Today’s Post

In recent posts we have addressed traditional Western concepts of God, and reinterpreted them to illustrate how the concept of a God can be understood from a secular perspective.  We have seen that this reinterpretation does not necessarily contradict the underlying kernels that lie at the basis of these traditional expressions of belief.  In fact, as we have seen in the previous posts on ‘God’, these secular reinterpretations seem to resolve many of the dualities that are embedded in the traditional statements.

We have also looked at the ‘Perennial Tradition’, which sees all religious expression as inclusive of such basic fundamental insights.

This week, we’ll begin to focus our inquiry into the cornerstone of Western theology: Jesus, the basis of Christianity.

The Duality of Christianity

We have addressed many of the manifestations of ‘duality’ that appear in Western theology, as found in Judaism, Christianity and the Greek influences on the continuing evolution of Christianity.  Dualistic concepts such as body/soul, this life/the next, sacred/profane, divine/human, good/evil and many others can be found in much of the ‘holy scripture’ which underlies Western religious thinking.

Such appearances of duality can be found in both the scriptural references to Jesus (the ‘new’ testament) and in the theological development which has continued to unfold as Christianity assimilated Greek thought and became established as an agent for stability in Western society.

These threads of duality have persisted during the evolution of the West, and can be seen as late as the twentieth century in the appearance and inevitable branching of the new science of psychology.  These traces were discussed in the post on the history of psychology (http://www.lloydmattlandry.com/?m=201611) which pointed out how Freud’s negative theories of ‘the self’ were heavily influenced by the European Protestant emphasis on ‘man’s sinful nature’,  while mid-twentieth century psychology leaned towards a more positive basis.

These contradictions can be seen today in the ongoing tension between protestant fundamentalism and mainstream liturgical expressions of Christianity, as well as the wide divide between the extremes of liberal and conservative politics.

And, as we shall see, another dimension of duality also rose as Christianity began to develop a ‘Christology’, a philosophical approach to understanding Jesus in a universal context, and how this new dimension gave rise to the idea of a “Trinity”.

What Do We Know Of Jesus and How Do We Know It?

The actual dates of the life of Jesus are not certain, and the first person to write about him seems to be Paul, some years after Jesus’ death.  All the other authors of the ‘New Testament’ seem to have come later, so it seems that no one who wrote of Jesus actually knew him but depended on stories which were prevalent in the many new churches which sprung up after his death.  We don’t seem to know much about these different churches other than that they represented a very diverse collective memory of Jesus.  Much of this diversity reflected the duality which was present in the legacy Jewish scripture, (known by Christians as ‘Old Testament’ and by the Jews as ‘The Torah’), but many new dualisms emerged with the new thinking.

The ‘stories of Jesus’ that glued these early communities together all reflected the dualism of their Jewish history, such as:

–          Was God responsible for evil or was the source of evil elsewhere?

–          Was God’s creation ‘good’ or ‘evil’?

–          Was God a ‘loving father’ or a ‘vengeful judge’?

–          Was scripture “God’s Word”, and hence to be followed literally, or a perspective to be refined by the teachings of Jesus?

Then there were the new dualisms:

–          Was Jesus God?  Man?  God and man?

–          What, specifically, was his relation to God?

–          Was he ‘killed by God’ to atone for human sins?

The writings of Paul clearly show the diversity of belief that had appeared in the few years between Jesus’s death and Paul’s writing.  He consistently critiques beliefs found in the new churches, and his New Testament ‘letters’ are lists of instructions for ‘correct’ interpretations.

The First Perspective: The Synoptic Gospels

The first three Gospels, known as the synoptic gospels, by Mark, then Matthew and Luke, seem to have been written some ten years after Paul.  They depict Jesus as a Jewish man who was not considered to be more than a man during his lifetime, who offered often unpopular interpretations of the law of Moses (the Torah), ended up on the wrong side of the law, was condemned for political treason against Rome, was tortured and put to death by crucifixion, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.

The synoptic gospels often depict Jesus as a ‘millennialist’, who predicted that God would soon intervene in human history and establish a kingdom on Earth, which would be led by the ‘Son of Man’.

Bart Ehrman notes that the ‘miraculous’ depictions of the synoptic gospels, such as the virgin birth, healing the sick and resurrection, are not uncommon in the many myths of the ancient world, and appear in many stories of other ‘God Men’ born to virgins who ascended to heaven.  He goes as far as to suggest that these events in the synoptic gospels were proclaimed by the post-Jesus church to overcome the shame of the nature of Jesus’ execution as a common criminal, and to appeal to those who followed the ancient myths.

The Next Post

The writings of Paul and the authors of the synoptic Gospels offer a picture of Jesus which emerged shortly after his death, but as we will see next week, many years later a radically different picture of Jesus was to appear.  Next week, we will take a look at this new picture.