"Jesus, the final days"

Perhaps it is because in my own study, particularly through the book of Acts, I have found enough historical context to radically shift my thinking about the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection and what it meant to the early followers of Jesus. For three years apart from my regular undergraduate study, I buried my nose in the works of commentators like John Stott, Richard Longenecker, Mal Couch, Homer Kent, and John Calvin. Every moment I spent in the book of Acts, I found myself having to revisit the gospel accounts. It was in this study that I discovered that much of what I felt about the gospels and their implications was dramatically different from what it meant to the early Christians. I find Craig A. Evans and N.T. Wright’s book Jesus, The Final Days to be an affirmation of much of that story.

            Their intent for composing the book was for “the interested layperson, for clergy, for the undergraduate or graduate student, as well as for those who have academic specialties outside of one of these areas (ix).” What I think the authors of this book have succeeded in doing is being true to the interpretation of the gospel accounts through the lens of the original audience. In a “shotgun” fashion, they have given historical context enough to understand how a first century audience would have perceived these events. While doing this, they have offered a response to those who might seek to punch holes in the gospel accounts concerning Jesus’ execution, and his resurrection. This book therefore, functioned in two ways for me as I read it: First, as a fresh window through which to see these events that I have been familiar with. Second, as an apologetic as to why fabricating such a thing is highly unlikely. 

            Much of the evidences provided, becoming a common theme of both authors, comes from the observation that many of the happenings within the gospel accounts would be understood as embarrassing to the early church, and therefore would have been omitted if in fact their composition came from a later point and time and they were seeking to fabricate Jesus into super human, divine status.

            This can clearly be seen in Evans’ portion of the book regarding Jesus’ death and burial. Evans makes a big deal out of the scene of Gethsemane. “Here, we see the frightened Jesus fall on his face, begging God to take away the cup of suffering (Mark 14:33-36). This is not the stuff of pious fiction or dogma (11).” Evans goes on to note that stark contrasts between the Jesus of the synoptic and the Jesus in John’s gospel where “Jesus… communes with God in peace, prays for his disciples, and adds a prayer for all those who will follow after him (11).” Evans does not go on to elaborate this point further, but as we discussed in class, John is addressing his audience with an agenda, and is addressing the “sitz im leben” that Jesus was praying for the early Christians.           

            Further complicating the case that Jesus’ narrative is fabricated in the gospels is the nature and process of his execution. As stated above, the death of a reigning messiah is embarrassing enough, but chronicling the humiliation that Jesus endured only stands to add salt into the wound. That is unless something happened after his crucifixion that transforms the defeat of death into victory. The fact that the gospel writers belabor the point of his death indicates that it held special significance:

“In the cast of Jesus, his mockery began with the Jewish council. His face is covered and he is ordered to “prophecy” (Mark 14:65). After all, if he were truly a prophet, he would possess clairvoyance and, without benefit of sight, could identify those who struck him (25).” 

The gospel writers not only include the mockery of the Jewish audience, but also the mockery of the Romans:

“The purple cloak, the crown of thorns (resembling a crown of ivy), the reed with which Jesus is struck on the head, and the bowing in mock homage are all components of the apparel worn and homage received by the Roman emperor, who at the triumph wore a purple robe and laurel wreath and held a scepter (27).” 

            Wright’s observations as to the historicity and application of the crucifixion also derive a theme of the unlikelihood of fabrication. The first unlikelihood being that a suffering messiah who would later rise from the dead was not on the horizon of anyone in Jesus’ time. Wright observes (as did Evans in multiple locations) that the historical story of a person proclaiming themselves to be the messiah and getting themselves executed was common. Wright summarizes the assumption of people in the remarks of one of his friends:

“Oh, of course I have always taken the view that the idea of the resurrection was in the air at the time, and the disciples were so bothered by Jesus’ cataclysmic defeat and death that they more or less reached for that category as a way of coping with their grief (102).”

In establishing this straw man, Wright concludes that “We know, as I said before, of several other movements where the leader was killed, the one upon whom everyone had pinned their hope; but at no point do we find such movements then suffering from the blessed twentieth-century disease called cognitive dissonance, where they make up stories about something glorious that has happened in order to try to come to terms with their grief (102).” 

Another argument that solidifies this unlikelihood of fabrication is the lack of biblical witness to the resurrection. Wright observes that “This kind of account is without precedent. No biblical text predicts that the resurrection will involve this kind of body. No speculative theology laid this trail for the evangelists to follow, and to follow it in such interestingly different ways (99).” 

            Even if this was an expectation of first century Jews concerning the messiah, it would not necessarily negate its validity. Certainly, there were some messianic expectations that Jesus had fulfilled. There were, as we discussed in class, a compilation of passages that became the messianic hope that would be fulfilled in some then eschatological fashion. Some of these expectations however, are the very same things that led his disciples to be confused by Jesus’ language and actions. Wherefore, in other instances in which the flow of the gospel narrative matches these pre-existing expectations, it is the passion and resurrection narrative that deviate from this flow. Wright is concluding that the gospel writers are astonishingly accurate in describing the same event without a messianic outline to follow. Wright is also concluding that though these accounts are astonishingly similar, they are quite unique in their description. What one would expect in the narrative, had these prior expectations of messianic fulfillment been followed, would be coherent / comparable formatting with the same conclusions. Wright’s point: The accounts are similar enough to assume that they are explaining the same event. The accounts are unique enough to assume that they are explaining it without a pre-committed assumption of a fulfilled messianic prophecy. 

As I said before, the work of Evans and Wright’s in Jesus, The Final Days serve as a confirmation and a clarification to many of the dots I began to connect starting just a few years ago on my quest for holistic biblical clarity. My understanding before this quest was more of a caricature of the New Testament narrative than anything else. The assumptions that I had made about Jesus’ disciples was that they were idiots, and hadn’t read their old testament bibles enough to see all of the clear prophecies concerning this Jesus that was clearly trying to make himself known. As the book observes (particularly Wright), my understanding of Jesus began with the cross, and ended there. His atoning death paid for my sins, now I no longer sin so as not to disappoint this Jesus who died in my place, and the only thing I have to look forward to is my death when I will get to meet this Jesus in person. 

What really made the connection for me was actually a Metallica song that served once as my creedal statement against the Christian faith. The song was called “The God That Failed”:  the lyrics in the chorus read:

I see faith in your eyes
Never you hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail
Follow the God that failed

It dawned on me one day, while studying the book of Acts, and going back and reading the gospels, that this was exactly how the followers of Jesus felt. God had failed them. I realized that Jesus was not as clearly articulated in the Old Testament as I had once believed. If I were in the audience listening to Jesus’ teaching, I would have been one of the first to demand his execution. 

            Understanding that everything is not as neatly packaged as we want it to be, and having been separated by two millennia of time, I realize that Jesus is not as simple as I had once thought. What he said to his original audience and who he claimed to be makes me uncomfortable even as one of his devoted followers. I abstain from reducing the gospel to a few talking points of doctrine that need to be adhered to and believed. As we discussed in class, we ought not talk about our doctrines, we only wind up having to defend them. If we start by making a case for the bibles authority and historicity, we must spend our time defending it to our audience. We must speak of Jesus, and in order to do so accurately we give attention to the fact that the four evangelists have given us their testimony which is trustworthy. 

            I conclude by stating that it is not enough to limit our understanding of Jesus to these four accounts. The diversity with which they have been composed, and the liberty they felt to tailor Jesus to their audience, tells me that Jesus is vast enough to encompass far more than our perceptions of him. The testimony left by the evangelist’s tell us of a time that God became flesh and made his dwelling among us. The testimony of history suggests that the sweep of that story is being caught up in the implications of our Lord’s death and resurrection.