Chapter Eight: Stories of the Kingdom (3): Judgment and Vindication

 [This is an ongoing project that is analyzing N.T. Wright’s 5 volume series, Christian Origins and the Question of God. This series is widely read and bridges the gap between the academic and devotional world. It is therefore worthy to be carefully analyzed so that all readers can understand his key points while at the same time gaining a critical eye to some of his rather bold claims. This series of posts are concerning volume 2 – Jesus and the Victory of God.]

This last chapter of N.T. Wright’s three chapter discussion of the kingdom of God discusses Jesus’ message of judgment and vindication. Here, he concludes the message of the kingdom of God in its fully apocalyptic scheme. Here – as before - he argues that Jesus’ message of judgment fit fully into the cosmic scheme of expected Jewish apocalypticism. What changed, however, were the parties involved. Wright argues that the kingdom itself has not been changed – the challenge was that rather than judgment against Babylon, here Jerusalem and Israel have become Babylon and the promised delivery of Israel has been transferred to Jesus’ followers. Wright should be commended for following this logic to its end. Many hold much of what Wright has claimed for the first two sections of the “announcement” and the “warning” that he discussed earlier, but are unwilling to fully explicate the way that the different parties in the “judgment” and “vindication” section would look for fear of aggressive supersessionism. Wright should, therefore, be lauded for being willing to follow his logic to its end. The challenge will simply be if one chooses to accept this or not. His argument depends heavily upon the Gospel of Luke and Mark 13 which could be troubling, and his defense of them causes even more of a troubling factor.

First, Wright does well to argue that whatever we think of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, we should expect that his ideas made sense to his audience. Even John Dominic Crossan who believes that Jesus was not actually an apocalyptic prophet at all, instead he was a social reformer, would agree that his message was couched in the language of an apocalyptic prophet (Crossan believes that Jesus was at one time an apocalyptic and after the death of John the Baptist changed from this basic viewpoint and shifted his emphasis to something else; therefore, his language always was apocalyptic – even if he was attempting to avoid it). Therefore, at the most basic level, Wright’s assertion that whatever we think of Jesus’ message of kingdom of God, a better understanding of it would be one that made good sense of the concept to the larger Jewish milieu. Wright has done this well – he argues that Jesus never challenged the nature of the kingdom of God nor the events leading up to it. The only thing Jesus changed was who the parties were:

Jesus is telling the recognizable story of Israel, with the coming judgment and vindication exactly as one might imagine it within mainline restoration eschatology; except for the fact that, just as we find in some of the Scrolls, Israel’s official leaders (and their cherished symbol, the Temple) have been case in the role of ‘enemies’, while the role of ‘persecuted and vindicated Israel’ is given instead to Jesus and his disciples. The story itself has not changed. Jesus is speaking of judgment and vindication, just as so many prophets had done before him.[1]

Here Wright argues that it is the leaders of Israel in the temple who are the “evil” usually depicted in apocalyptic language that needs to be destroyed. Wright further explains that in the apocalyptic language (most familiar to readers in the book of Daniel, but through a variety of apocalyptic texts in antiquity), Jesus has used the image of the city of great evil – Babylon – and recast the new Babylon as Jerusalem itself:

Jesus, I shall now argue, predicted that judgment would fall on the nation in general and on Jerusalem in particular. That is to say, he reinterprets a standard Jewish belief (the coming judgment which would fall on the nations) in terms of a coming judgment which would fall on impenitent Israel. The great prophets had done exactly the same. Jerusalem, under its present regime, had become Babylon…Jesus seems to have adopted the theme from John, who predicted “wrath to come,” saying that membership in physical Israel was no guarantee of a share in the age to come. Very much in the mould of Amos, or indeed of Qumran, John insisted on redrawing the boundaries of Israel; for him, only those who repented and submitted to baptism would be included. The story Jesus told about Israel’s immediate future seems to have developed directly from this point.[2]

Wright, therefore, has found a way to present his point about the kingdom itself not being changed, just the roles being refigured.

Wright’s recasting of his point is valuable because it allows him to fully finish his idea of Jesus’ radical rethinking of who is going to be judged and vindicated. Israel – being the apocalyptic embodiment of evil – will be judged whereas Jesus’ disciples – being the followers of the good – will be delivered from the coming wrath that will restore all things upon the earth:

“The constant emphasis that we find here is that those who had followed Jesus (and, by implication, those who would follow his way in the future) would escape the great coming disaster, and would themselves receive the vindications that had been promised to Israel. They would be the ones who would inherit the promise, who would experience the real release from exile.[3]

Jesus, it appears, has woven into this story a further strand, that of the rescue of Israel from destruction by holding firm to the end; but now the Israel that holds firm, and so is rescued, consists of his own disciples. And the great city that oppresses them, from whose imminent judgment they must flee, is not Babylon. It is Jerusalem.[4]

Here Wright has fully concluded his point. In a supersessionistic spirit, Jesus’ followers are the new true Israel and those who do not accept Jesus are exactly the ones who should be avoided and in fact need to be destroyed. Here Wright should be lauded for being consistent. If he is going to be so bold to claim such a reversal of roles for the message of the kingdom in the previous two chapters, that reversal demands this conclusion.

For Israel to be the antagonist, they need to be fully an antagonist in an apocalyptic scheme. Apocalyptic schemes are not ones that allow “middle ground” – one is cast on one side of another of a cosmic drama that will conclude with the destruction of evil after a great battle wherein all people will be included. It is for this reason he notes that the disciples are warned of coming trials – this is part of that eschatological battle that casts them as the sons of light against the sons of darkness – to borrow language from the Qumran community:

Completely consistent with his whole approach to the events that were about to take place, h e is predicting that the ‘Messianic Woes’, the birthpangs of the age to come, are about to occur in full force. This is how Israel is to be reborn. The story will take the following form: all manner of strange, dire events will take place, and the disciples will be exposed to the allure of various people who will give themselves out to be YHWH’s anointed, commissioned to lead Israel into her glorious future.[5]

Israel, then is a foreign nation that shall be utterly destroyed – casted in the role of the sons of darkness who will wage war against the light:

“The horrifying thing was that Jesus was using, as models for the coming judgment on villages within Israel, images of judgment taken straight from the Old Testament, where they had to do with the divine judgment on the pagan nations (Tyre, Sidon, Sodom – and Nineveh; though Nineveh escaped the judgment, because she repented).[6]

The coming judgment upon these cities were not ones that allowed later friendly interaction. They were ones that demanded utter destruction in order to purify the earth. This is precisely what Wright argues Israel has become in Jesus’ message of the coming kingdom.

To justify this position, Wright relies heavily upon Luke. He argues that Luke preserves well Jesus’ position on this and that Jesus imagined the kingdom already here now – even if the temple was not yet destroyed. This, of course, fits well with Luke’s language of the kingdom of God being “among you.” The problem is whether this position is based upon good historical principles. Wright is aware of this problem and therefore defends it. However, his defense leaves much to be desired. First consider the defense:

First, it is a basic mistake of method to suppose that because the evangelist, like all writers that ever existed, had reason for selecting and arranging what was written, the material is therefore non-historical…Second, we should take careful note of the implication of saying that his whole swathe of Lukan material does not relate to Jesus. We are forced, quite frankly, to say either that Luke did not know anything at all about the emphases of Jesus’ teaching, the plot of his story, or that the ministry of Jesus really did have the warning of imminent national disaster high on the list of regular themes. No middle ground is really tenable.[7]

 The argument Wright presents is not convincing. This argument is frequently used and if one considers it carefully, it doesn’t make much sense. The idea that one has to accept everything a person writes as historical or nothing is a poor argument. Why is it so untenable as Wright presents? There are, of course, many options. It is certainly possible that Luke has preserved everything historically, but that has to be proven. It is not simply something that one can say “if you trust a single thing in Luke, you have to trust all of it.” That is simply not accurate. Do we expect that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas – which is a text of Jesus as a young boy who does essentially magic tricks – is somehow historically accurate simply because it includes some historically accurate information (Jesus’ location, ancestry, etc.) – of course not. It is very possible for something to have some things that are historically reliable and other things that are not. To simply pretend that “no middle ground is really tenable” guarantees that this argument will be dismissed. Further, by privileging Luke to this point, does he use this same criteria for the other gospels? Given that Mark’s picture of the kingdom of God is quite different from Luke’s, does he completely throw it out because there is “no middle ground?” In fact, he depends upon Mark 13 for much of his picture. Therefore, he – like many Christians who make an argument like this – use this type of argument when it is convenient and then say nothing when they break the principle themselves.

Again, Wright’s analysis might not be wrong. He later clarifies his position with a better argument. He says that he believes there is a general picture that makes better sense if this apocalyptic scene were historical:

Two things in particular support the latter alternative: a good many of the sayings just collected occur in some form in other strands of tradition; and the picture we now have before us forms part of an overall hypothesis which, I submit, makes sense historically.[8]

Here, Wright is back into a conversation which is historically viable (even if not all readers agree with it). He has continually argued for a consistent “Story” which makes best sense in the fold of Jewish apocalyptic expectations now turned on its head into a supersesssionist movement. While this can be challenged, it is firmly his historiographic method and brings with it an internal ambiguity based upon this improvable hypothesis. It is far better when he admits this rather than when he pretends that he is not making this claim.

---

[1] JVG, 339.

[2] Ibid., 323.

[3] Ibid., 336.

[4] Ibid., 348.

[5] Ibid., 346.

[6] Ibid., 329-330.

[7] Ibid., 333.

[8] Ibid., 333.

What can Acts teach us about 1 Corinthians?: Reconstructing the Social World of 1 Corinthians

The social setting of 1 Corinthians involves a very divided community. On this one note, all scholars agree. Exactly how that community was divided is where scholars strongly disagree. Some see many different factions – some even apparently “gnostic” – who are at complete odds with one another. This picture presents a type of complete chaos. Even if we hypothesize 4 factions, if we are reasonable in our estimation of the total number of members – a rather small group – breaking that group into four different parties would make for a completely disorganized mass. Others, however, do not think that the division was idealogical at all and that there might well have not been four groups. Instead, they argue that there really were only two groups and these groups were divided along economic lines. While the eventual solution to the Corinthian social situation is best solved by analyzing Paul’s response as deliberative rhetoric, comparing the social setting of the Jerusalem community depicted in Acts frames the social division to show that it was primarily two major groups who were neither fractured by idealogies or economics (specifically) but instead were divided between far more reasonable lines of (in modern Christian rhetoric) the “mature” members and the “initiates.”

First, the nature of the division needs to be analyzed. Paul, in 1 Corinthians reports that there are divisions among the people. Paul says that he has heard from Chloe’s people that division has arrived which he finds abhorrent:

For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,”or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?[1]

This passage clearly shows that the primary social problem he addresses is that of division. In fact, if one looks carefully at 1 Corinthians, Paul does not ethically object to many of the practices of the Corinthians with a few slight exceptions. The issue isn’t so much what they are doing, it is the fact that they all aren’t doing it. He feels the need that the community be united, no matter what else occurs.

While some have seen these four groups Paul mentions as actual political factions, it makes far better sense that they are not. First, he does not bring up any of these factions again – as if they were truly organized. Second, he has no problem with any seeming leader. Third, the use of four groups was a necessity in ancient deliberative rhetoric to create homonoia (“concord”) as Margaret Mitchell has clearly shown.[2] Therefore, it seems far less likely that there were 4 actual groups. It is far more likely that this division into 4 is simply a rhetorical device.

Secondly, the different groups are very unlikely different due to ideology. As one reads Corinthians carefully, there is very little to suggest there were true theological differences and disagreements among members. L.L. Welborn has made this point clearly:

It is no longer necessary to argue against the position that the conflict which evoked 1 Corinthians 1-4 was essentially theological in character. The attempt to identify the parties with the views and practices condemned elsewhere in the epistle, as if the parties represented different positions in a dogmatic controversy, has collapsed under its own weight. Johannes Weiss already saw the flaw in this approach: Paul’s strategy in dealing with the parties makes it impossible to differentiate between them…No one doubts that doctrinal differences existed, or that the claim to possess divine wisdom and knowledge played an important role in the controversy. But many, if not most, scholars today have returned to the view of John Calvin: that the real problem being addressed in 1 Corinthians 1-4 is one of partisanship.[3]

If the problem is not particularly ideological, then the problem that caused the division must be primarily social. Gerd Theissen has pointed this out, as summarized succinctly by Wayne Meeks:

The conflicts in the congregation are in large part conflicts between people of different strata and, within individuals, between the expectations of a hierarchical society and those of an egalitarian community.[4]

The argument is then that the issue is primarily of status rather than anything else. This does seem, at some level to hold water – particularly in the passage on the Lord’s supper in 1 Cor. 11 wherein it seems quite clear that there are some groups who are held in higher esteem than others.

Dale Martin has shown that the divisions that Paul continually addresses in a variety of names probably only reflect one major division into two groups – the elect and the initiates. Martin argues that the rhetoric of the “strong” and “weak” is the governing term that then dominates the remainder of the discussion of the terms Paul uses to condemn the group (powerful, arrogant, kings, rich, wise, knowledgeable, etc.):

As Margaret Mitchell has recently noted, however, this way of talking about stasis, or factiousness, was common in rhetoric on concord, and we need not assume that Paul is really thinking of four actual groups in Corinth. In fact, as many other scholars have pointed out, when Paul finally gets down to addressing specific issues, he simplifies the situation to a division between two groups, one that seems to hold – or at least aspire to – high status and another that does not. As I argued above in the section on homonoia rhetoric, speeches on concord often simply political conflict to one between “rich” and “poor,” possibly using other terms such as “strong” and “weak”, terms which, in any case, refer to groups higher and lower respectively in a hierarchical dichotomy.[5]

Here, one should note carefully the language Paul uses as primarily sarcastic – he insults those who are “strong” by accusing them of all kinds of things they should be ashamed to hold.  

In further support of Martin’s point, consider the actual points of contention that Paul addresses: sexuality, food sacrificed to idols, spiritual gifts, the Lord’s supper. In each of these, Paul does not find these things wrong, merely that they are not necessary. For example, there are some who have withheld completely from all sexuality and believe that for a member of the Jesus movement, a true member should not partake of any sexual behavior.[6] If one reads between the lines, it is clear that some people have been “truly devoted” and renounced sexuality whereas the other “lesser” Christians have not been able to do so. Further, if one looks at the issue of food sacrificed to idols, Paul’s argument is that those in the community who have true knowledge and truly understand can eat of it, but not those who do not – clearly showing that some people were “capable of handing it” and others were not. Finally, the issue of spiritual gifts shows that only some members were able to perform them while others had not yet developed to that point. In all of these cases, an implicit hierarchy is clearly being presented – there are the mature or elite members who are taking this religion seriously whereas others are merely initiates and are not yet able to handle such things. All of this suggests two major groups differentiated more by status into a hierarchy.

Dale Martin argues that this hierarchy was differentiated along economic lines. While I agree that there was a clear hierarchy present which Paul condemns (though he does not actually condemn the hierarchy – he simply condemns how it was being managed), I am not convinced that it was primarily an issue of economics. Martin argues that the Lord’s Supper scene suggests clear discussion of economic hierarchy – there were some who could afford it, came early (perhaps because they did not have jobs), brought food and those who had nothing, came late after work, and ate nothing due to poverty.  While this could be in some way true, it could also easily be a differentiated time by invitation – those who came early could be a set group of the “truly devoted” followers and only later would the initiates be invited. I am not suggesting that social status in society would have no role in the community, but I am not convinced that economics alone were the primary issue. As Meeks has pointed out, social status is multifaceted and we should avoid anything that thinks of it monolithically (such as economics):

In recent years, however, most sociologists have come to see social stratification as a multidimensional phenomenon; to describe the social level of an individual or group, one must attempt to measure their rank along each of the relevant dimensions. For example, one might discover that, in a given society, the following variables affect how an individual is ranked: power (defined as “the capacity for achieving goals in social systems”), occupational prestige, income or wealth, education and knowledge, religious and ritual purity, family and ethnic-group position, and local-community status (evaluation within some subgroup, independent of the larger society but perhaps interacting with it). It would be a rare individual who occupied exactly the same rank, in either his own view or that of others, in terms of all these factors.[7]

Not only would economics not necessarily be the most important factor, it would not necessarily be the only one valued in the community.

Here, the analogue of the book of Acts is very helpful. There is no evidence that the community in 1 Corinthians knew the community in Jerusalem, but the fact that they were contemporaneous suggests that it was certainly possible that these models could have been known. Indeed, we know that the community in Corinth was in contact with other Jesus-movement communities. For example, note Paul’s direction concerning the collection: “Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia.”[8] The community in Corinth apparently knows the directions Paul gave to Galatia. Either they have seen transcripts of letters (though it is hard to believe that they would have gotten this detail from the book of Galatians), or they are aware of the community and are in some kind of dialogue themselves. Further, we know there were many traveling missionaries who visited various places – sometimes to Paul’s chagrin as in 2 Cor. 10-13 and Galatians. Therefore, it is not absurd to use the model of ekklesia in Jerusalem as a corollary that might be a helpful heuristic tool to understand the community in 1 Corinthians. After all, it is not necessary that they were in correspondence with the Jerusalem church – it is only necessary in social network theory – that they had heard of them from a source they found reliable (in this case quite ironically it could have been from Paul himself).

The Jerusalem community seems to have held quite clearly two classes of members. Some who were merely attending and joined the Jesus movement with baptism (such as we should expect as how they treated Paul in Acts 9) and others who truly joined the community who did so in a ritual of laying their possessions at the feet of the apostles and living in common with them. On this particular ritual see my previous blog post "Holding All Things in Common: The Curious Case of Ananias and Saphira." This post was developed from the interesting argument of Brian Capper who argued that there was clearly a formal group in Jerusalem which one entered by giving all one had (and even this – he argues – was provisional for the period an initiate would need to be fully devoted).[9] Regardless if one accepts Capper’s argument that there was a time of the initiate similar to the Qumran community, it is clearly present that before Ananias and Saphira had (failed to) donate their sale of their property to the community so they could all live in common, they were part of the community. It was only a requirement for those who wanted to join the more elite group that went through this practice.

Therefore, Acts suggests there was a clearly divided status between the initiates and the mature Christians. It should be noted that Acts tries to whitewash this, but it is the only reasonable argument for understanding Acts 1-6. What this should teach us about 1 Corinthians, though, is not that anyone in 1 Corinthians was holding all things in common. Rather, what should be noted is the way that status was apportioned. It was not apportioned to the elect outside of the ekklesia. The economically wealthy, the politically powerful, or the ones with the most guest-friend connections were not the members of this elite group. Rather, those people would probably have been the last people to join given that they would have had more to lose than the poor. The way one became part of this elite group was through a ritual within the ekklesia. It is far easier to understand the community at Corinth’s hierarchy if it was based less on politico-economic standing and more upon those who were more functional in the church itself.

This argument has the virtue of helping us understand 1 Corinthians more carefully. The people who were the elite were not those who necessarily were influential outside the ekklesia – they were people who were essential inside the ekklesia. When Paul calls these people “wise” or “knowledgeable,” he does not suggest they are so in philosophy – instead, we are led to assume they are so gifted in regard to the worship of God. They are the ones more knowledgeable than others in the very running of the ekklesia itself. While this might well have included some people who were also influential outside the community, there is no reason we need to suggest such a thing. It makes far more sense that there was a hierarchy that was based on a variety of things based upon people’s practical roles and functions within the church.

The use of the Jerusalem community to understand 1 Corinthians is a method I use cautiously. As mentioned above, there is not good evidence that there was clear communication between these groups. However, I am not arguing here for a true dependence – merely that such a model would not have been unheard of for the Corinthian community. Further, it is fair to argue that this model is one that makes good sense – those who have been in the community longer and are more knowledgeable would logically be at the top rather than the bottom of a hierarchy. It is this model that Paul argues needs to be aggressively changed.

---

[1] 1 Cor. 1:11-13 (NRSV).

[2] Margaret M. Mitchell Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991).

[3] L.L. Welborn “On the Discord in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Ancient Politics” JBL 106 (1987): 88-89.

[4] Wayne A. Meeks The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983), 53.

[5] Dale B. Martin The Corinthian Body (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 58.

[6] 1 Cor. 7:1.

[7] Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 54.

[8] 1 Cor. 16:1.

[9] Brian Capper, “Interpretation of Acts 5.4” JSNT 19 (1983) 117-131.

Chapter Seven: Stories of the Kingdom (2): Invitation, Welcome, Challenge and Summons

 [This is an ongoing project that is analyzing N.T. Wright’s 5 volume series, Christian Origins and the Question of God. This series is widely read and bridges the gap between the academic and devotional world. It is therefore worthy to be carefully analyzed so that all readers can understand his key points while at the same time gaining a critical eye to some of his rather bold claims. This series of posts are concerning volume 2 – Jesus and the Victory of God.]

In this second chapter on the content of Jesus’ message of kingdom, Wright focuses on the intended reception of that message for his audience. Here, Wright’s analysis is helpful because it explains how the characteristic of the apocalyptic Jewish prophet could logically also include ethical injunctions in the present while at the same time expecting a radical transformation eschatologically in the future. Wright is helpful here because he shows the strengths and weaknesses of the concept of Jesus as an eschatological prophet rather than a social reformer.

Wright has argued that Jesus’ message was that Israel had returned from exile. However, one has to recognize that the makeup of Israel was not the historic one – only a portion of those living in Israel followed him. Therefore, for there to be an Israel, it should best be understood as the community following Jesus. Wright explains this as his basic argument in this chapter:

“I shall argue in the present chapter that Jesus’ implicit, and explicit, kingdom-narratives carried as part of their story-line the sense that his hearers were invited to see themselves as the ‘Israel’ who would benefit  from his work; and also, to some extent at least, as the ‘helpers’ who would have an active share in that work. With that invitation there went a further implication: the returned-from-exile Israel must conduct itself in a certain fashion. Nor was this simply a general set of rules, an abstract ‘ethic.’…They were summoned to specific tasks, which had to do with his own career and project.[1] 245

Wright argues that his hearers were called to be the new Israel that is now returned from exile. Logically, then, he is arguing that Jesus saw his followers as the new true Israel. While this may or may not be accurate, for the moment we will accept this premise. If they were the new Israel, it should logically be expected that they do have duties and ethics to perform. They do not do this especially to transform the world – that would be the John Dominic Crossan ethical reformer – they do this because that is the role Israel has in this world. It is this emphasis on Jesus’ followers as the new Israel and their key role which this chapter explores.

First, Wright explains that this role of Israel was expressed in his kingdom language in four key stages. These stages should present the fullness of his message:

“In order to see how the controlling story works in this way, we shall study it in four stages. It begins with invitation: the kingdom-announcement necessarily included the call to ‘repent and believe the good news’. This phrase has become something of a slogan over the years, and, having acquired certain anachronistic connotations as a result, has had its authenticity questioned in some quarters. It will be important to go behind this problem, and tease out its actual first-century connotations. For those invited, there was also welcome: Jesus’ kingdom-stories made it clear that all and sundry were potential beneficiaries, with the most striking examples being the poor and the sinners. Invitation and welcome gave birth to challenge: those who heard Jesus’ call, and understood themselves as characters in his kingdom story, were summoned to live precisely as the renewed Israel people, personally and corporately. Finally, the story generated a summons. Some at least of those who made Jesus’ story their own were called to go with him on his journey to Jerusalem, to be his companions as his mission reached its strange climax. These four elements together make up a profile of the praxis generated by Jesus’ kingdom stories.[2]

The idea behind this is that the kingdom announcement was called to a group of people who encapsulated Israel in a variety of ways.

One of the key elements that Wright presents is that this Israel is one that can allow many people within it. Here, Wright argues that Jesus transformed Israel by its welcome. His primary discussion of what the kingdom is was not the particular troubling aspect – but who it could include is what bothered the larger Jewish world:

“Jesus’ ‘welcome’ to sinners, and the offence that it caused, therefore had everything to do with eschatology (in the sense I set out in the previous chapter), and little to do with (what we call) ‘religion.’ That is, he welcomed people into his retinue as, by implication, part of the restored people of YHWH.[3]

The reason this could be troubling is not that Israel could include some people who were gentiles – it was that these people were the figures who would play the role of Israel in the cosmic drama of Israel and her god.

This forms, I believe, the correct context of understanding two aspects of Jesus’ new teaching which have often caused great problems. I refer to Jesus’ view of the people who gave him their allegiance, and his intentions for their behavior, their praxis. One of the ‘characters’ in the ‘story’ of the kingdom is the community of those who were loyal to Jesus. One of the key elements in the whole narrative is the behavior to which he summoned them.[4]

These figures – according to Wright – have ethical standards specifically because they are Israel in its final act in history.

The value of Wright’s analysis is that it explains how an apocalyptic Jewish prophet could expect ethical behavior. If one believes that Jesus was primarily apocalyptic, then it does not necessarily entail an ethical change. Apocalyptic structures of the world start from the premise that evil is in the world in a palpable way. However, rather than needing to conquer it – which humans cannot do – God will arrive to conquer it himself. Therefore, for ethics to be important they must serve some kind of purpose – and so therefore do humans – in this scheme. Wright has argued that within this construct there is a role for Israel to play, and only in the sense of that role should we expect an ethical charge. This provides a kind of middle ground that does not expect Jesus to be a social reformer while still allowing for an ethical charge.

Wright’s problem here is that he has unwittingly made Jesus an amazingly aggressive supercessionist. Wright’s argument is that Jesus’ community of followers were the Israel returned from exile. No matter how openly he allowed a wide range of groups to join, the implication is that historic Israel as a religion/race/nation (all interchangeable in antiquity) was not Israel any longer. It was only those who followed Christ who was the true Israel who had now returned from exile. This picture would be very supported by the Gospel of Matthew, but far less supported by other early Christian traditions. Are we to expect that Paul’s idea that “all Israel shall be saved” was simply inaccurate? Are we to embrace a Jesus who rejected all of the promises to Israel to radically revise them in a way that excluded the children of Abraham? This is one point that most scholars do not agree with Wright on – Jesus was a radical apocalyptic prophet who had a profound message to Israel. However, few of them would suggest that his message to Israel was that they were not Israel any longer. They were certainly still Israel – even if they could be punished for their disobedience. After all, this is a message that should not be so different from Jeremiah’s – they are surely guilty and deserving of punishment – but they never lose their status as Israel itself. Here I don’t think Wright even intended this to occur, but his interest in Jesus being so much the apocalyptic prophet demanded this element which was an unforeseen consequence.

The value of reading Wright is that he presents better what many (perhaps even most) Christians hold (at least Protestants). Protestants are very happy to reject the concept of supercessionism – until they have to nail down what they think of Jesus’ message and at that point, they quickly embrace a kind of aggressive idea of Israel having been obliterated as the people of god. This is, to be fair, a very difficult issue for modern theology, but for ancient reconstruction of the historical Jesus, we have to be honest about his real view if we have any chance of developing from that a historically accurate theology now.

---

[1] JVG, 245.

[2] Ibid., 245-246.

[3] Ibid., 272.

[4] Ibid., 275.

Review of J. Albert Harrill “Ethnic Fluidity in Ephesians” New Testament Studies 60 (3), July 2014, 379-402.

Albert Harrill’s recent article in New Testament Studies on Ephesians is an important document that warrants analysis. Usually, reviews are relegated to books, but there is no reason that an article is not worth reviewing and one of the values of having a blog site is that one can analyze any document of any type. This particular article is an analysis of Ephesians. The interest though, is less in how one reads Ephesians and more in how Harrill has argued for a new understanding of ethnicity in antiquity moving it beyond an essential quality (that could shift) to more of a dialogical quality (that never was stable in the first place much less how it could be changed). This concept is helpful, convincing, and is an important development for understanding Ephesians, but Harrill’s further idea of simultaneous stability and fluidity of ethnic categories overreaches. The idea that there is any sense of true ethnic “stability” in Ephesians is difficult at best.

First, Harrill’s approach to use the logic of “ethnic reasoning” to understand Ephesians is helpful. He not only uses this as his hermeneutic, he properly takes the time to explain what ethnic reasoning is and the status questionis to this point. As this is central to Harrill’s argument, I will spend some time summarizing his basic presentation. Harrill points out that studies of ethnicity now see it as a constructed rather than essential category:

Most important in shaping this new conceptual model was the key innovation: boundaries of ethnic groups are socially constructed rather than biologically self perpetuating.[1]

Ethnicity is not kinship. Kinship traces bloodlines. Ethnicity, on the other hand, is in some sense cultural or better – “chosen.” One chooses to identify with a particular group and acts in a way that identifies them with that said group. Within that constraint, however, it is equally true that there are constructed imagined kinship ties.[2]

Harrill further wisely uses the term “ethnicity” and “religion” interchangeably. Given that cultural norms are the propagation of ethnicity, it would therefore stand to reason that one’s religion – the general propagation of cultural norms would be more like this than not like this. Harrill stands on the shoulders of Paula Fredriksen and Denise Kimber Buell in arguing that the two should be presented interchangeably:

On one side of this new debate (the ethnic-reasoning position), scholars such as Paula Fredriksen and Denise Kimber Buell argue, in different ways, for the equivalence of what we call ‘ethnicity’ and ‘religion’ in ancient Mediterranean societies; any separation of the two terms bring an anachronism (the modern idea of religion as a ‘faith’) that deserves mandatory retirement from early Christian studies.[3]

The idea behind Buell and Fredriken’s position is that one’s “race” and one’s religion were interchangeable. Take for example, one of the very few “conversion” schenes in the whole of the Hebrew Bible – the case study of Ruth:

¹⁶But Ruth said,
‘Do not press me to leave you
   or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
   where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
   and your God my God.
¹⁷ Where you die, I will die—
   there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
   and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!’[4]

Ruth proclaims that in following Naomi’s god, in moving into that territory of that people, and adopting the customs of the people, Ruth has become an Israelite. Consequently she is no longer a Moabite. This is thematically followed in the text in that Ruth is able to fulfill the leverite law for Elimelech – Naomi’s husband. This is particularly striking because the goal of the goel (kinsman-redeemer) was to produce an heir for Elimelech. The only way this could happen is if Ruth is truly an Israelite and the true daughter of Elimelech – which of course biologically she is not – she is his daughter in law to a deceased husband. This, of course, is precisely the point of Ruth where it wants to present that not only did she truly become an Israelite, she is so much so that she could be an ancestor of David with no scandal of any kind. The point here is that her ethnicity and her religious devotion are united. She does not first honor God and then later move to Bethlehem – they are contemporaneous events because the two are united.

Harrill uses this foundation of “ethnic reasoning” to make his argument about Ephesians. He argues that Ephesians uses the dialogue between fluidity and fixity in ethnicity to make a complex argument. Harrill explains this in this relatively lengthy quotation:

The early Christian author of Ephesians deploys two very different modes of ethnicity: a fixed mode and a fluid mode. Each of these modes operates with a distinct set of constructions and topoi, and each also has a distinct way of envisioning identity and difference in the world. The fixed mode identifies difference as stable, essential properties created by cosmic fate and divine determinism even ‘before the foundation of the world’ (Eph 1.4). As commentators have noted this dualism of insiders (‘children of light’) and outsiders (children of ‘darkness,’ ‘disobedience,’ and ‘the wrath of God’) (5.3-15), in which believers are exhorted never to become partakers with outsiders (5.7) are called up for battle defending the community’s holy borders (6.10-17), strongly parallels the particular Jewish sectarianism of the Qumran community.

The second mode which I call ‘fluidity’, identifies native differences as merely temporary and utterly malleable: an instability requiring constant moral exhortation (training in paideia), which occupiers the letter’s second half (Eph 4.1—6.23) and is the letter’s stated back-story (baptism changed the person ‘in which you [pl.] once lived’). The author of Ephesians reminds his invited audience that its former Gentile identity has been transformed from ‘alien’ into a single new humanity (2.11-22).[5]

First, the latter half should be considered. Harrill argues that Ephesians uses the concept of ethnic fluidity to allow all people to join the body of Christ expressed in the ekklesia as a unique ethnicity. This would make good sense of the language of adoption that riddles the text itself. Harill’s key insight is that this change of ethnicity requires further work. Precisely because ethnicity is malleable, one is not once joined to the community, assumed that they will always be there with no further work. Rather, the fluidity of ethnicity is precisely what requires one to continue to practice it. If it is possible to join the body of Christ, it is also possible to leave. The point for Harrill, is that the two things are not distinct. In antiquity, of course an ethnicity needs to be practiced. If one did not practice it, one would not be that ethnicity. Harrill parallels this to “Romanness” in the colonies with helpful categories:

The ecclesiology of Ephesians – the church as ‘one new humanity’ of Jews and Gentiles (2.15) reconciled already at baptism (4.5; 5.26) and maintained by conventional household duty codes (5.21-6.9) – is not just ‘parallel’ to this development of a Roman ethnic discourse among provincial populations, but an instance of it. As ancient diplomatic correspondence presented Romannness as a new, blended (transnational) ethnicity in which former foes became reconciled in a new peace mediated by the work of designated ambassadors, so too the author of Ephesians presented the universal ecclesia as a new, blended (transnational) ethnicity in which the former foes of Jews and Gentiles became reconciled in a ‘peace’ (Eph 2.17) proclaimed by Paul’s appointed ‘ambassadorial work’ as the designated apostle of the entire church (Eph 6.20).[6]

Here Harrill argues that the ekklesia was a ethnicity in itself with a good pattern in Roman ethnic identity. The rhetoric is striking and certainly has much merit.

Harrill’s argument at this point is quite strong. What is not as strong is his former point about the stability of ethnicity. He argues once again:

The fixed mode identifies difference as stable, essential properties created by cosmic fate and divine determinism even ‘before the foundation of the world’ (Eph 1.4). As commentators have noted this dualism of insiders (‘children of light’) and outsiders (children of ‘darkness,’ ‘disobedience,’ and ‘the wrath of God’) (5.3-15), in which believers are exhorted never to become partakers with outsiders (5.7) are called up for battle defending the community’s holy borders (6.10-17), strongly parallels the particular Jewish sectarianism of the Qumran community.[7]

Harrill here wants to leverage the language of an eternal plan to create an ethnic fixity. Ephesians does use language of eternal determinism as expressed in the passages Harrill quotes above. To highlight a few, consider the following passage:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴just as he chose us in Christ^* before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. ⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight ⁹he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, ¹⁰as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.[8]

Here the language of adoption is used to suggest that these figures are very much part of the ethnicity of God through Jesus. Further, the author wants to firmly establish that this was not some later change, but was the plan the entire time – the only change is that now we understand what was previously hidden in mystery.

The problem with Harrill’s interpretation is that he sees this idea of a plan as ethnic fixity. It is hard to believe that God’s having a purpose for people and a plan meant that they were already “fixed” in the ethnic identity of Jesus before they joined the movement. For this to be “fixed,” it would necessitate that this is the eternal race that cannot be changed rather than other things that can. However, the rest of the book revolves around the importance of being able to join the movement which makes it sound far less fixed in any sense. Here, it seems that Harrill’s good insight brought along a bad one. The value of ethnic reasoning was that it explained well the relationship between identity and practice. The problem was that ethnic argument should not be considered a magic bullet. This sense of eternal adoption seems to be far more about the consistency of God and his plan for the world acting in the way that he intended than about ethnicity as such.

Despite this weakness, Harrill’s argument is sound. Harrill’s most helpful contribution – and the one that should be taken very seriously for all studies of ethnicity in antiquity – is the concept of ethnicity as less of a substance and more of a dialogue. Harrill presents it as follows:

“This apparently paradoxical oscillation between fixity and fluidity becomes intelligible if we relocate the ecclesiology of Ephesians away from the question of whether ethnicity is a fixed or mutable thing (the old primordialist/constructivist debate) to analysis of ethnic reasoning as a discourse.[9]

While I disagree with Harrill that fixity – in the sense he provides above – is the fixity that is necessary, I do think he is absolutely right that the dialogue between the two is the fundamental characteristic of ethnicity at all. The fact that we can see these things as mutable does not mean an adherent can. To go back to Charles Keyes’s original concept of ethnicity, it is a social group with an imagined kinship. Ethnicity is something that is imagined to be fixed. While it is not truly fixed, it always dialogues with the rhetoric that it is.

The value of the idea of ethnicity as discourse is that perfectly addresses both sides of ethnicity – the idea of fixity (and therefore the norms that can come from that) with the very real idea that it can be joined through action. Consider Harrill’s point about ethnicity in regard to Ephesians:

The author infantilises the audience in order to build it back up as a new people, teaching that a specific ‘way of life’ can and must serve as an ethnic line of demarcation around the impermeable borders of the church (4.17-19)…This rhetoric repeats ancient discursive constructions of ethnic flexibility by stressing the capacities of paideia to change native identity.[10]

The idea that ethnicity and paideia are related is helpful and should be more emphasized. There is always tension between action and identity and thinking of ethnicity as always in dialogue helps highlight this reality.

In all, Harrill’s article is very interesting and provides new ways of thinking about ethnic reasoning which should be taken more seriously in any serious study of ancient identity and ancient texts.

---

[1] Harrill “Ethnic Fludity”, 383.

[2] Charles Keyes “Ethnic Groups, Ethnicity” The Dictionary of Anthropology Thomas Bartfield (ed.) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 152-153.

[3] Harrill, “Ethnic Fluidity” 386.

[4] Ruth 1:16-17.

[5] Harrill, “Ethnic Fluidity” 389-390.

[6] Ibid. 394.

[7] Ibid., 389.

[8] Ephesians 1:3-10.

[9] Ibid., 402.

[10] Ibid., 399.

Chapter 6 – Stories of the Kingdom (1): Announcement

 [This is an ongoing project that is analyzing N.T. Wright’s 5 volume series, Christian Origins and the Question of God. This series is widely read and bridges the gap between the academic and devotional world. It is therefore worthy to be carefully analyzed so that all readers can understand his key points while at the same time gaining a critical eye to some of his rather bold claims. This series of posts are concerning volume 2 – Jesus and the Victory of God.]

Wright’s analysis of the historical Jesus places him firmly in the fold of an apocalyptic prophet. The role of such a prophet is the announcement of the kingdom of God. Wright therefore focuses this chapter on the announcement and its basic message. Wright argues that Jesus’ message was one that announced that Israel had returned from exile and that God had become king, but that this return entailed an implicit judgment as well as final vindication. This argument has much merit, but in it he displays Wright’s recurring issue – he has a good insight, but he overreaches to try and create a picture of Jesus which fits what later Christian authors would desire.

First, Wright applies his hermeneutic which he has presented earlier. He argues that any explanation about Jesus’ kingdom language must fit with both Jewish ideals and explain what came following in early Christianity:

The recognition of the nature of the kingdom announcement as part of an assumed larger story enables us to make a preliminary assessment of historicity. We may remind ourselves that if Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom is to make historical sense it must make sense both as something that would be clearly understood within its Jewish context and as the presupposition for the significantly different resonances of ‘kingdom’ in the early church. At the same time it would clearly both challenge some prevailing assumptions with that Jewish context and retain a special focus which would be characteristic only of Jesus’ career, not of the work of his post-Easter followers.[1]

He argues that the concept of kingdom that Jesus proclaimed must have been clear to his Jewish audience. Further, it could not be so foreign to a later Christian audience that they could include this teaching in their writings. However, such a strict hermeneutic has serious limits – how many things can reasonably qualify under these categories are relatively limited. Wright falls into the trap of using this criterion as a way of explaining stories of Jesus rather than good historical analysis of using this hermeneutic to test data in the gospels for its historical veracity. It well could explain the stories – but that does not necessarily mean that it is historical.

Wright’s analysis though, is certainly correct on some points. First, that Jesus’ message concerning the kingdom of God had to make some kind of sense to a Jewish audience is convincing. Wright argues that Jesus changed the story line that was expected, but the story line itself was certainly comprehensible:

In particular, I intend to demonstrate two things: first, that when Jesus spoke of the ‘reign’ or ‘kingdom’ of Israel’s god, he was deliberately evoking an entire story-line that he and his hearers knew quite well; second, that he was retelling this familiar story in such a way as to subvert and redirect its normal plot…Israel’s true god was becoming king; Jesus claimed to be his true prophet. Though this claim was no doubt bold (most who made it did not live very long afterwards), it was not in any way bizarre or incomprehensible.[2]

Wright is certainly correct here. He does not cite the most striking evidence that is available to him, however. One should take special note that in every conversation Jesus has about the kingdom of god, at not one point (in the synoptic gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, or any other source I am aware of), does he have to define what the kingdom of God is. The audience seems to fully know. He often challenges how it is going to appear and who can be included, but the actual discussion of it did make sense to a Jewish audience. Wright explains this in relationship to a “story” or narrative, which is certainly one way that this could be understood. In any sense, though, it is certainly accurate that first century Jews did understand Jesus when he made his claims about the kingdom of God.

Where Wright is less on sure ground is that he considers that first century Judaism saw the kingdom of God as a place where God would be king. While this is technically correct, it can lead one to a mistake in understanding. First, consider Wright’s comment about expectation:

The most important thing to recognize about the first-century Jewish use of kingdom language is that it was bound up with the hopes and expectations of Israel. ‘Kingdom of god’ was not a vague phrase, or a cipher with a general religious aura. It had nothing much, at least in the first instance, to do with what happened to human being after they died…it was simply a Jewish way of talking about Israel’s god becoming king.[3]

While this certainly can be said to be accurate, one should recognize what that expectation was. God’s becoming king was a restorative act to bring the line of David back upon the throne. Most readers will be shocked by this – how could the restoration of David (clearly not God) upon the throne to establish Israel as a political entity be “god becoming king?” Here, Wright has not presented the entire story. There was a way in which Israel’s human king and God were in cahoots in the monarchy. There was not a seeming contradiction between Psalm 2:

“I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill”[4] with Psalm 93:

The LORD is king, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved; your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.[5] 

In what sense could these two things be united? Because there was an essential link between the human king and God working from Zion as depicted in Psalm 20:

The LORD answer you in the day of trouble! The name of the God of Jacob protect you! May he send you help from the sanctuary, and give you support from Zion…Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed…Give victory to the king, Or LORD; answer us when we call.”[6]

The kingship was established beginning with David of uniting the “political” with the “religious.” This is why David brings the Ark to Jerusalem, and why Solomon builds the temple there. The entire city of Jerusalem is the sanctuary, and just as the temple is forever, so also is the king. The two are in essential continuity and are expected to always be in tandem.[7] The problem with Wright’s presentation is he seems to want to affirm a different way that God would become king. He wants to seemingly make it sound as if God himself would be king and have no human counterpart at all. While this would fit very well with Christian belief in Christ, it is very difficult to argue that this would have been standard expectation for first century Jews. They certainly thought that God would become king – but only in the way that he had previously been king – through the means of David’s (very human) line.

Wright’s emphasis on “story” causes him to emphasize Jesus’ “stories” – namely his parables. Parables are something that are very much affirmed as historically accurate. The problem is that parables are precisely those things that defy easy explanation – and according to some – expressed particularly well by John Dominic Crossan – there may not have been one interpretation. One of the values of a parable are that there can be many interpretations and it is probably that there is not a “right” one – instead, they are meant to foment disagreement among the group. Wright presents this half way by showing that parables are meant be challenges:

The parables offer not only information, but challenge; they are stories designed to evoke fresh praxis, to reorder the symbolic world, to break open current understandings and inculcate fresh ones…They are stories which both affirm the Jewish expectation and declare that it is being fulfilled in a radically new fashion.[8]

Jesus did want to challenge people. However, it is far less clear that this said challenge was only in the very clear content. Instead, he had unclear content that caused people to stop and question. He himself says in Mark 4:10-12 that he speaks in parables so that the outsiders would not understand. He wanted the secrecy and the intrigue about himself. Wright struggles to address this issue:

This suggests aw ay through the puzzle of the apparently predestinarian passage in Mark 4.10-12, which seems to say that Jesus told parables so that people would not understand him. The problem only arises, in fact, when the historical context is not taken seriously, and when the vacuum thus created is filled with a generalized ‘theology’ in which Jesus is either the teacher of timeless truths or the announcer of impenetrable enigmas. Parables are neither of these. ‘If you have ears, then hear’; if too many people understood too well, the prophet’s liberty of movement, and perhaps life, may be cut short. Jesus knew his kingdom-announcement was subversive.[9]

This argument that Jesus spoke in parables simply because he was concerned about the political consequences does not make much sense. If Jesus was overly concerned with that problem, he would not have done hardly any of the things that he did. Instead, the genre should be taken more seriously as a genre itself that has its own power and potential.

The more troubling side of Wright’s analysis is that he might be using parables because of their fluidity. They are a perfect forum for his “double similarity criterion” – they certainly can be understood in a Jewish milieu as well as leading toward a later development of “kingdom of God” as expressed in the early Christian church. Because parables can have more than one meaning, it makes it far easier to satisfy both criteria. The problem here is precisely what was presented earlier – it is possible to use that model to explain a parable so it could mean that, but this is not a good historical analysis that this was the historically verified meaning that hearers would have heard.

Wright’s interest is clear – he wants to present a Jesus who presents a kingdom language of a return from exile and that God is now again king. This alone would not be a major problem, the way he does it through parables, though, can be questioned. He argues that the parable of the sower presents this clearly:

“The ‘mystery’, the whole secret plan of Israel’s god, is that this was how his purpose for Israel is to be worked out. He would come to rescue his people, not in a blaze of triumphant glory, but in the sowing of seed, the long promised prophetic ‘word’, the god-sent agency though which Israel and the world would be renewed.[10]

This idea of Israel’s renewal in a new way is what he sees as the fundamental announcement of Jesus’ proclamation as the kingdom of God:

Jesus, as we have seen, claimed in word and deed that the traditional expectation was not being fulfilled. The new exodus was under way: Israel was not at last returning from her long exile. All this was happening in and through his own work. Jesus enacted this announcement in terms of welcome and warning. He welcomed those in any kind of need, thereby enacting the story of the return from exile, of repentance and restoration. All were summoned to celebrate the great restoration. At the same time, he warned those who presumed upon their ancestral heritage, and who supposed that the coming kingdom would automatically vindicate them. If the true Israel was returning from exile, some might resist. If YHWH was returning to Zion, he would judge those who refused his rule. The major kingdom-theme of the defeat of evil, of paganism, of Babylon, is to be located here within Jesus’ proclamation, with a typically prophetic twist: the critique is sharpest when aimed, not at pagans, but at Israel herself.[11]

Here Wright has some good points and in some ways, I do not disagree with much of his reconstruction. What I do not care for, however, is his methodology which seems to be only presenting portions of the account in order to make an argument which is, in some senses, overly amenable to later Christian writings.

  

---

[1] JVG, 226.

[2] Ibid., 199-200.

[3] Ibid., 202-203.

[4] Ps. 2:6.

[5] Ps. 93:1-2.

[6] Ps. 20:1-2,6,9.

[7] See Jon D. Levenson, Sinai & Zion: An Entry Into the Jewish Bible (San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 1985) for a clear and accessible approach to this concept.

[8] JVG, 229-230.

[9] Ibid., 237.

[10] Ibid., 238.

[11] Ibid., 243.