The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (30 page)

M. Casey argued that Jesus saw himself as the fulfillment of John the Baptist's prophecy about the Coming One. Jesus believed that the climax of history would occur in his lifetime and urged the lost sheep of Israel to prepare for final judgment by repenting of their sins. Unlike Sanders's Jesus, Casey's Jesus experienced serious conflict with the Pharisees because of their attempts to impose strict purity regulations on Galilean Jews. This would have essentially excluded Galilean Jews, especially artisans and peasants, from the people of God. According to Casey, Jesus foresaw his own death and regarded it as an act that procured atonement that would redeem Israel. But this did not mean that Jesus was a messianic figure; rather, he simply viewed his death as having the same Significance as the deaths of the Maccabean martyrs.

The research of Sanders and Casey rightly places Jesus in a first-century Jewish context, and to this extent their views are superior to treatments such as those of Crossan and Mack. But Sanders and Casey fail to capture the essence of the Jesus of the NT by suppressing or denying much of the Gospels' data. What is more, Sanders's Jesus was so similar to other Jewish contemporaries that it is difficult to explain why he was rejected
and crucified. Similar to other contemporary portrayals of Jesus, including those of Jesus as a traveling Cynic philosopher and as a charismatic faith healer, the present and other depictions of Jesus fail first and foremost by failing to provide a sufficient or even compelling rationale for why Jesus was crucified. By contrast the canonical Gospels make clear that ultimately the crucifixion was religiously motivated and that Jesus was accused of blasphemy on account of his claim to deity (Matt 26:63–65; John 19:7).

The Social Reformer

Scholars such as G. Theissen, R. A. Horsley, and R. D. Kaylor have argued that Jesus was more of a social reformer than an apocalyptic prophet.
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Theissen, whose views were seminal for the later work of Crossan, Horsley, and others, viewed Jesus as a radical charismatic preacher. Jesus' committed followers accompanied him in his itinerant ministry and embraced a lifestyle that renounced possessions and family ties and was devoted to homelessness. Jesus founded a peace party that sought to extinguish the simmering spirit of revolt and violence popular in the various Jewish reform movements of his day. He and his followers encouraged commitment to an ethic of nonretaliation. Their refusal to defend themselves required them to be constantly on the move in order to escape harm. Jesus called individuals to this radical lifestyle because he was convinced that the end was near. When the kingdom of God was established, the poor would become wealthy; the weak, strong; and the least, the greatest.

Influenced by Theissen's theories, R. Horsley argued that Jesus was a social revolutionary who wished to restructure Galilean village life in order to establish equality between women and men, the poor and the wealthy, and the oppressed and the powerful. R. D. Kaylor also saw Jesus as a social reformer, but he further argued that Jesus' desire for reform was motivated by a desire to return to the egalitarianism that supposedly characterized Jewish agricultural communities before Israel's first monarchy.

Although Jesus was certainly concerned about human oppression and mistreatment, the theories of Theissen, Horsley, and to a lesser extent Kaylor generally overlook the spiritual dimension of Jesus' teaching. Abundant NT evidence shows that Jesus viewed himself as a messianic or kingly figure. This self-understanding precludes interpretations of Jesus as committed to a radical egalitarianism that abolishes all distinctions between individuals and challenges all authority structures. While Jesus clearly denounced the corrupt Jewish system (as at the temple cleansing, John 2:13–22), mere social or religious reform was not the primary thrust of his mission. As Jesus himself said, “My kingdom is not of this
world” (John 18:36). Hence any effort to understand Jesus predominantly or exclusively in human, political, or socioeconomic terms falls short of capturing the essence of Jesus' identity and calling.

The Feminist Jesus

E. S. Fiorenza, the leading proponent of feminist scholarship, viewed Jesus as a radical reformer who wished to liberate women and other marginalized people from male-dominated social structures and Roman imperialism.
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She also argued that Jesus envisioned and worshipped God as Sophia, a feminine portrayal of deity. Fiorenza posited the theory that Proverbs 1–9 integrated language about Egyptian goddesses into its reflection of Yahweh. In keeping with this wisdom tradition, Jesus conceived of deity in feminine terms and worshipped God as Sophia rather than as Father or Abba.

Fiorenza's portrait of Jesus is driven more by the social agenda of championing female rights than by the actual data of the NT Gospels. Her claim that Jesus worshipped Sophia is based largely on her questionable interpretation of Proverbs 1–9, her even more questionable handling of Matt 11:19 (cf. Luke 7:35), and a casual dismissal of numerous texts in which Jesus described God as his Father. Her arguments never adequately explain why a radical egalitarian who wished to abolish all distinctions between men and women would appoint twelve men as his disciples and choose three of these men as his inner circle.
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Another major representative of feminist scholarship is R. R. Ruether. In 1998, Ruether set forth her thesis that Jesus was a “religious seeker” who was initially drawn to John the Baptist's apocalyptic message of repentance.
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Later he broke with the Baptist, inspired by a vision of Satan falling from heaven like lightning (Luke 10:18). He concluded that he need no longer wait for God's future intervention but that Satan's power had already been broken. Around the year 30 he became convinced that his kingdom vision was about to be fulfilled. He gathered his followers, went to Jerusalem, and was arrested and crucified. Yet some of his disciples were persuaded that Jesus was not dead but alive and present with them “in the Spirit.” Thus the early church was born, with women playing an important role.

The Sage

B. Witherington has suggested that Jesus might best be understood as a teacher of wisdom or sage who regarded himself as the embodiment or incarnation of God's Wisdom.
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Witherington has shown that numerous sayings of Jesus have remarkable similarities to descriptions
of divine Wisdom in the OT, Apocrypha, and Pseudepigrapha. This Wisdom was often personified in ancient texts such as Proverbs 8 to portray Wisdom as God's agent who was sent with a commission, possessed God's very mind and will, and revealed it to others.

As Witherington developed this thesis in his later work,
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his view of Jesus as the embodiment of Wisdom explains the high Christology of John 1 and of the very early Christological hymns that appear in Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 portraying Jesus as the incarnation of deity. This early Christology was rooted in texts such as Proverbs 1 , 8–9 and Sirach 24 that describe Wisdom as a personification of God that preexisted, assisted in creation, came to earth, called God's people to repentance, saved some but was rejected by others, and returned to the right hand of God.
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Witherington's proposal has much to commend it. The criticism of the proposal is not primarily that it is incorrect but that by itself it is inadequate.
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Witherington himself admitted this and conceded that no single title can fully describe Jesus.
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He acknowledged that Jesus was not only the embodiment of Wisdom and a sage but that he was also a healer, a prophetic figure, and saw himself as Messiah.
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As Witherington himself would acknowledge, although understanding Jesus as a sage and the embodiment of Wisdom explained aspects of his messianic consciousness, this understanding must be supplemented by other approaches and insights.

A Marginal Jew

J. P. Meier has suggested that the historical Jesus is best seen as a marginal Jew.
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Jesus was marginal for several reasons. First, Jesus marginalized himself by abandoning his livelihood as a carpenter and undertaking a prophetic itinerant ministry that required him to depend on the generosity of others and thus invited the disgust of many ordinary working Jews. Second, Jesus' teachings and practices were marginal because they did not comport with the views and practices of the major Jewish sects of his time. Examples of Jesus' radical teachings and lifestyle include his prohibition of divorce, his rejection of fasting, and his voluntary celibacy. Jesus' rejection of standard Jewish convictions was viewed as particularly audacious since he had not received formal rabbinic training. Third, Jesus' shameful and brutal execution shows that he had been pushed to the margins of society by both the political and religious establishment of Palestine.

The description of Jesus as a marginal Jew is inadequate. First, the category does not adequately express Meier's view of the teachings and deeds of Jesus that can be historically verified. Meier's work affirms that Jesus performed what he and others regarded as miracles and exorcisms, that Jesus was a Jewish eschatological prophet who proclaimed the coming of God's kingdom, and that Jesus mediated the experience of the joys of salvation. These aspects of Jesus' ministry are not implied by the label “marginal Jew.” Second, Meier's purpose in his research was merely to describe the Jesus who can be recovered and reconstructed by means of serious historical research and not to describe the Jesus who actually lived and is no longer recoverable. He wished to develop a portrait of Jesus that would satisfy any honest historian regardless of his philosophical or religious commitments. This required him to eliminate material that he regarded as probable from his reconstruction of Jesus' life. Despite these and other shortcomings of Meier's work, his portrait of Jesus is far more carefully and reasonably argued than most other contemporary portraits.

The Risen Messiah

One of the more biblically faithful portraits of Jesus in recent years has come from the pen of N. T. Wright . His first three volumes of a proposed six-volume work portray Jesus as a divine messianic figure who rose from the dead.
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Wright's portrait of Jesus is not a mere repetition of the standard traditional view but one that breaks new ground in several ways. According to Wright, first-century Israel saw itself as still languishing in exile due to the Roman domination of Palestine. Israel desperately longed for God to return to deliver his people. Jesus was an eschatological prophet who came to announce that God was going to return to Zion to dwell with his people again. When he did, he would defeat Israel's enemies and liberate his people from their exile.

Jesus promised this coming deliverance in both word and deed. His miracles and exorcisms served as prophetic signs that demonstrated that God was already at work restoring Israel and defeating Satan, the nation's greatest enemy. His table fellowship with those rejected by Israel's religious authorities demonstrated Jesus' offer to forgive sinners and to include them in the restored Israel.

Jesus also replaced adherence to the temple cult and fidelity to the OT law with allegiance to himself. He believed that his own death would involve representative suffering for Israel in which he sacrificially bore the eschatological woes that were a necessary prelude to the end of Israel's exile. Jesus not only proclaimed the return of Yahweh to Israel; he enacted, symbolized, and personified that return. He recognized himself as the very embodiment of Yahweh's return to Israel. Jesus “believed he had to do and be, for Israel and the world, that which according to scripture only YHWH himself could do and be.”
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Finally, Wright argued convincingly and at great length that Jesus rose from the dead. He offered a devastating critique of the claim that Jesus experienced a mere spiritual resurrection, a claim lodged by scholars such as J. D. Crossan and B. Chilton. He insisted that both Jewish descriptions of resurrection and NT accounts of Jesus' resurrection demonstrated that Jesus experienced a bodily resurrection. This resurrection confirms the early church's belief that Jesus is both Lord and Christ.

Overall, Wright has offered a portrait of Jesus that accommodates more of the biblical data than the other contemporary views discussed above. At those points at which he departs from the traditional Christian view of Jesus and his teaching, the traditional view is generally superior. But Wright has succeeded in gaining a hearing again for a high view of Jesus that regards him as the risen Lord. What is more, Wright's outspoken defense of the biblical teachings regarding Jesus' resurrection sets him apart from the leaders of the Jesus Seminar, such as J. D. Crossan, who do not accept the scriptural witness in this regard.

Table 3.2: Contemporary Portrayals of Jesus