could not simply divide the world into the righteous and the wicked, since there was good and evil in the hearts of all. This in turn leads to the realization that God is being merciful to all, and so we too should be merciful as God is merciful (Lk.6.36). Flusser translates the ‘be ye perfect” command to mean let there be no limit to your goodness, as there is none to God’s. Jesus then emphasizes that God reaches out in love to all persons. Strangely then Flusser turns around and asks, but did Jesus include Gentiles in the command to love one’s neighbor (p. 60 n. 16). This is especially strange in light of a parable like the parable of the Good Samaritan. Flusser can show that Jesus and Hillel agreed that the Golden rule could be seen as a summary of the Mosaic Law. In addition the phrase ‘as your self’ as in ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ could be understood to mean ‘love your neighbor because he is like yourself’. Don’t do to him something you would not do and would not want done to yourself. If we look for evidence of the double love commandment, linking the two, outside of the teaching of Jesus Flusser is able to point (p. 62) to several pieces of evidence (Jub. 36.1-24; Did. 1.2; T. Dan. 5.3; T. Iss. 5.2;7.6). The usual caricature of a loveless religion of early Judaism contrasted with the love ethic of Jesus, simply doesn’t do justice to the former, but Flusser is right that Jesus pushed things to the limit in requiring love of enemy. And also, Jesus is not unique in dealing with the root of the problem in the human heart, but his emphasis on internalized sin, or the sins of the heart again pushes the scope of sin and scope of the imperatives to knew heights. In the end Flusser sees Jesus as following in the footsteps of Hillel who preached love, and pushing the envelope further by insisting on unconditional love, even of enemies and sinners (p. 65).

Did Jesus have a radical social ethic? Flusser sets about answering this question by comparing and contrasting the ethic of Jesus with the ethic of the Essenes. Like the latter group Jesus “regarded all possessions as a threat to true piety (Mt. 6.24)” (p. 68). Jesus is said not to embrace the radical dualistic theology of the Essenes (which separated the sons of light from the sons of darkness), but he did embrace certain aspects of their social ethic or philosophy of life, for example the view that possessions are an obstacle to virtue (Mk. 10.24-25). “For both the Essenes and Jesus poverty, humility, purity, and unsophisticated simplicity of heart were the essential religious virtues. Jesus and the Essenes thought that in the very near divine future, the social outcasts and oppressed would become the preferred ‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’” (p. 69). Flusser is able to closely connect Jesus’ beatitudes with the Essene teaching— the Essene preacher is destined “to proclaim to the meek the multitude of thine mercies and to let them that are of contrite spirit hear salvation from his everlasting source, and to them that mourn, everlasting joy” (1 QHa 18.14-15) (p. 69). The poor in spirit turn out to be the actual pious poor to whom God has given the Holy Spirit. Flusser also finds plausible similarities of theme between Jesus’ beatitudes and the Testament of Judah 25.3-5, but he thinks the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs comes from the fringes of the Essene community anyway. In the end, Flusser sees the relationship of Jesus with the Essene ethic as follows “Jesus was familiar with the ideas current in these circles, and incorporated them into his transvaluation of all values”. (p. 71). This is a plausible view. Flusser also thinks that the ‘overcome evil with good’ idea goes back to the Essenes as well(1QS 10.17-20), from whom Jesus, and then Christianity adopted and adapted it in various ways. But actually we also find this same notion in Test. Ben. 4-6, as Flusser acknowledges. Flusser also argues that Jesus’ pacifism, or ethic of non-resistance to evil, and turning the other cheek comes from the Essene teachings or the Testament of the Twelve Partriarchs.

Flusser finds in a parable like that of the workers in the vineyard (Mt. 20.1-16) evidence of Jesus’ break with the old morality of recompense only for services rendered. Blessing does not distinguish between the one who has done little and the one who has done much, just as misfortune does not distinguish between the sinner and the just person. The fallen world is a morally complex place. (p. 75). Flusser says that Jesus did indeed see calamity on the near horizon coming on Jerusalem, but it could have been avoided if Jerusalem had chosen the route of repentance and peace. “Jesus’ concept of the righteousness of God therefore is incommensurable with reason. Man cannot measure it, but he can grasp it. It leads to the preaching of the kingdom in which the last will be first and the first last. It leads also from the Sermon on the Mount to Golgotha, where the just man dies a criminal’s death. It is at once profoundly moral, and yet beyond good and evil. In this paradoxical scheme, all the ‘important’ customary virtues, and the well-knit personality, worldly dignity, and the proud insistence upon the formal fulfillment of the law, are fragmentary and empty. Socrates questioned the intellectual side of man. Jesus questioned the moral. Both were executed. Can this be mere chance?” (p. 75).

Flusser sees Jesus as supporting neither revolt nor the Romans in his famous render unto Caesar pronouncement. These are Caesar’s coins, it’s his money, give it back to him. You can’t serve two masters (p. 76). In discussing Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God Flusser makes clear Jesus was no Zealot, but then he concludes “Because there are clear similarities between the rabbinic idea of the kingdom and that of Jesus, we may assume that Jesus embraced and developed their idea” (p. 77). No, we may certainly not assume that, for the rabbinic sources are too late to have influenced Jesus, and we do not know what bits of them, what ideas in them may go back to Jesus’ day. Unless a saying is quite clearly and plausibly linked to a very early Jewish teacher from before or during Jesus’ era, we can make no such assumptions.

Flusser, somewhat surprisingly buys the older idea from German scholarship that Jesus kept the concept of the kingdom of God and of the messianic Son of Man quite clearly separate in his mind (p. 79). This is false, as Jesus’ use of Dan. 7.13ff. shows where we find both ideas together in one OT passage. But there is force in the argument that it is not Jesus’ eschatological expectations which determine Jesus’ view of God and human beings, but rather the reverse.

Flusser goes on to stress that Jesus and the rabbis agree that the kingdom is both present and future, but with differing perspectives. For the rabbis the kingdom had always been an unchanging reality (God’s reign), but for Jesus God’s kingdom was breaking into history at a specific point in time. (Mt. 11.12). In Jesus’ view there are already individuals in the Kingdom. “This then is the realized eschatology of Jesus. He is the only Jew of ancient times known to us who preached not only that people were on the threshold of the end time, but that the new age of salvation had already begun” (p. 80). This of course is not quite true—various of Jesus’ followers such as Paul and Peter did as well. The Kingdom of God was present and growing amongst the people like a grain of mustard seed, or like yeast in dough. Thus kingdom becomes a cipher not just for God’s eschatological rule on the earth but a divinely willed movement that spreads among the people on the earth. Herein lies the subversive and revolutionary character of Jesus’ ethic (p. 81). When one enters that realm, that community, one finds one’s inheritance.

In an interesting insight, Flusser suggests (p. 82) that the reason for Jesus’ ethic of non-resistance is in part a result of his eschatological conviction as follows: “Since Satan and his powers will be overthrown and the present world-order shattered, it is to be regarded with almost indifference, and ought not to be strengthened by opposition. Therefore, one should not resist evildoers; one should love one’s enemy and not provoke the Roman empire to attack. For when the kingdom of God appears, all this will vanish.” Jesus according to Flusser is more shaped by the world view of Jewish sages, John the Baptist more by the Essene worldview, but you would not know this from Flusser’s arguments in the chapter on ethics and the kingdom thus far. However an important point comes to light on p. 83. The designation Son of Man does not occur in the Essene literature anywhere, not even in connection with Dan. 7.13-14. Flusser thinks however that John the Baptist expected that eschatological figure of Dan. 7 to show up imminently and judge the world ala Mt. 25.31-46.

Flusser thinks there was a fundamental disconnect between Jesus and John—“Jesus’ doubts about John [‘blessed are those who find no offense in me’] were justified. John never accepted Jesus’ claim because of his different eschatological timetable” (p. 84). Jesus sees John not only as a sort of Elijah figure. Flusser thinks that Jesus connected John with the Deut. 34.10 prophecy ‘no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses’ when Jesus says ‘among those born of woman, there has arisen no one like John’ (Mt. 11.11-15). John was a member of the previous generation of the era of the prophets, not a member of the new kingdom of God which had broken into human history. (pp. 84-85). Jesus in other words affirms a tri-partite division of history—the age of the prophets now over, the coming of the kingdom of heaven (now happening) which is a transitional time, and the future eschatological age of final judgment and redemption. John operated with a bipartite structure, with the final judgment imminent. Not Jesus. (p. 85). Jesus’ parable of the weeds is his answer to John’s already now in the harvest and the axe of final judgment is laid to the root of the dead tree. Jesus sees the intermediary period when the Kingdom is dawning as a period when the wicked, the sinners and the righteous will and must live together. According to Flusser, Jesus is the only one to connect this interim period with the coming of God’s kingdom on earth (p. 86). Jesus’ views about the kingdom are again said by Flusser to be based in rabbinic Judaism. But Jesus is unique in identifying the coming of this Kingdom also with the days of the Messiah (p. 87). The concept of the kingdom in rabbinic Judaism was that of course God ruled all de jure now, but in the eschatological future God would rule de facto when the kingdom of God is revealed to all earthlings. The phrase ‘age to come’ was used strictly of the eschatological age involving the final judgment the resurrection of the dead, the new heaven and new earth (see 1 Enoch 71.15; B.T. San. 91b). Jesus was distinctive in thinking that the days of the Messiah and the kingdom breaking in corresponded and were already happening in his day. There was speculation on the length of the messianic period (B.T. San. 99a). Jesus however says that no one knows when the Son of Man is coming and the age to come will begin.

Flusser spends time discussing the parallels to the eschatological schema Jesus that he sees in both the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, 29-30,39-42,72-74 and 4 Ezra 7 and 12.32-36, both of which he dates to the late first century, as he does the book of Revelation. What is especially interesting about 4 Ezra is that it talks about a Son of man figure coming on the clouds (4 Ez. 13), “but in 4 Ezra he becomes a supernatural messianic savior, and therefore his appearance does not form part of an eschatological system. He is not the eschatological judge.” (p. 93 n. 56). What Flusser does not contemplate is the possibility that Jesus may have seen himself as such a supernatural Son of Man savior figure. He does however point out that in both the Gospels and in 4 Ezra the Messiah dies. It appears possible that messiah and Son of man are seen as different figures in 4 Ezra.

How should we view Jesus’ understanding of the relationship of his own ministry and the future coming of the Son of Man for judgment? Flusser puts it this way—“in his eschatological system, the coming of the Son of Man is postponed together with the Last Judgment into a distant future. This change lies at the center of the conflict between the Baptist and Jesus. Moreover, I believe that Jesus came to the conclusion that he himself would be reveled as the divine Son of Man….The identification by Jesus between the messianic age and the kingdom of heaven in which Jesus will have the central task is, by the way, an additional proof that Jesus was sure that he is the Messiah.” (p. 95). The reason that Jesus does not say in so many words in public that he is the messiah, is because he had not yet finished the tasks of the messiah (p. 99 n.15). Most striking is Flusser repudiation of the eschatological analysis of A. Schweitzer and his successors. “Jesus was not wrong when he asserted that before the ‘day of the Son of Man’ the age of the kingdom of heaven will still come. Those who are shown to be wrong are the modern adherents to the ‘acute eschatology’ of John, and not Jesus.” (p. 96). Since the kingdom of heave was identical with the messianic age it became a dynamic force in history breaking into it at the time of the Baptist, and it is not a statement about God’s supramundane ruling of his universe.

Like the work of G. Vermes (whose work came after that of Flusser), Flusser compares Jesus to other early Jewish miracle working holy men like Hanina bin Dosa and Honi the Circle Drawer. He accounts for Jesus’ periodic withdrawal to quiet and private places, his use of the term Abba because of his intimate relationship with God, and the use of the ‘Son’ language to his being like these holy men who also in some contexts were called Abba and God’s ‘son’ in some favored or special sense (pp. 97-100). He also parallels Jesus’ relationship with children and that of Hanan who allowed children to have access to him. Flusser rejects the messianic secret notion of Mark as a later construct, but sees the secretive aspect of Jesus’ healings as parallel to the fact that these other holy men also healed in secret, not wanting credit. Flusser argues that the rabbis address God as “our Father” does not have the same weight or significance as Jesus addressing God as ‘my Father’ or as Abba. Here he followers Jeremias. (p. 100 and note 18). Jesus distinguished between his unique sonship and the common fatherhood of God for all believers. Jesus apparently did see his divine sonship as unique and decisive. And so Flusser goes beyond Vermes in saying that Jesus’ sonship went beyond the sort talked of by the Jewish miracle workers. His sonship was a consequence of his election through the heavenly voice at baptism. (p. 101). Flusser accepts the event on the Mount of Transfiguration as historical, and argues that when the voice from heaven said “this is my beloved Son, listen to him” there is a double echo here--- the term beloved is Greek for only, hence an allusion to the Isaac story and thus Jesus’ coming martyrdom is likely, and secondly the phrase ‘listen to him’ echoes Deut. 18.15 which speaks of God raising up a prophet like Moses, after which is said “listen to him”. (p. 103). This is one of the real strengths of Flusser’s reading of the Jesus material. His knowledge of the wider corpus of Jewish literature is so vast that he readily finds the echoes and allusions much more easily than some scholars. Of course this can be overdone.

Flusser sees the parable of the wicked vineyard tenants Lk. 20.9-19 and par.) as crucial. It reveals the clash between Jesus and the Saducees, but it also reveals Jesus’ sense of sonship, his predestination as prophetic preacher, and his knowledge of his coming tragic end (p. 103-04). Flusser thinks as well that the parable reveals that though Jesus knew he would be killed, he also believed his cause would be victorious (p. 105). He points out that in Jewish tradition the ‘stone’ of Ps. 118.22 was identified with David, but here Jesus suggests it refers to himself. But Jesus was also here seeing himself in the long line of prophets which Israel had martyred. There was in 2 Macc. 6-7 the notion of martyrdom as atoning sacrifice. But Flusser is not convinced that the Mark 10.45 form of the famous saying is original (cf. Lk. 22.27), and that Jesus spoke of his coming death as in order to expiate the sins of believers. He adds “Nor is it likely that he saw himself as the suffering atoning servant of God described by the prophet Isaiah.” (p. 106). In other words, Jesus did not see himself playing out and carrying out the role of the suffering servant, that was a later church deduction. Jesus, says Flusser, wrestled with death to the very end (p. 106).

Perhaps the most important chapter in Flusser’s book is Chapter 9 on the Son of Man. Flusser thinks that the Caesarea Philippi episode is historical, and that even Mt. 16.18-19 is fundamentally genuine (p. 107 n. 1).

Like Vermes again, Flusser concludes that in the ‘present’ Son of Man sayings, the phrase ‘son of man’ simply means ‘man’ in a generic sense, and has no bearing on nor any information about Jesus’ messianic hopes (p. 109). In regard to the Son of Man passion predictions, Flusser had changed his mind from the first edition of his Jesus book to the final. His later judgment was that Lk. 9.44 and 22.21 were authentic and that Jesus had spoken about his being handed over into the hands of (wicked) men. Here Jesus uses the phrase as euphemistic form of self-reference (p. 111). Flusser adds that Jesus may have had an aspiration to be that Son of Man figured revealed at the end and sent to judge the world.

On p. 111 Flusser reiterates that he is convinced that Jesus spoke and taught in Hebrew, not Aramaic, and that the Semitic language behind the 3 Synoptics is Hebrew. Few scholars today would agree with him. Therefore, though Dan. 7 is in Aramaic, and though Flusser believers Jesus drew on Dan. 7.13-14, he argues that when Jesus spoke about the son of man he did not use the Aramaic phrase! Based on the fact that in Test. Abraham 12-13 the eschatological son of man is identified with Abel, the son of Adam, “this is proof that the Son of Man was so called in Hebrew: ben adam” (p. 111). Even more extraordinary is the fact that Flusser argues that while for Daniel son of man referred to ‘the saints of the most High’, yet we learn from Ethiopic Enoch that this identification is secondary. “Originally the Son of Man was the man-like eschatological judge”. In 1 Enoch 48.10; 52.4 and 4 Ezra 13 the Son of Man is clearly identified with the messiah, but in 1 Enoch 71 he is identified with Enoch himself.

On p. 115 Flusser is emphatic that in his own lifetime various persons such as Peter saw Jesus as the Messiah. Had this not been the case the titulus on the cross is inexplicable. “The one like a man who sits upon the throne of God’s glory, the sublime eschatological judge, is the highest conception of the Redeemer ever developed by ancient Judaism” (p.115). On p. 116 he ponders whether Jesus realized that his execution “was the crown of his transvaluation of all the usual values”.

Chapter 10 discusses Jesus’ relationship to and with Jerusalem. As a prophetic figure Jesus expected to die in Jerusalem, and as a prophetic figure he also foresaw its coming demise. Flusser (p. 118) takes the lament for Jerusalem in Lk. 13.34-35 as authentic. Jerusalem was given its chance to embrace Jesus, but does not (Lk. 19.41-44).

Flusser believes that Jesus did foresee and discuss the demise of the Temple and Jerusalem, and following his usual tendency prefers the Lukan version of the ‘little apocalypse’. He stresses the periodicity of Luke’s account where he lets the reader know there are various stages to the future, and that these events do not all transpire at once or within a generation. Indeed Luke adds the phrase ‘when the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled’. Flusser also believes that Jesus foresaw and believed in the regathering of the dispersed tribes of Israel into the Land (see pp. 122-31). He accepts that Jesus made some eschatological predictions without being an imminentist when it came to predicting the final judge or the return of the Son of Man. Mark is said by Flusser to replace “the true historical picture of Jesus’ solidarity with his people” which is found in Luke, by references to ‘the elect’ by which is meant the Christians in Mk. 13, according to Flusser. This may or may not be a fair analysis of Mark. Flusser thinks, again on the basis of Luke, that Jesus only spoke to the merchants to get them to leave the Temple precincts, presumably because he can’t imagine Jesus would use force. (p. 132 n. 41). On the basis of a text like Zech. 6.12 he also thinks that Jesus not only predicted the demise of the Herodian temple but expected the erection of an eschatological temple perhaps by himself, or by the hand of God (p. 133). The long and the short of this, is that a person who threatened the destruction of the temple was threatening the positions and livelihood of the priesthood and the whole temple apparatus and in Flusser’s view this is why Jesus was turned over to Pilate as an insurrectionist. Romans did indeed protect temples throughout their realm, recognizing they were the flash points where rebellion might focus its attentions (p. 134). Flusser accepts that Jesus had a pascal meal with his disciples, that he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane and did not shirk his destiny, that he was indeed betrayed by Judas, and that he did indeed say ‘this is my body given for you’; foreshadowing his death (pp. 135-36).

On p. 138, Flusser makes the plausible suggestion that if there was a called meeting of the Sanhedrin in the case of Jesus, then it must have been much like the later one which condemned James in A.D. 62. The high priest then had called upon his Sadducean friends (a quorum of 23 out of 71 was necessary for the death sentence according to Mish. Sanh. 4.1), and so in effect the hearing or trial was rigged. He deems it likely that few if any Pharisees were present or would have consented to this. he assumes their reaction would have been much like their later reaction to Annas’ action against James the Just, namely they got him deposed. Flusser rejects the idea of a night meeting and also rejects the idea of an official action of the Sanhedrin meeting as a whole condemning Jesus to death. Once more he gives preference to the Lukan account of things (p. 139). Flusser points out that since Jesus was buried in neither of the two graves specified in Mish. Sanh. 6.5 for those executed by order of the Sanhedrin, this also points to the conclusion Jesus was not condemned to death by that body. Jesus’ burial by Joseph of Arimathea is seen as a historical fact. The man was doing an act of charity, which was his duty since he was on the Jerusalem council and was wealthy. It was a mitzvah. Flusser accepts that Nicodemus, a wealthy Galilean who nonetheless was also on the Jerusalem council, was involved in this burial. He believes this is the same Nicodemus mentioned in B.T. Git 56a. He thus envisions (p. 142) that Jesus spent his last night on earth simply in custody in Caiaphas’s house. They then met the next morning in the Sanhedrin for a fact finding exercise—to figure out what charges they could bring against Jesus to the Romans. The one’s present were largely the Temple hierarchy. Flusser, again following Luke and Acts accepts as historical the idea that Jesus was sent to Herod Antipas by Pilate for judgment. Jesus’ answer to Caiphas implied he believed he would rise after his execution. Flusser adds (p. 144) “I am convinced that there are reliable reports that the Crucified One ‘appear to Peter, then to the twelve. Then to more than 500 brothers and sisters…’” Flusser, pointing to Philo and Josephus and Luke concludes that Pilate was a butcher, not a fair minded proconsul. Flusser takes the time to demonstrate this point ‘in extenso’ and to show the basic anti-Semitism and weaknesses of the man as well from both Jewish and Roman sources (pp. 143-51). This in turn informs his analysis of what the Gospels actually tell us about the man. “Pilate’s exaggerated dependence on the Emperor in Rome was an important factor in his fatal decision about Jesus” (p. 151). Flusser accepts as historical the idea that there was a custom to release a prisoner at Passover (p. 154). He even says that it is possible that the high priest and his henchmen did indeed cry ‘crucify him’ when Pilate asked what to do with Jesus (p. 155). But if Pilate was to release Barabbas, then by default he had to execute Jesus, because it was only one prisoner at Passover who got the amnesty. It is possible that Pilate did not formally pass judgment on Jesus, but had him executed anyway. Philo says that this sort of way of dealing with situations, without a formal judgment being passed was typical of Pilate (Philo, Legat. 38.299-305). Flusser deems it likely on the basis of the famous Karabas parallel in Philo Flacc.36-39 that Jesus was dressed up and mocked as a faux king by the Roman soldiers, including with a crown of thorns. He also concludes that Jesus did indeed say from the cross, ‘Father forgive them they know not what they do.’ (p. 158). Flusser takes this intercession to be on behalf of the soldiers carrying out the execution who are ignorant of the real truth of what has transpired, not on behalf of those Jews responsible for getting Jesus to this point. Flusser believes Jesus was crucified between two brigands or revolutionaries, and that he cried out at the end, though as we noted before he thinks that Ps. 22.1 is put on his lips by Mark (p. 161).

How was the church to overcome the crisis caused by the crucifixion of its savior? Flusser (pp. 162-63) suggests that in the first place Jesus had told them, for example in the parable of the wicked husbandmen that he would go from being the stone the builders rejected to the capstone. The cross would not hinder the triumph of his cause. Thus Flusser must account somehow for the change that came in the structure of the Christian faith. He finds two forces at work: 1) the placing of the story of Jesus into the broader framework of a metahistorical drama involving a pre-existent one who became incarnate died on the cross, rose, and returned to his father until he should return to judge the world. The second force that led to change was the birth of the Gentile church largely through the ministry of Paul and his co-workers. “This second revolution fueled the Christological development.” It also fueled the unraveling of the relationship with early Judaism. Flusser, to the end of his study continues to insist on the importance and high self-awareness or messianic self-understanding of Jesus, and near the close of his study he stresses “it would be absurd to suppose that Christianity adopted an unambitious, unknown Jewish martyr and catapulted him against his will into the role of chief actor in a cosmic drama”. (p. 164). Rather Flusser thinks that Jesus’ self-understanding however germinal in form, provided the seed for the great flowering of Christology about Jesus thereafter. In this fashion he makes clear that one cannot at the end of the day radically separate the historical Jesus from the Christ of early Christian faith.

The Death and Resurrection of Messiah--- written in stone.

Dominic Buettner for The New York Times

Why is that man above smiling? David Jeselsohn bought an ancient tablet, above, but he was totally unaware of its significance. Now it may be the earliest Jewish evidence for the idea of a dying and rising messiah figure

There just isn't enough controversy in Israel these days about Jesus, his death, burial and his resurrection. So, adding a little fuel to the fire is the revelation that comes from the finding of a substantial inscribed stone, probably dating to the first century B.C. that may refer to the death and resurrection of some sort of messiah figure. Here is the link to the NY Times which Bill Barnwell has kindly reminded me of, as I seem to have missed it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html?hp


I take quite seriously the authenticity of this stone, since Ada Yardeni has weighed in on it, and found it genuine. So let us suppose it is genuine-- let's ask the question, So what?

If you read the article you will discover that one eclectic Jewish scholar is now suggesting that the Christians got the idea from this stone or its source, and then predicated the idea of Jesus. It would be just as simple to argue that Jesus knew of this idea, and predicated of himself. What this stone then would show is that there was in early Judaism some concept of a suffering messiah whom God might vindicate by resurrection before the time of Jesus.

This is not entirely surprising in view of Isaiah 53 in any case. But the real implication of this for Jesus' studies should not be missed. Most radical Jesus scholars have argued that the passion and resurrection predictions by Jesus found in the Gospels were not actually made by Jesus-- they reflect the later notions and theologizing of the Evangelists.

But now, if this stone is genuine there is no reason to argue this way. One can show that Jesus, just as well as the author of this stone, could have spoken about a dying and rising messiah. There is in any case a reference to a messiah who dies in the late first century A.D. document called 4 Ezra.

Long story short-- this stone certainly does not demonstrate that the Gospel passion stories are created on the basis of this stone text, which appears to be a Dead Sea text. For one thing the text is hard to read at crucial junctures, and it is not absolutely clear it is talking about a risen messiah. BUT what it does do is make plausible that Jesus could have said some of the things credited to him in Mk. 8.31, 9,31, and 10.33-34. I will have more to say about the relevance of early Jewish material for the study of the historical Jesus shortly, in a lengthy review of David Flusser's final and interesting Jesus book The Sage from Galilee.

PAGAN CHRISTIANITY—REVIEW PART FOUR

It might seem axiomatic to most persons that having 'pastors' is a Biblical thing. I mean after all, we even have three letters in the NT called the Pastoral Epistles in which Paul gives instructions not only about Timothy or Titus doing pastoral ministry, but appointing others to do so as well.

But the authors of Pagan Christianity, while admitting that pastors are mentioned once in Ephes. 4.11, think that the institutional church has blown this whole 'pastor' thing way out of proportion. Their particular concern is that they are unhappy with the 'pastor superstar' model of a single figure being the head honcho in a local church.

Now I have to say, I also have a lot of problems with the cult of personality approach to leadership in the church. This has more to do with our own modern cultural preferences than anything Biblical. However, Barna and Viola are dead wrong in various of the things they say about 'pastors' in the Chapter found on pp. 105ff. in the 4th printing of this book, and so we need a little deconstruction of their deconstruction. First however I must share with you that I had forgotten that it was not Frank Viola who asked me to do this critique, it was several other 'pastors' (Frank, are you smiling-- I just called you a pastor). Frank kindly offered to send me copies of the relevant titles including Pagan Christianity. When you get 100 emails a day some days, its easy to forget who asked me to do what. But on to the issue at hand.

Let's deal with a preliminary issue first, and a good deal of the underpinnings for what is said is based on the work of folks like Richard Hanson who want to make a hard and fast distinction between 'function' and 'office' when it comes to things like the role of a pastor, or an elder, or a deacon. This however is a false dichotomy. If someone is appointed to do a task regularly and repeatedly, they have both a function and an office. And here is the important point. Certain persons certainly were appointed to regularly do certain functions in earliest Christianity. That is what the Pastoral Epistles not merely imply but say, and Timothy and Titus are clear examples of this. Of course this goes strongly against the 'everyone gets to do anything they feel led to do since they are part of the priesthood of all believers' approach, but then, as I have said, the priesthood of all believers language has nothing whatsoever to do with deciding who gets to be teachers, prophets, elders etc. Those issues are determined by whom the Spirit gifts and graces for such tasks, and whom are recognized by the church to have such gifts and graces.

If we are to starting talking about shepherding meaningfully then of course we need to start with the Good Shepherd Jesus, and his under-Shepherds, the 12, and particularly Peter. But Jesus when he talks about shepherding he is drawing on some of the material in the OT, for example, the critique of the bad shepherds in texts like Ezek. 34. There is good shepherding and bad shepherding, but in no case are all Christians called and gifted to do shepherding. This is why, for example, in two of Paul's gift lists he refers to the gift of kubernesis or steering, often translated administration. Not everyone has such a gift. This term comes from the nautical realm and refers to the job of the captain or helmsman who steers the boat. Where would a ship be if it had 12 helmsmen and none to tend the sails, pull up the anchor, cook the food etc. Similiarly when Paul talks about the various parts of the body as an anology with the body of Christ he makes perfectly clear that different parts of the body should and do have different functions. The hand cannot say to the foot, I have no need of you.

Jesus, according to Mt. 16 founded his church on a leader named Peter. He was given the keys to the kingdom and the power of binding and losing. And lest we think that was only for during the ministry of Jesus we have the powerful scene in John 21, which somehow fails to come in for any real treatment in this book's discussion of pastors, which I find amazing. Jesus reccomissions Peter in particular to feed and tend his sheep. They are Jesus' sheep, but
Peter is assigned the task of being the under-shepherd who oversees, watches out for, and feeds (presumably by the Word), but the younger and older Christians, both the lambs and the adult sheep. This task is not given to everyone, indeed in John 21, it is not even given to all the 12. AND THIS SCENE TRANSPIRES AFTER EASTER AS PART OF THE COMMISSION FOR JESUS' LEADERS AFTER HE IS GONE. So let's go back and look at Ephes. 4.11 again, according to Barna and Viola.

On p. 107 we are told that the term shepherd/pastor is a metaphor to describe a particular function in the church. It is not an office or title, they say. In fact it is a term referring to particular persons, not just functions-- hear again the verse "God gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, and some as pastors and teachers". The Greek allows the conclusion that pastor-teacher might be a hyphenated term here, but it could also refer to do different persons. But the crucial point is that the term 'some' means 'some persons'. Secondly, to deflect the normal interpretation of this verse Barna and Viola say--- "The word is used in the plural. It is pastors. This is significant. For whoever these 'pastors' are, they are plural in the church, not singular. Consequently there is no biblical support for the practice of sola pastora (single pastor)." (p. 107). This deserves a bit longer response as it is wrong in several ways.

Firstly, Ephesians is a circular document written to multiple churches. It is not a situation specific letter like, say 1 Corinthians, written to a particular congregation. Paul is not referring here to what is the case in a particular local church, he is saying that God has appointed apostles, prophets, and pastors and teachers to the church in general. Here the discussion is about the church of God as a whole and what is true of the church as a whole (notice the other universal aspects of the discussion in Ephes. 4-- one Lord, one faith one baptism etc.). So it is absolutely not warranted either by the Greek of this verse or its large literary context to say "there is no biblical support for a single pastor in a church". This is false. And thank goodness it is false or else various small congregations would have no pastors at all. If we go on and study not only the Pauline gift lists, which again remind us that different gifts are given to different people, and then go on to the Pastoral Epistles where there is indeed a discussion, as there is in the Petrine epistles, about shepherding, church managing and adminsters, it should be noted that it is particular persons who are said to do this. Not just anyone. So while of course it is true that a congregation may well have more than one pastor, nothing in the NT suggests they need to do so, or that a church would be defective if it only had one. This is simply false. It is true enough that the terms shepherd, overseer/bishop elder could sometimes be used interchangeably, but it is interesting that only some elders are also singled out to be overseers in the Pastorals (see my Letters and Homilies of Hellenized Christians Vol 1, on the Pastorals). The terms apparently were not simply synonyms, and what is especially clear is that they were not simply describing roles or functions just anyone could assume.

But lets talk for a moment about the issue of paid ministers. Should ministers be paid, or let's be more specific, do they have a right to be paid, while of course also having the right to refuse a salary or support? Well actually the NT is clear on this-- the answer is YES. Let's deal the principle first, and then we will deal with passages thought to dispute this notion. The basic principle, first enunciated by Jesus himself, and then reiterated by Paul and others is that "a workman is worthy of his hire". Let us start with Mt. 10.10 and par. Here Jesus is commissioning the 12, the leaders in training amongst his followers, to go out 2 by 2, and he quite specifically tells them not to take this or that money with them. Why? Because he expects them to rely on the system of standing hospitality and let others provide for them. This is why he says "a workman is worthy of his hire/keep" and also why he tells them NOT to take any copper or gold or silver in a money bag with them. They should not expect to pay their own way. They are those commissioned to spread the kingdom, and they deserve to be paid for their work. Where then does the idea of 'no-pay' ministers, or faith based missions where you pay your own way come from? It comes from a rather bad misinterpretation of 1 Cor. 9 and 2 Cor. 11, which texts we need now to consider.

As usual, social context is crucial to understand these texts. But even if we knew nothing about the patronage and clientage system in operation in Corinth and its connection for why Paul particularly chose in Corinth to offer the Gospel free of charge without receiving patronage or fees for speaking, 1 Cor. 9.14 is Paul's reiteration of the principle of Jesus first enunciated in Mt. 10.10. Here is Paul's way of putting it "the Lord has commanded that those who preach the Gospel should receive their living from the Gospel, but I have not used any of these rights.."
In fact throughout this passage Paul insists he has a right to such support, a right to be paid, a right to be supported and taken care of. But voluntarily he has chosen not to take advantage of that right. Why? You have to understand the whole social situation, and its difference from our own.

In first century Corinth, there would have been orators, rhetoricians, sophists, teachers for hire. Some were itinerant and would come to an agora, set out their money bag, speak or sing for a while, and then ask for money. Others, more sophisticated would engage in a longer term relationship with a patron. Paul did not do the former for the very good reason that he wanted to do church planting and stay a while. He wanted to establish relationships with those he was evangelizing. He did not want to appear to be a snake oil salesman huckstering some message he was not prepared to defend and explain over the long haul. On the other end of the spectrum he wanted to avoid the entangling alliances that were set up when you accepted patronage. So in Corinth he chose to support himself by tent-making, though he makes perfectly clear in 1 Cor. 9 that if he had wanted to, he had a right to be paid for his ministerial work. This chapter should be compared to what is said in 2 Cor. 11.7ff. Notice that he calls it 'lowering himself' making a sacrifice, when he chose to preach in Corinth fee-free. But the next verse is crucial--- "I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so as to serve you. And when I was with you and needed something...the brothers and sisters from Macedonia supplied what I needed."

Now what was the difference between Paul's relationship with the Corinthian church, and the Philippian one-- much in every way. Paul had a relationship of 'giving and receiving' as he says clearly in Philippians, with that church in Macedonia. He did not have such a relationship with the Corinthian church. Why not? Because the Corinthian Christians were immature, and those who could have supported Paul wanted him to become their client on an ongoing basis. But this would have obligated him in ways that would limit his travel. It is interesting that in Rom. 16 Paul tells us about Phoebe from the nearby church in Cenchreae. She did become his prostatis at least for a time, but she must have understood that Paul was being remunerated in this way, not obligated to an ongoing future service to the patron. In short, if you don't understand the lingo and the cultural practices, you are not going to understand what Paul says about paid ministers. There was also a further technical phrase we find in several places in the NT, including Romans and the Johannine Epistles "sending me on my way" or "sending him on his way". This refers to providing traveling money and supplies to get to the next destination. Paul says he was hoping the Roman church would provide this so he could go on to Spain. Let's look at one more important Pauline text--- Gal. 6.6--- "those who receive instructions in the Word should share all good things with their instructor." Here is a reference of course to a teacher, and the obligation of the congregation to provide for the instructor. The English phrase 'all good things' is really too general. What is meant here is monetary support PLUS providing room, board, etc (see my Galatians commentary Grace in Galatia on this important verse). Indeed, Paul believed a workman is worthy of his hire, just as Jesus said. So let us draw some conclusions:

1) is the role of pastor supported by the NT and important--- Survey says yes.
2) are specific persons supposed to exercise this function, those whom God has called and equipped to do it-- yes. And while we are at it, if you read Ephes. 4.11 in the Greek it says that it is the role of the pastor-teacher to equip the other saints who are not pastors and teachers for doing various forms of ministry. Teaching is a specific function and role in the church played by specific persons who are gifted called, and (gasp) even trained to do it. Paul is talking about that sort of training for other kinds of ministries in Ephes. 4.11-12.
3) Is it o.k. for a church to have one pastor--- of course it is, and some could hardly do other wise.

4) should a church expect to pay their ministers? YES THEY SHOULD. Paul calls it a right, not merely option. Of course the pastor or pastors may choose to forgo their salary. That's fine, but that is their choice, not one that should be made for them by the church on the basis of some pseudo-Biblical notions.

5) Is the exegesis of texts like Ephes, 4.11 by Barna and Viola in this chapter a viable option-- no I am afraid not. It is not what the text says or means, when taken in its various proper contexts social, literary, historical etc. So remember--- here is my principle for today---

A text without a context is just a pretext for whatever you want it to mean. There is no substitute for good contextual in depth exegesis. And to do that well without errors and anachronism requires: 1) a knowledge of Greek; 2) a knowledge of the first century social world and its culture (e.g. partronage), 3) a knowledge of how leadership worked in the ministry of Jesus, in the synagogue, amongst the apostles, in the local church, and elsewhere. In conclusion it is simply historically false to suggest that when we hear about elders, deacons, overseers, apostles prophets teachers, pastors we are only talking about functions most anyone could take on. No, we are talking about roles played by specific persons with specific gifts and graces. And dats all I got to say 'bout dat.

PAGAN CHRISTIANITY—REVIEW PART THREE

I have been posting a large variety of comments of response to this ongoing book review, some of which seem to have ignored that I am reviewing this book seriatim-- taking it Chapter by Chapter. It is the purpose of this review to give you a good critical analysis of how the book comes across, as one is in the process of reading it.

But let me point out here one truly over-arching problem with the way this 'provocative' book is set up--- Claims made by the authors, especially in strident form in the text, cannot be taken back or adequately qualified in minute footnotes that few people are able and fewer are willing to read. In other words, the very format of this book is not only not reader friendly at all , it is unintentionally deceptive, and leaves all kinds of unqualified impressions if one sticks to the text. The point is this-- don't make categorical and strident claims in the text that then die the death of a thousand qualifications, most of them in tiny footnotes. This is just misleading.

And one more thing to be clear about, before we get to the chapter on the Sermon. I am indeed a historian of early Christianity, including the period up to and including Constantine, as anyone who has read various of my works including NT History and the Living Word of God and the Gospel Code, will know. For example I and Dr. Warren Smith of Duke will be leading a doctoral seminar here the next two weeks on 'The Early Church Fathers and the Formation of the Canon". None, and I do mean, none of the books relied on in 'Pagan Christianity' are even on the reading list for this course. The sources relied on are either too outdated, or are not up to speed on the state of discussion of the subject matter. And I must say it is a total mystery to me why Barna and Viola would rely on Will Durant, who was anti-Christian in his analysis of early Christianity, and frequently very wrong, as he read early Christianity through the synthetic 'history of religions' sort of approach that one finds in the 'Zeitgeist' movie-- yikes! It is a mystery as why he comes in for regular use in this book.

One more fact about me since some of the blog posts relative to this book asked--- I am also a historian and theologian of the English Reformation, having taught 18th-20th century Methodist history and theology for some 20 years, including at Duke. So when I say, this book is poorly researched when it comes to church history, I am not kidding, and I am in a position to know. It really is. It is actually a bit better when it comes the Biblical material. Having cleared the air on those subjects lets get down to the core of what the argument is in the chapter on the Sermon and on the Pastor.

Let's start with the usual flamboyant claims that tend to be made in the text of this book, especially near the beginning of chapters---

“The stunning reality is that today’s sermon has no root in Scripture. Rather it is borrowed from pagan culture, nursed and adopted into the Christian faith.” (p. 86).

Then comes the qualifications---

The authors claim that the point here is not that there is not preaching in the Bible but that the modern sermon is miles apart from what we find in the Bible. The major differences enumerated are –today it’s a regular occurrence, delivered by the same person, to a passive audience, in a cultivated form of speech. It is assumed or partially argued that none of this is true about real Biblical preaching or proclamation. In fact, they are for the most part wrong on all all four issues.

To bolster this claim the authors point out that OT preaching by prophets was sporadic and extemporaneous and open to audience participation. Of course this ignores that what went on in the OT tabernacle and temple was highly scripted, did indeed involve recitation of pre-existing Words and instructions from God, and as the book Psalms makes clear there was music, liturgy, specific hymn tunes, and a choir director. Prophets in the OT are seldom depicted as being involved in worship, never in in home group meetings, and regularly in the public-- including in the king's court. What is said about spontaneous utterances of prophets in such social settings is really of little or no relevance to the discussion of 'in church' Christian preaching, teaching, or prophesying because of the difference in function and social purpose and setting.

The authors then concede that there was proclamation based on Biblical texts in the synagogue, but they argue ‘anyone could deliver a message or preach if they wanted to’ in the synagogue. So far as we can tell, this is in fact historically false. Firstly, only men were allowed to speak. Secondly only Jews or God-fearers would be allowed to speak. Thirdly, the elder or president of the synagogue, or sometimes the long standing members of the congregation would normally decide who could speak and invite them to do so (see for example Acts 13.42--- Paul was invited by the synagogue attendees to speak further on these matters at the next Sabbath service in Psidian Antioch). The point is, you had to be invited to speak, you couldn't just barge into the synagogue and do so as it had an order of worship. And let me say at this point that the historical evidence we have is clear enough that this pattern of worship was adopted and adapted by many early Christians, especially in the predominantly Jewish Christian congregations. But even in largely Gentile congregations we see the adopting of the Jewish 'elder' office for Christian purposes as the Pastorals make clear.

It was at p. 88 in the book where I was ready to pull all my hair out. Here, and in subsequent pages consuming much of the rest of this chapter the authors try to argue that 'rhetoric' was something pagan later imposed on Christian discourse and preaching, but that it is no part of what we find in the NT. This is entirely historically false. The speeches in Acts are in fact summaries of speeches, and they are in fact rhetorical masterpieces, crafted according to the rhetorical outline of how an effective and persuasive ancient speech should be delivered and carefully edited by Luke (see my Acts commentary).

Furthermore, Paul’s letters and Hebrews, and 1 Peter, and indeed most of the rest of the so-called epistolary literature in the NT are oral documents meant to be dramatically delivered out loud and they are indeed structured in good rhetorical form. There is nothing purely spontaneous about them, if by spontaneous one means lacking conformity to known pre-existing rhetorical patterns. I have demonstrated this at great lengths in my socio-rhetorical commentaries, but you need not take my word for it. You can consult hundreds of scholars from around the world who have done the in-depth analysis of what we find in the NT, and they have come to the same conclusion. I would commend to you the important work of Averil Cameron on Early Christian Rhetoric who demonstrates at length that during the entire period of the first five centuries of Christian history Christians who spoke in Greek or Latin used rhetoric and rhetorical structures to form their discourses, sermons, homilies, evangelistic messages and so on. This includes the NT writers. One more thing. The Church Fathers for whom Greek was still a living language were perfectly clear about the fact that Paul and the author of Hebrews and others were all using rhetorical patterns, forms, and devices. Read for example the superb work on John Chrysostom by Margaret Mitchell entitled The Heavenly Trumpet published by Westminister/J.Knox. The Greek Fathers not only knew Paul and Luke and others used rhetoric-- they molded their own preaching on the previous Christian examples found in the NT canon!

The sermon is not an invention of Protestants over the course of the last five centuries. No one who has actually read the sermons of Chysostom or Ambrose or Augustine or a host of other Church Fathers could ever make a silly assertion like that. And furthermore, I would stress once more, the use of rhetoric already was in play in the Diaspora synagogues, which is one of the reasons why Paul's rhetoric was sometimes well received, at least initially in such synagogues. The writers of the NT are almost without exception Jews, not former pagans, and almost without exception they use not only the Greek language they had long since learned but the Greco-Roman rhetoric that was a part of elementary education all over the Empire, including in Jerusalem!

The burden of the chapter on preaching is that modern preaching harms the church by making a particular individual the center of attention, making the audience passive, and stifling the gifts and graces of a large majority of folks. Of course this can happen, but in fact my experience is quite the opposite. Good preaching and pastoring enables the gifts of the other members congregation, it does not disable them. Good preaching and teaching points away from the vehicle to the source-- God, of course.

But the problem with the main thrust of this chapter is it is based on the unBiblical notion that anyone should be able to teach, preach, prophesy on a regular basis 'in church'. This is false--only some have the gift of teaching, preaching, or prophesying. If you bother to read the gift lists in 1 Cor. 12 or in Romans or in Ephesians, there are specific gifts parceled out by the Spirit to specific persons, not to everyone. Look for example at the form of the rhetorical questions at the end of 1 Cor. 12.29-30. The Greek is emphatic using the double negative--- 'not all are apostles are they?' [answer no] 'not all are prophets, are they?' [answer no] not all are teachers are they? [answer no]. And the reason for this is not because someone is stifling the priesthood of all believers (which, once more, has nothing to do with who are leaders and who can be teachers in the congregation). Its because only those gifted and graced by the Spirit and recognized by the church as having such gifts should be doing those things on any sort of regular basis. Period. James says with good reason that not many should desire to be, and presumably not many should engage in teaching, especially if they haven't been learning first!

The very reason Paul silences the women in 1 Tim. 2.8-15 is because they need to be quiet and learn before they teach. When Paul says "I am not now permitting [these aforementioned high status well dressed] women to teach or to usurp authority over men" he is making very clear what ought to be happening in worship when it comes to the proclamation of God's Word. It is not intended to be a dialogue, and as Paul says ever so clearly in 1 Cor. 14.33b-36-- if you have questions (in this case for the prophets), ask your husband at home.

A Dialogue is not Biblical preaching. It never was, and it never will be. It is of course true that sermons were from time to time interrupted both in the synagogue, and elsewhere. But such things are seen as interruptions in the text, unplanned, unexpected, and often inappropriate outbursts, and as Paul says in 1 Cor. 14, no one should barge in and interrupt a prophet when he is speaking God's word. That's inappropriate. This is precisely why the wifes are to ask their questions at home. They are interrupting the prophesying part of that Corinthian worship service.

The whole point of saying 'the spirit of a prophet is controlled by the prophet' is that there is no need to spontaneously speak what one thinks God has said to you. One can wait, even if there is a congregation with many prophets.

On p. 100 we are told that 1 Cor. 14.26 and 31 say that teaching is supposed to come from everyone. First of all 1 Cor. 14.26 is a descriptive statement, not an imperative or a mandate. Paul is saying that in chaotic Corinth, everyone was trying their hand at everything. Paul does not condone this, indeed he spends no little time in 1 Cor. 12 telling them that the Spirit distributes different gifts to different person 'as the Spirit decides'.

You cannot exegete 1 Cor. 14 in isolation from 1 Cor. 12 which is indeed prescriptive about who can and should do what. And this brings us to 1 Cor. 14.31. Paul is talking to the prophets of this particular congregation, not everybody. As the rhetorical questions at the end of 1 Cor. 12 make ever so clear, Paul doesn't think they all are, or should be prophets. In 1 Cor. 14.31 he says to those who are legitimate prophets, who can and ought to behave like genuine prophets that "you can all prophesy in turn..."

It is not difficult to prove this does not mean absolutely everyone. You will remember that Paul said in 1 Cor 11 that a woman could pray or prophesy (if she has the gift) if she had her head covered. Then in 1 Cor. 14 he tells some women they should simply be silent and listen to others prophesying and ask their questions at home. Which women would those be? Clearly not the same women referred to in 1 Cor. 11 whom Paul has endorsed as prophetesses. We could go on down this path but this is sufficient.

Not all are called to teach or preach or prophesy. But it is true about prophets in particular that they may receive a late word from God, not pre-conceived, which they may feel led to share. This does not in any way suggest that all communication in a home church meeting like this should be spontaneous, because frankly prophesy is not the same thing as preaching or teaching, both of which normally require preparation and grounding in God's Word. The amalgamating of preaching and teaching and prophecy is a mistake, and not all of these gifts of speech are meant to be used 'spontaneously' or by just 'anyone'.

And this brings us to an important point. I have no problems with mutual exhortations, family sharing, and the like. There is a time and place for everything, and I think home groups and Bible studies are excellent times for such things. The problem of course with home groups is that they do not fulfill the mandate of Jesus to his disciples be 'a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid.' He might as well have said 'a church hidden in a suburban home can't be found'.
If you are meeting hidden in the suburbs in a home with no sign posting and no open invitation to one and all to come and join you, and no public evidence that corporate worship or a Christian meeting is happening there, you are not fulfilling the prime mandate to invite people into a public and personal relationship with God through coming into the living presence of God in worship in public. You just aren't.

My point would simply be that what Viola and Barna are describing is a vital part of fellowship, and certainly not the focus of worship. Worship in the Biblical sense focuses on God and not mutual interchange and discussion. And since preaching is an essential part of worship, it too deliberately depends upon and fosters the environment of listening. Very different is a text like Col. 3.16 and it also provides no mandate for the 'everyone should be able to do everything' philosophy.

What the Greek of that Col. 31.6 sentence says is that in fact by singing we are in an indirect sense instructing one another and sharing wisdom with one another. This is a verse a Methodist is bound to love, but what it is not about is the gift of teaching in the normal sense, which Paul makes clear only some have. He is saying here that the music, and all those who share in it have a pedagogical function. This is a good thing to bear in mind since too often we see music as simply an affective thing, not cognitive. Notice as well the reference to 'psalmoi' here, which were part of the OT liturgy, being pre-set, pre-written songs that required knowing the tune, and indeed having a choir director according the book of Psalms itself.

Heb. 10.24-25 says nothing about everyone being teachers or preachers or prophets in the congregation. It does say we should all encourage and spur one another on to maturity in Christ. That is of course true but irrelevant if the issue is 'who should regularly and normally teach, preach, prophesy in the church meeting'. Notice that Heb. 13 reminds us that all such persons referred to in Heb. 10.24-25 need to be paying attention to, respecting, and listening to their leaders.

In short, early Christian meetings were periodic in nature, hence the reference to the first day of the week in both 1 Cor. 16 and Rev. 1. Only some persons had the gift of teaching, preaching, or prophesying-- not everyone should try to do such things, because not all had such gifts. Thirdly, only prophecy, so far as we can tell, was normally and regularly something 'spontaneous', and preaching whether in the synagogue or in the church was not simply prophesy. It involved an exposition of pre-existing Words of God.

It is interesting that we find both Paul and Peter using the exact same catena of OT Scriptures to preach about Christ as the stone of stumbling and the keystone. This cannot be an accident. It means that there were pre-set collections of texts used not only in the synagogue, but by Jewish Christians in synagogue and church settings as the taking off points for preaching. This was an early form of the lectionary.

Fourthly, the NT is full of evidence of rhetorical skill and structure. There is nothing very spontaneous about the preaching summaries in Acts if by spontaneous one means 'not reflecting pre-existing rhetorical patterns and styles of argument'. This is simply false. Rhetoric is certainly not something that was imposed on Christian discourse out of paganism, and after the church had become largely Gentile. It was already used in the Diaspora synagogue and smart Jewish Christians who spoke Greek, like Paul and Peter continued to use it in those and other settings in the Roman world.

In short, the chapter on the Sermon falls far short of making its case, and indeed has so many misstatements and errors of fact as well as interpretation, that even if we just use it as a conversation starter, it should come with warning. WARNING: THE CONTENTS IN THIS CHAPTER SEEM TO HAVE SETTLED INTO THE NOTES IN SHIPMENT. DON'T TAKE THE STATEMENTS IN THE TEXT AT FACE VALUE BECAUSE THEY WILL BE SEVERELY QUALIFIED LATER, USUALLY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.

PAGAN CHRISTIANITY—REVIEW PART TWO

‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE’S PICTURE?’

In the second main chapter of Barna and Viola’s book Pagan Christianity, we are given a brief history of some forms and orders of worship, with perhaps a special emphasis on low church Protestant worship. Missing is a discussion of Catholic worship, various forms of Orthodox worship and Anglican worship. I suppose it is just assumed that these forms of worship are so unBiblical, that don’t even warrant discussion.

Perhaps, to be fair, it is because Barna and Viola are mainly preaching to their own choir (except they don’t much favor choirs or worship leaders), or at least to low church Protestant churches in general. My concern in this post is less with the historical analysis, though there are some flaws in the argument and flies in the ointment there (e.g. Zwingli did not hold a purely memorial view of the Lord’s Supper—see the work of Dr. Steinmetz of Duke fame on this point), but with its theological underpinnings which are faulty in various ways.

My concern is especially with the supposed Biblical view of worship they assume, assert, and sometimes argue for. I realize that the positive constructive project, where they argue their positive case is coming in their subsequent book Reimagining Church, however there is more than enough here in this book to make my hair stand on end, so I will be responding here especially to pp. 74-83.

Let me ask at the outset-- Is there anything wrong with small group meetings with lots of sharing—absolutely not, and God bless them. Is it worship? Well maybe in part when it gets around to focusing on God and not on talking to each other or exhorting each other or laying hands on each other. Mutual participation and open sharing is the model Barna and Viola are uplifting. A time together without an order of worship, without a liturgy, without a worship leader. What should we think of this notion?

Let’s start with a general point. If we want to base our theology of worship on a particular reading of 1 Cor. 11-14, as Barna and Viola seem largely to do, then the least we could do is get the analysis of the Pauline material right. The beginning of the description of bad and good worship actually happens in 1Cor. 8—and continues on through 1 Cor. 14. I do not have the time or the patience to work through all these chapters here--- again one can read what is said in my Conflict and Community in Corinth.

Some general points need to be made. It is interesting to notice how Paul actually contrasts real pagan worship with Christian worship. Firstly, Paul is contrasting real ‘pagan worship’ with Christian worship, not what Barna and Viola call pagan Christianity in their book with what they see as true spiritual Christian worship. Secondly, Paul does not critique pagan worship because it involves purpose built buildings, nor because it involves worship led by priests, nor because it involves sacrifices, nor because there were fellowship meals involved of various sorts. None of those things come in for any criticism at all in 1 Corinthians, which is passing strange if Paul had problems with those aspects of truly pagan worship.

As I say, none of these factors come in for Paul ‘sturm und drang’ in his critique. What he critiques is the spiritual influence of false gods, which he calls ‘daimons’ -- the only time he uses such language in his letters. He assumes that what is behind paganism is not nothing, not no spiritual forces or beings, but rather false gods who are in fact unclean spirits, or demons who can bewitch, bother and bewilder Christians. And so he wants his Christians to stay away from their deleterious spiritual influence. No more going to pagan feasts or worship in pagan temples. And no causing one’s brother or sister to stumble by forcing them to violate their conscience by eating meat once sacrificed to an idol, if they have scruples against it.

Especially telling is when Paul says “you cannot drink in the cup of demons and the cup of the Lord too. You cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.” Paul assumes that both the pagan and the Christian meals are sacramental in character that a spiritual transaction of some kind happens in them, and that the influence of the former leads to spiritual pollution and danger, whereas the influence of the Christian meal leads to spiritual renewal, communion with God and union with Christ’s body. To partake of it in an unworthy manner can lead to spiritual illness and even physical death.

Notice at the beginning of 1 Cor. 10.1-5 how very sacramental the language is that Paul uses to describe the Red Sea crossing and manna in the wilderness miracle. He draws an analogy with Christian baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Why? Paul knows perfectly well that the Red Sea crossing was not really a baptism, nor the manna miracle not really a communion meal.

There are two reasons he does this: 1) because he wants to warn his Corinthian converts that just because they had partaken of the Christian sacraments, this did not provide them with ‘eternal security’ from judgment or for that matter a spiritual protection from all spiritual harm if they went on participating in real pagan worship (not to be confused with current high church or institutional church worship); 2) equally importantly he does this because Paul believes there really is something going on in Baptism or the Lord’s Supper of a spiritual and even miraculous nature. The analogy breaks down if one admits miracle in the Red Sea Crossing and the manna, and then suggests that the Christian rites involve nothing more than potent symbols or memorial signs.

But this brings me to a further point. Why exactly had Paul referred to the Lord’s Supper using the term ‘the Lord’s table’? The term here is not ‘meal’ in the Greek, but ‘table’—trapedzēs. Could it be that there was actually a table involved, a piece of liturgical furniture, or something turned into a special table, in early Christian worship, even in homes? Well yes, this is not only possible but likely. The Lord’s Supper was not just a regular part of reclining and dining. It had its own table, and was a part of the regular Christian worship service in a home. This would be no surprise to a Gentile host who had his own altar, and indeed religious cabinet with the masks of his ancestors in it. My point is this-- even in homes there would have been religious items, religious altars, religious furniture. There is no reason Christian might not also have had such things in their homes, rededicated to Christ for example. And so let us analyze for a minute what Paul tells us in 1Cor. 10-14.

Firstly Paul talks about an occasion when all the Christians in Corinth come together, and he affirms that the Lord’s Supper ought to be shared whenever all of them meet. I have no idea how many people this would involve, since Roman villas could be spacious, and a meeting could involve the courtyard, the triclinium or dining room, and so on. In the Roman villas I have been in, in Pompeii and elsewhere, whereas only 18-20 could get in the dining room, if the meeting involved several parts of the house it could involve up to 100 people especially in the courtyard. In other words don't envision a small group Bible study necessarily.

In any case what Paul is trying to do is instill some order and organization into the otherwise chaotic Corinthian worship times—as is especially clear in 1 Cor. 14 where he tries to get them to take turns speaking, to listen when they should, and not to ask questions during the worship service. We actually have no evidence that all Christian worship services were like the one in Corinth, but even if they were, there was supposed to be an order to things—it was not supposed to be like a spontaneous Quaker or charismatic prayer meeting. Sorry but it just wasn’t. The spirit of prophets was in the control of prophets, as Paul says, and Paul as the apostle through this letter was interjecting major structure, including worship structure, into the chaos in Corinth.

And here we come to an important point--- Christ is not the leader of the worship service. This is not said or suggested anywhere in the NT. Christ is the object of worship, the one to whom our worship is directed. The Holy Spirit does indeed prompt and inspire us to share and speak in various ways in worship where there is time and opportunity and need, but this is a different matter.

There is nothing wrong with charismatic sharing as long as the God of peace and order is honored in whatever way worship is done. The leaders of the worship service were then and are now, human beings whom God has anointed and appointed for such tasks, whether they be prophets or preachers, or teachers or song leaders. This is not only clear from a close reading of the OT. It is equally clear from a reading of the NT. Jesus stands up in his hometown synagogue reads the Scripture and preaches while others listen. Should we not follow the example of Jesus? Well of course we should. Paul stands up in the meeting of a synagogue or a meeting with the Ephesian Christians and gives a sermon or exhortation. Others listen. In lieu of that he sends letters to be read as the apostolic voice in worship. Should we not do likewise-- well of course we should.

Worship is not the same thing as a Bible study or a spontaneous sing along at home or a reasonably spontaneous prayer meeting, and it never was intended to be, but it certainly does involve Scriptural sharing from some anointed leader of some sort.

And here is where I stress that Paul’s letters were meant to be read OUT LOUD as part of the worship. That would entail a very long monologue by one of Paul’s workers who read dramatically the whole thing to the congregation. In addition to that there would be prayers and prophecies as 1 Cor. 11 says. In addition to that there would be a meal, and whenever they all gathered, the Lord’s Supper as well. In addition to that, as Ephes. 5 says there would be psalms, which is to say liturgical singing of a rote text, and hymns, in this case probably Christological hymns like we find in Phil. 2.5-11, and spiritual songs, which may well be songs spontaneously prompted by the Spirit. Worship is intended to be theocentric, with the exception of when the Word of God is proclaimed to the people. It therefore involves interchange between God’s Word shared by someone or someones gifted and graced, anointed and appointed to do so, and the response of the congregation as God is worshipped by one and all.

One of the problems here is the fact that NT documents today keep getting treated as modern texts, when in fact they are oral texts. Some scholars, on the basis of the occasional reference to ‘readers’ in the NT have thought that this signaled that Christians were some of the first to self-consciously be trying to produce books, or even literature meant for reading. For example, sometimes Mark’s Gospel has been called the first Christian book, in large part based on the reference in Mk. 13.14 where we find the parenthetical remark, “let the reader understand”, on the assumption that the ‘reader’ in question is the audience. But let us examine this assumption for a moment. Both in Mk. 13.14 and in Rev. 1.3 the operative Greek word is ho anaginōskōn a clear reference to a single and singular reader, who in that latter text is distinguished from the audience who are dubbed the hearers (plural!) of John’s rhetoric. As Mark Wilson recently suggested in a public lecture at Ephesus, this surely is likely to mean that the singular reader is in fact a lector of sorts, someone who will be reading John’s apocalypse out loud to various hearers. We know for a fact that John is addressing various churches in Asia Minor (see Rev. 2-3), so it is quite impossible to argue that the reference to ‘the reader’ singular in Rev. 1.3 refers to the audience. It must refer to the rhetor or lector who will orally deliver this discourse to the audience of hearers. I would suggest that we must draw the same conclusion about the parenthetical remark in Mk. 13.14, which in turn means that not even Mark’s Gospel should be viewed as a text, meant for private reading, much less the first real modern ‘text’ or ‘book’ Rather Mark is reminding the lector, who will be orally delivering the Gospel in some or several venues near to the time when this ‘abomination’ would be or was already arising that they needed to help the audience understand the nature of what was happening when the temple in Jerusalem was being destroyed. Oral texts often include such reminders for the ones delivering the discourse in question.

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Look closely at how Frank Viola describes the service he calls true Biblical worship on pp. 78-79. What he is describing is an in home sharing group, not corporate or public worship. Why is it important that there be corporate or ‘public’ worship? For the very good reason that Christianity is an evangelistic and missional religion. What Frank is describing is an in-home nurture or discipleship meeting with some worship elements. I’m glad that this edifies all those present, and I am happy that there is plenty of sharing, but Biblical worship this is not, in the main.

I must assume that in fact Frank would agree that his home meetings happen at a particular time in a particular place, otherwise no one knows to come. In other words, there is a structure and setting and time deemed appropriate. This is a matter of ritual and order.

While I understand the complaint about things done by rote, it all depends on the spirit in which such things are done. If they are simply done mindlessly, repeating words without thinking about what one is saying or without focusing on God—well that’s not a good thing. But frankly I’ve seen far too many people who find joy in the recitation of the liturgy, and meaning, and are drawn closer to God by doing so. And there is nothing unBiblical about ritual. Try reading the psalms for example, which as Ephes. 5 makes clear Christians recited and sang.

Here’s an important point When one rules out pre-set liturgies and orders of worship, that in itself becomes a ritual by default if one does it over and over again that way. You can see this for example in what happened with the Shakers here in middle Kentucky. Though they lauded spontaneity, it became clear soon enough that they needed some order and so in their singing and dancing building they built little upstairs peepholes where community leaders could observe and make sure there was no lascivious or loose dancing or singing.

Worship, real Christian worship that comports with the Great Commission as well as Peter’s Pentecost sermon however is intend to be open for one and for all, and all should be able to come as they are. Of course, when God works, no one will stay as they are. Worship is in fact the ultimate goal of human life. Salvation is merely a means to the end of worship.

Notice the very clear critique by Paul of purely spontaneous sharing in Corinthian worship. He says that speaking in tongues without interpretation will lead the uninitiated (the idoites--the visitor) to react by saying this is chaotic madness, this is ecstasy without structure. Paul doesn’t want pure spontaneity even in Corinthian worship.

A few points are in order about things in the fine print in the second major chapter: 1) spiritual gifting doesn’t make a person a priest. Training in priestly tasks does, or in the NT offering of self or spiritual praise does. Nowhere is the priesthood of all believers linked to spiritual gifting in the NT; 2) Christ being the head of the body has nothing to do with who is leading a worship service. Worship is an activity of human beings prompted by the Spirit and directed towards God. Christ in worship is not the subject or director of worship, he is the object of worship. 3) all Christians are both laity, and gifted and called to do something for the Lord. This does mean that there is no laity, clergy distinction in the NT, but there is certainly a leader-follower distinction in the NT, and not all are called to be apostles, elders, deacons, etc.

Consider for a moment the heavenly vision of worship in Rev. 4, or say in Isaiah 6. Any evidence here of a sharing group where the focus is on each other? Nope. The focus is entirely on the one who is on the throne, before whom we cast down our crowns. Pure spontaneity can be just as stifling of genuine worship as long and lugubrious liturgy.

And categorical statements like “Let’s face it. The Protestant order of worship is largely unscriptural, impractical, and unspiritual.” (p. 77), is not only an uncharitable remark. It’s Biblically inaccurate.

An actual study of worship in the Bible would recognize that there is indeed both order and space in worship, both liturgy and creativity, both leading and following. When Paul describes worship in 1 Cor. 8-14 he is largely critiquing the lack of order and structure in the service there, not baptizing it and calling it good. 1 Corinthians is a problem solving letter, and when one takes the problematic model and makes that a template for modern Christian worship—that in itself becomes a problem.

At the end of Heb. 12.18-28 our author is reflecting on a theophany, in fact two theophanies the old one at Sinai, and the final one at Christ’s return. He remembers the patterns and rituals of Jewish worship involved at that earlier theophany, and then he says “since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken then let us worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” The image of acceptable worship he had left in their minds is an image of worship that involves thousands of joyful angels and the church of the first born who worship with them, and he says “see to it that you do not refuse him who speaks” referring to God speaking to them in worship, and in this case God probably speaking through some leader-- those who are particularly mentioned in Heb. 13.7 and 17 as worthy of remembrance and support.

The problem in Protestant worship is not the rituals or the pews or the pulpit or the preacher. The primary problem in worship is not that people often sit statically sitting staring at the heads of those in front of them, though that is a problem.

The primary problem is anthropocentric worship—looking at and to each other, when in fact in worship what all Christians are supposed to do is LOOK UP AND SEE THE GLORY OF THE LORD AND HIS HEAVENLY HOSTS, AND JOIN IN THE UNENDING SONGS, FOR AS THE BOOK OF REVELATION MAKES CLEAR—EVEN THE ANGELS HAVE A LITURGY, AND THEY SING IT EXUBERANTLY AND REGULARLY.

Small group gatherings are wonderful and can be very formative. But they are largely anthropocentric in character, they are largely about sharing with one another, and that frankly is mainly fellowship and koinonia and mutual upbuilding. It is the kind of thing that happened in Wesley’s society meetings and the classes and bands which met during the week, but as Wesley said—it is no substitute for public and corporate worship, because one day when the Lord returns all the world will be required to worship, with every knee bowing and every tongue confessing Jesus is Lord.

What we are tuning up for is the final great theophany and its proper human response—worship. What we are not tuning up for in worship is simply more fellowship and Bible study and sharing with each other. What we are turning up for is turning our eyes on Jesus and looking full into his wonderful face, and all such earthly sharing which are “the things of this earth’ fades and becomes strangely dim in the light of his wonder and grace.