Morning Walk in Chelsea this week

On the left is our walk along W19th between 10th and 11th Avenue towards the water and our first view of the Frank Gehry building. Something is being built just before it so you won't see this view for long. On the right is the front of the Gehry building looking south. Its on 11th Avenue opposite the Chelsea piers. The glass exterior is created to be seen as sails from the Hudson River. Off we went to walk on the piers looking south down the Hudson to the Statue of Liberty.

Speaking of historical biography: blogging before breakfast

John Barton reviews David Rosenberg's Abraham: The First Historical Biography (Basic Books) in TLS (March 23, 2007). Rosenberg reconstructs Abraham as an educated Sumerian, a trained scribe, who belonged to a family that made statues of the gods. All events in Genesis about Abraham are regarded as historical. Abraham translates Sumerian sensibility into a culture that would become Israel. Rosenberg believes that Abraham may have written a record of his life on cuneiform tablets which found their way to the royal archives in Jerusalem. In the 10th C BCE they were translated into Hebrew and reworked into a strand of narrative material scholars call J (in it God is identified as Yahweh--or Jahwe to German speaking scholars).

Of course this connects to The Book of J written with Harold Bloom in 1990 in which J, a learned princess created a literary masterpiece, the J source which translates material from Sumerian and Akkadian into classical Hebrew. Barton thinks that J is later than Rosenberg proposes, not written by a Judaean princess, and that the reconstruction of Abraham's life in the new book is "wildly speculative." Why would Abraham be a Sumerican scribe? How Hebrew culture was a transposition of Sumerian culture is unexplained. Charitably, Barton considers the value of Abraham to be philosophical: Rosenberg's Abraham may never have existed, but is a figure around which ideas like the nature of religious culture clustered. Might the same be said of Judas in regard to ideas about discipleship, human nature, and free will at a later time and place?

The Gospel according to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot part 2

To what genre does this book belong? Historical fiction? Its selectivity is based on what Prof. Francis Moloney deems historically possible as far as Judas is concerned. Such ideas are clarified in the glossary at the back. In the Q&A session, Prof Moloney clarified that the book for him was a repudiation of the work of Dan Brown and Richard Dawkins. "I have written 35 books as a New Testament scholar and if any of them sell 1,000 copies I am happy. But collaborating with Jeffrey Archer offered me a wider platform and I was glad to take it in order to say something plausible and responsible about Judas and his relationship to Jesus."

What Prof. Moloney deems historically implausible are what he calls Jesus' "nature miracles"--walking on water and changing of water into wine. Jesus performed miracles, but "nature miracles" like these were incorporated into biblical material by Christians who understood that that alongside the God of Israel, Jesus was also "Lord of the sea and master of nature." Similarly, Prof. Moloney thinks biblical accounts of Judas' death--that he hanged himself (Matthew 27:3-10) or that his bowels gushed out (Acts 1:18) are attempts by gospel writers to further "blacken Judas' name in the light of Old Testament predictions" but it never happened. As for the 30 pieces of silver, "no serious NT scholar accepts that this ever happened." Glossary note xli explains, "The details come from Zacheriah (sic) 11:12 and 11:13 (see Matt 26:15 and 27:5), and a collection of texts from Jeremiah 18:2 ('the potter's field' see Matt 27:7) and Jeremiah 32: 7-9 (the purchase of a field for pieces of silver, see Matt 27:7-9)." This is a particular kind of NT scholarship. It sifts through NT material to determine by means of certain criteria which materials are historically plausible. These materials then can be used to reconstruct, for example, a life of Jesus, or, in this case, a life of Judas. However, scholars disagree over construction of reliable criteria to sift though materials in the gospels. To see the results of applying different criteria to material from the period of Christian origins for reconstructing the life of Jesus, just look at the contrast between the publications of Luke Timothy Johnson, "The Living Jesus," and John Dominic Crossan's Galilean peasant. And compare both of those to Paula Fredriksen's "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."

Jeffrey Archer writes a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end using these tools. Mark's chronology is followed and Judas hands Jesus over for his own safety mistakenly trusting a scribe with whom he has negotiated beforehand. Judas retreats to Qumran after Jesus' trial and death where he narrates the gospel to his son Benjamin before being crucified by the Romans.

This book is not only what Prof. Moloney deems possible but what he would like it to be. Jeffrey Archer concurs. Jesus smiles frequently in the book. Confusing ideas in the gospels such as Jesus' use of the term "Son of Man" are (mostly) explained by Judas to the rest of the disciples as allusions to Ezekiel and Daniel "to emphasize the difference between the mortal prophet and God, who always makes allowance for the weakness of human beings" (p.38). A suffering "Son of Man" however is still an enigma to all disciples (and scholars). Judas also mistakenly thinks that Jesus is a Son of David in the sense of being the Davidic Messiah and he hopes that Jesus will enter Jerusalm in triumph to claim the Davidic throne of Israel. The book is sympathetic to such misunderstandings and calls them such.

Such reconstructions lay bare our own prejudices in this case, about Jews and women. Even if Judas lives and dies as a Jew he is locked into the closed religious system of (a reconstructed first century) Judaism. In the world of this gospel, women are the objects of Jesus' healing touch and the occasion for him to publically breach Jewish traditions of purity (p.9). Such reconstructions of first century Judaism are unentable and dangerous, as Ed Sanders, Amy-Jill Levine, and Paula Fredriksen have taught us in their published works.

In red ink for the biblical text, #30 (p.25) declares "Jesus selected twelve men to be by his side..." and the marginal note says, "see Matt 10:1-4; Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:12-16." But this is a text that doesn't exist! None of these texts identify the 12 as men. The selection of 12 men is how Prof Moloney reads the text. Thus the gospel according to Judas continues on the next page, "As well as these twelve men, Jesus also gathered around him a group of women who had been loyal to him from the beginning of his ministry," and they are Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward and several others who remain anonymous. Then comes the red text: "They gave of their time and money." Again, this text exists only in the mind of Prof Moloney perhaps as wishful thinking. The marginal note says, "see Luke 8:1-3." Luke 8:1-3 names a third woman, Susanna and concludes, "and many others, who provided for them out of their resources." Luke's identification of three women "and many others" has been reduced to two women "and several others" in The Gospel according to Judas. Moreover, "providing for them out of their resources" is rather more substantial than "gave of their time and money" which is how the Gospel according to Judas renders the service of women. And since the Moloney/Archer gospel does not quote the dialogue between Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4, or the encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7), the place of women amongst Jesus' followers is severely diminished. I would not be the first to speculate about the consequences of including women disciples as dialogue partners of Jesus and other disciples. Indeed, as a result of Jesus' encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, he changes his mind about ministry. Judas never benefits from such enriching dialogue partners in the Moloney/Archer novel.

In short, while this is unconvincing historical fiction, it is a fascinating reconstruction of how a branch of Roman Catholic scholarship sees Jesus' relationship to Judas. What would other Roman Catholic scholars like Raymond Brown (who had much to say on the subject of Jesus and women in John's gospel) have thought of this project? As for me, I'd prefer the gospel texts in all their richness and confrontive complexity when it comes to Judas. And I'd like to see some responsible historical fiction.

The Gospel according to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot part 1

Yesterday's evening discussion of "The Gospel according to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot" began with a description of the project's origins (Cardinal Martini recommended Prof Moloney to Lord Jeffrey Archer as one of his best students) and evolution (total working time of 600 hours and 11 editions).

Selection of material in the book is made according to the principle that events described in it must be possible even if they are not probable. However, everything is written from the perspective of Judas. The chronology and geography of Mark (the oldest gospel) is followed when Jesus' ministry in Capernaum gets underway and we travel to Caesarea Philippi before moving south to Jerusalem. But additional material includes the confession of Peter from Matthew 16 and the birth of Jesus from Luke.

Scriptural citations are in red and marginal notes identify either the text or the source of the paraphrase. Judas occasionally reads scripture strangely: he believes that Jesus is first born of the marriage of his father Joseph and his mother Mary. Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and of Judah and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? (Mark 6:3) to which is appended in the glossary at the end the remark, "Judas as a Jew could only accept Jesus as the firstborn of a lawful Jewish wedlock." So Judas' reading of the text supplies Joseph as Jesus' father -- in spite of the plain sense of Mark.

Wikipedia, Warts and All

Although the idea may have been creative, Larry Sanger, who may or may not have been one of Wikipedia's co-founders in 2001, now wants to start something completely different: Citizendium. Thereby he hopes to avoid Wikipedia's twin problems of vandalism and inconsistency. I think the idea of Wikipedia is interesting (collaboration) but accuracy has never been its strong suit. Entries can be in a state of flux. Which may be an accurate reflection of our state of knowledge.

Someone recently polled me by email asking if I thought Wikipedia had an anti-Christian bias by which he meant favoring CE over AD referring to dates. Oh dear. I replied that problems (other than referring to BCE or BC) with Wikipedia are well known and didn't seem to me to be evidence of anti-Christian bias. However, others have objected rather more vociferously. Conservapedia, for example, has entries on falsifications of Wikipedia.

So I thought I'd take an entry relevant for today: the Annunciation. For someone who knows nothing about the topic, it seems OK. I might change some of the content (the sentence, "In the Bible, the Annunciation is narrated in the book of Luke" isn't actually correct) and grammar (just read the first two sentences). And I'd prefer another translation of Luke's gospel. Whatever its faults, however, this entry is a lot better than the one for Conservapedia. For the Annunciation itself, I'd prefer to reflect on this.

Who Was Judas?

Paul Vallely in The Independent yesterday asks about the rehabilitation of Judas. If you happen to be in New York City next Monday night, come along to the seminary from 7.30-9pm in Matthew's Lounge where you can hear a Roman Catholic opinion on this topic in the shape of a new book, "The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot." Published simultaneously in eight languages on Tuesday (March 20), the book is by Lord Jeffrey Archer and Prof Francis Moloney and a work of fiction presented in the form of Scripture, complete with numbered verses, pages in gold trim and key passages highlighted in red ink.

In the story of Judas, Professor Moloney opines, every single one of us can find ourselves. "Failure lies at the core of human experience," he said, "and both human and Christian maturity emerge from an ability to handle failure." The mystery of Judas is, in the end, the mystery of all of us.

Love is stronger than death

Between the news from the UK of the defeat of the SOR regulations in the House of Lords last night (168-122), the opinion piece by Sir Elton John in the Guardian "Comment is Free" section of today's paper that homophobia is alive and well pointing to the case of William Hernández, 35, the Director of Asociación Entre Amigos (Between Friends Association) in El Salvador, and the courageous statements from our House of Bishops responding to the Primates' Communique, I want only to say, "thank you" to the House of Bishops particularly my own bishops Mark Sisk, Cathy Roskam of New York and Chilton Knudsen of Maine but most especially to my New Testament colleague Professor Kathy Grieb of Virginia Theological Seminary for her presentation to the House of Bishops earlier in the week: "Interpreting the Proposed Anglican Covenant through the Communique." It is a stellar exercise in interpreting primatial hermeneutics, clarifying Episcopal polity and suggesting a way forward. I particularly appreciated the last four paragraphs.

In case you thought we'd gone soft...GOD HATES SHRIMP!

Just in case anyone had the impression we liberals are too nampy-pamby, I'm here to clarify occasions for judgment: G-d hates shrimp! Whoever said we don't take God's word seriously...

Irish Identity=genetics? NOT!

A tiny but riveting skirmish has been playing itself out this month on the pages of the New York Times about genetic similarites between the English on the one hand, and the Irish, Scots, and Welsh on the other. Geneticists Stephen Oppenheimer and Bryan Sykes at the University of Oxford, argue that the people of the British Isles are more closely related than the history books had suggested. According to these scientists, "the core populations of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales are of very much the same stock, with only minor add-ons at the edge from Viking and other invasions." Trouble is, no one of Irish, Scots, or Welsh extraction responding to the research fails to note the source: an English university! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Excerpt from Jesus' Family Values on Ekklesia

Thanks to Simon Barrow, Ekklesia yesterday posted an excerpt from the conclusion of JFV. I'm grateful for Simon and the good work of Ekklesia and thank Church Publishing for permission to reproduce an excerpt. Also, I begin a six week module on this topic at General starting next Tuesday March 20th from 7.30-9.00pm in Sherred 1B.

Glimpses of daylight?

Fascinating new developments today in the way Jesuit liberation theologian Jon Sobrino has been denounced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith but the denunciation unimplemented and left to be interpreted by local bishops. Isn't it a strange thing to be enthusiastic about degrees of silencing or about nuances of condemnation as in the following example??

A prominent Southern Baptist has made a pronouncement on gay identity in an interview with Time magazine:-

"We sin against homosexuals by insisting that sexual temptation and attraction are predominately chosen," wrote the Rev. Albert Mohler, the influential president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mohler's position is a startling departure from years of insistence among fundamentalists that gay rights advocates are wrong when they say homosexuality is not something they choose.

The sin of homosexuality however has not changed, nor is moral responsibility removed. I can't decide which news item is more hopeful...or less depressing.