Many of the lives of Jesus that have appeared in recent years have tried to pin him down with a single epithet. Can he be understood as—
- a hasid, a Jewish holy man,
- or a prophet,
- “a magic man,”
- a miracle worker,
- a teacher,
- a “marginal Jew,”
- a peasant leader,
- even a revolutionary?
Each has had its supporters, but Jesus does not fit neatly into any one category; perhaps he never did. Almost any statement of his views in one Gospel seems to be qualified or even contradicted by another, sometimes even from within the same Gospel. However, in an insight that does much to explain the continuing significance of Jesus to an enormous variety of Christian communities throughout the world, the theologian Frances Young notes: “Somehow he was all things to all men and broke down social, political and religious barriers . . . all manner of men found their salvation in him and were driven to search for categories to explain him, never finding any single one adequate.”
Some features of Jesus’ personality can, however, be drawn unambiguously from the Gospel sources. He was highly charismatic; people were drawn to him by his personality and teaching, and herein lay much of his natural authority, but despite periods of withdrawal (and, according to the Synoptic Gospels, uneasy relationships with his mother and brothers [Mark 3:31-35] he never distanced himself from his chosen followers or their modest way of life. He never, for instance, used his status so that he could avoid the discomforts of daily life on the road, and although there is some scholarly disagreement on this, he did not appear to give himself a privileged place above the Law. There is only one exception to this in the Gospels—when he required a man with a dead father to follow him rather than bury his father, as Jewish Law required (Matthew 8:21-22)—when he unambiguously put himself before the Law. He chose 12 special companions, the disciples, all from humble backgrounds, with the possible exception of Matthew the tax collector. They shared his life closely and probably received confidences denied to others (12 is the number of tribes of Israel and may echo the belief that at the final judgment Jews would be reassembled according to their tribe, each with a leader), but he was not fussy about whom he mixed with and shocked some by consorting with tax collectors and prostitutes. When he preached he showed a genius for making his points in parables that were rooted not in some abstract spiritual world but in the reality of the everyday life of the small agricultural communities around him. This was the environment in which he was most “at home.” (Jesus appears to have some difficulty in spreading his message to the towns [Matthew 11:20]). His presence tended to have a beneficial effect on those who were ill, both mentally (inhabited by “demons”) and physically, so that the masses were drawn to him as a healer, and word spread of him effecting miracle cures. Belief in “miraculous” interventions of this kind was common in the ancient world, and they were interpreted as a sign of holiness. Other Jewish “holy men” were associated with miracle working, but Jesus’ effective use of miracles, especially exorcisms, was highlighted by his followers (notably Mark) and was to become one of the most common ways individual Christians later proclaimed their own distinct authenticity as those favored by God.
Jesus had been brought up as a Jew and, like most Jews, knew the scriptures well. His immediate followers were almost without exception Jews, and his teaching made use of concepts that would have been recognizable to them. Much of his teaching took place in synagogues. He may not have foreseen his teaching spreading beyond the Jews — as he himself put it: “I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to them alone” (Matthew 15:24), although this may reflect the particular perspective of Matthew described above, and the saying comes just before the disciples persuaded Jesus to heal the daughter of a Canaanite. It can, of course, be argued that if he had departed far from traditional Jewish teaching within the conservative agricultural communities in which he preached, he would not have survived as long as he did. On one occasion he stressed the continuing importance of the Law, which, he claimed, he had come “not to abolish but to complete.” Paula Fredriksen establishes important guidelines for historians when she writes that “the prime goal of the historian is to find a first-century Jesus whose mission would make sense to his contemporary first-century [Jewish] hearers.” The question remains as to which “hearers” within the diversity of first-century Judaism Jesus was appealing. Those in the countryside suffering from encroachment on their land, taxation and pressures from Herod’s administrators appear the most likely, yet an allegiance by any leader to one group within Judaism was likely to lead to opposition from others, as Jesus’ difficulties with the conservative Pharisees and the elitist Temple authorities were to show.
Jesus’ message echoed John the Baptist’s in that he talked of the imminence of God’s kingdom. It is not always clear from the Gospel sources what he meant by this. Some passages, such as Luke 17:21, suggest that the kingdom has already arrived with the coming of Jesus, others that it will come some day in the near future, perhaps after some cataclysmic event. Many assumed that it would involve the appearance of a king of the house of David as the Messianic tradition had predicted, and one cannot isolate Jesus from the long-held Jewish belief that a providential God will in the end redeem humankind. Much of Jesus’ preaching about the coming of the kingdom is entirely positive in the sense that it talks of those who will be included rather than those who will not — but in some instances its arrival is set within the context of a “last judgment” at which the wicked will be punished at the same time as the good are rewarded. It seems impossible here to be sure of distinguishing Jesus’ own words from traditional Jewish Messianic teachings on “the end,” but it seems likely that the expectation of some major “happening” to come was among the forces which drew people to him. In this sense he can certainly be seen as a millennarian prophet.
The coming of the kingdom is set within the context of moral renewal. In Mark (10:13-27) Jesus teaches that at the coming of the kingdom worldly values will be overthrown; one would have to be without wealth and “like a little child” to be able to enter. This “social” message suggests that Jesus saw the coming of the kingdom as associated with the triumph of the outcast and perhaps with the restoration of traditional values that were under threat from outside forces (hence his stress on the importance of marriage and the honoring of parents—it has been noted that Jesus went further than traditional Jewish teaching in his strictures on divorce). Richard Horsley argues: “For the Jesus movement . . . the kingdom of God means the renewal of Israel, and the renewal of Israel means the revitalization of families and village communities along the lines of restored Mosaic covenantal principles.” So, Horsley suggests, Jesus’ leadership role may have been rooted in and gained strength from the tensions within rural Galilean society.
As would be expected, Jesus drew heavily on Jewish ethical traditions. “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” for instance, often seen as a quintessential “Christian” exhortation, comes originally from Leviticus (19:18). His teachings on ethics were brought together, as already mentioned, by Matthew, in the famous Sermon on the Mount, with its particular focus on those marginalized by society (Matthew 5-7). Although this focus is found elsewhere (in the Essene text quoted above, for instance), Jesus followed it through by practical example. There is a powerful sense, in Mark in particular, of his own compassion for those around him. He does not perform “miracles” to show off, but primarily to bring an end to suffering, whether mental or physical. Particularly striking are the parables, in which outcasts (Samaritans, prodigal sons, lost sheep) are used to show that anyone can be “good” and that those who repent will be welcomed even more warmly than those who have not strayed at all (Luke 15).
Inevitably, Jesus’ followers also tried to pin labels on him. The “title” he used most often of himself was “Son of Man.” The phrase appears to have been used in the Synoptic Gospels when Jesus wished to avoid direct reference to himself—Geza Vermes suggests the equivalent in English of the modest “yours truly.” Yet in John’s Gospel the title is associated with the Book of Daniel, where it is linked specifically to hopes of a Messiah and eternal life. At times of social stress it was perhaps natural to hope that any charismatic leader might be the promised Messiah, and word that Jesus was indeed the Messiah seems to have spread among his followers (and, understandably, given rise to stories that he was therefore “of the House of David”). It is not clear from the Gospel sources whether Jesus accepted Messiah status (suggestions that he did may well have been added by the Gospel writers at a time when the later Christian communities had come to believe that he was).
After a long consideration of the evidence, two authorities on the Jewish roots of Christianity E.P. Sanders and W. D. Davies, conclude: “It seems likely that the one who urged others to give up everything for the kingdom claimed for himself no title or position, except the position of one who bore a message from God, the acceptance or rejection of which would be crucial when the fullness of the kingdom arrived.” It has to be said that this remains a contentious area, and other commentators are convinced that Jesus proclaimed himself as Messiah while on earth.
Continued in #4: Crucifixion, Questions on Resurrection/Ascension
Reader Comments