Is the Gospel of John Fictional?

What the stakes are, if it is at least partially fiction, is this: not everything written in the gospel happened, but some of it was created by authorial imagination. Around a month ago, I published a blog entitled, "Trickery in the Gospel of Mark,"¹ where I demonstrated that Mark was partially fiction ("a making up of imaginary happenings").²

            The narrator of the story in John becomes evident as a persona in the narrative when he directly addresses the readers, freezing the story in mid-telling and commenting on some aspect of what had just been shown and again resuming its telling.³ These comments are like parenthetical expressions interrupting the flow of the narrative. By comparison there is only one instance of this narrative device in the Gospel of Mark where the narrator becomes personified and directly addresses the reader (Mark 13:14).

            Among other things, the author uses this narrative device to present interior views (explain thoughts and motives) of characters in the drama and to explain what they are thinking and feeling. In real life, of course, the thoughts and motivations of others are hidden from us. We never know what people are thinking or their reasons for what they do. Even if they tell us, we only know what they told us they were thinking, and what they thought may well be different from what they said. The problem is also complicated by the fact that the Gospel of John is written around sixty years or so after the events narrated in the text,⁴ and the author was not an eyewitness to the events.⁵ This narrative device whereby the author presents interior views of characters in the narrative drama belongs more to the novelistic arts than to the historian's craft.

            What follows are several examples of this artifice by which the narrator reads the minds of characters in the drama including the mind of his created character, Jesus.⁶

The Narrator Reads the Mind of Characters in John's Gospel:

1 The narrator knows the steward did not know the source of the wine, but that the servants did know (2:9).

2 The narrator knows what the disciples remembered (2:22).

3 The narrator knows the inner motivation of those who persecuted Jesus (5:16).

4 The narrator knows what Jesus knew "within himself" (en eautō) (6:61).

5 The narrator knows the motivation of the parents of the man born blind (9:22–23).

6 The narrator knows what the disciples were thinking (11:13).

7 Judas questions why ointment was not sold and the proceeds given to the poor. The narrator knows Judas' motive for saying this (12:6).

8 The narrator reads Jesus' mind. Jesus knew from the beginning who did not believe and who would betray him (6:64).

9 The narrator reads the mind of Jesus and Judas (13:1–4).

10 The narrator knows that Satan had entered into Judas (13:27).

11. The Narrator reads Peter's mind and explains what Peter meant by the proverb Peter spoke (21:18–19).

What does it mean for a text when its author is found to engage in an unhistorical methodology, but chooses to use the conventions of literary fiction instead? At the least, it means that its narrative should be read very carefully. How should one read a text known to be novelistic? My suggestion is that one read it like one would read the historical novel Gone with the Wind. By recognizing that although it may have some historical features, the narrative itself is compromised as history. In the case of John, the author is more a Christian theologian than a disinterested historian.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Wry Guy Blog, "Trickery in the Gospel of Mark," April 11, 2025: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=Trickery+in+the+Gospel+of+Mark

²Webster's New World College Dictionary (4^th ed), under "fiction."

³Hedrick, "Authorial Presence and Narrator in John. Commentary and Story," in J. E. Goehring, et al., eds., Gospel Origins and Christian Beginnings (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1990), 74–93. I found 121 instances of this narrative device, p. 81.

⁴W. G. Kϋmmel, Introduction to the New Testament (trans., H. C. Kee; Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1975), 246.

⁵Kϋmmel, Introduction, 245.

⁶After a cursory reading in English, I found over thirty examples of this device used by the author of John. Here are several other examples of mind reading by the narrator of John: 1:43; 2:22; 2:23; 4:1; 4:17-18; 4:39; 4:41; 6:61; 6:64; 10:6; 11:13; 12:16-17; 12:18; 12:33; 12:41; 12:42-43; 13:11; 13:21; 13:29; 16:19; 18:4; 18:9; 18:32; 19:28; 21:12.

Pondering the Inspiration of Scripture*

The Greek word graphē is usually translated by the English words, scripture or writing. By capitalizing the first letter of the word (Scripture) translators intend their readers to understand the word Scripture to be referring to Sacred Writings. According to the lexicons graphē is used exclusively so in the New Testament, regardless of whether, or not, the first letter is capitalized.

            Sacred Scripture is a writing believed to have been inspired by God, as it is stated in 2 Tm 3:16: "Every Scripture (graphē) is inspired by God (theopneustos)." That is to say, the writing is "God breathed," or infused by God. The ancient Hebrews believed that the prophets were inspired by God (Hos 12:10; 1 Kgs 13:20; 1 Kgs 17:1-2; Ex 12:1-2; Ex 15:1-2; 2 Sam 7:4-5; Neh 9:30; Zech 7:12; Ezek 24:20-21), and linked the prophet's inspiration to writings believed to be written by the prophet (Jer 30:1-2; Jer 36:1-2). Thus, the inspiration of the prophet came to be transferred to the "writings" of the prophet, and in this way the writing also became the Word of the Lord; as they believed the spoken word of the prophet was as well. The early Christians continued this practice of extending inspiration from writers to their writings, as 2 Tim 3:16 clearly shows (cf. 2 Pet 1:20-21).

            Truth be told, however, one can never know if a person is inspired by God and likewise one can never know for certain what inspires an author, even if the author specifies the source of inspiration. One only knows for certain what one is told. And the only way of telling if a text is "inspired" is by the judgment of literary critics on the literary excellence of the writing and/or the number of persons who opined it either inspired or inspiring. In both cases, however, that a writing is inspired by God or by the author is a matter of opinion. There are no objective criteria of a writing by which one can identify, or quantify, inspiration of texts. Inspiration is not a physical feature of a piece of literature like language, handwriting, and stated ideas. In the church, however, people believe the New Testament is inspired simply because they have been taught to think that way. It is a learned response and does not represent a critical judgment upon the inscription or inspiration of the texts.

            If one insists that a given text has been inspired, on what basis can one reasonably eliminate the human author as the actual genius behind the inspiration? Personally, I think that Psalm 23, a thoroughly religious piece, is both an inspired text and an inspiring text. It crosses the lines of most religions and offers strong encouragement for those walking through "the valley of the shadow of death." Another thoroughly secular piece in the New Testament that I consider inspired and inspiring is 1 Cor 13:1-13. God is not even mentioned in these sentences. I also consider the poem "The Road not taken" by Robert Frost to be both inspired and inspiring and it has nothing to do with religion or ethics.

I cannot say with any degree of confidence if it was the genius of God or the unknown human author that inspired these three narratives. It could have been both, I suppose; who can say with any degree of confidence? It is possible that "God" provided a degree of inspirational "spark" to motivate the writer's writing, but the psalm, the essay on love, and the poem were obviously crafted through the natural abilities of the human author. To call any of them "Word of God," however, is a bridge too far. Such a description overlooks the role of the human author in their creation.

What do you think?  

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*I have written earlier on this subject: see Hedrick, Wry Thoughts about Religion, blog: "Revelation and Meaning," Saturday, August 31, 2013: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=revelation+and+meaning

"Is the Bible Inspired?" Thursday, December 5, 2019: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=is+the+bible+inspired

Caution: the Bible is a Dangerous Book

When I was young and green and growing like an emerald sprout in the steamy Mississippi Delta, I was an avid churchgoer—my junior and senior years of high school I worked on the staff at the Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly Grounds, served as president of High School Youth for Christ, and led the closing prayer at my high school graduation. Yet in all my religious training no one ever warned me how dangerous the Bible was when read prescriptively, and that is precisely the way I was taught to read it in a Mississippi Baptist church—prescriptively! Taking the Bible prescriptively is what one does when one regards it as a divinely inspired book. My teachers in those early years were not critical scholars and they all believed the Bible reflected a prescription for a successful life, one that was pleasing to God. They seemed confident that knowledge of and obedience to its contents would develop a strong Christian character. During those early years, however, no one ever cautioned me that in reading the Bible I should have to choose carefully between its mosaic of good ideas and bad ideas; and it is essential that readers learn to discriminate between the positive and negative ideas advocated in its pages! For example, the Bible rightly extols the positive qualities of a wife and mother—qualities worthy of emulation (Proverbs 31:10-13), but it also promotes a blatant misogyny that easily misleads the unwary prescriptive reader (1 Tim 2:8-15).

Here is another example of the need to discriminate carefully among better and worse ideas appearing in the Bible. In 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Paul compares three religious abilities: love (1 Corinthians 13:4-7), prophetic powers, and faith. He claims that the ability to love is the greatest of these three abilities (1 Corinthians 13:13). Unfortunately this judgment is something he seems to forget in Galatians, where he aggressively promotes the right kind of faith over some who disagree with him (Gal 1:6-2:14). Discriminating readers will recognize the need to choose between these two contradictory positions—love can lead to reconciliation, while insistence on the right kind of faith will inevitably lead to disunity—and even violence (church history abounds with such examples). A striving after love, is the ethically more demanding choice (1 Corinthians 13:4), while the other, insisting on the right faith, more likely than not will lead to callousness (Gal 1:6-9). It is far more difficult to treat with love and kindness someone who disagrees with your faith than it is to denounce and dismiss them (as Paul did).

The most insidious aspect of taking the Bible prescriptively, however, is that its authors view reality mythically (myth: things that exist only in the imagination), and subliminally they call for readers to share their mythical views. Yet to accept their views one is required to regard the universe as a battleground between the forces of light (God, angels, Holy Spirit, good spirits, etc.) and Darkness (Satan, demons, evil spirits, etc.). Bible readers generally assimilate such ideas without serious challenge. Yet no formal argument for the necessity of believing in such an unseen world is presented in the Bible; its mythical world view simply reflects the backdrop of Hebrew and Greco-Roman antiquity. Such concepts were in the air the authors breathed and the water they drank.

Now in the late autumn of my allotted years I am hard struck by the failure of the Church to handle carefully the greatest treasure of its historical past. The Biblical corpus is like the corpus of ancient Greek poets whom Plato accused of corrupting the minds of Greek youth by attributing things to the Greek Gods that were untrue (The Republic, 377A-383E). In his ideal state he virtually censored the reading of the poets by the youth for the damage it could do them.* Here is my question: Should the Church learn from Plato’s example, and insist that there be warning labels on Bibles—perhaps something simple like the following: “Caution; contains ideas in part that should not be taken as a prescription for modern life”? There are many types of literature (politics, medicine, etc.) whose authors urge that their ideas be taken as a prescription for modern life. They change with the times. Yet it is precisely because of the Bible’s continuing iconic status in American culture that it requires a warning label. What do you think?

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

*See Wry Thoughts about Religion Blog, June 26, 2015: “The Sybil’s Wish: A Mythical Encounter.”

Did Jesus institute a Law?

In Baptist Bible study one Sunday Morning we stumbled across an unusual expression in Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2 RSV). It is an unusual statement because Paul was of the opinion that “Christ is the end of the law”; under Christ people are justified by faith according to Paul (Rom 10:4). Did Jesus institute a law? Matthew quotes Jesus as saying that he had not come to abolish the law [the Mosaic covenant], but rather to fulfill it (Matt 5:17-18). Can that statement be read as suggesting a “Christian” law of some sort remaindered from the Mosaic Code?

According to the Baptist student quarterly, the “law of Christ” is found in a saying of Jesus in John 13:34: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another." The writer said: “This law of love is the rule believers are to follow.” I raised my hand to suggest that John 13:34 could not be the “law” to which Paul referred. The saying has no parallels elsewhere and the Gospel of John was written at the end of the first century, while Paul lived in the middle first century. In any case Paul knew very little about the details of Jesus’ life, apart from a very few sayings and events that had already become liturgical by his day.

Paul claimed to be “under the law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21), which Gordon Fee describes as an informal “Christian ethical imperative.” Nevertheless, (Fee adds) that does not mean followers of Jesus now have a new law to obey. According to Fee the expression “law of Christ” is roughly equivalent to the kind of informal ethical instructions Paul gave in Romans 12 and Gal 5-6.¹ Yet the use of the word “law” to describe an informal list of ethical behaviors does seem strange for a Paul who insisted that faith had replaced the law.

James also uses the word “law,” referring to the “royal law” (Jas 2:8), which he does not explain, except to say “If you really fulfill the royal law, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (RSV; Lev 19:18; Matt 22:39; Rom 12:8-10). In other words whatever the royal law is, the doing of it will include the loving of your neighbor. Or does James intend that the reader understand that the “royal law” is to be equated with Lev19:18? The royal law can be equated with the “perfect law,” that is to say, “the law of liberty” (Jas 1:22), under which people will be judged (Jas 2:12). The law of liberty is contrasted to the Mosaic covenant, which is a formal code (Jas 2:8-12). James is doubtless referring to this “law of liberty” when he calls for one to be a “doer of the law” (Jas 1:25). Are Paul and James referring to some kind of formal legal code in early Christianity?  That is likely not the case. In spite of the fact that Paul and James use the word “law” to describe certain prescribed Christian behaviors, there does not appear to be any such formal “law” preserved in the earliest canonical Christian texts. We modern readers are therefore left to ponder the unfortunate choice of legalistic language used by Paul and James.

One of the “Apostolic Fathers,” the Didache (dated 70-150), however, begins with a formal statement of acceptable Christian behavior called “The Way of Life.” The behaviors, while specific, are not described as a “code” or “law,” however. The following is a brief summary of the first two sections of the Way of Life in the Didache.

You shall:

Love God; love your neighbor as yourself; what you don’t want done to you, don’t do to another; bless those who curse you; pray for your enemies; fast for those who persecute you; love those who hate you; abstain from bodily and carnal lusts; if struck on the right cheek, turn the other; if pressed to go one mile, go two; if anyone takes your coat, give him your shirt; do not refuse what anyone will take from you; give to everyone who asks from you; let your alms sweat in your hand, until you know who you are giving them to.

You shall not:

Commit murder; commit adultery; commit fornication; use magic; use philtres [i.e., potions]; procure abortions; commit infanticide; covet your neighbor’s goods; commit perjury; bear false witness; speak evil; bear malice; be double-minded; be double-tongued; be covetous; commit extortion; be hypocritical; be malignant; be proud; make evil plans against a neighbor; hate anyone.

            The Way of Life in Didache (among the earliest parts of the Didache) suggests there is an element of legalism in early Christianity: here are certain acts that Christians do and others that they do not. The list finds a ready fit with the language of Paul and James. James was very outspoken that “faith by itself, if it have not works, is dead” (Jas 2:17), and what do you suppose Paul was thinking when he said that he was “under the law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21). There are some modern Christian groups for whom this information would not be a surprise, but rest assured it does not play well among Baptists.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 430.

HALLOWEEN: Do the Dead Walk?

At the end of October we celebrate (?) one of the strangest folk observances of our annual calendar. Coming on October 31, as it does, the custom has become associated with All Saints Day in the Catholic traditions. All Saints Day, in the West falling on November 1, is a church celebration in honor of all the saints who have passed on; it is followed on November 2 by All Souls Day, a day of solemn prayer for all the dead. These holy days in honor of the dead effectively render October 31 as All Hallows Eve—from which we get the name “Halloween.”

            The roots of Halloween have been associated with a number of ancient traditions: the ancient Roman celebration of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds; the Roman festival of the dead, called Parentalia; and most closely with the Celtic festival of Samhain. The major focus of Halloween, as we know it, seems to have evolved out of the superstitious and dark side of the human soul—so costumes largely feature such mythical creatures as monsters, vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, walking skeletons, witches, and devils. Today we relegate such supernatural creatures to the realm of fantasy, myth, fairy tale, and fiction—at least most of us do. In the bright light of day it is easy to be a rational human being, but in a dark empty room in the late evening when the hair on the back of your neck stands up at a sudden sensation of an unseen nearby presence, we may have second thoughts. In the distant past, however, before critical thinking became widespread through public education, such creatures were regarded as real entities that could actually do harm, and people relied on certain protections against them—prayer being one. And today not everyone, even in America, possesses the liberating knowledge that these creatures are merely fictional characters, figments of our dark side.

            The Bible is surely one reason that people are still uneasy about such mythical creatures, since it reinforces human superstition at many points. For example, the gospel writer we call Matthew apparently believed that dead people could come out of their graves and go on a walk about (Matthew 27:51-54). It is a strange story (appearing only in Matthew) but Matthew tells it graphically like an actual historical occurrence (as opposed to a symbolic or legendary story). Except for one phrase in 27:53, “after his raising,” Matthew describes the incident as if it were happening simultaneously with the death of Jesus (27:50, 54). The phrase in Matthew 27:53, however, effectively throws the event forward some three days or so (in Matthew’s chronology) to a time following the raising of Jesus (Matthew 28). The effect of this chronological leap forward is that it associates the report with the Christian myth of the “harrowing of hell” or the “descent into Hades,” when Jesus at his death descends into Hades to free those dead saints who have been in Hades awaiting release. Vestiges of the myth are found in the New Testament (Eph 4:8-9; 1 Pet 3:18-19), but it is fully developed in the post New Testament period. The phrase in Matthew 27:53 may be due to a later editing of Matthew’s gospel, since the incident as a whole seems clearly to go with the death of Jesus and not with his resurrection. So what do we say about Matthew’s sense of history as reflected in this story?

            It appears to originate in a superstition that dead people can rise and walk. A description similar to Matthew’s story is found in Ezekiel’s description of the people of Israel in the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37:12-14). The Lord says: “I will open your graves…and place you in your own land.” Matthew’s description of “tombs opening in an earthquake” (compare Matthew 28:1-2) and “bodies of dead saints being raised” (compare Matthew 28:9), and “the saints coming out of the tombs and walking about in the holy city” is a very graphic account. Not even Paul, however, would describe the raising of Jesus as Matthew describes the raising of the saints. (Paul insists that Jesus rose with a “spiritual body,” not a physical body; see 1 Corinthians 15:42-57.) Matthew’s report could be an early Christian legend (a non-historical traditional story told for the purpose of encouraging faith). And that is exactly what Matthew’s report did for the centurion and the soldiers (Matthew 27:54); the “event” confirmed for them (and for Matthew) the identity of Jesus as “son of God.” But dead bodies actually coming out of their tombs and walking about Jerusalem around 3 pm in the afternoon (Matthew 27:46) seriously strains credulity for a post-Enlightenment thinker. In order to think of the incident as “history” a 21st century reader will have to “suspend disbelief,” something we do with all ghost stories—in a sense we simply ignore the incredulous aspects of the report. We know that the dead cannot come out of their tombs and wander about the city, no matter how serious the earthquake—or do we know that?

            Has Matthew given us a kind of ghost story suitable only for telling around the campfire on a dark night, or is it an actual historical occurrence that confirms the identity of Jesus, or is it a legend that only the true believer can appreciate? As a post-Enlightenment thinker, my money would be on the ghost story.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Works Consulted

Nicholas Rogers, Halloween. From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Richard Bauckham “Descent to the Underworld,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (6 vols.; ed. David Noel Freedman, et al.; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 2.156-59.

This essay first appeared as a blog on Wry Thoughts about Religion on October 16, 2011, and was subsequently published in The Fourth R 25.1 (Jan-Feb, 2012), 25-26.

What about the Loaves? Secrecy and Mystery in the Gospel of Mark

A well-known secrecy motif in Mark features Jesus regularly silencing the demons he exorcises (1:24-25, 34; 3:11-12), people he heals (1:43-45; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26), and his own disciples (8:30; 9:9).The reason he does these things is to keep his identity as the Christ concealed (8:27-30) and his activities from becoming public knowledge. But the secret leaks out anyway (1:44-45; 7:36), and at the end of the gospel Jesus admits his identity (14:61-62). In 1901 a German scholar (William Wrede) argued that the historical figure Jesus was not responsible for these attempts at secrecy, rather it was the historical author of Mark who traced back into the life of Jesus the idea that he was messiah, in the face of a post-resurrection idea that Jesus had become Son of God at the resurrection (Rom 1:3-4).¹ The "messianic secret" was the author's attempt to explain why Jesus was not recognized as messiah during his life.

 

            To these well-known secrecy motifs should be added several other mysterious features in Mark. Taken together with the messianic secret, they create an aura of mystery about a gospel that is supposed to announce "good news" (1:1) about the kingdom of God (1:14-15). Why would Mark represent Jesus as telling enigmatic stories (parables) for the purpose of keeping the masses in the dark about the "secret" of the kingdom (Mark 4:10-12)? The secret was apparently only for insiders, that is, those who were the elect (13:20. 22, 27). So he explained his stories to the disciples privately (4:13-20, 34).

            Another aspect of the mystery is the author's own deliberate attempt to obfuscate the narrative, that is, to conceal information—a kind of dissembling. For example, Mark never tells the reader what the disciples failed to understand about the loaves. Jesus feeds 5000 people with five loaves and two fish (6:35-44); later Mark tells the reader that the disciples "did not understand about the loaves" (6:51-52), but Mark never tells the reader what they should have understood. After a second feeding of 4000 people with seven loaves and a few fish (8:1-10), the disciples discuss that they had forgotten to bring bread, having only one loaf in the boat (8:14-21). Jesus said to them "why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand?" What is it that the disciples failed to understand about the loaves, and Mark does not disclose to the reader?

 

            On another occasion after the disciples had failed in an attempt to heal a demon-possessed boy, the father asked if Jesus could do anything for the boy (9:14-29): Jesus said to him, "All things are possible to him who believes," to which the father replies "I believe; help my unbelief" (9:22-24; as also appears in 5:36). What was it that the father should believe and how much of it did he believe? But Mark never discloses this information. Following the mention of a "desolating sacrilege" Mark suspends narration to address the reader directly in an aside: "Let the reader understand," he says (13:14). Yet Mark never tells the reader what s/he should have understood about the desolating sacrilege. In all of these instances Mark dissembles in the sense that he obviously has something specific in mind but does not disclose it.

 

            Mark 10:46 seems to have left a gap in the narrative, with two dangling ends of text before and after some missing event occurring between Jesus entering and leaving Jericho: Mark writes: "And they came to Jericho; and as he was leaving Jericho…"² What transpired in Jericho? If nothing happened, why show Jesus entering and leaving the village?

 

            As Jesus takes his last breath (15:37), Mark tells the reader that "The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from the top to bottom" (15:38), but he does not disclose what the tearing of the curtain signified with regard to the death of Jesus. At the end of the gospel some women went to the tomb and found only a young man sitting inside. The youth informed them that Jesus had risen from the dead and they should go and tell the glad tidings to the disciples that they would find him in Galilee (16:5-7). But the women were afraid; they said nothing to no one and fled from the tomb (16:7-8). Who was the youth and why didn't the women spread the word about the risen Christ? Mark did not say. Earlier a young man, wearing nothing but a linen cloth over his naked body, was with Jesus at his arrest. He was seized by members of the arresting crowd, and leaving his linen cloth behind, he ran away naked (14:51-52). Who was he, and what was he doing at Gethsemane naked and wearing only a linen cloth to cover himself?³

 

            If Jesus did tell the disciples "all things beforehand" (13:23), why should Mark see fit to conceal aspects of the story? These mysterious features in the Gospel of Mark, if not simply careless writing, associate the gospel with the "mystery religions" cults that flourished in the Graeco-Roman period.⁴ The characteristic feature of a mystery cult was that the mystery remain concealed. Although they conducted public processions and celebrations, their secret ceremonies still today remain largely unknown. The mysteries were closely guarded and revealed only to initiates. One ancient writer, an initiate into the mysteries of the Goddess Isis, described an initiation with such oblique language that after the description he could still say: "See I have told you things which, though you have heard them, you still must know nothing about."⁵ And apparently that can also be claimed with regard to the Gospel of Mark. Is the Gospel of Mark a deliberately coded text?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

¹Wrede, The Messianic Secret, 228 (225-230).

²See Scott Brown, Mark's Other Gospel, xxii. The Secret Gospel of Mark, or the Mystic Gospel of Mark, adds the missing text supposedly omitted from Mark at 3:14-16.

³See Brown, Mark's Other Gospel, xxii. The Secret Gospel describes him as a youth whom Jesus raised from the dead, who was apparently there for a mystery religions initiation (SGM 3:6-10).

⁴See Marvin Meyer, "Mystery Religions" Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:944.

⁵Apuleius, "Metamorphoses," XI, 1-25; in F. C. Grant, ed., Hellenistic Religions. Age of Syncretism. Library of Liberal Arts, Bobbs-Merrill, 1953. The best source for the original texts of the Mystery Religions in English translation is Marvin Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries. A Sourcebook. Harper and Row, 1987.

Are There Legends in the Bible?

Every culture has legends.  Readers will recall the legends about Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe, John Henry the railroad pile-driving man, the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow, and George Washington's cherry tree, among others. A current dictionary definition of a legend is: a story coming down from the past, especially one popularly regarded as historical, although its historicity cannot be verified.

 

            Biblical scholars find that certain narratives in the Bible are also legends—a story popularly regarded as historical but whose historicity cannot be verified. In his magisterial work on the Old Testament Otto Eissfeldt, for example, identifies the story of David's victory over Goliath (1 Samuel 17:40-50) as a legend.* According to Eissfeldt a biblical legend is a poetic narrative "intended to give pleasure and entertain, and not really to adhere to the recalling of what has happened, nor to instruct."** In this legend the force of the story is not really on the man David, but rather on the divine power that controls him (1 Samuel 17:47).

 

            Here is another definition of legend: Legends are stories about holy people and religious heroes that are read for inspiration, religious instruction, and spiritual benefit.*** By this definition the story of Jesus besting the Devil in a debate (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13) is a legend.

 

            Generally people want to know if a historical event actually happened much like its legendary description. The answer is, no. Legends are not history.  In form the legend is thought to be fictional, although there may be a historical element at the base of it.  For example, with regard to the temptation narrative: it is surely plausible that Jesus may have experienced an inner personal struggle at some point in his career, like, for example, the much simpler statement in Mark 1:12-13 suggests—but even this brief statement, as it appears, is legendary in character.  The details of biblical legends, if dependent on oral tradition, are enhanced in the oral transmission of the stories, and appear at the time of their first inscription.  In the case of the temptation narrative the story is enhanced further in Matthew and Luke.

 

            Mark's narrative about Jesus' personal struggle at Gethsemane before the crucifixion (Mark 14:32-42) could be either a pious fiction invented by Mark or possibly a legendary account based on a historical datum that in considering his death Jesus did indeed struggle through his own "dark night of the soul." There is in fact a similar tradition in Hebrews 5:7:

 

In the days of his flesh Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his Godly fear.

 

Even this brief report, however, has a legendary character ("and he was heard for his Godly fear").  Scholars are divided on whether the report in Hebrews is to be related to the more developed narrative account in Mark.**** But in light of the fact that Hebrews shows no obvious influence from the synoptic gospels, this brief description of a personal struggle of Jesus in the face of death may possibly have a basis in historical fact.  In the light of the courage of the Johannine Christ in facing his death (John 12:27-33), one is encouraged to see in John a reaction to a tradition about a tortuous personal struggle of Jesus when facing his own death—something less than what is depicted in Hebrews 5:7.

 

            The romanticizing of the traditions about Jesus in the gospels has obscured for the most part the historical details of Jesus' humanity and personal history. The Jesus Seminar in its second report, The Acts of Jesus. The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus found that only 16% of the 176 events they considered in early Christian literature had credibility as an actual historical event (p. 1).

 

How does it seem to you?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

*The Old Testament. An Introduction (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 42.

**The Old Testament, 34-35.

***Keith Nickle The Synoptic Gospels. An Introduction (Atlanta: John Knox, 1980), 40.

****Harold Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 148-52, n. 144; W. Robertson Nicholl, The Expositor's Greek Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 4.288-89.

Learning to live without Gods

Believing in greater than human spirit entities and being superstitious are two sides of the same coin: one cannot exist without the other!  Superstition and religious faith are, in short, opposite ends of a spectrum that meet in the middle.  What some define as faith, others describe as superstition, which dictionaries define as:

 

1a: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation; 1b: an abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition; 2: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary.

 

Until the Renaissance of the 17th century and the Enlightenment of the 18th century, a common person would not have been prepared to live without recourse to God and other spiritual/mythical entities to explain self and the world.  The Western world was dominated by the thinking of the Medieval Catholic Church. Until the Enlightenment no rationale existed that permitted an average human being even to conceive of such a possibility.

 

With the dawning of the "Age of Reason" in the 18th century the church's hegemony over human thinking was finally broken, and human reason became a serious competitor to religious faith as a way of organizing one's life and understanding of the world.  Human reason and religious faith/superstition have since been competitors for primacy in the human mind.

 

Theoretically, people today can learn to live without recourse to God. Since everything we think we know about God, we learned from someone else.  Therefore we can simply continue learning, for since the time of the Enlightenment people have come up with answers to questions that were once the exclusive prerogative of the church to answer.

 

For example, science has developed a theory for the origin of the universe; it is described as "the Big Bang"—think of the explosion of a dense cosmic egg the size of a tiny mathematical decimal point containing all matter and energy in the universe.  Such an event is at least as plausible as the poetic explanation found in the biblical creation myth (Genesis 1).

 

Science, through the diligence of Mr. Darwin, has given to posterity a plausible theory for the origin and development of the human species, which is, again, at least as plausible as the mythical story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:4-24).  In his theory human beings are classified as evolving mammals (at our present stage we are homo sapiens; intelligent man), rather than being created at one instant in the image of God (Genesis 1:26).

 

The natural world has in the main already been de-divinized (or better, naturalized) to some extent. In the Western world we are more conditioned to seek answers from biologists and meteorologists (who use satellite imagery) to explain anomalies in nature than to consider that matters out of the ordinary are caused by spirit entities of various sorts.  For example, we follow television weather reports and consult our weather apps.  With such assets for resources praying about the weather becomes a "hail-Mary pass," rather than our first resort.

 

The most difficult adjustment in the shift from faith to reason, however, has been the persistence of the idea that an invisible spirit world "exists" parallel to the world of matter.  All of the spirit entities in current fashion (they do change with time and from religion to religion) reside in the spirit world, but because the borders between the material and spirit world are thought to be permeable to these entities, they can emerge in the material world at any time either to do good or evil in accord with their nature, and then they return to the spirit world until their next trip to the material world.

 

I personally have never experienced the "visit" of a spirit entity—whether the night demon Lilith (Isaiah 34:14), or a satyr (Isaiah 34:14), or a spirit that causes muteness or deafness (Mark 9:25), or a spirit causing jealousy (Numbers 5:14), or an evil spirit from the Lord (1 Samuel 16:14), or an angel (Matthew 4:11), or a spirit causing infirmity (Luke 13:11), or any of those other spirit "critters" that all religions seem to number among their pantheons of good and evil spirits to explain things they don't understand.  I have always been told about demon possession, but have never actually known for certain that a demon caused the reaction (Mark 5:1-5)—how could one possibly know for certain?  Is it a demon that causes obscene language suddenly to erupt from an individual, or is it an aspect of Tourette's syndrome—specifically coprolalia?

 

Personally, I look to natural causation in order to explain such things—if you don't "believe" in invisible spirits, how could they possibly affect you?  They are after all invisible and are not even "there" in the way we usually think of things being "there."  Physical scientists also deal with unseen things, quarks for example, but a quark even though unseen is still material, while demons and Gods are really not part of the physical cosmos—unless you believe they are.

 

Will human beings ever learn to live without recourse to the Gods?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Should We Always Trust the Gods?

Can humans really trust the Gods always to treat us with integrity, when on our better days we appear to have a sharper sense of morality than they do on their worse days? We assume Gods will always act with integrity—after all, they are divine. We expect immoral behavior from demons, but not from Gods. The record, however, is flawed. For instance, in Homer's epic poem the Iliad Zeus deceived Agamemnon with a lying dream—to the hurt and detriment of Achilles (2:1–35). And even Yahweh, the God of the Bible, sent a lying spirit to deceive King Ahab of Israel so he would be defeated in battle. Later he placed lying spirits in the mouths of all the prophets of Israel (1 Kings 22:19–23). On another occasion, he sent an evil spirit to torment King Saul (1 Samuel 16:14–15)—strange behavior for a God! Such behavior by the Gods recalls Homer's description of Zeus' father, Cronus, as the God "of the crooked ways" (Iliad 2:205).

 

            Humans believe it is not ethical to deceive or mistreat others. And that is one reason the "serious misconduct and loss of moral value" of American soldiers in the Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraqi war was so reprehensible. The soldiers were held accountable for their actions, but apparently Gods can act as they wish—and with impunity! We explain their occasionally shocking ways by arguing that Gods obviously know the big picture. Since they are Gods, we assume they must know what is best for us in the long term. Our human view of things is finite; we see matters dimly and then only in short term. So we conclude: an event appearing tragic to us must only be so from our limited perspective, for surely Gods always act justly. For that reason, we tend to think that our personal tragedies must somehow be for the best. This solution, however, leaves honest folk with a nagging ethical question: how can bringing anyone harm ever be considered "good"? Is it possible that Gods do not always know best after all, and humans invented that idea to cover divine misbehavior? Or is it, perhaps, possible that the writers of our religious texts have mistakenly misled us? For example, did Jesus really instruct his disciples to take up the sword (Luke 22:36).

 

            The biblical book of Job is one of the clearest examples of divine misbehavior in the literature. Job simply could not understand why tragedy struck his life. When his "friends" told him that God punished him because of his sins, Job was perplexed. He was willing to admit he was not perfect, but he knew his suffering was not proportionate to the sins he committed. And Job actually was correct: God permitted his egregious suffering to see if he would commit a greater sin, as the text makes plain (Job 1–2).

 

            "The ends never justify the means" is clearly an idealistic sentiment, and we humans on our worst days never quite measure up. In cases of expediency, we frequently find our ends justifying our means, like at Abu Ghraib, for example. Nevertheless, when we privilege ends over means, we at least know we are traveling down a lower road. And if we finite humans sometimes know the difference between high road and low road, shouldn't Gods always know the difference?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

This essay appeared in Charles W. Hedrick, House of Faith or Enchanted Forest. American Popular Belief in an Age of Reason (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2009), 12-13.

Revelation: Did God talk to Paul?

The ancient Greeks, and the Romans, were both very superstitious and religious.  One of their many ways of divination, i.e., ways to find the will of the Gods, was through consulting special intuitive persons at some twenty religious sanctuaries throughout the ancient Mediterranean world.  These "diviners" were called "oracles," and were the mediums through whom a God transmitted revelations and oracles (as the sayings of a God were called).  The most famous of these religious sanctuaries was Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus overlooking the Gulf of Corinth.  People, from kings to paupers, came from all over the ancient world to Delphi to consult the Pythian oracle, prophetess of the God Apollo, one of the sons of Zeus.  She would receive her revelations while being possessed by the God in a cave located under the Temple of Apollo, whose ruins still exist, and she would communicate them to those inquiring of the God as sayings of the God (compare Acts 16:16-18: where a young girl is described as possessed by a "Pythian spirit").

 

            In the latter part of the first century and early second century A.D., a philosopher and literary figure, Plutarch, who was a priest at Delphi, wrote an essay explaining why many oracular centers in Greece had ceased to function ("Obsolescence of Oracles").  In other words a customary practice of ancient Greek religion was dying out.

 

            In the first third of the first century after the death of Jesus (around 30) certain followers of the Christ were also believed to be prophets (see Didache 11:3-13:7; 1 Corinthians 12:10, 29); they were moved by the Spirit to utter "the Word of the Lord" to their contemporaries, just as was done by the oracles in the religious sanctuaries of ancient Greece and Rome.  One of these early Christian Prophets was the author of Matthew's Gospel, who channeled a saying of the crucified and resurrected Christ (Matt 28:18-20).

 

            But perhaps more interesting is the claim of the apostle Paul that he himself, like the Pythia at Delphi, possessed the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 7:40), and said that Christ spoke through him (2 Corinthians 13:3).  Hence he was able to channel sayings (or oracles) of the deity, as the Pythia and the early Christian prophet Matthew had done.  Here is a clear instance of Paul claiming to be privy to "an abundance of revelations," channeling a saying of the Lord:

 

And to keep me from being puffed up with pride by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too puffed up.  Three times I begged the Lord about this that it should leave me; but he said to me "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:7-9; see also 12:1).

 

Further Paul claims that the gospel he preached was not something he learned from others or something he came up with on his own, but rather that it came to him directly "through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:11-12).  He even claimed that he was directed "by revelation" to do certain things (Galatians 2:2), and on occasion he "would speak a revelation" to the assembly of saints (1 Corinthians 14:6).  He was not that special in this regard, however, for there were others in the gatherings of saints who also were believed to utter divine revelations to those assembled (1 Corinthians 14:26; for the divine gifts in the Pauline assemblies see also 1 Corinthians 12:4-11).  These spiritual abilities were not given to everyone, but only to certain individuals (1 Corinthians 12:28-30).  Paul used the same word to describe the revelations he received from the deity as the word he used to describe the authoritative prophetic writings of the Jewish Scriptures (Romans 16:25-27).  In other words his revelations were as authoritative as the Scriptures.

 

            To Judge by the experience of John, oracular utterances are received while the oracle is possessed by the spirit in a state of spiritual ecstasy (Revelation 1:9-20); that is, while the oracle is in a state of rapturous delight and beyond reason and self control.  There are still ecstatic churches today for which public utterances of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) are believed to be revelations from God.  Like the ancient oracle, the individual is thought possessed by the deity when bringing a revelation to the assembly (see Paul's description of such a public occasion, 1 Corinthians 14:1-25).  But for most of those churches, which are historically descended from the Reformation of the 16th century, glossolalia is a thing of the past—probably for obvious reasons.

 

            How does it seem to you?  Were there ever those among us so sensitive as to read what passes for thoughts in a Divine mind?  And was this intuitive ability on the part of some able to be used by all Gods of the ancient Hellenistic world to channel words of revelation?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

See also "Wry Thoughts about Religion" Blog: February 3, 2015; June 26. 2015; August 14, 2015.

Wearing a Christian Label

All of us bear labels of one sort or another.  For example, Jesus had a status label (i.e., something about yourself you cannot deny) of "Israelite from Judean Galilee" (John 1:47; Mark 1:9; Mark 14:70).  Other labels we give to ourselves.  Jesus, for example, by all accounts called himself "son of man" (meaning something like "man of the people," Luke 9:58).  Others sometimes give us labels that are not complimentary.  For example, Jesus was called a "glutton and a drunkard" (Luke 7:34; Matt 11:19), likely because of the dinner parties he attended (Mark 2:15-16; Luke 15:1-2).

 

               This third kind of label is apparently what happened to the followers of Jesus: "They were first called 'Christians' at Antioch" (Acts 11:26).  It was a term used by the Graeco-Roman citizens of Antioch to designate them as followers of the god "Christos," a general way of designating the adherents of a particular leader—as, for example, followers of Herod were called "Herodians" (Mark 3:6).  The only other uses of the term "Christian" in the first century (Acts 26:28. 1 Peter 4:16) are not inconsistent with this understanding.  Luke apparently thought that followers of Jesus originally called themselves "disciples" (Acts 11:26; 9:10; 6:1-2, 7; 16:1; 19:1; 21:16).

 

               By the second century, however, the name was clearly embraced as a self designation by Jesus followers (e.g., Didache 12:4; Martydom of Polycarp, 10:1; 12:1; Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians, 4:1).  In 1Peter 4:16 the name "Christian" was associated with suffering and persecution: "If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name glorify God."  In the early second century (ca. 112) Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator in Asia Minor, reported to the Emperor Trajan that he tried those accused of being Christian and executed the ones who refused to deny the name.  Their denial would have taken the form of sacrificing to the Roman gods and cursing Christ.

 

               The Letter to Diognetus (2nd /3rd century) has an interesting sociological description of Christians as appearing little different from the rest of the Graeco-Roman population, with certain exceptions: they did not expose infants, practiced free hospitality, and guarded their purity (Diognetus 5.1-17).

 

               Who were these people who embraced the label "Christian" in the second century in spite of its negative associations?  One may not simply assume that the label "Christian" means today what it did in the past—for one reason, the term means different things to different people today, and it was no less true in antiquity.  Those who recanted the name "Christian" to Pliny confessed "the whole of their guilt or error" to be that they met on a certain fixed day before light, sang a hymn to Christ as a God and took a solemn oath not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, and not to falsify their word, or to deny a trust, and later they ate together.  On the other hand, Cerinthus, an early second-century Christian-Gnostic teacher in Asia Minor taught that the world was not created by God but by a lesser power.  Jesus was not virgin-born but the natural son of Mary and Joseph, although he was better than other men.  The (heavenly) Christ descended on Jesus before his baptism and departed before his death.

 

               In the third century the author of the Gospel of Philip, a Christian-Gnostic text from the Nag Hammadi library, claimed the term "Christian," as a self-designation, but the kind of Christianity reflected in the text is very different from that reflected in Paul, John, and the synoptic gospels.  For example, the author writes: "The chrism [i.e. the anointing] is superior to baptism, for it is from the word "chrism" that we have been called Christians, certainly not because of the word "baptism" (74:12-14)…He who has been anointed [i.e., by the chrism, which is Christ] possesses everything.  He possesses the resurrection, the light, the cross, the Holy Spirit.  The Father gave him this in the bridal chamber…" (74:17-22).

 

               Phillip's community would have been declared heretical (i.e., not genuine) by those defining themselves as "orthodox."  The orthodox group later adopted the Nicene Creed (4th century), which assumes in part a three-tiered universe (Heaven/earth/Hell), spirit entities, and affirms that Jesus was not a human being, but a divine figure from heaven who was "made flesh" of the holy spirit and the virgin Mary.  It affirms "one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" and a "baptism unto the remission of sins."

 

               The label "Christian" has had a wide variety of meanings in the past, and the situation is no different today. A large number of different religious groups are categorized "Protestant" Christians.  They exist alongside of "Christians" of a different ilk: Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Mormon.  They all claim the term "Christian" and yet all believe and practice different religious customs.  It appears that the label means little specific, or, put another way, it means just about anything you want it to.  So what does one imply by wearing it?  Has the term outlived its usefulness?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Can the Church Grant Absolution for Sins?

To be absolved means to be "set free from the consequences of guilt."  And yes, some churches do claim to be able to absolve people of their sins. In the Episcopal Church, for example, a penitent may confess their sins to God in the presence of a priest or bishop and receive from them the assurance of pardon and the grace of absolution. Upon their confession the priest then pronounces this absolution:

 

Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to his Church to

absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of

his great mercy forgive you all your offenses; and by his

authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins:

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy

Spirit. Amen. [Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, page 447].

 

            The rationale behind this Episcopal Church tradition (also found in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and Lutheran traditions) is that Jesus forgave sins (Matt 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26; 7:36-50), and passed on to Peter the authority to "bind and loose" (Matt 16:18-19); and in the Gospel of John Jesus passes on to all his disciples the ability to forgive sins (John 20:19-23). The custom of the church granting absolution for sins does not appear to be known in the rest of the New Testament.  Ignatius does not seem to be aware of the practice of ecclesial absolution for sin in the early second century (but compare his Letter to the Philadelphians 8.1).  The Shepherd of Hermas (100-150), however, disagreed with those who believed that if anyone sinned after baptism there was no opportunity for repentance (compare Hebrews 6:1-6, where forgiveness is not possible after apostasy).  The Shepherd asserted that there was opportunity for the church to repent (Shepherd, visions 2.2-3; mandates 4.1-4, 12.3-6; similitudes 8.11,1-5)   In the third century those about to undergo martyrdom or who underwent torture or imprisonment were deemed to be able to absolve those who had committed the sins of adultery and fornication. A shocked Tertullian (died after 220) reported (Modesty, 1 and 22) that a certain Bishop Kallistos (who himself had experienced torture and imprisonment) issued an edict saying that "I remit to such as have discharged repentance the sins of both adultery and fornication."  Such is the evidence for absolution in the earliest period. After the late second century the custom became institutionalized in the later church for sins in general.

            It seems to me that the church practice of absolving people of their sins is a usurpation of God's prerogative on the assumption that the authority Jesus is believed to have had and extended to his disciples falls by default to the institutional Christian church.  That is to say: someone had to pronounce absolution for sins, and who better to do it than the church?

            Those who take upon themselves the pronouncement of absolution for the sins others commit may believe they have the authority to do so by virtue of church custom and their ordination, but in my view they are deceiving themselves about the limits of their ability.  The Scribes asked the correct question: "who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mark 2:7).

            In the context of religious faith only God has the authority to pronounce absolution for sins.  Even though God doesn't speak audibly anymore, those who have sinned must still by themselves seek absolution from God.  In the context of human life absolution for sins (i.e., injuries, ills, harms, etc. done to others) must also be sought from those they have injured—in the case of the recent murders in Mother Emanuel Church in Atlanta forgiveness was extended to the murderer by the injured families without any repentance on his part.  Forgiveness was theirs to give, or not.

            If the statements in the previous paragraph are correct, it would appear that the priestly pronouncement of absolution is like the counsel of Eliphaz, the Temnite, to Job—just so many "windy words" (Job 16:2)—vaporous words, full of well meaning intent perhaps, but signifying little.  Absolution for sins must be sought in two venues: 1. a person must stand, nakedly remorseful, before the injured party in person and humbly petition for absolution; and 2. during a personal dark night of the soul penitents must make their own peace with God. The Church may assist the penitent seeking absolution, but it seems an arrogance of the first order to assume it can grant absolution, or even assure the penitent that absolution has been granted.  A third party has no standing in this situation.  God cannot be "bound or loosed" by church tradition (compare Exodus 33:19; Romans 9:15).  Believing oneself capable of committing the God of the universe to anything on one's personal say-so seems very much like thinking one can bridle a giant fire-eating dragon: it is the stuff of romantic fiction and mythology.

            What are your thoughts?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University