Prompt: What was most surprising about the historical information of
the program?
Note: this is part one of a four-part journal entry exploring and evaluating the Frontline series, "From Jesus to Christ" available for free online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/ I have altered the publication dates so the first entry is listed as the most recent publication, to help facilitate reading order.
The program indicates that Jesus was likely born in
Nazareth, rather than Bethlehem. The program also notes that the region
of Galilee, where Nazareth is located, was apparently known as a region of
radicalization and a great blending of culture and urban efforts.
Furthermore, the documentary establishes that the artisan class was very
low-class, below even pastoral farmers. Several speakers in the film
argue that this contradicts the conventional picture of Jesus's life as a
pastoral and rural man of humble origin, birth, and education. They argue
that, in fact, Jesus must have been fairly well educated and politically savvy
in order to succeed in the urban environment of the city, and that he probably
gathered all this from the city itself.
This historical context is, I think, supposed to
surprise and challenge viewers. The first time I watched the documentary, I
found myself thinking, 'is this degree path how I end up not being a Christian
anymore?' There is much scholarly evidence that Jesus lived and died
differently than depicted in the Bible, and the deliberate choices to style the
Gospels in specific ways for specific audiences makes me wonder if Jesus was
merely a compelling apocalyptic prophet whose believers turned him into a
Messiah. And yet, the more I think on the findings discussed about Jesus's
life, trade, and skill set, the more sense it makes to me. Jesus must
have been an incredibly charismatic and persuasive person to engender the
devotion of followers such as Paul, a person with a message so enduring as to
inspire the creation of the Gospels. It makes sense he was conversant in
multiple languages (including Greek, as suggested in the documentary) and that
he lived and worked in urbanized areas with lots of exposure. If artisan
class workers were less than agricultural workers, perhaps that disparity
further underscores the persuasiveness of Jesus when fishermen dropped their
nets to follow him, rather than diminishing his relationship to the
followers.
I actually thought Jesus always lived in Nazareth, having
been born during a short and temporary trip of his parents, much the same way I
was born in one part of a state and grew up in the other. It also makes a great
deal of literary sense to place his birth in Bethlehem to strengthen the ties
to King David. This ties together the Jewish tradition and heritage of
the early Christians, who were Jewish first, raised on the story that God
promised David's family would rule forever. If Jesus, the Messiah, came to be
the King of everyone, of course he must be related to David! How better to
demonstrate this than draw the symbolism of his birth in Bethlehem? I was
surprised to think about this, but not terribly disturbed by it. The entire
Nativity story reeks of symbolism and metaphor, so this fit right
in.
What difference does it make who really killed Jesus?
(Prompt: Think about how traditional stories contributed to the rise of
anti-Semitism, anti-Judaism, and the Holocaust)
The documentary emphasized that Jesus died as a result
of Roman domestic security policy- that his death was, "was a Roman act;
there was little if any notice taken by Jewish people. Jesus was another victim
of the Pax Romana." The various accounts of Jesus' death in the Bible all indicate that Jesus was
handed over to the Romans by the leaders of the Temple because he was the
"King of the Jews" and that sedition led to his
execution. This conflicts with the story of Jesus in the Temple,
which says Jesus was arrested for civil unrest. Perhaps the Roman officials
asked the victims (the Temple authorities) if they wanted to press charges and
that led to the imagery of being 'handed over.' Regardless, I think
the Gospels say that Temple leadership manipulated the political situation of
the Roman government into executing Jesus for them. This underscores the need
of the Gospel authors to distinguish Christianity from Judaism. The documentary
talks about the tensions surrounding whether or not Christianity was (or could
remain) a sect of Judaism in the section about Paul's letters, and about the
persecution of the Christians by the Romans by dint of not being 'just' a sect.
It may be unethical, but it is a stroke of propagandist genius to focus the
anger and fear of early Christians against the Jewish faith, which they were already
abandoning, instead of against the Roman government, against which they could
not win. What better way to crystallize this anger than to rest the blame of
Jesus' death on the Jewish leaders, rather than the Roman system?
This tactic was effective and enduring- blaming of the
Jewish people for the death of Christ certainly led to anti-Semitic movements
and atrocities throughout history and exists today. This is a result not just
of literalist reading in the Bible but of selective reading and interpretation
as well. The Bible places the blame for Jesus' death on the shoulders of
the Jewish people. The Bible also records that Jesus' death was necessary
for salvation- that without the death, there could be no resurrection and thus,
no Christianity. The actions of the Jewish leaders, then, could be interpreted
as an act of heroism, of a submission to God's will even unto the death of
their beloved Savior and God's Son. It could be the closing parallel
to the story of Abraham and Isaac.
So what difference does it make who actually killed
Jesus? From the viewpoint of those tasked with distinguishing Christianity from
Judaism and forming a cohesive and coherent culture from a wide variety of
disparate groups, it makes a great deal of difference. Unifying against the
Romans was infeasible and unwise- the Christians suffered enormous losses prior
to Constantine without actually revolting against the Romans. They also
witnessed the great Jewish revolts against the Romans, and the devastating and
crushing defeats the Jewish people suffered as a consequence of challenging
Rome. The early foundation of the Christian church needed to distinguish
themselves from the Jewish faith to grow spiritually, without challenging Rome
in order to flourish physically. It makes a lot of sense for these writers to
blame the death of Jesus on the Jews, rather than on the Romans.
Whether or not the historical reasons for Jesus'
execution matters to contemporary faithful depends on the way the faithful
approach the question. It is unsettling to the foundation of the
Christian faith to consider that Jesus died perhaps due to bad timing, having
been swept up in the consequences of heightened security efforts surrounding
Passover. Knowing the political environment surrounding the death of Jesus, and
the theo-political motivations of the Gospel writers, certainly diminishes
the sense of grandiose mythos that the Bible associates with the Passion.
This does not have to diminish the overall importance of the death because,
after all, how Jesus died matters far less than the fact that he did, because
Christians believe he rose again. The resurrection is the key to Christian
faith. The challenge to the faithful, then, is to accept the allegory and
lesson of the Gospel as a lens to focus the Passion while also at the same time
diminishing the distractions of the historical events and preserving the
importance of the resurrection.
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