I have often written of my passion for physical literacy/somatic vocabulary. A parallel concern of mine is religious/spiritual literacy. It is my firm conviction that a lack of sufficent religious/spiritual literacy is a major factor in ecumenical and interfaith conflicts, both past and present.
Today, I will focus on a trend I have noticed in the mainline Protestant denomiantions of which I am part. My awareness of, and frustration with, this trend has been heigthend recently as I have been reading the third edition of The Jewish Annotated New Testament. The potential dangers of this trend have also been recently re-emphasized with a synagogue shooting in Belleville, Ontario. The trend: the perpetuation of outdated scholarship in sermons, small groups and podcasts that represent perspectives common in the mainline Protestant denominations of which I am part.
The perpetuation of outdated scholarship in mainline denominations is especially frustrating as many of these denominations take pride in their interfaith partnerships. There are three factors I see playing a role in the persistence of this trend. First, the degree to which ministers are exposed to developments in new scholarship is inconsistent upon leaving seminary. Second, even when ministers exposed to new developments regularly, there may be a delay as new consensuses are reached and disseminated. Third, since many congregants/laity don’t want or don’t have the capacity for an excess of information, ministers may emphasize pastoral concerns over correcting misconceptions/misinformation.
Whatever the causes or exact contributions of these various factors, my concern is that the perpetuation of outdated scholarship contributes to a lack of religious literacy that heighten the risk of interfaith and ecumenical conflicts. While I am sympathetic to the job of ministers to think and act pastorally, allowing even seemingly minor misconceptions to stand for too long carries its own risks.
There are three main types of outdated claims I have noticed of late: religious elitism, persecution, and gender/sexuality.
On Religious Elitism: Jesus versus the Pharisees, Rabbis and Romans
One of the common interpretive moves in mainline Protestant denomination is to contrast Jesus with the Pharisees. This is understandable in some respects, as the Gospels often present Jesus conflicting with the Pharisees. In so doing, however, Christians have made historically made several mistakes and continue to make new ones.
While the exact historical relationship is a matter of ongoing debate, the rabbinic Judaism that emerged following the fall of the Second Temple are viewed as inheritors of the Pharisaic tradition. When Christians unduly criticize the Pharisees, they run the risk of criticizing extant rabbinic Judaism as well. The debates preserved in the gospels between Jesus and the Pharisees are best understood as debates within first century Judaism, and a close reading portrays many of those debates as representing common debates and positions from that context. An additional element that may have some impact on the presentation in the Gospels is that there was likely some distinction being made between Jesus followers and rest of the Judaic diaspora by the time the Gospels were being written-the Pharisees in the Gospels may, at times, be stand-ins for the debates happening between Jesus followers and the rest of the Judaic diaspora in the last quarter of the first century CE as result.
The available evidence points toward Jesus and the Pharisees holding more common ground than either group would with the Sadduccees for instance. Yet portraying Jesus as a “liberal Pharisee” is also likely going too far-at times, Jesus appears to have been more “conservative” than the Pharisees in his interpretation of the Torah; at others, he appears to have been more “liberal”. Rarely, however, does Jesus seem to be completely outside the norm. The best rule of thumb is that while Jesus is likely to have offered some real innovations to have had a movement founded around him, any such innovations are unlikely to have been a complete departure from his first-century Jewish context to be accepted at all.
Portraying Jesus as utterly opposed to the religious elite, especially if the term “religious elite” is a substitute for the Pharisees, is thus both inaccurate and potentially harmful to the modern day inheritors of the Pharisaic teachings. Greater care must be taken in distinguishing where Jesus is in continuity with Pharisaic and other Second Temple teachings, where he is in disagreement. Incidentally, this also has the effect of emphasizing the degree to which Jesus, like many other Second Temple Jews, was in conflict with Rome. In a time and place where new imperial systems are resurgent, reminding everyone of the perils of the Roman Empire is important indeed.
Early Christianity and the Myth of Persecution
A common talking point in many Christian circles is that the early Christian church was persecuted by both the Roman Empire and the Jewish synagogues. More recent research has challenged this on several fronts.
As far as the Roman Empire goes, there’s no extant record of systematic, Empire-wide targeting of the Christians by the Roman Empire until the third century under Emperor Decius. Before this point, the majority of incidents involving Christians appear to have been local disagreements, dealt with broadly under the banner of preserving the Pax Romana. There are some letter exchanges earlier than Decius which point to kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach-basically imperial officials being encouraged not to ask whether someone is Christian and so long as a suspected Christian does certain things that attest to their support for the Emperor and doesn’t do certain things that make their Christain faith obvious, they were pretty much in the clear.
As far as the synagogues persecuting Christian communities goes, the evidence is even more lacking. Much debate has been had over when, exactly, the “parting of ways” occurred. The most that can be said is that it probably happened at different times in different places and in different ways-and probably much later than we originally thought. Jewish synagogues of the Second Temple period had already normalized gentile “God-fearers” or proselytes to be involved in services and there appears to already have been some full-scale conversion-though opinions remained split at the time over how much one could actually convert to a full Jewish person. The Christian communities mix of gentiles and Jews would not, however, have been a problem in and of itself. Since synagogues didn’t have a lot of authority under Roman rule either, any incidences of synagogues conflicting with Christian churches were probably very rare.
The writings of the New Testament require some unpacking here. Paul’s (largely) undisputed epistles include references to lashes and stoning-paradoxically, this is actually a testament to Paul’s Jewish identity as Paul receiving any punishment from the synagogues would have required him to voluntarily submit to their discipline. Given what we know, it is unlikely that Paul being a Jesus follower would have been enough to receive such discipline. It is far more likely, and admittedly fairly easy to imagine, Paul being overzealous in his attempting to convince other synagogue members to join him in following the Way of Jesus and some of the ways he addressed mixed communities probably provoked some ire.
There are, admittedly, other places in the New Testament that attest to a perceived sense of persecution-but that perceived sense is vague enough that it is problematic to try to get any solid details of what exactly was going on. In general, where they may have been some tensions and local disagreements that may have gotten heated, a widespread, systemic persecution of Jesus followers is not evident from either the Romans or the Jewish diaspora-the Romans until much later, the Jewish diaspora arguably never as by the likely time there was an official parting of the ways, the Christians had tied themselves to Roman imperial might.
Insisting on characterizing the early Christian church as persecuted then, is both unlikely to be historically accurate and is potentially dangerous if not qualified by who was doing the persecution and how widespread it was likely to be.
On Gender and Sexuality in Early Christianity
In more recent years, much work has been done on gender and sexuality in early Christianity. Sometimes, this has been done by contrasting Jesus with perceived Jewish practices of the Second Temple period. Unfortunately, this had led to a proliferation of claims which are far from certain.
A good example on this is Jesus’ stance on divorce in the gospels. There was a time where scholars assumed that women could never divorce their husbands and that women who were divorced were so vulnerable that Jesus insistence on never divorcing or doing so only in the case of sexual immorality was to protect women. Both of these are now questioned. There do appear to be some records pointing to women initiating divorce proceedings and divorced Jewish women were not necessarily worse off. Indeed, a Jewish woman no longer tied to a man could become a successful business entrepreneur and it is exactly seemingly single Jewish women who bank-rolled Jesus’ ministry and made arrangements for the lodging and care of Jesus and the Twelve. The updated consensus is that Jesus’ teaching on divorce was actually a fairly conservative one at the time.
The early Christian communities that emerged following the death of Jesus do appear to have had some revolutions in the area of gender and sexuality, but this may have partly grown out of its Jewish roots as the Jewish practice of faith had long been attractive to many women in the ancient world for a host of reasons. The Jewish practice of faith was still undeniably patriarchal, but in some ways it appeared to be less so than Greco-Roman alternatives.
In general, both Jesus and the early Christian communities should be seen as part of the current of Second Temple Judaism in this arena as well. Perhaps a little bit more innovative here than in other areas, but not so innovative as to be completely alien either.
Takeaways
Contrasting Jesus, Paul, and the early Christian movement with Second Temple Judaism and the Roman Empire are popular and powerful rhetorical moves. While wholesale condemnation of Second Temple Judaism has become rarer in mainline Protestant denominations as awareness about anti-Semitic tropes has grown, several previously unquestioned assumptions have persisted and perpetuate to this day. Christians, both laity and clergy, have a responsibility to both challenge problematic assumptions and continue to learn of the updated understandings in these matters. While the Jewishness of Jesus and Paul has been brought back into the understandings of many in mainline Protestant denominations, the degree to which Jesus and Paul are portrayed as exceptional within Second Temple Judaism rather than in continuity with its concerns and perspectives continues to be exaggerated. While Jesus, Paul, and the early Christians did likely make some true innovations which should not be minimized, a balance must be struck so as not to perpetuate assumptions which no longer stand-up to scrutiny.
The Dreamers' Corner 