Monday, June 27, 2016
MORE TO SEE
If
I were putting up a new description of my book True Jew on the back cover, it would be this:
There
is only one thing that stands between us and an accurate view of what happened
in history—and that is ideology. Nowhere else is this more true than in historical
Jesus studies. A Jesus surrounded by Jewish enemies is the only lens that
scholars will allow to study the evidence. It has given us only confusion and
contradictions and yet scholars stick with it. Their chant goes up—“The less we
see, the more we know”—and one distorted lens blocks every fresh look at the
evidence in the Gospels, Acts, and the letters of Paul. Why does Paul say that
Jewish leaders found “nothing deserving death” in Jesus (Acts 13:28)? Why would
the high priest use the Jewish act of persuasion (tearing his robes) and not an
act of condemnation when talking with him (Mk 14:63)? Why is 99% of the
evidence about Judas so ambiguous and why is he called a traitor only once in
all of the Gospels (Lk 6:16)? A Jesus surrounded by Jewish enemies is not the
rational answer we’ve all been holding our breaths for. A better, truly
rational answer is just begging to be told.
There
is not just one clue that would lead to a new vision of Jesus’s relationship
with his own people, leaders, and culture. There is a whole pattern of clues.
And that means that any one of them could shake you up and make you see this in
a whole new light. There are so many pieces of evidence (some of which I
mentioned in the last post just below this one) that could stimulate a more
objective look into history, if only we were not stuck with the rigid ideology
of Jesus surrounded by Jewish enemies. Scholars are reluctant to acknowledge
that they have rejected every single clue that has the potential to wake them
up from their doldrums. They did not turn their backs one time. They did it
over and over again. One example will suffice.
Most
scholars do not realize that a high priest tearing his robes was not an act of condemnation. They simply
refuse to see ancient Jewish culture for what it was. They don’t want to see it
because they will not allow any new information to interfere with their idea
that there could only have been hostility between Jesus and Jewish leaders. But
E.P. Sanders had a more clever way to get around what he saw and maintain a
corrupt system of thinking.
Sanders
was a rare scholar for understanding that the tearing of robes was an act of
mourning used in an attempt to persuade someone that they should change their
course of action. What he did not emphasize was that the dangerous action was
usually something which was threatening to the Romans and thus might lead to
the deaths of more Jews for whom we would all have to mourn. Despite his insight
that this was about persuasion, Sanders could not let go of the idea that has
bedazzled everyone: The idea that the high priest could only have been
condemning Jesus.
So
what did Sanders do? He convinced himself that the high priest tore his robes
to persuade his fellow priests to join him in condemning Jesus. But this is
completely wrong. The high priest never did this to persuade fellow counselors.
Sanders just made up a false fact so he could stick to the idea of
condemnation. In historical, Jewish reality, the high priest aimed his act of
mourning at the person or persons he was pleading with to stop antagonizing the
Romans. In this case, it was Jesus. Sanders is a perfect example of the danger
that Huang Po pointed to (discussed in the post below): Fools reject what they
see, so they can maintain what everyone has long thought, but a truly wise
person will reject the standard thinking and let what they see guide them to a
new understanding. Reject what you think, not what you see. Never let
preconceived thinking lead you to reject evidence.
Agnes
Arber, British botanist, once put it this way: The intellectual atmosphere of
any given age is compulsive to a humiliating degree and causes scientists to
abandon fresh ways of thinking (which always means fresh seeing). In no field
has this been more true than in historical Jesus studies.
©
2016 Leon Zitzer
