Myth and Mystery

Profiling the Early Christian Mind¹

Writers of the New Testament use the words “myth” and “mystery,” suggesting that the mindset of early followers of Jesus may, in part, be described as arrogant, anxious, aggressive, and intolerant. They were lacking in critical thought and were hampered by a lack of curiosity. Features such as these might today be described as symptomatic of a personality disorder.

The word “myth” appears in a few of the later texts of the New Testament where it is always employed with a pejorative edge. The term is used to disparage the views of others and defame those holding such views (1 Tim 1:3-4; 4:7; 2 Tim 4:3-4; Titus 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16). The word “mystery” suggests early followers of Jesus are confessing to a type of cognitive dissonance. “Mystery,” on the other hand, is generally used positively to describe the incomprehensible working of divine power, which the early followers of Jesus struggled to understand rationally. There were five issues that perplexed them and oddly some of these issues still remain problems for the modern Christian mind. These five issues are: the mystery of the failure of the Jewish mission (Rom 11:25-29); the mystery of the spiritual body (1 Cor 15:51-52); the mystery of God’s will to unite all things in Christ (Eph 1:9-10); the mystery of lawlessness already at work (2 Thess 2:1-12); the mystery of Christ (1 Tim 3:16).

The canonical gospels use “mystery” to describe a deliberate strategy used by Jesus to teach about the kingdom of God in oblique language in order to prevent the unwashed masses from understanding his teaching (Mark 4:11-12=Matt 13:11-12=Luke 8:10). The Book of Revelation uses the word almost as an equivalent of the word “puzzle” (Rev 1:20; 17:5, 7). Revelation 10:7 is obscure when it refers to “the mystery of God being fulfilled.”

What I have attempted above is to “profile” writers of certain New Testament texts. When scholars of ancient history attempt to characterize a figure of the past, they engage in “profiling.” A profile is a concise biographical sketch, but depending on the available evidence a more complete description might be possible. “Profiling” is an act whereby the researcher infers the likely character traits of individuals on the basis of the profiler’s data and reasoning. Depending on the amount of data available it may, however, amount to little more than educated guessing. In law enforcement profiling an unknown perpetrator consists in inferring the traits of individuals responsible for committing criminal acts. Speculation, however, is a conjecture without firm evidence. Hence a profile is a collection of inferences from data.

In New Testament studies drawing inferences about an author using textual data is an accepted practice. Scholars routinely describe an author’s beliefs on the basis of statements in the text. For example, Joseph Fitzmyer in his esteemed two volume commentary of the Gospel of Luke provides a rather lengthy sketch of Lucan theology.² The author of Luke is actually unknown and scholars who describe the theology of anonymous authors are basically profiling an unknown subject (an “unsub” in police jargon). It is also the practice of New Testament scholars to profile known authors of texts—Paul for example. They will even include psychoanalytical assessments of known and unknown figures from what has been written about those figures, as is regularly done with Jesus of Nazareth.³

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹This essay is an adapted excerpt from an essay recently published in The Fourth R, volume 32.5, September-October 2019, 7-10, 20.

²Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke I-IX, Anchor Bible 28 (Doubleday, 1979), 143-270.

³For example, Marcus J. Borg, Jesus a New Vision. Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (Harper & Row, 1987), 39-56.

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.

BE THERE DRAGONS IN THE BIBLE?

How could there be? Dragons are mythical or legendary creatures. They constitute the stuff of fantasy and fiction, and are certainly not the material on which history and revealed religion are based—at least that is the prevailing view today. The dragon has a long and widespread tradition in the world.  See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon

 

            Answering the question, "are there dragons in the Bible?" is more complicated than one might suppose, however. It is complicated because translators practice the art of translation differently in rendering ancient words into what they take to be a modern equivalent, and because we must work in two ancient languages Hebrew and Greek. The Hebrew Lexicons indicate the following: Brown, Driver, and Briggs (1st edition 1907) and Gesenius-Robinson (1857) agree in the translation of "land-serpent, dragon" as being appropriate for the following passages: Deuteronomy 32:33; Psalm 91:13; Exodus 7:9, 10, 12; Jeremiah 51:34; Nehemiah 2:13).

 

            Not all translators acknowledge this information in the seven English translations I checked. The following translations use "dragon" to translate Psalm 91:13, Deuteronomy 32:33: New American Bible; An American Translation (AT). The New American Bible (NAB) and the New English Bible (NEB) render Jeremiah 51:34 with "dragon." The following translations render Nehemiah 2:13 by "dragon": Today's English Version (TEV), New International Version (NIV), NEB, and NAB.  The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) renders the following passages by δράκων (drakōn: dragon, serpent): Deuteronomy 32:33, Psalm 91:13, Exodus 7:9, 10, 12.  Of the translations I checked, except for Nehemiah 2:13, the NIV never used the word "dragon" to translate the ancient Hebrew text. The King James Version translated all passages with "dragon," except for Exodus 7:9, 10, 12.  The NEB translated Isaiah 51:9 using "dragon"; the TEV also used "dragon" for Isaiah 27:1. The NAB used "dragon" in the translation of Psalm 74:13, Isaiah 51:9, Isaiah 27:1, and AT used "dragon" in translating Psalm 74:13, Isaiah 27:1, Isaiah 51:9.

 

            The word "Dragon" (δράκων) appears in the following passages in the New Testament: Revelation 12:3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 17, 17; 13:2, 4, 11; 16:13; 20:2, where dragon is twice secondarily identified as an  ὄφις, which the lexicon terms a "snake, serpent" (Revelation 12:9; 20:2).  The Latin translation of the Greek text uses draco, which the lexicon identifies as "a sort of serpent, a dragon."

 

            Is the mythical or fantasy "dragon" actually described in the Bible? The answer is "Yes," and dragons were part of the landscape of nature in antiquity—at least to judge from the writings of some of the best known names of our classical Greco-Roman past, such as Aristotle, Herodotus, and Pliny, as well as others.  Their reports on the nature of the creature, however, were not uniform. The description of the dragon in Philostratus (2nd century CE), the author of The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, is most similar to what we have come to know as the mythical creature. These ancient writers are not describing mythical creatures, however; they are reporting about creatures they claim to know—sometime serpent-like at other times dragon-like. The description of the creature in Revelation, however, is actually something more than simply a snake or a serpent.  It is described as a species of reptile with a tail; snakes do not have tails.  And this creature "stood on the sand of the sea" (Revelation 12:18).  Serpents do not have legs, and hence cannot "stand." This dragon made certain sounds that enabled it to be identified as a dragon (13:11).*

 

            What do we learn from this information? The lexicographers really didn't know the species of the creature on which they offered translation advice. The ancient classical writers are confident that they are describing actual existing creatures. And there actually are dragons described in the Bible.

 

            As Oliver Hardy said to the second of the famed comic duo, his partner Stan Laurel, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" The Christian and Jewish Bibles, that are thought to report ancient history and are confessed popularly in conservative Christianity as "The Word of God," attest to the actual existence of what we today regard as a mythical and fantasy creature. Archaeologists and geologists, on the other hand, have given us the Pterodactyl and Pterosaur, a type of flying reptile that actually lived during the late Jurassic period (to judge from their petrified skeletons). These creatures, which actually did exist at one time, are not a part of the Biblical record.

 

            So the "Word of God" (if I may call it that) leads us to a fantasy creature that never existed, but the modern scientific study of the earth gives us historical dragon-like creatures that actually existed. Go figure!

 

What do you make of dragons in the Bible?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

*The Greek word for "spoke" in Revelation 13:11 can also be used of inarticulate sounds.

Religious Experience in Acts

The author of the Book of Acts (scholars call the author "Luke") portrays in novelistic-like narrative his impressions of early Christian religious experience.  The author wants you to think that this description of religious faith in Acts is the normative way Christians should experience God. In the main he does not portray their experience of God as ecstatic,* although he does use the word "ecstasy" (in Greek, ekstasis) a number of times (3:10 [amazement], 10:10 [trance], 11:5 [trance], 22:17 [trance]) to describe certain ecstatic experiences. Ecstatic experiences in Acts, however, are something out of the ordinary, rather than routine or typical.

 

The normative religious experience in Acts is also not mystical** for God is described as the Creator, "who made the world and everything in it," the "Lord of Heaven and Earth," "who does not live in shrines made by man" (17:24). Nevertheless, "God is not far from each one of us" (17:27-28), for the earth is his footstool—although his throne is in heaven (7:49).  Compare the following references that suggest God's ascendant position in the universe (2:33; 7:32-34; 7:55-56). Christians in Acts do not have "a direct and intimate consciousness of the Divine Presence," and must therefore reach out to God through prayer in order to overcome the distance that separates them (see, for example, 1:14, 24; 2:42; 3:1; 10:4; 12:5, 12; 22:17).

 

From my perspective the normative religious experience in Acts is best described as "charismatic," a word that does not appear in the New Testament. A charisma (Greek, charisma [χάρισμα]) is usually translated by the English word "gift." Charisma does not appear in Acts, but a synonym does. In Acts the gift (dōrea) of God (2:38) is the Holy Spirit/Spirit (5:32)  who fills (4:31, 9:17, 13:9) and empowers (1:8) Christians for mighty works, wonders, and signs (2:43, 4:30, 5:12, 6:8); the Spirit enables them to prophesy, see visions, and have dreams (2:16-18, 10:9-19, 11:4-5, 12:6-11); empowers them to perform healings and drive out evil spirits (8:6-8, 14:8-10, 16:16-18, 19:11-12), to raise the dead (9:36-41), and miraculously be understood to speakers of a different language (2:7-8); to speak with tongues and prophesy (19:6, compare 1 Corinthians 14:26-33). The Holy Spirit is given spontaneously (2:4, 10:44-48) or by the laying on of the hands of those who have received the Spirit (8:14-18, 9:17, 19:1-6). The Holy Spirit only comes to those who obey God (5:32), who have been saved by believing in Jesus Christ (2:38, 5:30-32, 13:29-39) and in his resurrection (16:28-31, 17:2-4). Salvation brings with it the forgiveness of sins (2:37-38, 10:43, 26:18) and the empowerment by the Holy Spirit to perform these evidences of the Spirit. Such was the normative religious experience in Acts.

 

Fast forward to the present day: except for one segment of Christianity's very wide tent this kind of religious experience is no longer experienced as normative among those churches emerging from the Reformation of the 16th century. For these churches the charismatic evidences of the Spirit in Acts are a thing of the distant past, relegated to what they call the "Apostolic Age." Nevertheless, among churches described under the broad rubric "Pentecostal" (deriving from Acts 2:1-21) the evidences of Holy Spirit possession found in Acts are very much alive.

 

In an odd turn of events, however, the Holy Spirit/Spirit does not empower anyone in the final third of the book (19:21-28:30). In these final chapters the tone of the writing is different and the Spirit's role is basically reduced to that of advisor to Paul (Spirit is only mentioned seven times: 19:21, 20:22, 20:23, 20:27, 21:4, 21:11, 28:25), and the one clear allusion to an act by the Spirit refers to an event that had happened much earlier (20:27), and which is not even described in the Book of Acts. These latter references to the Spirit correspond generally to the way the Spirit is usually regarded in the churches of "main-stream" Protestantism—reduced to an idea and only having as much power as a person allows the idea to have over him or her.

 

How do you see your own religious experience in the light of the charismatic experience in the Book of Acts? Or put another way: is there any such thing as a normative religious experience?

 

Do you suppose there is an illegitimate religious experience?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

*Ecstatic religious experience: an intense "state in which the mind is carried as it were from the body; a state in which the functions of the senses are suspended by the contemplation of some extraordinary or supernatural object. It is a kind of 'out of this world rapture…'" Harkness, Mysticism (1973), 32.

 

**Mystical religious experience: "The type of religion which puts the emphasis on immediate awareness of relation with God, on direct and intimate consciousness of the Divine Presence. It is religion in its most acute, intense and living stage." Harkness, Mysticism. 20.

Does Hell Exist?

In the modern popular Christian imagination Hell is a fiery abyss into which the ungodly are cast at the end of the ages, where they will suffer throughout eternity.  Oddly enough, the word "Hell," as such, does not appear in the Bible.  In ancient Israelite and Greek thought there are two principal words that describe the abode of the dead.  In Hebrew thought Sheol, generally translated by the English words grave, hell, pit, is the underworld where a person's shade went at death; they continued there in a shadowy semi-existence.  Sheol included both the good and the wicked (Jacob: Genesis 44:29, 45:31; the wicked: Psalm 31:17).

            In the ancient Greek tradition Hades is the God of the underworld and the area he rules is the "House" of Hades.  Hades (frequently translated Hell in the New Testament) is the universal destination of humankind upon death, although even in the fifth century BCE some special dead ascend to the "upper air," and a privileged few enter the "Isles of the Blessed."

            In the early Christian tradition the designations Hades and Gehenna are exclusively places of torment in fire for the unrighteous (Matt 5:22; Luke 16:23-24; Rev 20:11-14).  Gehenna is the valley of Hinnom , where it has been suggested that the killing by cremation of children as an offering to Baal and Molech, possibly gave rise to the notion of a hell of fire (Matt 5:22; 2 2 Kgs 23:10; 2 Kgs 16:3; 2 Chron 28:2-3).  The Israelite tradition was also likely influenced by ideas of the underworld as a fiery place of punishment during Judah's captivity in Babylon (587 BCE; 2 Kgs 25).  The concept appears in later Israelite writings (2 Esdras 7:36; Sirach 7:17; Judith 16:17; 2nd Isaiah 66:24; Ethiopic Enoch 90:26 and 54:1-5).

            Other words for the abode of the dead/punishment are also used in the New Testament. Tartarus (2 Pet 2:4) is the lowest part of the underworld, even deeper than Hades.  The underworld is also described as the Abyss, Bottomless Pit (Luke 8:31; Romans 10:7; Rev 9:1-2), and the Outer Darkness (Matt 8:11-12; 22:13; 25:30).

            In the Middle Ages Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote a poetic imaginary vision of a guided trip through hell, purgatory, and paradise, the three spiritual realms of departed spirits, reflecting the views of the medieval Christian church.  His vivid descriptions of the suffering of the dead rival in many ways the later (1743-1758) preaching of Jonathan Edwards ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"), who terrified his congregation with warnings of the damnation awaiting them unless they repented:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire...Therefore, let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.

This view of hell as a place of terrifying punishment is alive and well in the modern Christian church and even in the popular imagination of the un-churched.  Does such a place exist?  Of course it did in the imagination and faith of Dante; and Jonathan Edwards clearly believed that it did, and it was likewise very real to his audiences, who responded to his preaching with hysteria, distress, and weeping.

            But does it exist in the material universe as well as "exist" in imagination and belief?  The short of the matter is this: if you believe Hell exists then surely it does—as might other specific locations of faith, such as the Pearly Gates and streets of gold (Rev 21:21), New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2), and Purgatory (not in Protestant and Jewish Bibles, but in the Catholic Bible: 2 Maccabees 12:40-45).  These latter "places" are part of the imagination and belief of the writer of Revelation.

            We don't know Hell by means of our primary senses (seeing, touching, smelling, tasting, hearing), but rather through our minds (i.e., as an idea, or item of faith and/or superstition).  Hell does not in fact exist in the normal ways we think of things existing—that is, as a locatable and visit-able "somewhere," or as something that occupies space and time at a certain longitude/latitude, and/or parsecs location.  Could it "exist" as part of a spiritual universe that perhaps overlays our material universe, and/or is "over there spiritually" in parallel to our material universe, although not a part of it?

You, gentle reader, will be the judge of that.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Matter and Spirit: Making Sense of it All

I have seen no visible evidence of spirit (whether good, benign, or evil), except for the concrete temples humans erect in honor of a good and Great Invisible Spirit, their fearful responses to what they perceive to be evil Spirits, and their confessions about both.  Hence I begin with matter.

 

Observation #1: If the universe is not eternal, it had a beginning. If it is eternal, it is our "Alpha and Omega" (Revelation 1:8).

 

Observation #2: It does not appear that the universe is eternal, however, since its expansion at a rapid rate is an indication of remarkable change (hence, it is not eternal because it changes).  This datum makes the idea of the known universe originating in a Big-Bang-from-Nothing a plausible theory.  But from whence came the elements necessary to produce a Big Bang and what ignited it—if nothing existed before the Big Bang? The igniter and matter-from-nothing constitute the Ground of all Being (G/B) in that they have brought an end to Non-Being and revealed Being.  But both igniter and matter-from-nothing are invisible, unknown, and unknowable since they are parallel to and not immediately tangential (touching lightly) to the universe.  If they were tangent to or part of the universe, then universe, as eternal (see Observation #1), has simply perpetuated itself.  Hence, there is an Unknown-Unknowable-Before-the-Big-Bang.

 

Observation #3: In popular religious thinking G/B is accorded the designator "God."  But G/B contrary to popular thinking is not part of the physical universe or even involved with the universe, a fact that is verified by observation of the known natural and social worlds.  The survival of the fittest (i.e., Darwin's more plausible theory of the Origin of the Species by Natural Selection) rules out any master plan for the universe and its denizens, and it seems to be the case with social organisms as well, for they succeed or fail based on human ingenuity and energy, and that, one must suppose, includes the church.  In short, no guidance or care exists for Being (things as they are).  We and the universe have simply emerged into Being, and must do the best we can.  Our fate hinges on good genes, lady luck, and natural selection.

 

Observation #4:  human beings are, however, universally "religious."  To judge by our universal preoccupation with religion or religious-like actions endemic to all human cultures humans seem to have in some way come by a concept of a Divine-Other (D/O) and seem to have a vague sense, awareness, or impression of D/O—or they claim to.  The limitations and imperfections of our sense of D/O accounts for the contrasting varieties of human religious expressions:  we sense in part and imperfectly so.  Because of the universality of the religious preoccupation, however, our "sensing" D/O seems plausible; so where does the concept of D/O come from, or does it arise from within us—that is, the concepts of D/O are latent in our genes and/or DNA?

 

Observation #5: Certainly it is possible that we each generate the concept of D/O from within ourselves, or perhaps it is generated by a few and learned by others.

 

Observation #6: Possibly concepts of D/O arise from G/B from "the other side" of the Big Bang.  But how might that occur, if G/B is not and never was a part of our experienced reality (see Observation #2).  Astrophysics suggests a possible parallel.  Scientists discover unseen planets that orbit stars (those tiny pinpricks of light in the night sky) in distant solar systems by watching for the gravitational effect of an invisible planet on a visible star: "when the star has a planet orbiting around it, the star wiggles slightly from the gravitational attraction of the planet" (Nick Cohen, mathematician, physicist).  I am suggesting that there may also be a similar effect from an "attraction" between Being and non-Being that prompts a universal religious response.  The scientist sees nothing except the effect of the gravitational pull (the wiggle), and does not actually see the planet or the gravitational attraction.  It is similar to the physical/emotional attraction between lovers.  Claims of "sensing" D/O may be a similar "wiggle" effect between human psyches and D/O.  The only evidence of gravity between the star and the postulated invisible planet is the "wiggle"; the only evidence of D/O between Non-Being and Being is a human religious response.

 

Nothing is certain, but those seem to be the possibilities; how do they seem to you?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Is the Universe Just?

"Just" is: "acting or being in conformity with what is morally upright or good."  This definition includes the idea of justice, which is an impartial administration of rewards and punishments—that is to say, if the universe is just, what you receive in common space and time should be balanced.  By universe I mean: "the whole body of things and phenomena; the totality of material entities," and the cosmos is "the universe conceived as an orderly and harmonious system."

            How we humans have conceived the universe has changed through time.  In antiquity it was a primitive three-tiered construct: earth in the center, the primordial waters beneath the earth, and the fixed luminaries in a domed structure that protected the earth from the waters above.  In Biblical faith God used weather, the elements, and historical events to reward and punish, although not always in a just way (for example, his treatment of the Amalekites, 1 Samuel 15).

            Until the twentieth century our view of the universe was limited.  In the second century CE Ptolemy proposed a geocentric system for the movements of the heavenly bodies in what we now know as our solar system: the sun, moon, five planets circulated around the earth below the (so-called) fixed stars, which were so distant they seemed never to move.  The view of the universe in the middle ages is reflected in the theological system by Dante Alighieri (1300s), which included both the various levels of Hell and dwelling places of saints, angels, and the deity, with earth at its center.

            In the 1600s, Copernicus proposed a heliocentric system: the sun was the center of our solar system.  The earth rotated on its axis and circulated along with the planets around the sun.  This explanation was resisted by the church until the nineteenth century, because an earth-centered universe was best harmonized with the Bible and Christian doctrine.

            Today we live on an insignificant planet on the outskirts of a galaxy of perhaps a hundred billion planetary systems in a universe of perhaps one hundred billion galaxies (Carl Sagan).  Our universe has no edge but is unbounded and expanding outwards toward some unknown destination.

            The question with which I began (Is the Universe Just?) assumes too much.  Since the universe is not sentient, it could not be "just."  The universe does not think or see, so there is no way that it could perceive an imbalance in justice—much less consider correcting it.  The aggregate of existing stuff and entities that fill the void of space act more or less in accord with what physicists and astronomers (i.e., scientists: people who study the universe) call the laws of physics.

            In short, the universe is inflexible.  It blindly follows its own rules, some of which we know; most of which we do not.  Do not expect the universe to balance out your allotment of good and bad in life.  We only have to recall a few of our recent tragic encounters with the physical world on this blue and white planet to know that there is not an ounce of compassion in the universe over the loss of human life, unjustified suffering, and property damage caused by the physical elements: the San Francisco earthquake (1989), the Indonesian tsunami (2004), hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (2005), the Joplin tornado (2011), hurricane Sandy (2012).

            What happens in the world is not the result of evil.  Rattlesnakes and disease, for example, are not caused by the devil or by God.  Rattlesnakes are true to their nature; disease is a natural phenomenon that human beings can cure, and control once we discover the causations—like we have done with chickenpox, diphtheria and polio, for example.

            For these reasons I cannot seriously entertain the idea that God is a universal Spirit pervading all things in the universe with a divine presence—a leaf, the sunrise, a drop of water, a gurgling brook, etc.  The universe is simply too hostile toward human beings to think it reflects the character of a benevolent Spirit.  Nor can I seriously consider that God actively runs the universe in a benevolent hands-on way (Colossians 1:16-17), correcting, like Don Quixote, its excesses and imbalance.

            We seem instinctively to know that the universe is not just, and recognize that benevolent Deity is not controlling the universe in our interest.  That is why a common feature of religions in general is to hope/believe/expect that Deity will balance our books in the afterlife, if such there be—that is, to compensate us for any imbalance of good and bad we experienced in life.

Is that true do you suppose?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Wings Books, 1980).

Jesus People, Mystery Religions, and Nascent Christianity #3

This is the third essay in a trilogy on the term "mystery" in early Christianity.  My contention is that early followers of Jesus applied the term to aspects of their belief system that they could not understand rationally—i.e., it was something they believed even though it seemed contrary to reason.  Instead of revising their belief to accord with reason, they admitted cognitive dissonance and branded it as a "mystery," which allowed them reasonably to continue affirming a belief they could not understand rationally.  They trusted that these acknowledged disconnects between reason and faith would be worked out in the Divine economy.  In the modern Christian church the term mystery, as far as I know, is not extensively used.  One notable exception is the "mystery of the Mass"—the moment at which the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ.

These several uses of the term mystery, surveyed in the previous two blogs, raise the question whether or not nascent Christianity of the Pauline type should be regarded as a mystery religions cult—not in the sense of dependence on one of the ancient cults of the Greco-Roman world, but in the sense of a parallel development.  In other words, the spirit of the age evoked these religions of personal salvation and also led to the transformation of the early Jesus people into a nascent Christianity of the Pauline type.  At least one highly respected New Testament Scholar thought of the "religious history of the Mediterranean world in the early imperial period as 'the age of mysteries'" (Shirley Jackson Case, The Social Origins of Christianity [1923], 113).

            The mystery religions cults were rather diverse in their public celebrations, sacred objects, and theological content.  So they had a public face as well as a hidden secret side.  Although different, they did have several things in common.  They were all voluntary associations in which people must choose to present themselves as initiates.  At the heart of the cult was a private mystery rite, a secret not to be divulged to anyone.  In the mystery rite the individual was brought into a close personal relationship with the deity.  The myth behind the rite and the rite itself consisted of things said to the individual, or things performed in the presence of the individual, or in things done to the individual.  Since these rites were secret and not divulged, scholars are left to guess from clues here and there as to the content and meaning of the different secret rites.  Participation in the mystery granted individuals redemption from the evils of the earthly life and the assurance of a blessed immortality, i.e., the expectation of eternal life. Usually a sacred meal was celebrated by those initiated into the mystery cults.  The goal of the initiation rite was not to impart a particular body of knowledge, but rather to produce a certain experience in the individual that resulted in a particular state of mind—about the God, life, and the hereafter.  Some scholars describe the rite of initiation as "an extraordinary experience that could be described as death and rebirth" (Marvin Meyer, "Mystery Religions" Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible [1992]).

            Meyer finds several close similarities between the nascent Christianity of the first century and the mystery religions. Like the mystery religions, followers of the Christ voluntarily associated themselves together in the early Pauline communities, which also were communities of redemption and salvation.  In the community they experienced baptism, a ceremonial ritual (Rom 6:1-11), in which the initiate is baptized "into Christ's death" and with Christ experienced death and rebirth.  Another rite was the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:17-31), which commemorated the death of Christ.  "By eating of the bread and drinking of the new wine [i. e., his body, his blood] in the Eucharist Christians participated in the death of Christ, and assimilated the saving power of the Cross into their lives" (Meyer gives a number of other parallels).  The "myth" behind both these rituals is, of course, the mystery of Christ (1 Timothy 3:16): that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:17-19, Galatians 6:14). Christ is described by Paul as the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), and Paul writes: "We proclaim in a mystery a hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification" (1 Corinthians 2:7; cf. Romans 16:25).  It is difficult to make detailed comparisons between nascent Christianity and the Greco-Roman mysteries, however, because there is little extant first-hand information on the mysteries (see Marvin Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries. A Sourcebook [1987]).

            These parallels are well known, but generally scholars exclude Christianity from consideration as a Greco-Roman mystery religion with the argument that the "mystery" in Christianity is an "open" secret—in spite of the fact that nascent Christianity uses similar language, concepts, and rites, and shares similar objectives with the mystery religions.  Nascent Christianity of the Pauline type evolved out of the early Jesus people into a religion of personal salvation, clearly a type of mystery religion.  It managed to survive into modernity by evolving again into an institutional creedal religion, which enjoyed the political patronage of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, in the fourth century.  The institutionalized religion seems a far cry from the earlier Pauline mysteries.  Paul regarded himself and the initiates in his gatherings as "servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Corinthians 4:1).

 

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

Mystery, Reason, and Faith #2

Early Christians struggled to understand their faith rationally.  This essay continues the essay of July 27, 2013.

The mystery of all things united in Christ.  Some Pauline disciples believed that "in the fullness of time" God intended to gather into Christ the sum total of everything in heaven and on earth (Eph 1:9-10)—i.e., all things and all beings.  Christ becomes a receptacle for everything in the universe in the fullness of time so as to establish a kind of cosmic harmony and unity—just as it all had begun in Christ (Col 1:16-17; cf. Rom 11:36; 1 Cor 8:6).

 

The very concept is breathtaking, albeit a bit strange—all things are united in Christ and nothing exists outside him.  Christ in a sense becomes "the all in all" of the universe, i.e., its plenitude.  With the universe gathered "in Christ," it would be sanctified—ie. e., made holy.  The distance between the sacred and profane would be overcome, and the profane transformed into the sacred.  At the same time, it was clearly an odd idea for those who lived in the first century—hence their description of it as mystery.  But it is even odder for those of us who live in the 21^st century.  How exactly can such a concept be understood in the modern scientific age?  The universe is clearly expanding rather than contracting—and what exactly do you suppose "sanctified matter" might be anyway?

 

The mystery of lawlessness already at work.  In 2 Thess 2:1-12 the author corrects a misapprehension that the day of the Lord had already come.  The assertion is that it cannot have come, since it must first be preceded by "the rebellion" and by the appearance of the "man of lawlessness."  The mystery lies in the fact that already "lawlessness" is at work—although the lawless one has not yet been revealed.  In other words, there is an established timetable for the coming of the day of the Lord, and the mystery is that the scheme has been partially breached or compromised.  How can that be?  How explain that lawlessness is already at work even though "what restrains" (2 Thess 2:7) is still in place and the man of lawlessness has not yet appeared?  This kind of thinking is called apocalyptic eschatology, a kind of thinking in which imagined schemes are devised to account for what will transpire at the end time (cf. 2 Esdras 6:1-34).  Such thinking imposes a fictive plot on history that never happens.  On the other hand, Christianity was clearly more successful with its fictive plot on time separating a pagan time-frame from a Christian time-frame by Before the Common Era and Anno Domine.

 

The mystery of Christ.  The "Christ event" is by far the most perplexing of these mysteries.  This mystery, more than anything, revealed the difficulty that later followers of Jesus had with the most basic concept of their faith (1 Timothy 3:16).  They preached the mystery of Christ (Col 4:2-4)—that is, how could it be that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19)?  How could it be that all the treasures of wisdom had come to be in Christ (Col 2:1-3)?  How could the gospel of a crucified Jewish teacher be the wisdom of God destined from the ages to bring about human glorification (1 Cor 2:7)?

 

The early followers of Jesus did not settle the questions evoked by these mysteries—in fact, they never even really grappled with them.  They contented themselves with the idea that the solutions to these mysteries reside in the mind of God, and naturally remain incomprehensible to the human mind (Rom 11:33).  There was a surprising lack of curiosity or inquisitiveness on their part that apparently resulted in a reluctance to pursue them.  Certainly part of this mind-set was due to the idea that they regarded their teaching as absolutely true, but principally it was because they considered inquisitiveness (ἐκζητήση) a negative attribute.  The word appears in the New Testament where it is translated as "speculations" (ἐκζητήσεις).  Inquisitiveness also carries with it the idea of getting to the bottom of things—or making an investigation.  Hence there existed a kind of early anti-intellectualism on the part of the early Christians.  They simply ignored these issues, until much later when the diversity in the church forced later leaders to address them.  The mystery of Christ was eventually directly addressed in the councils of the fourth century, but never really resolved.  It was simply glossed over by adoption of an arbitrary scheme (the doctrine of the Trinity) at the Council of Nicaea in 325.

 

Mystery is a puzzle to be deciphered.  The word "mystery" is used only three times in the canonical gospels, and all in the same parallel context (Mark 4:11-12 = Matt 13:11, 13 = Luke 8:10).  The word does not indicate a divine mystery, as it appears elsewhere.  In the gospels a mystery is a deliberate strategy used by Jesus to present information about the kingdom of God in oblique language in order to obfuscate the understanding of the masses.  In the Apocalypse, on the other hand, it is generally used almost as the equivalent of a "puzzle" (Rev 1:20; 17:5, 7) to be solved.  In Rev 10:7, on the other hand, it is a divine mystery that would be accomplished at the trumpet call of the seventh angel.  This obscure reference to the "mystery of God" is not really made clear to the reader, but it is clearly a divine secret about to be unveiled.

 

Should Christianity be understood as one of the mystery religions that emerged about the same time it did?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Faith, Reason, and Mystery #1

            The term "mystery" as used positively in the New Testament relates to a cognitive dissonance—that is, to the disconnect between faith and reason.  Positively used, it describes the incomprehensible working of divine power, which the early followers of Jesus struggled to understand rationally.  At least six issues perplexed them; oddly some of these same issues remain rational problems to the modern Christian mind.

The mystery of the failure of the Jewish mission: Paul was perplexed about the failure of the Jewish mission.  Why hadn't the Jewish people as a group embraced the "good news" about Jesus that Paul preached?  In Paul's view it had always been God's plan (Rom 9:1-5) to save the world through the sacrifice of Jesus.  Why didn't the Jewish people understood the Scripture, their own holy books, which early followers of Jesus believed "testified of Jesus" (John 5:39)?  That "a hardening had come upon Israel" until the proper number of Gentile had "come in" was a "mystery" according to Paul (Rom 11:25-29).  Paul appealed to the Jewish Scripture showing that this "hardening" had always been part of God's plan (Rom 11:8; Deut 29:3-4; Isa 6:9-10).

            The mystery that gentiles are heirs of the promise of Christ: After Paul's day the historical situation changed and a new problem was created by the failure of the Jewish mission.  At this later point Judaism and the church were recognized essentially as two different religions.  From the later perspective the question became: how is it that Gentiles (of which the church was then mostly comprised) are also heirs of the promise of Christ (Eph 3:3-6)?  They had come to recognize that the inclusion of the Gentiles was a promise made to Israel in the new covenant spoken of by Jeremiah (Heb 8:8-13; Jer 31:31-34).

Today the church no longer considers either of these a "mystery." From the perspective of history it is clear that by the middle first century the movement represented by Paul had already turned the corner.  Judaism and the early followers of Jesus actually represented two distinct social and religious groups, and Paul was too close to the situation to recognize it.

            The mystery of the spirit body: Paul also considered the resurrection of the believer, which involved the transformation of the physical body into a "spirit body," a mystery (1 Cor 15:51-52).  How could such a thing as the transformation of a physical body into spirit body occur?  How could the perishable become imperishable in "the twinkling of an eye"?  He never answers the question "how," but simply calls it a mystery—signaling by this term that it was something he did not understand.  His arguments for understanding the resurrection as a spiritual experience (1 Cor 15:35-50) are analogies rather than substantive logical arguments.  What he clearly does understand, however, is that the fleshly, physical, and perishable "cannot inherit the kingdom of God," which is innately imperishable and spiritual (1 Cor 15:44, 50). Later Pauline disciples reinterpreted his idea of the spirit body by arguing for the ascent of the spirit or the soul apart from the body (Treatise on the Resurrection 45:14-46:2; 47:30-48:6; 49:9-16) rather than for a "spirit" body.  Why should a spirit need "embodiment" anyway?

            The resurrection still remains a mystery to the Christian mind.   In an age of reason and scientific thinking a resurrection in whatever form is a problem for many.  But many modern believers persist in believing in the resurrection of the physical body and simply ignore Paul's view, arguing instead that the resurrection will be physical (i.e., the resuscitation of the natural body), a view that is encouraged in the gospels (Matt 28:9; John 20:17; 21:12-13; Luke 24:30) and 2 Clement (9:5).

Here is a curiosity question:  Do you "believe" anything that you would consider a mystery?

(End of the first installment—three more early Christian mysteries to come)

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University