I love it when my peanut butter & chocolate go together, and by peanut butter & chocolate, I mean science & theology.

Remember this post?  Particularly point #5?

Here’s an interesting science news item from a few days back…

A few hundred thousand billion free-floating life-bearing Earth-sized planets may exist in the space between stars in the Milky Way. So argues an international team of scientists led by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham, UK…

The scientists have proposed that these life-bearing planets originated in the early Universe within a few million years of the Big Bang, and that they make up most of the so-called “missing mass” of galaxies. The scientists calculate that such a planetary body would cross the inner solar system every 25 million years on the average and during each transit, zodiacal dust, including a component of the solar system’s living cells, becomes implanted at its surface. The free-floating planets would then have the added property of mixing the products of local biological evolution on a galaxy-wide scale.

The idea that there’s a lot of real estate floating around loose between the stars is not a new one.

This is the first time, however, that it’s been suggested that life itself originated with the universe, and was not simply a random byproduct.

Which leads me to ask the $64 trillion dollar question:
Is the Universe as we know it simply the byproduct of the creation of Life?

God, through His son and the prophets, constantly reminds us that the least shall be greatest.

Cosmologists are quick to remind us “that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people” and ask “if we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?”

With all due respect, I think they have it backwards.

We, who are physically
among the least in the Universe,
are the very reason it exists at all,
and long after this Universe is swept away,
we will just be beginning the great task
that we were created for.

There is a very real possibility that the span between the stars is not the vast ocean of emptiness we thought but a series of (relatively) small hops.

Step by step is how life spreads:
From this valley to the next, from this island to another.  Humanity is not confined to this system; there are countless worlds beyond on which to build way stations.

We’ve been looking at travel to the stars through the wrong set of lenses.

We should stop thinking about flying by jet and start thinking of getting there by stagecoach.

Who cares how long it takes as long as we get there?

As they say in the song:

“Who gives a damn?
We’re on our way!”

So there’s a community made up of predominantly conservative Christians.  They belong to various denominations, but all of them agree on one thing:  Drinking alcohol is a sin.

As such, they pass laws banning not merely the sale of alcohol but its consumption as well.

Time passes, however.  It always does.  The community grows and expands and soon there’s a significant number of non-conservative Christians among them.

These non-conservative Christians do not believe the consumption of alcohol — in and of itself — is a sin.

As citizens of the United States they exercise their right to freedom of speech to petition the government to change its laws and permit the sale of alcohol.

Now the issue breaks on purely freedom of religion grounds, one group asserting its right to declare alcohol a sin, the other to declare it is not.

Stalemate.

The teetotalers fight to keep the old laws on the books.  “Think about the children!” they say (they always do).

The drinkers agree they should think about the children
and agree alcohol should not be sold or served to them.

But adults should be allowed to purchase and consume.

“But what about drunk driving?” the teetotalers say.

The drinkers agree driving under the influence is A Bad Idea
since it imperils everyone equally, and as such support DUI laws.

“But we’ve never allowed the sale and consumption in our town before, ” say the teetotalers.

There’s a first time for everything.  Times change.

“Why don’t you just move to a community where it’s sold, or just visit such a community, buy what you want there, and bring it back but keep it hidden.”

The drinkers don’t want to.  Many of them were born
in the community; they all live here now.  Why should
they give up basic rights and jump through hoops to
buy and consume alcohol.

“But what about people who will become alcoholics?”

Those people will always be with us, unfortunately.
Banning alcohol won’t prevent drunks from finding booze,
but it may make it easier to ignore real alcohol problems and
keep people who could be helped from getting help they need.

“But…but…but…it’s a sin!” say the teetotalers.

Then don’t drink alcohol.

Now we’re back where we started.
Is that it?  Have you got nothing else?

There is no secular reason to prevent people from legally buying and selling alcohol, the same way they legally buy and sell a million and one other products.

That leaves only the Bible…

…but the Bible is a word of authority only to those who believe it is.
In the secular world, it’s just another book.

But say a Christian is looking for guidance on the topic of drinking alcohol (or any moral issue, for that matter)…

First off, there’s nothing in the Old Testament that applies to Gentiles or Christian Jews.

In Exodus 19: 3-6, in a run up to the issuing of the Decalogue…

And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel;  Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.  Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:  And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

God is not issuing a command, God is negotiating with the children of Israel (i.e., the descendants of Jacob).* “If you will do X, I will do Y” which in this case was “If you will refrain from doing these 10 things, I will protect you; if you don’t refrain, I won’t protect you.”

That’s not a law.

That’s a deal, a bargain, a contract.

A covenant.

Moses is correctly identified as The Lawgiver because he’s the one who came up with all the picayune rules and regulations to force the Israelites to adhere to the terms of the contract.

It’s as if a landlord said to a homeless family, “I’ll let you stay here if you keep the front lawn mowed and the house cleaned” and the parents then assigned specific chores to their children, punishing those who refused to obey and help.

The landlord has no desire to whip any kid with a belt; the landlord may not even think whipping is a good idea.

But the family has the right to set discipline for its own members.

That doesn’t mean they can set discipline for the family across the street.

The Israelites were not the only followers of God in the Old Testament.  Several of the tribes and personages they encountered along the way were monotheists worshiping the single great Creator.

But the Israelites were the ones called to special service, and promised extra protection and extra blessings if they would devote themselves to God.

They agreed…

…and immediately started looking for loopholes.

While God was working with the Israelites (soon to be whittled down to just the tribe of Judah), He wasn’t necessarily ignoring the rest of the world.  Christ taught “other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”

We see in the writings of the great Greek philosophers intimations of their recognition of a higher, greater Creator above and beyond the numerous deities of folk religion.  In China Lao Tze wrote of the Tao, which he understood to be the great force behind the universe.

Many, many peoples and cultures caught a glimpse, a hint of what we refer to today as God.  As C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity:

If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole word is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest one, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view. But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic – there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong: but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.

The Old Testament is a collection of texts that provide the basis and the context for Christianity.  These texts are profitable for instruction and inspiration…but they are not for us.

We Christians could live without any of the Old Testament, provided our faith is solidly locked in on the teachings of Christ.

Therein lies the paradox:
Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant, but by fulfilling it, he did away with it:  The contract was completed.  We — all those who believe in what Christ taught — are to follow the new teaching:  That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

We know that Christ followed all of the ten points in the Decalogue, the covenant between God and Israel.

We also know he violated many of Moses’ picayune petty laws on holiness, such as working on the Sabbath.

We know he refused to condemn a woman caught in adultery even though Moses’ law required her death.

We also know God appeared to Peter in a vision and basically told him Moses’ kosher laws were bollocks, which Peter rightly interpreted as “The Word ain’t for Jews alone”.

So what do we not find in the Decalogue?  What matters were so trivial God didn’t think to include them in His basic deal with Israel?

No mention of proscribed food, or drink, or manner of dress.

No requirements for one gender to be held in greater esteem than the other.

No requirement to lord it over non-Israelites.

No proscription of pre-marital sexual relations.

No proscription of same sex relations.

Women are not forbidden to grab a guy’s junk if he’s beating up on their husband.

No penalties or jurisdictions.  (And why should there be?  This is a voluntary relationship.  Any Israelite who wanted to opt out and no longer be under God’s protection was free to do so.)

Human beings can get some mighty peculiar ideas in their heads about what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s morally good and what’s morally evil, what’s socially acceptable and what’s not.

God apparently doesn’t care about 99.99%+ of the stuff that gets our knickers in a twist.

There’s a lot of hate being spread out there in the name of Christ, who repudiated hate and stood for unconditional love.

None of the hate is Bible based.  It can’t be.  The Bible — particularly the New Testament that does apply to us Christians — proscribes hate.

If you hate someone, you need to make your peace with them before worshiping God.  God’s first question to you is going to be, why are you hating your sibling, who is my child as well?  Go back and make peace.

There’s still time.

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*  Who’s who among the Hebrews and Jews:  Not all humans are Semites, not all Semites are Hebrews (descendants of Eber, who was a descendant of Noah & ancestor to Abraham), not all Hebrews are Israelites (descendants of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob), not all Israelites are Jews (i.e., from the tribe of Judah).  When Moses led the 12 Tribes of Israel out of Egypt, he picked up a few relatives along the way who were adopted into the nation of Israel.  Nonetheless, many of the nations and tribes the Israelites encountered were fellow Hebrews.  Technically, even Arabs are Hebrews since they are descendants of Abraham.

If this doesn’t get me a million hits, nothing will…

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What did the Apostles know about Judas after he betrayed Jesus?

Consider:
The Apostles were in a state of terror driven panic.  At the height of His popularity, their teacher had been betrayed, seized, tried, killed, and buried.

They were afraid they might be next (so afraid they were in hiding; indeed, one had gone so far as to deny three times he even knew Jesus).

So I’m guessing the immediate whereabouts & activities of
Judas Iscariot were not high on their list of priorities.

72 hours later, all this changed, of course.  In the weeks following the Resurrection leading up to the Ascension, the other 11 apostles were either still in hiding or secretively making their way to Galilee.

There were doubtlessly rumors & reports of Judas, probably some from sympathetic Pharisees who decried Annas’ & Caiaphas’ kangaroo court.

It’s doubtful Judas wanted to renew contact with them.

So we’re left with two Biblical accounts of what happened to Judas:  Matthew 27: 3-10 and Acts of the Apostles 1: 15-19.

There are two non-Biblical accounts as well:  The Gospel of Judas describes him as being stoned to death by the other apostles (an understandable reaction, but where did they find the time?); while the early church historian Papias is said to have reported an oral tradition where Judas became obese, so obese that he could not pass through the same opening that a chariot could, and was subsequently run over and crushed by a chariot, his bowels gushing out.*

What we don’t have is a clear time line for any of this.

Is Matthew 27: 3-10 something that actually happened between the time when the Pharisees handed Jesus over to Pilate (Matthew 27: 1-2) and Pilate’s inquiry began (Matthew 27:11) or a flash forward to what happened afterwards?

Because while it’s logical & plausible that Judas might have suffered almost immediate remorse & returned to the temple to throw the money back at the Pharisees, it’s a bit of a stretch to assume they immediately schlepped out to buy a potter’s field with it.

In Acts 1: 18, does Peter literally mean Judas bought a field w/the 30 pieces of silver?  If so, that’s a direct contradiction to Matthew’s account.

Or did Peter mean it figuratively, that the field was acquired w/the money paid Judas, not that Judas completed the transaction himself?  Seems to make more sense that way.

Back to Matthew’s account:
Did Judas go and hang himself immediately (“strangle” according to Young’s Literal Translation)?  Or did he wait until the crucifixion itself, or the burial?  Or later?

It makes a difference in reconciling “hanged [strangled] himself” and “falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out”.

The Pharisees were in a hurry to get Jesus good & dead prior to the start of Passover.  Jerusalem came to a dead halt from sundown Friday through dawn Sunday (excepting Roman activity, and that was kept to a minimum to prevent unnecessary friction).

That’s 36 hours.

If Judas did go off and strangle himself at roughly the same moment Pilate’s inquiry began, he had an additional 10 to 12 hours before sundown.

Assuming he found a relatively private place, and knowing most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would be preparing for Passover, Judas had at least 36 hours to hang around dead before being discovered.

36 hours.

In the hot Judean sun.

Yikes.

Here’s a NSFW link to the Australian Museum’s page on the process of forensic decomposition after death.

Suicide by hanging does not always mean the body is completely suspended; often times the victim attaches a cord or sash to an object within arm’s reach and simply sags down, cutting off the air & blood supply to the brain.  A lot of prison suicides are accomplished by attaching a towel or torn strip of cloth to the cell bars, then sagging beneath them.

One sees — no pun intended — how the line between hanging oneself and strangling oneself is easily blurred.  Translators hundreds of years and thousands of miles removed from the incident might not be able to make the distinction.

If Judas’ body was sagging against the cord, feet touching the ground, the body would have a natural inclination to pitch forward once the cord was cut.  40 hours or more of decomposition (remember, we have no time line as to when his body was discovered, only that it was eventually discovered) and one has all the necessary elements to make Acts 1:18 not only possible but downright unavoidable.

Papias’ account?  Well, we don’t know what he wrote, only what somebody wrote about what he wrote, so he may have been recounting a garbled oral tradition (Did Roman soldiers find Judas?  If so, was there a chariot involved?  Did the oral tradition confuse the post-mortem swelling of a body w/obesity?  Who knows; we don’t have Papias’ version to work with).

The Gospel of Judas?  Well, that work is problematic and has been problematic for nearly 2,000 years.

It’s part of the Gnostic tradition, and while we won’t go into all the details of Gnosticism here, we can say early (i.e., 2^nd century) church leaders regarded it as historical fiction (if one is charitable) or a hoax (if one is not).  The Gospel of Judas exists now only in fragments & scattered pages.  What little there doesn’t jibe with the other Gospels and seems more like an attempt to co-opt a new & fast spreading religious teaching to a pre-existing mysticism.

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*  The problem with this, obviously, is that we don’t know what Papias actually wrote since that document is long missing; he may have been reporting it as something that he believed actually happened, or he could have been recounting it as an oral tradition of unsure authenticity.

Something happened between the evening of what we now call Good Friday and dawn Easter Sunday.

Friday evening an iconoclastic preacher was nailed to a Roman cross at the behest of a clique of corrupt Pharisees.

Friday evening His followers had, for the most part, scattered with fear.

They were silent, and in hiding.  The preacher’s ministry was over.

And yet within a matter of days His followers were not only seen in public, but they were preaching an even more heretical message –

And.
They.
Could.
Not.
Be.
Silenced.

The Pharisees applied direct action this time.  Instead of waiting for Roman authority, they killed one of the preacher’s followers.  They arrested others, throwing them in prison, beating & whipping others.

And still –

They.
Could.
Not.
Be.
Silenced.

The Pharisees applied relentless pressure on the followers:
Humiliation, shame, ridicule, imprisonment, fines, torture, beatings, threats of eternal damnation.  They put one of their own young hot shots in charge of tracking down the followers where ever they had fled, arresting them, and dragging them back to Jerusalem in chains for trial and punishment.

Young Rabbi Hot Shot got only halfway to Damascus when Something Happened to him and he went instantly from the followers’ greatest foe to the preacher’s most fearless advocate.

Something Happened.

Many people find it comforting to pretend nothing happened, some going as far as to claim the preacher never really existed and that all documents about Him were forged centuries later.

Please.

There are three sets of first century documents that refer either directly to the preacher or to His followers:  Christian, which champion the Good News;  Jewish, which criticize the teachings of the preacher; and pagan, which simply observe without comment.

All three sources agree upon the following:

1. There lived a preacher that the world today refers to as Jesus Christ.
2. Jesus was executed by the Romans.
3. His followers claim He was resurrected.

What happened between Good Friday and Easter Sunday?

It was a transformational event, it changed everything that came after it.  There had been other cults and religions that had suddenly sprung up and swept through the ancient world, but they had no roots; they lasted a few years, a few decades, a few centuries at best and then they vanished.

None of them were based on verifiable historical events.  They were either repackaged ancient myths or, like the Mithra cult, of unknown and unsubstantiated origin.

There was no reality to them.

Which is why to this day there are those who eagerly seek to deny Jesus ever existed.

If Jesus exists, then one can’t simply ignore His teachings, one has to evaluate them and decide if they are true or false.

There is no middle ground here.  As C.S. Lewis observed, Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or what He claimed to be.

There are some who deny Jesus ever claimed to be the only begotten Son of God.  Mohammed preferred to think of Him as simply a very, very good man, a prophet of God, but not Divine in Himself.

In Qur’an sura 5 (Al-Ma’ida), ayah17, Mohammed recites:  “In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary.   Say: ‘Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every – one that is on the earth?  For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between.  He createth what He pleaseth.  For Allah hath power over all things.’” while in Qur’an, Sura 112 (al-Ikhlas), ayat 1-4, he recites:  “Say: He is Allah, the One and Only;  Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;  He begetteth not, nor is He begotten;  And there is none like unto Him.”

What we have here is a failure of imagination and faith.  Imagination in that while acknowledging God can do anything He wishes, He cannot do something Mohammed can’t imagine.[1]

God don’t work that way.

And that’s what was so shocking to the first century:
The Good News, the Gospel of Jesus was a radical break from previous human perceptions of the Divine; it was “news” indeed.

Some claim the Apostles concocted the story of the resurrection in order to start a new religion where they would be the leaders.

Really?

To throw out some Latin:  Cui bono?

Of the original 12 Apostles + Matthias (Judas’ replacement) & Paul (who met Jesus after His resurrection), only one — count ‘em, one! – didn’t die a martyr’s death after a lifetime of hardship & deprivation & relentless threats & persecution.[2]

As Lee Strobel points out in his book, The Case For Christ, human beings will die for what they believe to be true, but they will not die in defense of a lie.

No, if the Apostles had stolen Jesus’ body as the Pharisees accused them of doing, then it would have only taken one of the remaining 14 to blow the whistle on the scheme.[3]

The Pharisees & the Romans & Herod had all kinds of carrots (money, power, privilege, position) & sticks (imprisonment, flogging, torture, persecution, martyrdom) to employ.

Who would die defending a lie?  Especially a lie that wasn’t paying off in anything but blood, sweat, & tears?

(And remember that while there were 12 original Apostles + Matthias & Paul, there were literally hundred of other disciples, many of whom encountered Jesus after His resurrection.  If Jesus’ death &  resurrection had been faked, it would take only one disgruntled person to wreck the whole scheme.)

No, Something Happened.

Something Happened to change everything, to give hope to the hopeless, courage to the craven, faith for the ones who felt abandoned.

Something Happened.

Recommended reading:

Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ
Lee Strobel, The Case For Faith
Lee Strobel, The Case For The Real Jesus
Lee Strobel, The Case For Easter

Strobel’s books are excellent jumping off points for contemporary apologetics.

Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict

McDowell’s book is even better, but far more densely packed.

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[1]  Mohammed also had a much more personal reason for choosing not to endorse Jesus’ divinity:  If he did, that would kinda render him moot as a prophet, since any religious teacher who comes after the Son of God is pretty much the definition of “anti-climatic”.  Only by reducing Jesus’ standing from God Incarnate to merely a saint could Mohammed hope to shine.  Blaming His disciples & accusing them of distorting His message is, in actuality, blaming Jesus:  After all, He picked ‘em…

[2]  The one who missed out on the fun of martyrdom, John the beloved disciple, spent the remainder of his life in lonely exile on the barren island of Patmos, a hunk of rock roughly the size of Manhattan but with only 1/10,000^th its population; in John’s day it was far less crowded.

[3]  Which would have meant overpowering a squad of Roman soldiers left to guard the tomb without killing them or losing any Apostles in the process, and the Roman soldiers deciding to tell Pilate they fell asleep on the job rather than they were attacked — which normally would have meant summary execution but the Pharisees went to bat for the soldiers & pulled in every political favor they could muster to get their lives spared in exchanging for the soldiers copping a plea of snoozing on duty which makes sense only when one realizes the truth & reality of an actual resurrection would Just Not Be Accepted by Pilate.

Part 1

Part 2

It’s easy to look back & shake our heads at the original 12 Apostles.

They sure look like a buncha thundering asshats, don’t they?

Of course, they didn’t have two millennia of heavily ingrained cultural / historical / theological indoctrination backing them up.  They were getting all of Jesus’ teachings fresh from the mouth of the Master, and their only point of reference was the very culture of corruption & hypocrisy He had come to replace.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all report a key friction point among the 12 Apostles, namely John and his brother James jockeying for position as Christ’s right-and-left-hand men in Kingdom Come.  John, in his Gospel, omits this embarrassing detail[1]; however he refers to himself as “the beloved disciple” indicating a closer personal relationship with Jesus than the others.[2]

After the resurrection the petty jealousy & internal bickering still persisted, viz, Simon Peter asking Jesus about John (it wasn’t until Pentecost that the Holy Spirit finally imbued the disciples and put an end to much of the personality squabbles[3]).

As I said, we today have the advantage of 2,000 years of culturally ingrained knowledge:
Even non-Christians have absorbed much of the Gospel story through sheer osmosis.

We’ve been exposed to spoilers, to use common parlance.

Jesus’ first century audience — in particular His disciples — didn’t know any of what is cultural common knowledge today.

The 12 Apostles, Judas Iscariot included, all believed they were in the presence of a mighty man of God, more specifically the long-awaited Messiah.[4]

But as to who He really was

They

Had

NO

Idea

Reading the Gospels, it’s clear the Twelve anticipated an earthly kingdom that they would participate in.

They had reason to believe this:
The crowds were on their side, Jesus was gaining popularity wherever He went, even the Pharisees couldn’t match him in theological debates.

And as pointed out in Parts 1 & 2, the Pharisees — in particular Annas & Caiaphas’ clique — were in very real danger of getting swept out of office by Pontius Pilate if he felt the new preacher from the sticks would help keep the peace in Judea.  So they concocted the lie that He was stirring up the people to rebellion, that He would rouse Roman ire by proclaiming Himself a king, and that all of Judea would suffer because of this, so it was better if they just railroaded[5] him on the spot, not for their sakes — heavens, no! — but for all the poor, innocent potential victims.

So basically everybody regarded Jesus as a contemporary political hero — except Jesus!

He knew there were much bigger issues at stake, but His disciples couldn’t wrap their minds around that.

…yet.

So He had to put up with a lot of silly, stupid, petty bickering in His ministry.  James & John wanted to be big kahunas, the other 10 got their tunics in a twist over this.

Remember how in jr hi there was that one person you really really rilly had a major league crush on?  And how you really really rilly wanted to go to the dance with ‘em?

And how they went with somebody else?

And how you hated them and despised them and you’d show them by writing terrible things about them and telling everybody how awful they were and you’d spoil their chances of getting elected to the student body and — and — and –

…and I wonder if that’s where Judas’ head was at when
he sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.[6]

I don’t necessarily think Judas had any idea where all this was going to end up.  He may have anticipated an arrest, some jail time, certainly Jesus getting bumped off the short list of potential High Priest candidates…

…but to actually be killed?  Crucified?  I dunno, maybe Judas didn’t see that one coming.  Maybe Caiaphas et al didn’t see it coming, either.  Maybe all of them expected Pilate to say, “You have got to be kidding me!” and chuck the lot of them out.

But it didn’t happened.

It happened that Jesus was crucified and killed, that He was buried, and that everyone thought that was the end of the matter.

SPOILER ALERT!

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[1]  No duh!

[2]  He and his brother are referred to as “sons of thunder” which implies strong oratory skills, which could indicate a more formal theological training, which could mean they were spiritually more closely attuned to what Jesus was doing than Simon Peter and the other disciples; the text of the Gospel of John focuses more on the divine nature of Christ than the Synoptic Gospels.

[3]  But not all of it, alas…

[4]  Truth be told, there were a lotta guys in the Messiah business between the Maccabee revolt in 167BC and the fall of Jerusalem in 72AD.  Even this guy –

– was considered a messiah by the Jews held captive in Babylon since he released them from their bondage & allowed them to return to rebuild Jerusalem.  In major cities around the world today you can find billboards & advertisements for local rabbis who are touted as messiahs by their congregation.

[5]  A pretty neat trick, considering how the steam locomotive wasn’t invented for another 17 centuries…

[6]  Oh, yeah, John accuses Judas, the band’s treasurer, of having sticky fingers, but as we’ve seen above, John is not the most unbiased of narrators.  He was too embarrassed to ‘fess up to trying to worm his way into a top dog position, he might have been too embarrassed to admit to anyone, even himself, that his actions might have contributed in any way to Judas’ betrayal & Jesus’ death.  In that case, he probably wanted to dredge up every detail, no matter how trivial, that might make Judas look like evil incarnate.

Part 1

If Jesus had actually ever preached treason and/or sedition,
the Pharisees would have had nothing to worry about:
Neither Rome nor Herod took a lax, hands-off approach to protecting their authority & the history of Roman Judea is rich with incidents of incredibly brutal suppression of any hints of rebellion.

The Pharisees could sit on the sidelines as the Romans did their dirty work and tsk-tsk the process, secure in the knowledge that Roman persecution of political dissidents guaranteed they’d keep their profitable roles in the priesthood.

Nor was blasphemy a serious charge:
This was first century Judea; the countryside was crawling with crackpot clergy and preposterous preachers.  The Pharisees would have welcomed a marginalized would-be messiah with open arms, somebody who could shake things up without affecting any real change, somebody to debate against & denounce thunderously from the pulpit.

No, Jesus was no threat to them theologically.

Where the threat came was at the nexus of Roman rule and popular support.  The Pharisees had been gouging the Jews for years, adding more & more increasingly complex & arcane levels of religious law that only became more & more expensive for the common folk to buy their way clear.

The common citizen of first century Judea had no great love for the Pharisees,
and the Pharisees knew this,
and the Romans knew this,
and the Pharisees knew
the Romans knew this.

So Jesus had to be eliminated as a threat to their monopoly of the office of  High Priest.  This meant destroying His value to the Romans.  By raising a big stink over Jesus, by publicly accusing Him of treason and sedition, the Pharisees (more specifically, Annas‘ & Caiaphas’ clique) could guarantee no Roman governor would ever appoint Him as High Priest — regardless of whether they actually executed Him or not.

So now the question becomes one of whether or not they really wanted him dead or,
even if they did want him dead, did they really expect Pilate to grant their request?

Jesus alive was nowhere near as confrontational as his cousin, John the Baptist.  Jesus didn’t have a history of seeking conflict with the Pharisees.

Oh, true, He railed against them on occasion, and famously cleared out the Temple of moneychangers, but almost always it was a case of the Pharisees confronting him, not the other way around.

John could really let ‘em have what for, but while they doubtlessly criticized him, there’s no evidence the Pharisees ever took steps against him.

That’s because John, for all his appeal as a firebrand prophet among the Jews, was not the sort of guy the Romans would have felt comfortable with.  To them he was doubtlessly just another crazy Jewish prophet, and as long as he stayed in the desert & urged people to repent, they weren’t interested in him.

(In fact, John only got in trouble with Herod after he criticized the king
for marrying his brother’s ex-wife, Herodias.  This got him an express ticket
to the dungeon, where he stayed until Herodias’ daughter, Salome,
won his head as a door prize for pleasing Herod with her dancing.)

In a close reading of Scripture, Pilate comes off a lot better than the popular historical view of him.  He repeatedly states Jesus is guilty of no crime, tries to fob Him off on Herod, tries to shame the Pharisees into turning Him loose by offering to release a despicable criminal in His place, tells the Pharisees to execute Him themselves if they’re so keen on it, and finally famously literally washes his hands of the matter.

Not a lazy, cavalier colonial bureaucrat but a competent, meticulous administrator who, nonetheless, gets hemmed in by Annas’ & Caiaphas’ clique, who were savvy enough to get the Romans to do their dirty work for them so they could escape any direct blame from Jesus’ fan base.

(Was this the carrot they dangled before Judas?  A ghost of a hint of a whisper of a suggestion that maybe if he betrayed Jesus they could find a way of letting him into the inner circle and — who knows — maybe even the High Priesthood some day?  The Gospel writers don’t know what transpired between Judas and the Pharisees other than he collected 30 pieces of silver — not an inconsiderable sum in those days.  Judas was the treasurer among the disciples, but one with sticky fingers.  He may not have realized how much peril he was placing Jesus in & simply thought that his betrayal would just mean an end to His ministry & a chance for himself to make off with the bank account.  If that is the case, it certainly explains his almost immediate remorse.)

So there, on the eve of Passover, Annas & Caiaphas & their clique get what they wanted:  Jesus is not merely eliminated but his entire movement is now discredited in the eyes of Rome.  Business is back to normal, the moneychangers are re-seated in the temple, the troublemaker gone, and the whole matter put to a satisfying end.

…or so they thought.

Part 3

There are two reasons Christ died on the cross:

First — and most important — He was the sacrificial lamb offered by God to balance out the sins of the world.  God allowed His son to be subjected to the same injustice that human beings are subjected to by their fellow humans; God did not protect Him or shield Him.

Only by suffering the same injustice we impose on one another is God through Christ able to forgive all sins and transgressions.  Only He has uniquely been without sin, without blame; that gives only Him the unique position of being able to forgive what was done to Him without having to ask forgiveness in return.

“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”
is both a formula and a warning:
If we want grace & forgiveness, we have to offer it.

That’s the spiritual / metaphysical / theological reason He had to die.

But there’s a far more mundane reason that motivated the political charges against Him.

Though He was accused of treason, sedition, and rebellion, Pontius Pilate clearly didn’t believe Jesus was guilty of anything except being a pain in the tuches; he kept looking for reasons to release Him.  Even Herod couldn’t whip himself up into a frenzy over His purported treason (since Herod was King of Judea, and Jesus was one of his citizens, a treason charge from him would be valid).

The motive behind the Pharisees’ false accusations was purely monetary:

The Roman governor had to approve each new High Priest appointment.
While the Pharisees would make the nomination, by treaty the governor had final authority.

The same family — Annas and his sons & son-in-law Caiaphas — had a lock on that chair for most of Christ’s ministry.  They were probably afraid that the Romans — who couldn’t have cared less about justice or morality or theology but just wanted law-n-order so the tax revenues would keep flowing — would learn that very, very few Judeans gave a fig for the Pharisees in general & the High Priest (whoever the current office holder was) in particular.

They were also doubtlessly afraid that the Romans had heard thru spies that this radical new preacher who was winning followers in ever increasing numbers had taught several points in regards to Rome & Roman authority…

“So tell me, centurion, what have you learned of this man Jesus.
Has he made any statements regarding Rome or Caesar?”

“Aye, Pilate, he has.”

“You can’t trust these firebrands.  Very well, what has he said?”

“Well, first he has told the Jews that they
should pay the taxes that Caesar has imposed.”

“I’m sorry, I could have sworn you just said he told them to pay their taxes.”

“Aye, he did.  ‘Render unto Caesar’ are
his exact words according to our spies.”

“I see.  Anything else?”

“He told his followers that if a Roman tells them
to carry his armor one mile, they are to carry it two.”

“Has he said anything rebellious?
Anything urging the people to fight back?”

“No, lord Pilate; quite the opposite in fact.  He said if someone strikes them
on one cheek they are to turn and offer the other cheek as well.”

“He said that?”

“Aye.”

“And he still has followers?”

“Aye, and in greater and greater numbers.”

“I’m curious:  Has this man Jesus ever actually met a Roman?”

“Aye, Pilate, he has.  He met me.”

“You?”

“Aye.  My most loyal servant was sick and Jesus was performing healings
in the town square.  I went to him and asked him to heal my servant.”

“And did he come and heal him?”

“Well, yes and no…he indicated he was willing to come but I said
that would not be necessary, seeing as how he was a man of great authority.
And as a fellow man of authority I know if I give an order it will be obeyed,
so I told him all he had to do was say the word and I knew my servant would be healed.”

“And he did so?”

“Aye, at that very moment even though he was far away.”

“Did he make any comment on this?”

“Aye, he said he hadn’t met any Jews who had as much faith in him as I had.”

“He said that.”

“Aye.”

“So, let me see if I understand you:
You’re telling me that Jesus tells his followers to pay taxes to Caesar,
to carry a Roman’s armor an extra mile if ordered to carry it one,
and to turn the other cheek and submit to authority,
and on top of all this not only healed your servant
but said you had more faith than the Jews?”

“Aye.”

“Hmmm, centurion, y’know who might make a good High Priest…?”

Part 2

Part 3

We are prisoners of our own histories & cultures, and too often we fail to break out of those particular boxes when reading of people in other places / other cultures / other times.

Case in point:  The story of Moses and the Exodus.

Now, to most North Americans, the cultural default they go to is that of the Civil War and the civil rights movement.

I mean, slaves are slaves, right?  And Moses was like a modern civil rights leader, right?

Not hardly.

But because North Americans tend to cast the story this way, because they think of it in terms of American history and American culture and American ambitions, they water it down, they change it, they dilute it and rob it of its full meaning.

By mentally re-imagining the culture and the locale, they lose sight of what really happened.

Further, then don’t even re-imagine it in the reality of slavery in the American South, but it terms of what the pop culture has shown of that era, a view that is suspect at best and blatantly deceitful at worst.

Still, it’s a ill wind that blows no good & sometimes the blade cuts both ways.

If we’re going to think of Moses and Exodus in North American terms, let’s use appropriate images and concepts.

We’ve already pointed out how Moses had Profound Anger Management Issues.

To put his story fully in context, imagine a privileged house slave in Gone With The Wind beating Victory Jory to death.

Then imagine he hightails it out to Oklahoma, where he defends Cherokee squaws from encroaching cowboys.

Then imagine he returns to Atlanta just ahead of Sherman, telling those good ol’ boys that whatever happens next, they richly deserve it.

He then sets fire to Abe Lincoln’s hand written Emancipation Proclamation.  Whoever this guy is, he sounds more like Dolemite than Martin Luther King Jr.

So, let us review:

When reading Exodus, do NOT think in terms of this guy –

– leading these folks –

– to this place –

– where they became these people.

Instead, think of this guy –

– leading these people –

– into this place –

– where he would turn them into this.

Kinda puts a different perspective on things, don’t it…?

As Cracked-dot-com observed: 
“Martin Luther King may have had a dream, but Moses had a body count.”