IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Post Scripts & Revelation

Reading the last third of the New Testament has been all about keeping openly engaged, whilst a state of disinterest overcame me in waves. Definitely had to apply a stoical mode to reading. Until the time for assessing what has been revealed or not, of what I have learnt or not, from this practice of New Testament reading.

How you relate to and conceive of God, is the primary issue. Throughout history there have been many godlike personas, in some cases a multiplicity of gods. And across that pantheon of forms, godlike behaviour was erratic and often petulant. One only has to look at the Greek Gods to see how vain and competitive they were frequently portrayed as being. Inconsistencies and individual suffering might be blamed on one errant god who was offended, or a bit pissed off that day.  Your misfortune had a divine source. What emerges with monotheism, is a very particular and culturally contingent deity,. 

The Judeo-Christian God of The Bible has a character with a broad yet sharp bifurcation. The Old Testament God has its wrathful form as well as the peaceful beatific form. The God of Jesus and the Gospels comes across perhaps as more benign, yet wants forcefully to yank the state of Israel back into line, through sending his 'only begotten'. The Roman occupation itself is seen as some sort of moral failing, a consequence of Israel straying from God's purpose for them. The God of the Apostles appears to use a level of threat, to punish or reward on the basis of whether you are a fully signed up believer in God. With a heavy preference towards those who are. There being no time to waste on disbelieving factions in God,'s own creation.

That Judeo-Christian God is a male creator God, an interventionist God, unpredictable, even at times petty and fickle. The contrary, and contradictory nature of this fails to impress. It cannot, to my mind, be satisfactorily be shrugged off with a - who are we to understand God's ways? If our whole conception of God describes a deity that behaves despicably, then I'm afraid you've lost me.

God may just be hardwired into the universe, not a thing, not an anthropomorphic being, with no prayers, supplications or party tricks required. Though I'd be the first to admit this is not without its own problems. I accept that all human concepts of the divine are inherently flawed. The whole New Testament and the emerging form of Christianity is built around a passive aggressive God figure. One I felt was attempting to grossly intimidate me into belief. This has rankled and rubbed me up the wrong way consistently, as I've read. 

The structure and historical formation of the New Testament Gospels I still find intriguing. Mark's Gospel appears to be the most direct and uncomplicated of the four gospels. It does not include a nativity backstory or an extensive resurrection. All the other three Gospels produce their own idiosyncratically laboured twists on these. Interestingly none of their Nativity or Resurrection stories agree 100% on the details, in fact they quite widely disagree. One viewpoint might say, this is because they came via differing streams of apocryphal storytelling. Another might colour them as largely inventions of the gospel writer, riffing perhaps extensively upon hearsay or half remembered tales. These are the stories founded on the need for symbolism and myth making. Factual accuracy was therefore never their primary purpose or forte. Reading The New Testament as a literal account, would be to misread it. Christianity's power is in the strength of its myth. Whether it happened or not is impossible to verify. You have to either take that it is true on faith, or walk away

Jews interpret The Messiah as a God appointed saviour king. And this is how Jesus initially primarily presents himself in the New Testament. Israel is in existential turmoil, their is an apocalyptic, end of days tone to Jesus's entire ministry. His desperate mission is to save Israel from itself and bring them to the kingdom of God, by declaring himself the Messiah, and becoming their King. So much emphasis is placed on that framework of him fulfilling biblical prophecy. Though he tends to substantially readjust the interpretation of prophecies in order to make them fit the man he is presenting them with. That Jesus is a better fit for the moment. What he claims is not universally accepted, even at the time.

Jesus actually fails to save Israel from itself. They're not listening. His ministry gets derailed by egregious circumstances, the Jewish authorities want him removed because he was declaring himself king of the Jews. Understandably the current king was a bit riled.  And with the crucifixion, then resurrection, this whole story line lurches off into an entirely new direction. There is a greater purpose to Jesus's death, he saves, not just Israel, but all humanity from itself. A little local difficulty in occupied Israel suddenly morphs and takes on this much larger universal religious mantle. One that requires quite a bit of retrofitting by the gospel writers to turn it into another prophesied outcome. This story on paper should not be believed, its preposterous. But something else is working through its mythology, that shelters under the term existential angst.

There are a lot of things that Jesus never says. He doesn't claim to be God, he adopts the generic ' Son of God' epithet. Yet this is wide open to interpretation as to what that actually means. Jesus is never seen being harshly judgemental, and regards any sinful or disapproved of minority or about sexual relationships, always with compassion. Often castigating his own disciples for their prejudicial judgements. Putting any debatable claims he made about who he was to one side, he appears an impressive man.

Those harshly worded moralistic condemnations we tend to negatively associate with orthodox Christianity, mostly finding their origins and justifications either from Old Testament prophets or the Apostle letters, not directly from the words of Jesus. He tends to step down to help the fallen, the sick, irrespective of whether they are God's Children or not. Judge not, lest you be judged. In Buddhism you are urged to resist fault finding. Self Righteousness it appears is the curse of any faith.

Jesus dies, so the Christianity we've inherited, the construction of its religious traditions and institutions, is left entirely to his Apostles and future disciples. And with increasing distance from its founder there was a inevitable hardening of Christianity's arteries. Religious hammers tending to seek out the abberant nails. Jesus wanted his disciples to be effective evangelists, to heal the human condition. Christianity has not always got the tone of its evangelism right..  

Christian leadership becomes predominantly male. Traditional Jewish cultural views on the role of women in society, become widely applied within Christianity. If women did once have a role as equal disciples of Jesus, this did not appear to survive for long in the post-resurrection fall out. The feminine viewpoint is either silenced, widely disparaged or mistrusted. That men took such complete control of Christianity, has been to its eternal detriment.

When reading the New Testament, the post Jesus texts I couldn't connect with, hardly at all. But then came the bat shit crazy epilogue, the book of Revelation. It's written by John, who is not the John of St John's Gospel. The Book of Revelation is writing entirely unique in character. Apparently at that time visionary revelation stories were quite prevalent. Its not clear why this one was chosen from such a large imaginative pool? As a genre, these are not teachings, but divine warnings from the angel hood to the netherworld. The Book of Revelation provides a large amount of the religious symbolism and imagery, not just for Christian apocalyptism, but most 20th Century fantasy and horror writing, that borrows tropes, the fantastic beasts and demons from The Book of Revelation. The lingua franca of fire and brimstone, hell and damnation all starts from here. It was always meant to scare the bejeezus out of you.

It's visual imagery is utterly bonkers and mind bogglingly complex. The landscapes and effects are similar to Buddhist Mahayana Sutras, the only stylistic comparison I know of. I found when reading The Book of Revelation I suddenly felt on relatively familiar teritory. All of which is an interesting pointer to what inspires me. I'm the sort of person that responds with passion and love to ornate imagery from Alchemy, Egyptian Bas Reliefs, Baroque Churches, Orthodox Icons etc. 

I understand this imagery on an instinctual level. So whatever the origins, mythology and iconography they are what connect with me, and Christianity is no different. Because for me when I apprehend Christianity through its beliefs and theology, I just feel its either awful or utterly ridiculous. When I absorb the beauty of its imaginative realm, this provides a much richer and more meaningful experience of being connected with something important.

Jesus's teachings seem to me to have an entirely different tone, to the institutions and theology that have sprung up around them. He is relatable and humane. Jesus's status as a teacher, appears to be intrinsically tied into, and dependent upon, the religious and secular conditions of his time. To simply explain and make him comprehensible. 

This started as a task, to see what the New Testament was actually like, as opposed to what I thought it was like. And what I found did occasionally surprise me, puzzle me, bemuse me, only rarely inspiring me. As a book, it is a messy mish mash of stuff somewhat badly thrown together. How Christianity ever became so hugely popular appears even more of a mystery now than before. That Jesus is supposed to save us through his crucifixion continues to baffle me. I see it as this unfathomable paradox, one I just constantly shake my head over in disbelief.

I've spent the last few months reading the New Testament. And though it certainly is about something, what that something is stands on a completely different side of the canyon, to where I'm standing. And reading the New Testament has not brought me significantly closer to it. If anything that canyon has grown substantially wider. 

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - After The Leader Has Departed

Initially fearful of being arrested and crucified themselves, the Apostles kept their heads down. Eventually venturing out to the border towns of Israel and on to the Roman occupied territories beyond. For the time being, forced to give up on saving Israel from itself. They put their minds to converting gentiles to their nascent new faith.

The Acts of the Apostles is filled with accounts of a succession of incendiary public speaking engagements, that inevitably come to the notice of the local authorities. Chased out of town, or arrested, put in prison, only to be released by strange 'angelic' interventions. Fleeing the area, they move on to the next town, hoping to fare better. Acts is a largely unedifying account of a hit and run style of evangelism, spread across the borderlands and backwoods of the Roman Empire.

So the post Jesus landscape, opens up with this missionary travelogue - if its Wednesday then this must be Galatia. A whole series of letters from Paul and generally minor apostles follows. One is left with the impression of hearing only half of the conversation. Paul, was a second generation follower, a convert who'd never met Jesus. Having previously been a particularly sadistic Pharisee, indeed a persecutor of the Jesus sect itself. The emotional tone of his letters demonstrates he never quite shook off an inflexible ideologically driven mind set. Nor has he overcome his guilt. He has the ardent certainty of someone trying too hard to prove, mostly to himself, that he is now a totally reformed character.

As a consequence, in his written advice, he consistently draws the steeliest of hard lines on moral issues. He deliniates issues resolutely and firmly. Ideally you control your libido, be chaste and wholly devote your life to God. If you can't do that, and really must have sex, then that has to be within marriage. Homosexual relations are not even to be considered as a valid 'outlet'. These missives are full of long winded repetitious explanations, that impart an - it's my way or the highway doctrine. But then, admittedly, he will suddenly take you off guard, with a beautiful composition on the nature of true love - divine or otherwise. Or reveal the vulnerable neuroticism that underlies his hard man persona.

Often working at some distant from the situations he's a mentor too. Paul tries, with varying degrees of success, to use the autocratic mode. The Pauline tone and declamatory style of delivery, form the mode of oratory that every subsequent evangelical minister throughout the millennia, sadly, will mimic. 

However, when you habitually throw your moral weight around like that, when its you that makes a very human mistake, there can be an equally savage and unforgiving condemnation. He oscillates between apologising or justifying himself and berating the local Christian group for their laxness or inconstancy. There's are extensive discussions, across many letters to different groups, about the nature and detrimental spiritual consequences of circumcision. So, its topical.

Paul in Ist Corinthians appears boisterously confident, but by 2nd Corithians he's more down hearted, doubt filled and apologetic. There's been an upset, a misunderstanding over something he'd written in a previous communication. His authority is now being called into question, fueled by rival Christian groups who've turned up in Corinthe. Paul never goes into the fine details, but is robust in his self justification. Though the upset appears to focus attention on questions of authenticity and legitimacy.

We are only a few years after the death of Jesus, and Christian institutions as we now know them, do not exist. Everyone is making their mission up as they go along. Paul is going to be central in establishing the theological ground and the future direction of mainstream Christianity  But at this time none of that has happened. He addresses them on the streets, and through his letters tries to hold on to people's hearts and minds.

With self legitimising orthodoxy being absent, being in the direct lineage of Jesus's disciples helps. And Paul's lineage, well, it was indirect, and more than a little dodgy in that regard. There were a lot of freelance Christians around, who had their own individual take on what the message of the Messiah meant. As usual, these fall roughly into two forms, the word for word literalists and the mystical 'in the spirit of' practitioners. Paul's version was just one amongst a whole range of options for the direction this new Christian faith could take. How could you discern which was the most faithful and true to the teachings of Jesus?

Faced with this contention, Paul panics, and plays what he hopes will be a trump card. He makes a revelation, that initially he does not even declare as being his own experience. Recounting an arcane mystical experience of heaven and of God, he'd had fourteen years previously. He says he doesn't want to boast, but then proceeds to do just that. 

Modern scholars analysing this say the language he uses in his description, is heavily indebted to Jewish mysticism. To a particular early form of Kabbalah. This seems risky. The text does not reveal whether or not this was effective in regaining the Corinthian's confidence.

The New Testament as a whole is now beginning to resemble a Greatest Hits Album. Starting off with the famous and most popular tracks - The Gospels. To be followed by the stuff that is largely album filler - Acts, Letters, Minor Gospels. Rounding up with the last blast of an apocalyptic stomper - Revelations. Reading through to the end is getting to be a bit of a drag. Reaching its conclusion being worthy of some kind of reward for endurance. 

Most Greatest Hits albums remind you of how good someone was at first, and how they failed to maintain that brilliance in later years. Even as they continue to sell out ever bigger stadiums and have increasingly million dollar record sales. The bigger and more popular they became, their vital creative spark is lost to that pursuit of greater fame and celebrity. 

Ditto Christianity, once it escapes the confines of being a rebel sect of the religion of Abraham, spreading into the lands of the Gentiles, eventually to sign a distribution deal with Constantine and the Holy Roman Empire adopts it. At this point, even as it is set to conquer the known world, it has thrown its whole soul into the fray of political dogfighting. And the dead hand of institutional orthodoxy, bares down upon anyone it sees as committing 'heresies'. This usually means anyone who dares to think for themselves.

We cannot fully know what those early Christian groups believed, of what the paths not fully traveled were like, for the remaining history is sketchy. And Christian history has largely been compiled and set by the Roman Catholic victor's, which comprehensively, expunged, expelled and cleaned up that past. So effectively did Paul's interpretation of Jesus's teachings triumph in the end.

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Meaning as Myth

If the New Testaments power lies anywhere,  remarkably its not in the minutiae of Jesus's teachings, nor in the miracles. Its in truths caught within its mythology, like a fly in amber. In this sense it would not matter whether Jesus's ministry were actually true or not. It's more about how these stories chime with the archetype. Jesus exists in this imaginative, potentially transformative meaning as myth. Offering us a way to not be judged, to be forgiven our failings, to redeem oneself and be set free. Its a myth of a particular form of liberation. Now, in our guilt and shaming obsessed modern culture, who wouldn't want that? 

It's clear that whoever the writer of St John's Gospel was, totally understood this. That symbols and myths are more potent than literal facts alone, they inspire us to live differently. As you may have already noticed, I've mostly talked about the facts. Of who wrote the gospels, how the New Testament evolved, their history, structure and literary form, than what was said. This is largely due to my interest in history, that draws me towards this form of analysis. The rest was reluctance.

As a consequence I am factually better informed. Though I no more understood why it is this confoundng Christian story that has stuck, than when I started. The whole thing feels decidedly weird. Yet history is more than just the interpreted restatement of the facts, its also an appraisal, a re-forming of the myths we have lived by, and sometimes continue to live by. History, in and of itself, can create foundational myths that an entire country, culture or religion can cluster around. For better or worse. The Romans, The USA, The British Empire, The Nazi's, all operated on the basis of their foundational myths.

A central myth about the Buddha is that of The Four Sights. The Buddha is living a luxurious lifestyle. Contained within the Palace grounds, deliberately sheltered from the reality of the real world. He is bored and curious about what is outside the Palace boundary. He begins sneaking out on adventures. On his first venture he sees an old person for the first time. On the second, he sees a sick person for the first time. On the third, he sees a dead body for the first time. These three sights unsettle him greatly. Its not until the fourth venture, when he sees a religious holy man, that he understands that he needs to renounce his present life, and discover where a way of being that goes beyond old age, sickness and death, could be found.

Now this story is highly unlikely to have actually happened. It is a myth, but as a myth it encapsulates veins of truth within its morphology. Spiritual insights do inevitably require us to take action, to Go Forth from our present lifestyles and habitual perceptions of the world. Otherwise they cannot be considered true insights. The Four Sights as a story maps out the precursors for the emergence of a spiritual life. A mythic arche that is universally relatable and applicable.

Today we live lives that shelter us from fully feeling the truth of our mortality. Its only when we are prepared to step outside of our willful ignorance, then we perceive the truth of how things really are. How we subsequently deal with that is via the wisdom of the Sage's. The primary Buddhist myth here concerns Impermanence - the mortality of human life, of time, of space, of everything, how to learn to live with that, but ultimately how to transcend it too.

In the story of Jesus, he too encounters people who are old, who are sick, who are dying or are already dead. But his response is different. He directly heals whatever ailed them physically or mentally, he resurrects them from their death. Through him, as the Son of God, all things are healed and made right again. Our mortality ultimately is to be transcended by the arrival of the kingdom of God. The central myth of the life of Jesus, concerns Salvation - and through whom you find it for oneself. Rescued through that faith, to discover the Godly within and without ourselves. Jesus's pro active engagement with the sufferings of the world creates the Christian raison d'etre.

Salvation has to be prefaced by surrender. Through recognising the centrality of God to the way things really are, and giving up oneself voluntarily to that. Saved by surrendering up one's selfishness. The myth of salvation is present throughout the panoply of gospel stories. People willing to surrender themselves out of faith to Jesus, are healed. Peter finds he can walk on water, until doubt reasserts itself. Jesus saves him, scolding him for his lack of faith. 

Jesus surrenders to God's will, to being tried, to being crucified and resurrected. He saves people from themselves, from their suffering, from their lack of faith in the Godly dimension of being. Its not necessarily that Jesus is the instrument, medium or mode through which you are saved, but he provides a model, the inspirational image, the mythic framework to demonstrate how that looks, how that is done. And a clearly apprehending faith, so it seems, will be the key to unlocking that.

ITS A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Gospel Fatigue & Mythic Interpretations.

I've recently encountered a phase of what I'm going to call 'gospel fatigue'. There is only so much you can read of anything, particularly if one's affections never quite soften enough to touch your soul. There is an additional factor in the literary quality of John's Gospel itself. It is like being served up this very rich high caloried pudding to eat every morning. Some mornings you just can't face consuming it, ever ever again. One has to take a break from being ambushed by the supersized culinary feast John is consistently cooking up.

Out in the definitely esoteric world of biblical critique, there is a sub group of a sub group called 'form critics'. They examine the stories in the New Testament to see if they form a repeated pattern. There are established structural 'forms" to the stories related in the Buddhist Sutras. So form criticism is not something specific to Christianity. It's one of the ways you can observe simple reportage slipping into hagiography. The formalised structures in Buddhism are made consciously, and seem above board and obvious as you read them. In the New Testament they are concealed within the narrative, but once you do see them, they are hard not to notice.

There's a structural pattern to the stories involving the Pharisees, for example. The Pharisees make a criticism of Jesus or his disciples, usually over some minor infringement of religious rules or traditions. Jesus will make some enigmatic response, that sort of answers, but doesn't really answer the issue. Trying to wrong foot or not play their game. The Pharisees walk away humbled, perplexed or angry, plotting to give Jesus his comeuppance later. Jesus may then give a teaching in a explanatory coda.

Patterns in the instances of healings involve someone who cannot get near to Jesus. They are either poor, diseased, a foreigner, or from a forbidden sect or sinful proffession. They have to fight to get close or to touch Jesus. Even the disciples sometimes discourage Jesus or the sick person from approaching them. Jesus insists on them coming closer. Usually healing and declaring them as an example of someone with greater faith in him than his own disciples.

One could get into yet another discussion about authenticity, but that would miss the point. The primary intention in formalising the stories is to make them more comprehensible, as a teaching. Because each of the stories has a recognisible structure that leads up to a point that's repeatedly being made. Often exemplifying a way of seeing, acting or being that is considered either correct or incorrect. And a healing story provides the cogent example of it. John constructs these extemporaneous teachings out of them.

Out of all the many hundreds, if not thousands of instances of healing Jesus is reported to have made, why have a handful or two been chosen to retell? Because they are the memorable ones, that exemplify a doctrinal, ethical or spiritual point clearly. One could almost say they were designed for this purpose. I'm not saying faked, just formalised, because that is different. Their intent is focused on demonstrating a mythic level of truth, through this one 'real'.miraculous story.

This element of formalising exists within the structure of individual stories, but also on the broader span of the gospels too. Such as the way incidents from Jesus early life are composed to prefigure or foreshadow what happens later in his life. The story of Lazarus prefigures that of Jesus's own Resurrection, for example. The use of Old Testament prophecies provides justification forJesus being the Messiah, and Jesus then prophesys his own crucifixion and the ressurection, which then happens exactly as he has predicted. The whole of the New Testament Gospels is stuffed to the gills with a sequence of prophecies being fulfilled. Mutually reinforcing the central proposition of why Jesus is who he says he is. None of this is happening by happenstance, it has to have all been foretold by God or his prophets, somewhere in an obscurely versed biblical paragraph.

Jesus is represented, sometimes simultaneously, on three mythic levels, as the son of man historical figure, as an archetypal Messiah/Saviour figure, and as a more cosmic figure the Son of God. ( Father, Son & Holy Spirit ) There is ongoing debate about whether the grammatical gender of the Holy Spirit is being mistranslated. In Hebrew grammar the word for Spirit is feminine, in Greek its neuter, and in Latin its masculine. Its therefore possible that the Trinity could originally have been an archetypal triad of Father, Son & Mother. 

Obviously this is conjectural, because no Aramaic source for the gospels has yet to be found to confirm any grammatical gender swapping. Interestingly though, in some of the so called 'Gnostic' Gospels the Holy Spirit is represented through the feminine archetypal figure Sophia, regarded as an ultimate authority and dispenser of spiritual wisdom. 

Whoever the true writer of John's Gospel is, they are a master storyteller, inserting believable local colour and human detail into it. The narrative line stays consistent to other gospels, but John memorably, buffs up the mythic form of the story. Highlighting elements of betrayal, tragedy, pathos and heroic redemption embedded within it. He also fully reflects the very real debate at the time, about who Jesus actually was - Messiah, Demon, Magician or Charlatan?

The healing stories have a prologue, story and epilogue to them, and are no longer just the bare factual bones, briefly told. John does what no previous gospel writers has been able to do, to turn Jesus"s life and ministry into one seemless coherent whole. It possesses spiritual clarity, but also a stronger emotional resonance. To do this, the writer of John takes quite a few liberties with time, place and sequence, in order to hold your attention, and maintain the dramatic flow.  The effect is similar to the difference between viewing a factual documentary and a technicolour wide screen Hollywood epic. Same source material, but filmed and edited differently.

The words of Jesus in St John's Gospel, take several strides away from verbatim. Presenting us with fleshed out extemporised teachings that are in the spirit of Jesus, but not necessarily wholy by him. For it is no longer just about the teachings. It's the whole metaphorical infrastructure, the theological underpinning. You are being introduced to and instructed into the Jesus myth.

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - The Full Biblical Baroque

Up to now, the Canonical Gospels have a relatively consistent narrative in the retelling of Jesus's life and ministry. Determining the future shaping of that story, and how it will be interpreted. The accepted order in which the gospels were written is Mark, then Matthew, then Luke, then John.  As for John - well - crikey! - more on that later.

The Apostles as writers of the gospels, as discussed previously, is a mere literary contrivance. But there is, nonetheless, a quite distinct individual authorial voice and literary style to the writing within them all. 

Mark as his travelling companion, is often thought to be the mouthpiece for Peter's account. He gives you the basic kernel of the events with minimal embellishment. No sense of the background, of where Jesus came from. Mark quickly skips over the resurrection as though that were a minor coda. Its short, direct, written in a contained but lively manner.

Matthew, was an apostle who was present with Jesus at the time. Borrows wholesale from Mark, but introduces a preface of stories about Jesus's birth and childhood, and puts more detail on the bones of the ressurection and aftermath. He writes in plain factually perfunctory language, as if he might have to read all this as a police statement in court, so he'd better stick to the exact known details. Even what is 'miraculous' is related in a passive matter of fact manner. Matthew's Gospel, paradoxically, can be a comparatively dull gospel to read. Mainly as a result of the way it's written, but also its compendious length.

Luke, known as the Evangelist, takes less directly from Mark. He writes in a significantly more commited, energetic style. Filled with an engagement with his subject matter, so that his own verve is infectious, lifting the stories off the page. He too, includes fuller origin stories from before John the Baptist, and inserts significant detail on the disciples encounters with Jesus after the resurrection. Its almost as though he looked at Mathew's gospel and thought, you know, I can do a much better job than that. And then he does.

Until John comes along. Reported to have been one of the youngest of Jesus's Apostles. A highly impressionable youth perhaps. But boy, does he take his retelling to another level. Imagine this as the same story as the previous three Gospels, but with the help of hallucinogenics. Intoned by a large theatrical and rhetoric infused voice. It uses big cosmic language, florid and mythic to its very muscles and bones. Its as though, gone is any need for maintaining strict factual accuracy, what we need here is a vivid sense of the importance of it all. The meaning of Jesus bringing God's kingdom to earth lunges at you off the page.

John could have been thinking of the future, to when those who'd actually met Jesus were beyond living memory. What then? Facts, they are OK, but what needs to be communicated is Jesus's significance on an emotional level. John may have been responding to the contentions of his time around the true meaning of Jesus's ministry. When you bring to mind the Gospels today. the tone of St John's Gospel tends to be what you hear.

We are presented with the full biblical baroque from a truly visionary writer. It's meant to knock you for six with its richly embellished vocabulary and style, and it does so in spades. Communicating a vision of the potency and spirit of Jesus's revelation. Aimed more directly at the certainty of your heart, than the doubting, questioning mind.

Sources for those early life stories of Jesus must have originated from within the twelve Apostles. There was at least one brother of Jesus, James, with Thomas* an outlying possiblilty of being another. 

* ( John's Gospel really has it in from Thomas, providing three instances of negative portrayals, after being only a listed name in the previous gospels. Elaine Pagels suggests John may have been writing these directly to dish some dirt on the writer of the Gospel of Thomas, with its self proclaimed 'secret teachings' of Jesus.) 

If one believes that the immaculate conception is how it actually happened, then the details of The Annunciation story could only have come via Mary the Mother of Jesus. One can imagine how the retelling of the oft repeated family story might go :-

Jesus, yes, he was always a bit of an odd one, that son of mine. But that I had him at all was entirely the angel of the Lord's fault. Well, Joseph was away from home at the time, so I thought why not? Lets try giving birth to the Lord's anointed'

If not this, then we are left with a story arising of the Virgin birth, as a fever dream in the imagination of its writer. In short, someone entirely inventing the whole angelic visitation and pre-nup agreement.

What is noticeable, is that the New Testament stories concerning Jesus and the twelve disciples, are so resolutely blokey. One can sense a lot of youthful testosterone and competitiveness flying around, with a big religiously infused bromance going on right in the middle of it. Young men to this day like to brace a challenge, a sense of testing and pitting themselves against themselves and the world. You can imagine just how intoxicating being around someone they thought of as the Messiah would be, particularly to the macho idealism of ardent young men.

As soon as we delve into Jesus's early life and the resurrection, then those female figures previously kept in the background, take up a more significant role front stage. Elizabeth, John the Baptist's Mother, and Mary the Mother of Jesus in the Nativity story. And Martha and Mary Magdelene at the Resurrection. They have to appear because attending to children and to the bodies of the dead, would traditionally be viewed as a woman's duty.

Biblical researchers suggest that Mary Magdelene may actually have been a central close disciple of Jesus. Someone who also provided money to financially support Jesus and his disciples in their ministry. Also, she is one of the first to see the vision of the risen Jesus, and goes to tell the initially disbelieving male disciples. 

In the Non Canonical Gospel of Mary Magdelene, both Andrew and Peter testily dismisses the validity of her prophetic gospel testimony, largely on the basis of her gender alone. Unfortunately this does ring true. Particularly when you consider the inherent misogyny at the heart of Roman Catholicism, and Peters role in that as its mythic founder.

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - When Christianty Goes Rogue

I'm making progress reading the New Testament. I've now reached Luke, and yet another reiteration of the life and ministry of Jesus. What has Luke to offer, that hasn't already been said twice over?  

In his preface Luke makes it abundantly clear what his sources are, that his gospel has come to him second hand.

' It's has been handed down to us by the original eyewitnesses and stewards of the word'

For reassurance, and because he thought the accounts written so far were perhaps not written clearly enough.

'I thought it a good idea to write an orderly account for you'

So with Mark and Luke we have accounts written by second generation Christian disciples, with no direct experience of Jesus's ministry, documenting the words of first generation Apostles or disciples who we presume were still alive.

With Luke the quality of the storytelling has hugely improved. Prior to becoming a Christian Luke was a physician, so we have someone here who is definitely well educated, and it shows. He is a skilled, very agile writer, with an ability to compose succinct memorable turns of phrase. Again you have brief windows of him capturing an observation from an eye witness. Here in Luke Ch 5 V15, Jesus has been besieged by people wishing to be healed by him. Just one after another, day after day. And one wonders how anyone would cope with that. How do spiritual rock stars recharge themselves? Well in Luke Ch 5 V 15 he tells us;

' The news about Jesus, though, spread all round, and large crowds came to hear and be healed from their disease. He used to slip away to remote places and pray.'

So, like every good introvert, Jesus needed his 'down time', some solitude, in order to cope with it all. And he made sure he could find that space and time. Now, that is a human detail I relate to.

I find these little snippets of interest in the Gospels. Unfamiliar quotations that colourfully cut through the general textually numbing effect of a familiar story being rolled out. Like this enigmatic statement from Mark Ch9 V49, essentially saying we all need some fire in our belly, that just being meek and mild could just make you passive aggressive. You don't live at peace with one another simply by being submissive, you have to engage honestly and sometimes forceful in discussions with one another. As long as that salted fire is informed by your faith.

'You see, everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is great stuff, but if salt becomes unsalty, how can you make it salty again? You need salt amongst yourselves. Live at peace with each other.'

Jesus's ministry seems initially quite parochially focused. The agenda is directed at the Jewish people; the Old Testament references; the prophecies fulfilled; the sense that God's people need to get their shit in order. Jesus saw himself and his teachings as sitting within the legacy of the Jewish faith tradition. But a faith that nonetheless required renewal, and not just ticking all the ethical boxes generally thought to be correct.

Any long lived religion goes through periods of upheaval. A necessary kicking out of detrimental habits, amid a reinvigorating restatement of its purpose. Jesus appears to have loved confounding people's expectations of him, to the point of being deliberately contrary. The symbolism of him overturning the money makers tables in the Temple, is lost on no one.

If anything, there's rather too much counter reframing,- you thought it would be like this, but I say it's another thing entirely. This is a neat trick if you can pull it off so repeatedly. And yet, If you readjust the spiritual optics too often, at some point people might rightly conclude, well, maybe you're not the true Messiah after all?  Could Jesus be just playing them for fools? But then, we cannot know the effect his presence had, the charisma of him, what it was like to be there and part of it all. That sort of thing can make folk push to one side their cynicism and any doubts.

Jesus used prophetic traditions to authenticate who he said he was, only to often upturn or deliberately reconfigure them later. You can tell that there was this unpredictability about him. Something that unnerved even his own disciples at times. Judas decides he had to betray Jesus because he'd wanted the Messiah to be more than just inspiring teachings, but an instigator of revolutionary action, an overthrower of the Roman yoke. He wanted Jesus to literally become the King of Israel, not just dress up as one.

Luke introduces, for the first time the teenage story of Jesus's parents finding him engaging in discourse with the temple priests. In later stories Jesus's parents appear to view him and his ministry as madness. The Pharisees thought him a pernicious evil, his miracles demonicly inspired. No way was he the long wished for Messiah. He was not welcomed with open arms by his home faith, quite the opposite. His acts of healing are what drive his movement, and make him popular. Yet at what point did he or his disciples decide - you know we are just going to have to go it alone here, let's go full rogue?

This question of whether Christianity was a sect of the Jewish faith or saw itself as something else independent of it, is eventually settled by the circumstances of the place and the time. Its unacceptable outsider disrupter status persists, even after the passing of Jesus. The subsequent diaspora of Christians casts his followers out across the Roman Empire. Oppression and persecution dogging them wherever they go. They are known to be a nuisance, self opinionated, perpetually evangelising, individuals, who can really get on people's tits. The Roman historian Tacitus in the 1st century CE describes Christians as 'abominations'. 

It's not until the conversion of Constantine in 312 CE, when Christianity becomes an established state religion, that this outsider disrupter status begins to diminish. But the persecution of Christians is prevalent in some societies to this day. They can still be seen as a dangerous, provocative presence.

The mythmaker and storyteller Martin Shaw recently converted to Orthodox Christianity. He believes Christianity in the West has lost sight of its radical past, the non conformist, counter cultural instincts, its rougher edges too readily smoothed over. There is a need to rediscover the spirit of wild unpredictability of its founder. And as I read the New Testament I can see why he would say that. Jesus in the Gospels is much more complex contrary individual, divisive and forcefully more direct than our contemporary gently beneficent image communicates. Maybe Christianty might benefit from 'Going Rogue' again.

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Was Mark Chanelling Peter?

I've decided how best to proceed with reading the New Testament. To meet and react to my emotional responses too it, in as honest a way as possible. Forming my own opinions. Not struggling to filter them through, any dissonance with a pre established theology or metaphorical framework in a commentary. If I were to do that, how do they then appear? What is impressed upon me? I want the Gospels to speak to me on this level first and foremost.

As I wrote previously, Matthew and Mark share a high percentage of the same stories, at times almost word for word. There are chapters where they diverge, or in Mark's case, he adds incidents that appear no where else in the Canonical Gospels. We must assume Mark is the source and originater of this Testament, though its likely he drew what is recounted directly from Peter. 

There are accounts in Mark's Gospel of frequently fractious interactions between Peter and Jesus, where Jesus reprimands him severely for behaving impulsively or inappropriately. I imagine Peter as essentially a practical man, with a firey personality. A passionate and devoted follower of Jesus, he appears throughout Mark's Gospel to be prone to speaking first and thinking later. The image we hold today of Peter as a bit of a well intentioned clunk. This may be derived from Peter, using Mark's gospel to retrospectively self flagilate himself over how badly he often  behaved in Jesus's presence. Alternatively,  Peter may, of course, be being written on this way to demonstrate a particular type of disciple, the naive enthusiast, who constantly puts his ideological foot in it.

Mark's account of The Transfiguration is the same story in basic outline, but with quite different dialogue and detail. But then neither Matthew nor Mark were actually present at The Transfiguration, so they both portray this incident from what Peter, James or John recounted to them. There is quite a degree of divergence, either through faulty memory,  'Chinese whispers', or origins in a different stream of storytelling legacy. 

Though I said in the previous blog, its thought the Gospel's are not written from the perspective of an eye witness. There are moments in Mark when the sense of a personal recollection pops up, as in Ch 4. V 33.

'He used to tell them a lot of parables like this, speaking the word as much as they were able to hear. He never spoke except using parables. But he explained everything to his own disciples in private.'

This has the feeling as though it were lifted direct from someone's statement. This might be Peter's voice we hea. There are only a few pieces reputed to have been written by Peter. Short epistles in letter form that are accepted as authoritative and The Gospel of Peter that is for some reason not included within the New Testament canon. So not a lot of written sources to go on. Yet his influence on the future institutional direction of Christianity is greater than any other Apostle. Perhaps Mark's Gospel has always been seen as really that of Peter. Hence adding anything else by 'Jesus"s Rock' was less important.

One of Mark's jobs was as Paul's translator. But he also functioned as an archivist, preserving in documents Peter's experience of Jesus. This could imply that Peter was more a man of practical action, rather than a master of words. It would be wrong to assume Jesus's disciples were all educated or fully literate. Certainly not in Greek. So when it came to putting down what they'd experienced in written words on a page, some may indeed have required help from scribes. Hence we have Mark's Gospel.

One of the aspects of the New Testament I had not expected, is how much there is an atmosphere of doom and gloom, expectations of a looming apocalypse. Jesus's ministry is tapping into this mood. Operating on the basis that - its all going to shit, and this is only going to get worse, unless we change, and the kingdom of God can then arrive. 

A huge sense of urgency permeates the entire New Testament. The imperative being, we should do all we can to save ourselves and Jesus is the conduit for that, as the Saviour. This is an era when the power and might of the Roman Empire was expanding inexorably. The land of Israel once again was an occupied nation. The Hebrew religious institutions were not up to scratch, accommodating themselves to the Roman presence, sometimes to the point of being collaborators. There was a widespread yearning in Israel for the sense of renewal, that a Messiah was said to bring.

It intrigues me, how much this apocalyptic strain in the New Testament, affects us still.  In the interpretation we put on our own contemporary geo-political situation. You could say that Christianity, of all the major religions, ought to be best placed to thrive in any possible future apocalyptic senario. Its always been designed from the start for dealing with it.

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Mark & the Origins of the Gospels

Codex Sinaiticus 4th Century New Testament

The St Mark attributed to this Gospel, was part of St Peters entourage, acting as his companion and translator. Mark, unlike Matthew, was not a disciple of Jesus at the time of his ministry. As I read the New Testament I am becoming increasingly fascinated by the whole history and process of how the New Testament came about. Not to mention some Christian's desire, however unrealistic, for these gospels to be the literal unvarnished words of the Apostles and Jesus.

Religions with founders from the so called ' Axial Age' ( 500 BC to 300 BCE ) encounter similar difficulties with provenance. The ' Axial Age' spans the period where all the worlds major religions emerge. This runs in parallel with increasing more widespread literacy. Prior to this period, mastery of the written word was the prerogative of priests, scribes and business. General society operated through a network of orally transmitted information. From the Axial Age onwards the written word slowly replaces that oral transmission. However, most religious texts from the Axial Age do not emerge until a few hundred years after the founding events. A clear sense of the sources and origins of those words, how they came to be written down, and by whom, at some point disappears off a cliff into a very murky pool of hearsay and suggestive inferences. It's in the nature of studying it, that one is forced into making conjectures. 

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Even though the Gospels have Saints names attached to them, there remains a huge amount of contention between biblical academics and Christians about authorship and sources. There are disparate Christian reports from 100-200  years later that vouch for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John's involvement in the creation of them. But you'd be unwise to take these word of mouth accounts unquestioningly at face value. Particularly when textual analysis tells you something that runs partially contrary to that narrative.

Matthew's own Gospel mentions Matthew the tax collector as having a part in one biblical incident. Talking about yourself but not owning it, would be a curious thing for any writer to do. This is suggestive that the compiler of his Gospel, was most likely not Matthew. But its important to stress here, that doesn't mean the accounts contained within it didn't originally come from Matthew. We just cannot say that with 100% certainty. 

Some biblical scholars take the view that all the four Canonical Gospels are not eye witness accounts, but are knitted into a narrative from a wider range of early Christian sources. Its certainly true that they are mostly written in a matter of fact style. That may have been a conscious choice, to deliberately depersonalise them. Though it would seem counter intuitive to name them after an apostle, who you then neuter the references to. Though perhaps they thought a degree of perceived objectivity was required.

Textual analysis of the four Canonical Gospels indicates that Mark seems the first gospel to be written down. Even though reports from nearer the time of Jesus, suggest that it was Matthew's gospel.  Matthew and Luke, share 60-80% of their content verbatim with Mark's. Its more likely they were adding the bits that Mark left out, wasn't aware of, or, heaven fore-fend, might possibly wish to exaggerate or elaborate upon. For Mark to deliberately omit including these stories, would be a very odd practice indeed. What Mark's Gospel does not have is the nativity and everything prior to John the Baptist's arrival. It also has a more abbreviated conclusion after the crucifixion.

Its clear that if any fiddling, elaborating or hagiography were to be introduced into the biblical stories, then that would have to be executed within a very narrow time frame - In the century or so immediately after the death of Jesus. Because quite remarkably early on, the form of the Gospel stories appears to have become set in stone. After which precious little is altered, except by human error during the copying of texts. Variations within the accounts of The Transfiguration, for instance, may be evidence that they came from different streams of oral storytelling originally.

One question that has crossed my mind is - why did they not just compile all the known parables and facts surrounding Jesus's life and ministry into one complete unified story? Why did they chose to go down the road of presenting them as individual apostles gospels? Particularly when so much of their contents was literally copied and pasted from one to the other? What is the benefit of leaving them as seeming to be the written testimony of individual Apostles, when they are patently not? Was there originally an evolutionary drift towards producing a definitive complete version of Jesus's life and ministry that got aborted half way ?  Which leaves us with the four Apostolic Gospels, repeating the same stories with slight to moderate differences in content, feeling tone and length. 

I think the reason for this may be similar to the words - Thus have I heard...that preface most Buddhist Sutras. This phrase was meant to be a guarantee that these were the actual words of the Buddha, but sometimes this plainly cannot be the case. Maybe here it is about having the Apostles name there to reassure you of the truths they contain. Its a familiar name that sells the book, the musical and the film versions. Without a named Apostle, how could you determine whether even one singular comprehensive version of Jesus's life and ministry was a transmission that could be relied upon to be truly authentic? What is authenticity anyway?

The Canonical Gospels are very consistent in the story they tell, and have, as I've previously said, remained largely unaltered over the millennia. This may suggest that the compilers/writers/editors, were more concerned to remain faithful to the integrity of the original stories, than putting their own individual spin on it. Which if you were writing a personal eyewitness account you would have been unable to resist doing. This may explain why the stories tend to be narrated from quite a removed authorial distance.

There really isn't much mileage in the idea that the church at a later date compiled a list of what was and wasn't Canonical. This contemporary false perception can be unceremoniously dumped at the feet of Dan Brown. The Church itself was too widely dispersed and disparate for far too many centuries to be able to do that. To this day there still remain differences in content between Orthodox, Coptic and Ethiopian Bibles, and their Roman Catholic and Protestant equivalents. 

Yes, Constantine did want a Bible to distribute across the Holy Roman Empire. But what he requested was coherence, with nothing too theologically contentious or liable to be misinterpreted in it. So every day folk could understand and follow it. He was authorising, essentially, what the basic teachings were to be.

Bible contents do appear to have mostly grown in an organic evolution. For example, The Shepherd of Hermas was a text in extremely widespread use in early Christian bibles, but this simply fell slowly out of popularity, so over time it disappeared from being included in bibles.

There are obvious incidents of excision, such as the Gospel of Thomas. Rediscovered in the cache of papyrus in Nag Hammadi. Its a book of sayings, not pinned into any narrative structure. Some of the content is similar to the Canonical gospels, but a lot is not. It openly declares itself to contain the secret mystical teachings that Jesus spoke only to his disciples. From a traditional perspective there are contentious ideas and perhaps misleading presentations of Jesus, within it. Its validity has hence been questioned from antiquity onwards. The primary reason is the metaphysics of it, this runs at variance to the Canonical version.  Elaine Pagels, a leading expert on Thomas's Gospel believes the enigmatic style of Jesus's teachings here, is clearly aligning itself with that of traditional Jewish mysticism. That it may possibly be exactly what it says it is, in its opening line - secret mystical teachings of Jesus.

Whilst I might feel at times cynical or dismissive about the New Testament, I would not be the first to do so. But I recognise in the title of this blog post that - It is a testament of something. And it would be very foolish and egotistical of me, after two millenia of Christianity forming the shape of Western Civilisation, to sweep it aside as of entirely no value, now or in the future. 

One point in my reading the New Testament is by way of investigating another faith, to probe deeper into what my own consists of. And when I come up against things I disagree with, or react badly to, this is all par for that course. I've already uncovered some fixed views, some harsh judgement or simple prejudices, founded and unfounded. All of these obstruct better understanding of why Christianity has struck a chord with people for so long. What is there that remains good about it? What do I feel about that?

These days we are made all too aware of Christianity's many reported failings. But the Buddha urged his followers not to be a fault finder. Primarily because its unhealthy to feed negative thoughts, but also there is inevitably a downward spiral inherent to the avid pursuit of negative criticism. One that progressively worsens the more entrenched one digs in to the self righteousness of it. One rarely reaches the truth through it, nor happiness, nor become equanimous, more the exact opposite. 

Yet it remains, in our age of anxiety and confusion, distinctly harder to speak up for the good. Because for the good to reach you, you have to consciously open up your heart and mind to it. It's so much easier to use negativity to close the whole lot down, so you don't have to think, feel or behave differently.

ITS A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Matthew, Prophecies Past & Future

Just when I haven't quite settled on what to make of the wacky stuff, the miracles, walking on water, feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread, then comes The Transfiguration when Jesus lights up like a large illuminated Christmas decoration and becomes momentarily part of a triumvirate with Moses and Elijah. After which he tells his disciples - 'For God's sake don't tell anyone what you saw.' Yeah, too right, they'd think you've completely lost your bloody marbles.

Parables in this half of the Gospel possess a grittier more pointedly ethical purpose. These are not the dumbed down public parables, but spoken in private and clearly aimed at his disciples, well, any disciple really.

During the journey to Jerusalem, Jesus tells them frankly what's about to happen once they get to Jerusalem - the betrayal, the abuse, crucifixion and resurrection. It all passes without comment from Matthew. The conversation is interrupted by someone pleading for healing. But the statement is not gone back to for an explanation. You are not given any sense of how his disciples responded to it. Did they fully take it on board? Are they in complete stunned denial? Do they plead 'say not so'? Or have they heard this all before, and are indulging him?

The spectre of the crucifixion therefore haunts each moment of what follows. Emotionally I feel indifferent towards the symbolism of the crucifixion, well, the crucifixion full stop. The way Christianity traditionally has framed it, either doesn't adequately explain it to me or it simply fails to hit home. Most probably because I don't want, or feel the need, for what it has to offer.

Why does Jesus, as the son of God, need to suffer and die in this way for our benefit?  The idea of a God that would send his son to sort out Israel, with the specific intention of killing him by the end, as some sort of spiritual imperative to resolve suffering, then bringing him back to life. This feels way out on the barmy to weird scale. It makes no practical or religious sense to me.

The God, The Son, The Messiah, feels over loaded with too much symbolic mystical  psycho drama, blah di blah, you name it, it's all thrown in there. Jesus uses a phrase to describe the crucifixion's purpose - To give his life as 'a ransome for many'. And I can't make head nor tail of that statement either. What is the ransome his life is paying off?

As they near Jerusalem, Jesus tells a series of parables heavy with metaphor, about the need to be ready, not just for what is about to happen, but a prophecy of what will happen sometime in the near future, or when Jesus will come again, when God's kingdom will arrive. Temples falling, a cleansing, a restart, etc, you know the form. 

Such prophecies generally tend to teeter along the tightrope between sounding specific, but vague enough to be applied to numerous situations in the future. I baulk at taking them 100% seriously. With so much validity placed on them as evident proofs of Jesus being who he says he is, it makes settling my faith on them a precarious thing.

And as we proceeded through the familiar dramaturgy of Holy Week, I got the discomforting feeling of stoically enduring the reading of it.  Bearing with, meant I was not enjoying reading the text much, nor finding it illuminating or insightful. Frankly I struggle to fully comprehend the structure of Christian beliefs about the nature of God and Jesus Christ. If you can believe in miracles, transfiguration, prophecies, and that someone can die in order to save us all, then all this will seem so second nature. To me, it appears at the moment, for the cuckoos.

So, yes, I've found this second half of Matthew really heavy going. Unable to connect on a productive or appreciative level with assertions as to what it symbolises concerning its true meaning. My response  has been more emotionally challenging than I'd expected, and obviously its provoking a lot of reactivity within me. I've been surprised at how internally angry and insensed I've been finding myself. 

However, on reflection, I do have a tendency to get like this when emotionally conflicted. Wanting to, but unable to, comprehend the spiritual purpose of something. I don"t like the suspicion that I might be being stupid. So there are a whole bundle of issues arising, not just in relation to Christianity, but personal issues and whatever it is I believe or have faith in. I have to be careful not to take my reactivity at face value. To hold myself to the possibility that there might be something else lurking underneath them, unbeknownst to me.

As I was intending to read the entire New Testament I'm wondering now whether I've bitten off more Christianity than I want to chew here. I think simply to maintain my sanity it maybe better to space my New Testament reading out. I don't have to doggedly see my intention through, if I don't wish to. But to give up, doesn't feel entirely the right thing to do either.

ITS A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Matthew, & the Apocalypse Now

I, like many of my generation, ceased studying the Bible after I left Methodist Sunday School. Consequently I've found that my understanding and knowledge of what is actually in the New Testament remained infantile in nature. Apart from once playing Jesus in the Dennis Potter play Son of Man, in the 1980's, I've not returned to the gospels etc for nigh on fifty plus years. Hence this blog post. I'm interested in how my perceptions and interpretations of it are now.

I have N T Wright's relatively recent translation of the New Testament, and settled on buying his accompanying commentaries to guide my progress through it.  I'm not sure exactly how that will be reflected in this blog. Though, judging by my first foray, it's most likely to include impressions, insights, difficulties and sheer bafflement. 

Matthew, the reformed Taxi Collector, structures his gospel with all the meticulousness one might expect of a seasoned accountant. Short punchy paragraphs with a strong narrative woven through them. It'll be interesting to see whether there is a different feel to other gospels. Even if there is some overlap in content. The content here maybe Matthew's in origin, but compiled into a gospel at a later date, no one can truly say for sure who wrote it in its present form. 

Initially this gospel recounts the early life of Jesus, it feels familiar. These are the stories I heard and read as a child, the shepherds, the magi, the parables etc. Its notable which particularly tricky paragraphs have been left out of the version presented to the under twelves.

A lot of these earlier events are often written to foreshadow the later ministry and crucifixion. If not that, then its to uphold any claim Jesus makes to being either God's Son, or the Messiah. Though I'm not confident you can always conflate those two conceptions. So, Yes, there is frequent foreshadowing in Matthew, plus the obligatory prophecy being fulfilled from the Old Testament. It appears to be a given that these prophecies never fulfill themselves in quite the way people expect, and Jesus is forever having to retrospectively point this out. So what is the point of them then?  Doesn't that make them, as prophecies, rather unreliable, redundant even? I find I am greatly irritated by the Old Testament being wheeled out to provide Jesus with authority all the time.

So 'the prophetic streak' in the New Testament is getting on my tits quite a bit. The Old Testament as I read it seems to arise out of an entirely different view of what the Godhead is like, to the one Jesus talks of. Lots of vengefulness and retributive punishment. It is the interventionist view of God at its very cruelest - Do as I say, or I'll get extremely cross and throw things about.  I don't buy into the whole concept of an interventionist God. It creates so many inconsistencies that they eventually rob it of any credibility. Any conception with that many gaping holes in it, cannot be left standing as correct surely?

Whether one believes in the miracles or not, you have to hand it to Jesus they are a great way to promote and get yourself noticed. They certainly pulled in the crowds to hear his message. That's a bit cynical I know, sorry! But I've seen far too many American evangelists 'performing miracles' to not see it as anything other than emotionally manipulative. Looked at another way, I wonder how literal one can be in interpreting the miraculous events. There role could be more symbolic. So, yeah, I have difficulty taking the recounting of miracles as actual events. If you do see them as living miracles, you have to then see Jesus as a really special person, or a very skilled magician, or a false prophet in league with Satan, not God. So far, let's say, I'm a bit suspicious of them all.

But then I encounter chapters like when Jesus sending out his disciples to spread his message. Having trained them in how to heal, and what to do and not do, where to go and not go, what to say and not to say. Basically giving them advice on how to handle ministry, how to deal with opposition and speaking in public. This struck me quite powerfully as a very real sounding account of an actual event. If it all goes down badly guys, just do a runner. I now understand why Christianity is so keen on proselytising, Jesus encouraged it first.

He sent them out literally to be his proxies. It's not recounted in Matthew's gospel, how he trained them in healing, raising the dead etc. How that was conveyed and accomplished is left unwritten. Though when they fall short in their mission, he makes it clear its down to their lack of faith in him. Jesus personality comes across as being a whole lot sterner and uncompromising, not to mention wilder, anarchic and unconventional than any 'meek and mild' version that was painted to us as children.Though I guess you wouldn't want to scare the poor dears rigid at the age of six.

There is a vein running through Matthew's gospel of 'end of times', an apocalyptic urgency to get on and do this now, before it all goes to shit, that echoes some of our own present day zeitgeist. Undoubtedly Israel at the time being under Roman occupation and hence unfree, had led to many futile rebellions and figures claiming to be the longed for liberating Messiah. Jesus was just one more. So its probably unsurprising there are no corroborating accounts from the time, other than the New Testament itself, of Jesus's ministry and crucifixion. You have to go a hundred years after the time of Christ to Tacitus, who gives some withering confirmation of the facts surrounding Jesus's death from a Roman perspective.

The details of the period, places and people, Roman leadership etc do all tally. And its also clear that Jesus's ministry initially stayed below the Roman radar. His focus was primarily on speaking to, and meeting, the needs of the home crowd. And his entire ministry from start to finish was barely three years long. Why would anyone else take note of it? So far as the Romans were concerned Jesus was a pain, but also an insignificant flash in the pan, quickly dealt with.

The opposition baddies, The Pharisees, constantly try to wrong foot Jesus. Questioning why he allowed his disciples to disobey Jewish practice, or why Jesus performed acts of healing on the Sabbath. I always thought The Pharisees were the Temple Elders, but no, they are just an ultra traditional rival evangelical group, very religious hardliners, who supported the military overthrow of the Roman backed leadership. In many ways The Pharisees are the Christian equivalent of The Brahmins in Buddhist discourses, who always come off the worst in any conversation with the Buddha. The Pharisees are the po-faced stooges that Jesus's teaching shows up.

Jesus was apparently adept at expanding a few loaves and fishes to feed thousands. Which is a very good way to do improvised catering when more turn up than you expect to an event. Its such an odd thing to be miraculous over, making food go further. Though you can bet there was an Old Testament prophecy somewhere being fulfilled - And low they will verily stuff themselves with his buffet.

NEXT TIME
Gospel of Matthew - Part Two.