Lent

Lent (the word means Springtime) is one of those religious observances of the Christian Church worldwide that I did not experience in my youth.¹ Although some churches in the Anabaptist tradition do observe it,² the Baptist church of my youth did not (First Baptist Church, Greenville, Mississippi, 1940-52). On the other hand, the small Baptist church that I now attend (Grace Baptist, Gladstone, Missouri) does observe it—ashes and all.³

            In the fourth century the church invented Lent institutionalizing it with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as its basis and incorporating these religious acts into the Easter celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Lent has been practiced as 40 days of self-denial, altruism, and spiritual renewal preceding Easter. The Lenten season is promoted as a time of religious renewal, incorporating, as it does, personal contemplation, simple living, and personal honesty. It begins on Ash Wednesday and extends 40 days to resurrection Sunday (this year April 20). The church modeled the 40-day period on Jesus' temptation by Satan in the Wilderness (Mark 1:12–13; compare Matt 4–11/Luke 4:1–13 from the Q tradition). Only Matthew describes it as a period of fasting, however. Luke says that he did not eat during this period. Mark says nothing about food. The difference between not eating and fasting is that fasting has a religious connotation.

            The earliest date for the observance of Lent in Christianity is 325 CE, following the Council of Nicaea, although the custom of fasting in connection with Holy Week goes back to the second century.⁴ Thus, Lent, as such, was not a part of the religious practices of the earliest first-century Jesus-gatherings as reflected in the genuine Pauline letters, for example. Nevertheless, fasting and prayer as a religious exercise were part of the Israelite tradition and hence were practiced in Judea during the time of Jesus (Luke 2:37). In fact, "the practice of fasting is found in all religions" and was "spread across the whole of the ancient world."⁵

Matthew gives a litany of criticisms attributed to Jesus as to how some practiced praying and fasting in Matt 6:1–18. One of these criticisms can easily be applied to the modern Christian practice of Lent, specifically with respect to marking one's face with ashes to indicate that one is observing the Lenten practice of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving:

And when you fast do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matt 6:17–18).

Do some make a parade of their almsgiving? Jesus criticized that practice, as well (Matt 6:1-4).⁶

Another aspect of Lent, mentioned earlier in this essay, is that of self-denial, likely derived from the idea of denying oneself food. The earliest Jesus-followers did practice a kind of self-denial, but it wasn't like the Lenten practice of denying oneself of a few things one enjoys for a short period, like giving up beer or not eating sweets, for example. Paul described his commitment to Christ as an all-consuming life-commitment; everything else by comparison he considered trash, loss, rubbish (Phil 3:7–11; Luke 9:23–24). Compared to Paul's idea of self-denial, the contemporary observance of Lent pales in comparison—the personal sacrifices are too little, the time frame too short.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent

²https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anabaptists. Greenville First Baptist belonged to the Southern Baptist Convention.

³Grace Baptist Church belongs to the American Baptist Convention.

⁴https://groundworkonline.com/blog/a-short-version-of-the-long-history-of-lent

⁵J. Behm, "νῆστις" [nēstis, fasting], vol. 4.26 in G. Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (G. Bromiley, trans.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967).

⁶Hedrick, http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=Alms

Inspired Writings

From where do thoughts come to us? Logically, one would think they arise out of the life experiences, reading, and the pondering of the thinker. A letter that a distraught friend finds inspiring, a creative solution to a complex problem, and sage advice at the right time (Proverbs 25:11-13), all constitute the essence of an inspired thought arising within a person. A successful writer will write what s/he knows. If s/he wants to write convincingly about something in an unfamiliar area, s/he must live the subject area until it becomes like a second skin, and then, just perhaps, s/he will have a pregnant thought that can be nurtured and expressed convincingly.

            In my experience, sudden “inspiration” enters my brain, as an unprompted, errant thought that surprises me. It does not enter firing all synapses in my brain, fully formed, like an authoritative dictating voice. It is fragile and malleable, and I must massage it into a “solid” abstract idea, that will, with pondering, perhaps, become a concept forming the basis for writing.

Inspiration begins as a passing brief thought that must be fleshed-out into a formal idea, which I must work at developing into a concept.¹ The ephemeral thought that quickly passes through the mind constitutes the essence of inspiration. Ideas and concepts, on the other hand, must be hammered-out of experience by the hard work of the one who had the errant thought. People that are inspired may produce a written text that others may come to value as inspiring because it speaks to them. In our culture we generally call a written text inspired if it inspires us. The exception to this general practice is the Bible. In our culture it is generally regarded as inspired, when most of it is anything but inspiring. It does, however, contain inspiring passages that have even made their way into secular culture.²

Calling a written text inspired or inspiring is a judgment that others bestow on the significance of the writing. It is a personal judgment. Nothing at the level of paper and ink inevitably makes the written text inspired; the author’s written ideas and concepts may inspire others, but it is the writer that is inspired and not the written text. The written text is a record of the inspiration that previously came to the writer, which others may or may not find inspired or inspiring. One can never know if the author of a written text was actually inspired to write.

In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (OT) and the seven deuterocanonical writings that one finds in the Catholic OT,³ it is always the writer who is described as being inspired by God (Job 32:8, Wis 15:11; LJr 6:4; 1 Mac 4:35; 1 Esdr 9:55). Only once (so far as I can tell) are written texts in the Bible (both Protestant and Catholic) described as inspired. Second Timothy 3:15-16 claims that the “Holy Writings” (iera grammata) are inspired (theopneustos, or literally, “God-breathed”). The term “Holy Writings” is “the name for the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament in Greek.”⁴ Second Timothy, along with First Timothy and Titus, is one of three texts in the New Testament (NT) attributed to the anonymous writer, dubbed the “pastor,” because the content of the three texts is concerned with church matters. That the pastor claims to be Paul, and is not, makes the pastor a pseudonymous author. The earliest evidence for the three “pastoral” writings is a papyrus fragment of Titus, which has been dated from 100 to early 3^rd century common era.⁵ In general, however, the pastoral texts are thought of as 2^nd century.⁶ In the early second century the NT did not even exist. Hence, the writings that later came to be included in the NT had not yet achieved the status of canonical literature in the sense of the Greek translation of the OT. Hence, the author of 2^nd Tim 3:15-16 was referring to the OT Scriptures. The NT had clearly achieved the status of canonical texts (Athanasius calls them “Divine Scripture”) by the 4^th century however, to judge by the Easter letter (39) of Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria in 367,⁷ although he stops short of calling the NT writings “God-breathed,” as the pastor did.

Why would someone think the 27 NT written texts are “inspired”? What is it at the level of the written text that might lead someone to the idea that they are inspired as their authors may have been? Is it because one believes the original writers to have been “God-breathed”? Such a belief says nothing specific about the written texts themselves, and believers in other religions counter with their beliefs in their own special religious literature, which they find inspiring or inspired, such as for example, the Koran (Islam), the Rig Veda (Hinduism), the Avesta (Zoroastrianism), Tao Te Ching (Taoism), Guru Granth Sahib (Sikhism). But believing a thing to be so does not make it so.

Is it because one regards the ideas of the written texts as inspired or inspiring? That, of course, is something everyone must decide for themselves, because if any inspiration happened, it happened to the original author of the text. The written text itself is produced by the flawed abilities of the human author. Whether the original author’s written ideas are to be accorded the quality of inspired or inspiring is a personal decision for every reader. What does your dentist think?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹These three words are generally conceived as synonyms in English.

²Hedrick, “Is the Bible Inspired?” Wry Guy Blog, Thursday, December 5, 2019: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=is+the+bible+inspired

³The seven deuterocanonical books, not a part of the Hebrew Bible or the Protestant OT, were originally in the Christian Bible (the Septuagint) before being removed by the Protestant reformers. They were later declared canonical for the Catholic OT at the fourth session of the Council of Trent 1545-1563: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent

⁴Martin Dibelius, Die Pastoralbriefe (HNT 13; 2^nd ed.; Tϋbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1931), 74.

⁵https://christianpublishinghouse.co/2020/07/26/papyrus-32-p32-p-rylands-5-a-very-early-greek-fragment-copy-of-the-epistle-of-paul-to-titus/

⁶W. G. Kϋmmel, Introduction to the New Testament (H. C. Kee, Trans.; rev. ed.; London: SCM, 1975), 384-87.

⁷https://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Athanasius.html

Provocative Possessive Pronouns in Matthew

This essay began when I was struck by an unexpected use of a plural possessive pronoun ("their") modifying synagogue (Matt 10:17), when the simple article, "the," would have been sufficient. There is no antecedent specifically identifying who these "owners" of synagogues are. In the immediate context "they" (Matt 10:17), that is, those people and "their synagogues" appears to be the "wolves" in 10:16, a rather harsh term for those who are Jews themselves to use for other Jews (Ioudaioi), who worship in synagogues. The possessive pronoun is provocative because it immediately calls attention to the other group in Matt 10:17 ("you") whom the Jews allegedly will flog in "their synagogues"; this group is unnamed, but in the larger literary context it is possible they are the twelve whom Jesus sends forth (Matt 10:5) with his instructions in Matt 10:1-11:1. There may be another possibility, however.

The use of the possessive "their," for those who gather in synagogues, is odd because Jesus and his disciples were also Jews and attended synagogues. The possessive pronoun (their) and the designation of Jews as wolves, on the other hand, suggest that Jesus and his disciples are in no way identified with the synagogue, which is obviously not the case in first-century Palestine. They also attended synagogues. By using the third-person possessive pronoun to modify synagogue, the author of Matthew has evoked for the reader another shadowy group who does not identify with the synagogue but who consider themselves over against those who gather in synagogues. Here is the rationale for this statement: If you say an object is "theirs," it implies an ownership not shared by the one who speaks.

The use of this pronoun without clarification raises the question, who is this group that is not identified with the synagogue? Has Matthew deliberately evoked them, or is it simply an accidental verbal slip? Has Matthew inadvertently, momentarily, let slip aside his cover as a (theoretically) neutral describer of earlier events and opened for readers a window into events current in the author's own later time, as happens at Matt 28:15 (and Matt 11:23 and 27:8): "And this story is still told among the Jews to this day (italics mine). That is to say, the story is still being told in Jewish communities in the author's own later lifetime, but it is not being told by those in the author's different community.

The word "synagogue" appears in Matthew's Gospel a total of 9 times.¹ Out of 9 times Matthew modifies synagogue by the third-person possessive pronoun "their" a total of 5 times and once by the second-person plural possessive pronoun "your" (23:34). Mark, on the other hand, uses a possessive pronoun to modify synagogue only twice (1:23, 39) out of eight uses. Luke uses a possessive pronoun with synagogue only once (4:15) out of fifteen uses with synagogue. John uses synagogue only twice, both times without a possessive pronoun. In Acts, Luke uses synagogue 19 times, none of which are used with a possessive pronoun but he does modify synagogue with a prepositional phrase as the "synagogue of the Jews" (Acts 13:5; 17:10). James uses synagogue once with the possessive pronoun "your" (2:2).

Possibly the use of the possessive in "their synagogue" might allude to Jews in a specific geographical location. For example, if the possessive pronoun "their" modified synagogue in connection with the village of Capernaum, "their synagogue" would likely be the synagogue of the Jews who lived in Capernaum, as happens in Mark 1:21, 23. But no named villages are mentioned in Matthew with respect to any of the passages where Matthew writes "their synagogue." There are two unspecific general regional locations, however, in Matt 4:23 ("throughout Galilee") and 9:35 ("all the cities and villages"). Another general location sets-up a contrast in an area where Jesus was brought-up (Matt 13:54) in which "they" have "their synagogue." That is to say, there was a synagogue in the general area of Jesus' own part of the country (patris). This passage (Matt 13:54-58) sets up a negative contrast between the people of the synagogue and Jesus. The synagogue folk were quite familiar with the family of Jesus (Matt 13:55-56), yet what he said "astounded" them, and they became "offended" at him for what he said in "their synagogue" (Matt 13:54).

If one will allow that Matthew has inadvertently allowed his/her cover to slip and thereby evoked another religious group competing with the synagogue of the Jews in his (Matthew's) day by modifying synagogue with the third-person possessive pronoun "their" rather than an expected "the," how might this group be characterized? Apparently, they did not think of themselves as Jews, for synagogues are worship centers for Jews: the force of the pronoun is that "Jews use synagogues; we don't." This other group apparently used the anachronistic term "church" (ekklēsia, is usually translated as "church"), which turns up three times in Matthew. Matthew apparently conceived this later term as a worship gathering, which was not so used in Jesus' lifetime, to contrast with "their synagogue" at 16:18 (18:17 twice).² Matthew even describes the term in connection with a few early community rules (18:17) of the later formal Christian ecclesiastical order (18:15-22).

Relationships between the church and synagogue in Matthew's later day appear less than cordial. The group represented by Jesus' church ("my church," 16:18) and who worship Jesus' Father ("my Father"),³ viewed those of the synagogue negatively, effectively replacing them as the people of God (Matt 21:43; 8:10-12). Jesus was sent to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel" (10:5-6; 15:24). The people of Jesus will in the end-time judge the twelve tribes of Israel (19:28). Matthew chapter 6 contrasts the people of the synagogue (6:2, 5, 16; 23:2-7) with the followers of Jesus (6:3-4, 6-15, 17-18; 23: 8-12). The people of the synagogue and the leaders of the Jewish people are excoriated and execrated for their behavior in Matt 23:13-36. And the Judean mob at Jesus' trial before Pilate audaciously accepts the blame for the death of Jesus (27:24-26).

Read in this way Matthew's Gospel reveals hostile relationships between the church and the synagogue in Matthew's day in the period from 80 to 100 CE when the Gospel of Matthew was likely written.⁴

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹With possessive pronoun: Matt 4:23; 9:35; 10:17; 12:9; 13:54; 23:34; without possessive pronoun: Matt 6:2, 5; 23:6.

²In Jesus' day, and even in the later time of Paul, the term ekklēsia should be more loosely translated as "gathering." The term "church" does not appear in Mark, Luke, or John.

³My Father: Matt 7:21; 10:32-33; 11:27; 12:50; 16:17; 18:10, 19, 35.

⁴Werner G. Kϋmmel, Introduction to the New Testament (rev. ed.; from the 17^th German ed.: SCM, 1975), 119-120.

Authorship of Biblical Texts and the Authority of the Bible

Historians lose one aspect of their ability to evaluate the reliability of information in texts that are written anonymously. Where the identity of the author is in doubt, the information recorded in the text is likewise at the very least suspect. Here is a hypothetical example. A document emerges from the shadows of history purporting to be a Civil War era document about the exploits of a certain private from the ranks (Pvt Christopher Smith) in the Battle of Gettysburg, but no trace of Smith can be found in official documents. The report is undated and turns up some 150 years after the war. How reliable is the report given in the anonymously written document?

            My example bears a certain similarity to New Testament (NT) literature. Some of the NT texts are anonymously written, and some of the texts are regarded as pseudonymous by critical scholarship; that is, they are not written by the person claiming to be the author. What follows is a survey of the state of critical studies as to the authorship of NT texts, virtually all of which, except for a few fragments, date from 200 and later. In critical scholarship the following texts are anonymous in the sense that an author is not named in the body of the document: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Hebrews, and the Johannine letters (1, 2, 3, John). Their subscript titles are traditional and secondary, and represent the view of the early church. The following texts are thought by most critical scholars to be pseudonymous: the Pastoral letters (1, 2 Timothy and Titus), 1, 2 Peter, James, and Jude. Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians are also thought to be pseudonymous. These texts are called “Deutero-Pauline”; they are from the Pauline school (likely written by anonymous disciples of Paul). The texts whose authorship appears certain are seven letters by Paul: 1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon. The author of the Apocalypse, named John, is an otherwise unknown “former witness to Jesus among the churches of Asia Minor (1:9)…”¹

            Not everyone agrees with the way the literature has been categorized above, however. There are even differences between critical scholars on the authorship of the texts. Some critical scholars for example challenge the Pauline authorship of 1 Thessalonians, which is thought by most critical scholars to be the earliest Pauline writing. Critical scholars decide the issue of authorship based on historical evidence alone and they will set out their reasons for critiquing the authorship of a document so that their rationale can be critiqued by other scholars.

            With regard to my hypothetical example above had the author of the anonymous document claimed to be one Edson Williams, 1^st Sgt of Company A of the 56^th Pennsylvania, a volunteer Infantry Regiment of the First Corps of the Army of the Potamic, the information in the anonymous document would have warranted further research, even though there were no Smiths listed on the Unit Roster.² The 1^st Sgt is expected to know what happened with soldiers under his command would be the rationale for further study.³ This is one reason that the writers of pseudonymous documents of the NT are thought to have used names of known members of the Christian movement to attach to their documents. For example, the name of Paul may have been added to Colossians for this very reason. What is at issue for the modern historian when the authorship of Colossians is attributed to Paul, if it is not written by Paul? It is this: the false ascription attributes the ideas of the pseudonymous author to the known historical figure and invalidates, or at least renders suspect, the historical accuracy of any description of Paul based on the use of Colossians.

            The disinterested historian ideally is interested in the Bible only as a library of texts gathered from the stream of Western civilization and in arranging them with respect to their historical sequence in order to reconstruct the sequence of historical events and thought. The church is interested in this goal as well but only up to a certain point. The overriding interest of the church is in protecting the Bible as an iconic object that communicates God’s eternal “Word,” for the purpose of using the Bible as an authoritative source for faith and morals. Given the Church’s need for a firm basis for faith and morals, anonymous and pseudonymous texts become a difficulty. What for the disinterested historian is an inconvenient problem becomes for the church a serious problem.

The authority of the Bible resides not in the collection of texts themselves but in its authors, that is, in “the authority of persons who being presumed to know the truth communicate it to others.”⁴ If that is the case, knowing the identity of the authors of the Biblical texts becomes essential in order to support claims made for the Bible’s authority.

            Early Christians shared this idea. The anonymous author of Hebrews opined: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets…“ (Heb 1:1). And in 2 Pet 1:20-21 we read: “No prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation because no prophecy ever came by human will but men and women moved by the Holy spirit spoke from God.” (New Revised Standard). The authority of the prophet’s experience with God was in turn passed to their written texts as well: “All scripture is inspired by God…“ (2 Tim 3:16). But the authority of the prophet’s experience undergirded the authority of the written text for the early Christians.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹See the discussion in W. G. Kϋmmel, Introduction to the New Testament (17^th revised ed.; Abingdon: SCM Press, 1975), 472.

²https://www.pa-roots.com/pacw/infantry/56th/56thcoa.html

³Of course, if the author made a specific claim to be Edson Williams, 1^st Sgt of Company A, it might be a fraudulent claim and the document could still be pseudonymous.

⁴The quotation is from C. H. Dodd; see the discussion in Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths, 303-305.

Named Characters in the Gospel of Mark

Mark is an author and not just a transmitter of tradition. Such a judgment means that the author we call Mark is responsible for everything that appears in the narrative, the order in which it appears, and the cast of characters that live in the pages of the narrative, as well as their names.¹ In contemporary and ancient narrative fiction it is the general rule that authors must invent the names of their characters, unless the narrative is historical fiction or the author includes historical figures in the narrative. A name personalizes the characters and helps the reader follow the progress of the narrative easier. If the narrative is narrated history there should be no invented names, but if the narrative is quasi-historical, as Mark is, the odds are increased that some characters and names may be invented.

Later so-called “apocryphal gospels,” for example, add characters to the gospel narratives known from the first century, while expanding aspects of the traditional story. For example, the middle second-century Infancy Gospel of James draws from, and in part rewrites, the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. It also expands their narratives by focusing on the pregnancy of Mary and in so doing increases the cast of characters by inventing several minor characters, such as Rubel (1:5), Juhine (2:6), Samuel (17:5). The author of the Gospel of James even invents major characters, such as Ana (2:1) and Joachim (1:5) and develops the character of Joseph, who “is now turned into an old man, a widower with grown sons.”² If this information is correct with regard to the Infancy Gospel of James, it suggests that Matthew and Luke may have filled in information on the origins of Jesus for theological and “historical” reasons by inventing certain named characters for their different infancy narratives, which they added to material they took from Mark.³

The named characters in Mark’s gospel can be classified under three types:

1. There are named characters confirmed by extra-Biblical sources (in this case, Josephus, The Antiquities) as actual historical figures who played roles in the affairs of first-century Judean history: Jesus, Pilate, Herod, Herodias (married to Herod), John the Baptist. These characters in Mark were actual historical figures, although it is uncertain if they played in life the role to which Mark assigned them in his narrative about the tragic career of Jesus of Nazareth.

2. There are named characters in Mark known only from Christian tradition, but their names can be confirmed as not being invented by Mark, since they are named characters in other independent early Christian sources. In the Gospel of John: Simon/Peter/Cephas, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Judas Iscariot, Mary of Magdala, Barabbas, Zebedee, Thomas (one of the twelve, called the twin), Judas, Joseph of Arimathea. On the theory that John has not utilized Mark as a source, most of these characters are confirmed as not being invented by Mark. A few characters are confirmed as not invented by Mark, since they appear in one of Paul’s letters: James and John (two of the twelve, Gal 2:9), James (the brother of Jesus, Gal 1:19).⁴

3. There are also named characters in Mark that cannot be confirmed from another independent source: Bartholomew, Jairus, Bartimaeus, Levi, Matthew, Mary (the mother of Jesus), Joses (the brother of Jesus), Judas (the brother of Jesus), Simon (the brother of Jesus), Simon, the leper, Simon of Cyrene, Mary (the mother of James [the younger], Joses, and Salome), Joses, Salome. Of those in this category seven names can be confirmed as having been used in Israelite history and were names of real persons at one time, but the names are not of those persons in Mark’s narrative: Mary, Judas, Simon, James, Salome.

One interesting aspect of the named characters in Mark is what is revealed about the nuclear family of Jesus. Mary is named as Jesus’ mother only once (6:3). Mark usually refers to the matriarch of the family as “his” (Jesus) mother and always in connection with “his brothers,” who are unnamed (3:31-35). Joseph is not a named character in Mark. On the other hand, the mother of Jesus is never named in the Gospel of John. She is designated as “the mother of Jesus” (like a title) or “his”/“your” mother (2:1, 3, 12; 19:25-27). John, however, specifically names Joseph, as the “father” of Jesus (6:42). Paul refers to the mother of Jesus even more obliquely as simply: a “woman” who gave birth to Jesus (Gal 4:4). Paul either did not know Mary’s name or did not regard it as significant, or both. She is named in Acts 1:14 but Acts is written by the same author who wrote Luke and used the Gospel of Mark as a source.

            Did Mark invent the names of any of his characters? One can never certain, but here is an example of one name that may hold that dubious distinction: the name Levi (Mark 2:14), which in the Christian tradition is only known in Luke’s genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:24, 29). In Mark the call of Levi, a tax collector, appears as a solitary incident although one may infer that the call of Levi is related to the story that follows by assuming that the obscure “his house” in 2:15 is Levi’s house. Luke makes that assumption and has Levi throw Jesus a great feast (Luke 5:29); the occasion of the feast introduces the logia in 5:31-32. Matthew, on the other hand changes “his house” to “the house” (9:10), and also changes the name of Levi to Matthew (9:9). It is popularly thought that Matthew and Levi are the same person. Likely because if one did not do so, one would then be forced to entertain the idea that either Mark has invented the name Levi or the author we think of as “Matthew” has invented the name Matthew.⁵

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹For a brief sketch of Mark’s literary method, see Hedrick, “Comparing Two Productions: Mark and Lincoln.” http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2020/10/

²Robert J. Miller, ed., The Complete Gospels (4th ed; Polebridge Press, 1992), 363.

³The infancy narratives are Matt 1:2-2:23 and Luke 1:5-2:52.

⁴The brothers of the Lord are mentioned in 1 Cor 9:5 but not by name. In Mark the names of the brothers of the Lord are James, Joses, Judas, and Simon; his sisters are unnamed.

⁵See the entry by Stanley Porter (“Levi,” ABD, 4:295), who gives a brief discussion of the problem. Porter notes that there are several scholarly explanations. Porter sides with none of them.

A Father’s Two Children

According to the Synoptic Gospels the voiceprint of Jesus was characterized by the aphorism and the short narrative. The synoptic evangelists dubbed these short narratives "parables" because they found them enigmatic; that is to say they could not easily get a religious meaning out of them by reading them as the fictional stories they were. Hence they assumed that the stories were, for the most part, figurative¹ and that enabled the evangelists to get a religious meaning from them that suited their own idiosyncratic theology. There is a residue of only 43 short narratives preserved in early Christian literature attributed to Jesus.²

One of the shortest and least studied of these brief narratives, titled by its first line, is "A Father's Two Children."  A synopsis of the story is as follows: the narrative depicts the different responses of two children to their father's instructions to go and work in the family vineyard (Matt 21:28b-30). The general subject of the story is obedience/respect, as Matthew rightly understood (21:31). It is an enigmatic story and two versions of it exist among the various manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel.

Here are translations of the two versions of the story excluding the literary context (21:31-32), which in my view constitutes the evangelist's interpretive strategy. Version one:

A man had two children [tekna,³ not uios], and coming to the first he said "child, go today; work in the vineyard." But answering s/he said, "I don't want to." Later, however, having second thoughts, s/he went. And coming to the other, he said the same. Answering s/he said "I am [going],⁴ Sir; yet s/he did not go.

Version Two:

A man had two children [tekna,³ not uios], and coming to the first he said, "child, go today; work in the vineyard." Answering s/he said "I am [going], Sir; yet s/he did not go. And coming to the other, he said the same. But answering s/he said, "I don't want to." Later, however, having second thoughts, s/he went.

The answers of the children are reversed in version one and version two.

            Basically the story compares and contrasts the responses of the children and by that contrast invites the reader's judgment on their responses, particularly in view of the fact that the story has no conclusion. The lack of a conclusion seems to be the design of Jesus' stories⁵ and makes Matthew's introduction to the narrative ("What do you think, 21:28?") plausible as an introduction to the story.

Matthew's interpretation (21:30-32) describes the conflict between the chief priests and elders of the people (Matt 21:23), the antecedents of "they" in Matt 21:31. Their response to Jesus' question in Matt 21:31 ("the first") only works with the first version of the story, where the youth later did as instructed; in the manuscripts several answers are given by Jesus' interlocutors—the last, the second, the latter, depending on the sequence of the children's answer and actions. These answers do not work with the version chosen by text critics to whom we owe the credit for the version that generally appears in your translation.⁶

Would you attach a religious meaning to the story? If you would, why would you do so?

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹Some stories they read as examples such as An Injured Man on the Jericho Road (Luke 10:30-35).

²Hedrick, Wisdom of Jesus, 121. That is not to say that Jesus originated all of the stories. See Meier, Probing the Authenticity of the Parables (Yale: 2016).

³Teknon is a Greek neuter noun which is translated by the English "Child" with no emphasis on gender. Uios is a masculine noun and is translated "son." In Luke (2:48, 15:31), however, uses the term child as an affectionate parental title for a son. Interestingly the only way that the reader knows that the parent is male is by the use of the Greek kurie, "Sir," which is vocative of address for the masculine noun kurios.

⁴A later manuscript adds after "I am" (egō) the Greek upagō (going). For the use of the Greek egō alone to mean "I am going" see Judges 13:11 LXX.

⁵See for example the analysis of The Unjust Judge and The Pharisee and Toll Collector in Hedrick, Parables as Poetic Fictions (Hendrickson, 1994), 187-235.

⁶See Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (UBS, 4th ed., 2000), 44-46.

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.

Do the early Christian Gospels contain Fake News?

As with everything else pertaining to religion, the short answer is: it depends on who you ask. Fake news is defined this way: “Fake news in a neologism [new expression] often used to refer to fabricated news. This type of news, found in traditional news, social media, or fake news websites, has no basis in fact but is presented as being factually accurate.”¹ The word “fact” I define as an actual occurrence or information having objective reality.

            Someone may object that it is unfair to compare the Bible to “fake news,” since it is an ancient document and “fake news” is a contemporary expression. Nevertheless, biblical scholars do make distinctions, for example, between factual information (ideas grounded in historical event) and nonfactual information (ideas not grounded in historical event). Here is why it may be appropriate to ask this question about the Bible: the gospels parade themselves as “good news” (translation of euaggelion), so it does not seem inappropriate to inquire about the factual character of that “news.” Luke, for example, claimed that he was going to set the record straight and present an “orderly” account to ensure that Theophilus would “know the truth” (Luke 1:3-4). Hence Luke seems to claim that his good news is “factual data.” Yet Luke uses mythological language and legends in telling his version of the story of Jesus.

            The birth narrative in Luke clearly uses mythological language (1:26-38; 2:1-20)—specifically the following verses: 1:26, 32-33, 35; 2:9-11, 13-14.  Myths, although they may inform us about human existence, are essentially stories about gods that people have celebrated and still celebrate in recitation and ritual but such stories have nothing to do with objective reality other than that the ideas about the gods are celebrated in ritual. Plato, for example, regarded what he described as “myths” to be fictional stories about the gods.²

            Scholars in general describe the story of Jesus in the temple at age twelve (Luke 2:41-52) as a legend. Legends are stories about holy people and religious heroes told “for the purpose of inspiration, instruction and religious edification.”³ While a legend may be historically based (as in this case it is told about a historical person), the details of the narrative belong to hagiography (idealizing or idolizing biography).⁴ For other hagiographic tales of Jesus’ childhood at ages five, six, eight, and twelve see The Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

Some scholars, however, describe this Lukan story about Jesus as a pronouncement story rather than a legend⁵ since the category “legend” is problematic—the term suggests fraudulent and pious fantasy. In short the designation “legend” suggests that such stories are not historical accounts.

            What do you think? Should the early Christian gospels be described as comprised in part of “fake news” rather than “good news”? The Jesus Seminar published a report in 1998 that found that only 16% of the 176 events they studied in the early gospel literature probably occurred, and the story of Jesus in the temple was not among the 16%.⁶

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#Definition

²C. Hedrick, Wry Guy Blog, “The Sibyl’s Wish,” June 26, 2016.

³K. Nickle, Synoptic Gospels (2001), 28.

⁴C. Hedrick, Wry Guy Blog, “Are there Legends in the Bible,” August 1, 2016.

⁵See J. Fitzmyer, Gospel According to Luke I-IX (1970), 134-39.

⁶R. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus. The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (1998), 1, 524.

The Bones of Jesus of Nazareth

Is it possible that some archaeologist one day might turn up a bone-box discovery containing the bones of Jesus of Nazareth? As always in matters of religion, the answer depends on who you ask. True Believers, who trust that the Bible always speaks Truth in matters related to faith and doctrine, will dismiss my question as ignorance of the nature and meaning of Jesus' resurrection.

The witness of all four canonical gospels is that the tomb of Jesus was found empty by the first visitors on that first Easter morning (Mark 16:4-6; Matt 28:5-6; Luke 24:2-6; John 20:3-9). The body of Jesus was gone! This is the basis for the argument that the body of Jesus was physically resuscitated and transformed, or as the writer we call Luke has it: the flesh of Jesus did not suffer corruption (Acts 2:24-32; 13:32-35).

The gospel writers double down on the physicality of the resurrection. John adds that Jesus cautions Mary not to cling to him (John 20:17)—a spirit is hardly substantial; there is nothing to cling to. Hence the caution to Mary only makes sense if Jesus' body is physical. And Jesus invites Thomas to "put out your hand and place it in my side"; spirits do not have sides (John 20:27; where the soldier had pierced his side on the cross, John 19:34)—another clue that the body of Jesus was physical and not spirit. In Matthew the women who had come to the tomb "took hold of his feet" (Matt 28:9); spirits don't have feet, but physical bodies do. Luke notes that the resurrected Jesus was given a piece of broiled fish "and he took it and ate before them" (Luke 24:39-42); spirits do not need food but bodies do.

            According to true believers, however, why would one doubt the resurrection? God can, and has done, many things more marvelous than raising Jesus from among the dead. For example, the Bible reports that God transported Elijah bodily into heaven in a chariot of fire by means of a whirlwind—body, blood, bones, calloused bunions, and all (2 Kgs 2:9-12).

            Paul, on the other hand, in discussing the concept of resurrection (1 Cor 15:35) specifically rules out a physical resurrection: the body is destined for corruption; it is only in the spirit that one may inherit eternal life (Gal 6:8). It is foolishness, Paul says, to conceive of resurrection in terms of a physical body (1 Cor 15:36-42). In short, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable" (1 Cor 15:50). What can inherit the kingdom of God is the "spiritual body" (1 Cor 15:44), Paul argues, and that must include Jesus as well (1 Cor 15:45).

            Paul's idea of a spiritual resurrection does seem to make more sense than what is found in the gospels, but if we are transformed what happens to the old body? Paul argues that it will be changed (allagēsometha), like one changes a suit of clothes (1 Cor 15:52), and "puts on" the imperishable and immortal spirit (1 Cor 15:53-54). Nevertheless, there seems to be a continuum between the mortal and the immortal; the physical body is not divested but "further clothed" (2 Cor 5:1-4).

One of Paul's disciples, however, did not follow this last idea of the great apostle, and argued instead that "at death, the Elect are 'drawn' to heaven by the Savior (Treatise on the Resurrection, 45.34-39). The inner, spiritual self 'departs' and experiences a blessed 'absence' from the fleshly body" (Treatise on the Resurrection, 27.19-24, 35-38).¹ In other words, the resurrection is a completely spiritual event. If the writer of this treatise on the resurrection is correct, it would seem that we might yet find the bones of Jesus buried somewhere in Israel.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹Malcolm Peel, "The Treatise on the Resurrection," in Harold Attridge, ed., Nag Hammadi Codex I (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 142.

Pondering the Origins of the Church

The word "church" is several centuries and cultures removed from the word it is used to translate in the earliest Christian texts. "Church" and its various cognates through the centuries is descended from a Late Greek word (which I would describe as ecclesiastical Greek) kuriakon meaning "belonging to the Lord" or the "Lord's house"; from this word has come the Teutonic word kirche, Kirk (still used in Scotland), which is the equivalent of the English word "church." It appears that translators of the New Testament have pressed into service what is today a "brick and mortar" fully baptized Christian word in order to render into English the pre-Christian ekklesia, used in the earliest extant Christian texts. Paul uses ekklesia to describe a local gathering of Jesus people, and the basic idea of ekklesia is an assembly of people called out for some purpose. The original idea of the word, its secular use, survives in Acts 19:32, 39, 41, where it is translated assembly. Another word Paul uses to describe the people in the gathering is agioi, or "holy ones," usually translated "saints" (1 Cor 1:2).

      It is an egregious chronological error, an anachronism, to translate ekklesia as "church" because in the middle first century there was no organization in the sense that we use the word "church" today. Technically speaking what we know as the "church" arose with the creedal and theological councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, although earlier certain theological developments led up to the fourth/fifth century "church." In the earliest period, for which there are extant texts, there existed only local gatherings of Jesus people.

 

            Paul's gatherings were comprised of Judeans (Jews) and non-Judeans; in Paul's mythological thinking people in the gathering were made "holy" in Jesus, whom he believed to be the Anointed (i.e., Christ; 1 Cor 1:2). These gatherings met in private homes (Rom 16:3-5; Gal 1:1), and were free-wheeling assemblies not bound by formal rules, procedures, or guidelines. Paul described these gatherings in the following ways: "the gatherings of the Anointed in Judea" (Gal 1:22), "the gatherings of God in Jesus the Anointed in Judea" (1 Thess 2:14), "the gatherings of the holy ones" (1 Cor 14:33), or he referred to the gatherings by the name of the location or region they assembled, for example: "to the gatherings of Galatia" (Gal 1:2). His later disciples came to think in terms of a united phenomenon, such as "the household of God, which is the ekklesia of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15). Using the word "church" as a translation for ekklesia in this latter designation does not seem inappropriate. It is one of those evolutionary developments that led up to the church as it emerged in the fourth and fifth centuries.

 

            Paul did not invent the idea of a "gathering," for there was already a gathering in Jerusalem led by people he did not meet until some seventeen years after his conversion. Peter, James, and John (Gal 1:17-24), who earlier had been part of Jesus' inner circle (Mark 14:32-33), comprised the leadership of the Jerusalem gathering.

 

            It is improbable that Jesus invented the concept for these gatherings. The gospels do not portray Jesus forming small gatherings in the communities he visited. Ekklesia is used only three times in the gospels, and all three appear in Matthew. The first of these is a highly contested passage (Matt 16:16-19) where Jesus says to Peter, "You are Peter (petros) and upon this rock (petra) I "will" build my ekklesia." That is to say, the ekklesia, however translated or conceived, was something for the indefinite future. Ekklesia also appears in Matt 18:15-18, where it appears to relate to a formal religious organization with developed rules for disciplining "brothers"; hence it is not like the gathering reflected in the Corinthian correspondence. The passage Matt 16:16-19 is a Matthean insertion into a text borrowed from Mark 8:29-30. The primacy of Peter does not surface again until the third century and later. Hence these two segments in Matthew are best thought of as bolts out of the later ecclesiastical blue. In short, they are chronologically out of place.

 

            A more cogent occasion for the origins of the Pauline gatherings is most likely to be the widespread groups of private clubs and associations in the Greco-Roman world. In the early Roman Empire many belonged to private associations of one sort or another, based on common interests and needs. The broad purposes for people associating with such clubs were economic, religious, and social. There existed associations of the trades and professions (merchants, scribes, wood and metal workers), burial societies, dining societies, sports groups, groups of ex-servicemen, and some that were specifically religious. As the fledgling cults of the risen Christ emerged in the Roman world, it would be natural for likeminded persons in a given location to assemble together on the basis of their shared interest, following the model of private clubs and associations. Outsiders aware of such gatherings would have seen them as just one more private association.

 

            In short, what eventually became the church in Greco-Roman culture began initially as small independent gatherings around certain ideas about Jesus, the Anointed. The origins of these gatherings, which led in the fourth and fifth centuries to what became the Christian Church, had no one single point of beginning.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

Works Consulted:

 

Ascough, Harlan, and Kloppenborg. Associations in the Greco-Roman World. A Sourcebook. Waco, TX: Baylor, 2012.

 

Ferguson. Backgrounds of Early Christianity. 3^rd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.

 

Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar. The Five Gospels. The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. New York: Macmillan, 1993.

Two Odd Locutions in the Gospel of Mark

There are actually other statements in Mark's Gospel that strike me as odd (that is: peculiar, strange, or unexpected), but these two locutions are markedly so. We have come to rely on Mark as the earliest gospel—at least Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels relying on Mark as a source. Luke even noted there were many who had tried their hand at "compiling a narrative" of the doings and sayings of Jesus, so s/he apparently accepted Mark's narrative as the most acceptable of the "many" who wrote (Luke 1:1)—and yet Luke frequently edits out and changes much of Mark's narrative.

 

FIRST LOCUTION is Mark's obvious exaggeration about John the Baptizer's success with the population of Judea. An exaggeration is a political statement; it is not a historical statement:

 

And there were going out to him all the region of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the river Jordan confessing their sins (1:5, Hedrick; see also 1:28, 33).

 

In the time of Jesus the "region/country" of Judea incorporated the area around Jerusalem extending northward to about the valley of Aijalon and southward to Masada, and included eight to ten villages. The population of the city of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus has been estimated at an upper limit of around 25,000 to 30,000.¹ If the population of Jerusalem was only half this number, the idea that every single person in the city and all the villages in the region of Judea were going out, and eventually being baptized by John, is simply not credible.  Luke eliminates this verse, but Matthew (3:5) repeats the exaggeration with a slight modification.

 

            Mark borders on another unfortunate exaggeration when he writes: "And [Jesus] could do no mighty work there"; Mark avoids the exaggeration by adding: "except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them (6:5; see Matthew 13:58 for a more carefully worded statement).

 

Several translators have completely removed Mark's exaggeration (1:5) in their translations:

 

From all Judea and Jerusalem crowds of people went to John (TEV)

 

And they flocked to him from the whole Judean country-side and the city of Jerusalem (NEB)

 

People from Jerusalem and from all over Judea traveled out into the Judean waste-lands to see and hear John (Living New Testament).

 

SECOND LOCUTION is found in Mark 4:36. The sentence is ambiguous rendering it difficult to translate. To illustrate the problem here is my literal translation, which follows the Greek word order, with the unclear statement in italics; it is followed by several other translations:

 

And leaving the crowd they take him as he was in the boat (Hedrick)

 

And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was (RSV)

 

So leaving the crowd, they took him (just as he was) in the boat (Moffatt)

 

Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat (NIV)

 

So they left the crowd and took him with them in the boat where he had been sitting (NEB)

 

So they left the crowd and took him away in the boat in which he was sitting (Goodspeed)

 

And when they had sent away the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was (NKJ)

 

And sending away the multitude, they take him even as he was in the ship (Douay)

 

So they left the crowd, and his disciples started across the lake with him in the boat (TEV)

 

            Translators have taken the odd locution to refer either to Jesus already being in the boat (see Mark 4:2), or to the appearance or condition of Jesus (as he was, NKJ, or just/even as he was: NIV, Moffatt, Douay). Goodspeed and NEB use words other than Mark's in their translation. And TEV simply eliminates the obscure phrase. Both Luke and Matthew, resolve Mark's lack of clarity by having Jesus get into the boat with the disciples when they leave, and thus eliminate the obscure phrase as he was (Luke 8:22; Matthew 8:23).

 

            The larger issue raised by these two odd locutions is the ethics of Bible translation.² Does the interpreter/translator allow Mark's problematic locutions to remain, or does the interpreter/translator change Mark's text in order to resolve the ambiguity in the interests of maintaining a text suitable for worship, since public reading of the Bible should not raise questions in the minds of the worshippers?  To put the matter differently, does the interpreter/translator serve the interests of the church, or serve a historical sense that always demands complete transparency?

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

¹J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the time of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), 84.

²C. W. Hedrick, "Satyrs or Wild Goats. The Politics of Translating the Bible," The Fourth R 24.5 (November –December 2012):21-22, 24.