[todaysdate]
By Thomas Schmidt
The series on the resurrection and the discussion has often been interesting. In one sense it reveals a lot of the four Gospels and Paul, and is usually backed by good orthodox scholarship. Yet I have been very dissatisfied by it for two connected reasons. It has been very incomplete, for there has been almost no contextual information, and therefore the discussion has been very limited, and most likely not very relevant to contemporary issues. It has focused on only one story of the life of Jesus and the early church, one that since the discovery of other Gospels, especially Q and the Gospel of Thomas, makes Christianity irrelevant and not interesting in the eyes of many. It leaves out the earlier, closer to the initial understandings of the early followers of the way of Jesus. He was not so much preaching about an apocalypses as he was about the present, at hand, empire of God. The discussion has been about a death oriented Jesus, one who has been responsible for much killing in God’s name. The latter, although historically probably earlier, view here ignored, presents us with a teacher who valued life and loving relations with all creatures, a message that speaks to us in our world killing age.
The earliest followers of the way rarely mentioned a resurrection. Paul only did so in his later writings. The definitive historical event was the Jewish rebellion in the 60’s and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70, along with the persecutions that came with all that. The first focus was on the teachings of Jesus, how we should live with each other in the face of Roman occupation., not the resurrection. The early ones were impressed with the call for nonviolent resistence, which Jesus modeled. There were jailings and relocations, but rarely crucifixions. With Paul’s writings, the movement spread west, further into Roman control.
However the movement had also spread east, east of the Euphrates, into Edessa, where Rome had no control. There we get the Gospel of Thomas, and the earlier tradition preserved. Paul was concerned that the church not be destroyed. He, and other’s, who were just beginning to write down their ideas of what Jesus said and did, were very concerned to fortify the followers against persecution, so they accented life after death in endless heaven. That was stressed in such a way that it deified Jesus, thus downplaying his life and teachings but magnifying his godly and worshipful sonship and godship.
Jesus becoming God, put to death by Jews, then Rome, with only a few believing in his divinity hard enough to be rewarded, became a deadly, otherworldly myth that if we didn’t believe, often allowed believers to put us to death. Thus the horrifying crusades, inquisitions, witch killings, along with continued put down of women, and glorification of the worrier and the idea that there can be a just war.
As disappointing as that apocalyptic focus is I am equally concerned about the otherworldly view it has. That allows us to see the world as little other than a resource to get us to our final destination, to heaven beyond the world. Therefore the world is only of temporary use, and deserves to be exploites and used up, so I can have everlasting life. But that is again deadly thinking. Couldn’t everlasting life for me exist in the passing on of loving relationships, by supporting God’s plan, by furthering evolution rather than inhibiting it with our interference and exploitation?
It would help our belief in Jesus if we read and honored the other Gospels as much as the select few with their limited focus. That is one of the suggestions of Stephen Patterson in his recent book “The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins.” 2014, published by Harper one. This work is scholarly. The last three chapters are very readable and present the meat of his scholarship, and that of the many others of similar viewpoints. Here is the earlier Jesus movement, and its problems, present briefly and mostly readable. I will be referring to it often in my studies.
