[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.]
N.T. Wright’s analysis of the reasons for and the execution
of Jesus’ crucifixion do a very good job showing a very common view of the
scene among Christians. This chapter, like many, are helpful because they
illustrate the very common Protestant (and possible other groups as well – I am
just not as familiar) view that the crucifixion was clearly planned and set out
as the gospels described. What is more, not only were the gospels right about
the Chief Priest’s and Pilate’s intention for the crucifixion, they also are
clear about Jesus’ intent for the crucifixion. What I want to focus upon,
though, is the comment that Wright presents that the crucifixion – like the
whole of Jesus’ message as interpreted by the gospels – is not anti-semitic –
despite its being used that way in later generations. While I am not convinced
that the gospels are anti-semitic, the arguments that Wright presents to avoid
this charge, obfuscate the issues. It seems he has adopted a rather
literalistic interpretation of the gospels in order to attempt to avoid this
problem.
First, Wright argues that while the gospels do present
biases in order to create later interpretation, that is no reason to challenge
their historicity. He argues that the reason the gospels have the
interpretations they do is because Jesus had those same interpretations:
At one level, the texts are full of
theological and exegetical reflection; at another, of just the sort of
eye-witness detail that suggests that the reflection was caused by the events,
not (despite the skeptics) vice versa. After all, if a first-century Jews
believed that the events he or she had just witnessed, and indeed taken part
in, really were the turning-point of history, they would be unlikely to
describe them in the deliberately neutral language of someone writing up an
experiment in inorganic Chemistry.[1]
While at one level, this is certainly true. There is no such
thing as truly “objective” data – all data is governed by an interpretation.
One wonders if he would be so critical of authors with whom he agrees, but at
least on the surface, his point is valid. However, I am not sure he has
completely proven that because of that reality, the reflection was governed by
the data and not the other way around. He seems to have as his whole point that
there is no unbiased data – does that mean it is reliable or not? It seems that
this should push us to using a critical historical eye – as he has attempted to
do throughout the book. The problem is what comes next in his argument.
He is rather opposed to revisionist readings of the
crucifixion. This is probably likely due to his interest in avoiding wild
conclusions that have been made about this event – given that, as Wright
himself notes, crucifixion was a special kind of execution for people
attempting to overthrown the government.[2]
Further, he is sensitive to the way that this one event of the crucifixion has
caused all kinds of social and political consequences. He argues that those
consequences, however, should not govern history:
One must therefore guard against
attempting to reconstruct history by studying the much later effects of stories
and events. To suggest that a story is biased, or to suggest that continuing to
tell the same story is likely to perpetuate a biased and perhaps violent point
of view, is not to say anything one way or another about its historical value.[3]
Here, this is accurate. History should be measured based
upon what is the most likely event to have occurred in one’s own day.
Therefore, if Jesus’ message was anti-semitic or not should not be clouded by
later interpretations who certainly were anti-semitic and saw the crucifixion
as a key point to use to harp upon the Jews. However, question can be raised as
to whether Wright has followed his own advice.
When the issue of anti-semitism is discussed, Wright argues
that the gospels were not anti-semitic at the moment of Jesus’ crucifixion. He
argues the texts do not challenge Judaism, but only criticize Jewish leaders.
One feature of the
historical/political/theological mix needs special comment. It has become
commonplace to claim that the gospel narratives of the trials and death of
Jesus are strongly colored by anti-semitism. This, I believe, has not been
established. It is of course true that the narratives have been read and
exploited in this direction, sometimes devastatingly; but that is a fact about
subsequent readers not necessarily about the stories themselves. When the
stories refer to ‘the Jews’, subsequent gentile Christianity could all too
easily forget that Jesus, his family, his followers, the first Christians, and
some or all of the writers of the gospels, were themselves Jewish…For much of
the narrative we must now examine, the phrase is used by the evangelists to
denote the Jewish leaders; and it was
not only the early Christians who had a quarrel with Caiaphas and his
colleagues.[4]
Wright sees the problem is that Protestant readers focus on
one aspect, but not others. He argues that the gospel narratives are not
anti-semitic, per se, but have simply been read wrongly. He argues that the
fact that Jesus and the Gospel writers were Jewish recognizes that this was not
a matter of simple anti-semitism. Here, Wright employs a classic argument that
never holds much weight. The idea that just because Jesus and his followers
were Jewish does not necessarily mean that they could not be anti-semitic. It
is possible to discriminate against a group while being part of it, wanting to
reform it, or even most likely – if they see themselves as having left it.
Again, this is not to say that automatically the gospel writers were
anti-semitic, just that this argument for their not being so is weak. Further,
it seems to be bad historical analysis – he has not shown why this needs to be
the case or why the gospels are not to be read in this manner.
Here, this further goes a bit out of control when he
discusses the “charge” brought against Jesus by the chief priests and Pilate.
He argues that both groups knew that
Jesus was innocent, but went ahead with the execution anyway:
Jesus was executed as a rebel
against Rome…However, matters are not as simple as the normal revolutionary
theories would suggest, either. There is good reason to suppose that, although
Jesus’ accusers handed him over, and Pilate executed him, on the charge, both parties knew he was not guilty of it,
or not in any straightforward sense. It is true that Jesus’ kingdom-preaching
must have carried, to all his hearers, some sort of revolutionary sense: if
YHWH was at last becoming king, all other rulers, from Caesar downwards, would
find their power at least relativized, But Jesus’ constant redefinition of the
kingdom, in praxis as much as in words, meant that anyone who had observed him
closely would have been aware that he did not fit the same category as Judas
the Galilean had before him, or as Simon bar Giora would do a generation later.
And, though the chief priests and Pilate had not, perhaps, done their homework
on Jesus very thoroughly, I suggest that they were both aware of some serious
differences.[5]
First, there is serious question that the Romans would have
seen formative difference between Jesus and some of the other failed messiahs.
They all failed and they all committed treason. Any discussion of a kingdom that
was not Rome was treason – particularly when the speaker identified himself as
the leader of that kingdom.
The argument about the chief priests, however, complicates
his discussion of the anti-semitism. What seems to have occurred –according to
Wright as one reads further, is that the chief priests bring the charge of
treason to Pilate only because they knew this will lead to a conviction of
death rather than some lesser penalty (as well as convincing the masses he was
less important than they thought he was). What he seems to have done, is
followed the gospels’ lead. The gospels – particularly Luke - are very keen to
show that Jesus was completely innocent of this crime and that the crowd (Jews)
were riled up and Pilate’s hands were tied and had to act. What seems to have
occurred, for Wright, is that he has – in an attempt to avoid saying that the
gospel writers were in any way anti-semitic to the whole of the Jews pushed
even more responsibility to the Jewish leaders to make them especially evil.
Here, I think Wright falls victim to the mistake many
Protestants make. They assume Judaism is a race in the modern sense. In the
first century there was not a distinction between race and religion. To join
the Jesus movement and cease from being Jewish was to change one’s citizenship.
Further, the idea of being “nationally” one thing and “religiously” something
else made no sense. To avoid being anti-semitic of the whole race by
criticizing the religion and not the people would not have made a tremendous amount
of sense to the ancient world. Had it been a few particular people, then it would have been easier to make this
distinction. However, Wright seems to fall into the trap of saying it was
seemingly all of the Jewish leaders
(with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea being seeming exceptions) who are being
criticized. If it is all the Jewish leaders, then it is the religion for any
practical purpose.
The simple solution to this problem is to allow that it
might have been possible for the Romans to have crucified Jesus while knowing what they were doing.
Wright’s whole argument revolved around Jesus truly intending to be crucified.
Further, Jesus very clearly was a political threat to Rome. It didn’t matter,
as E.P. Sanders has pointed out, that Jesus was no real threat to the Roman
Empire.[6]
The Romans tolerated absolutely no insurrection. They understood that their
exercising absolute authority – no matter the cost – sent a political message
to the region. This is best understood with the 14 month long siege of Masada.
The 600 rebels (if we are being generous) were not a serious political threat
to Rome. Further, even if they were a minor threat, they were by no means
important enough to warrant the cost of such a siege. However, the Romans
showed no mercy when it came to political insurrection. They would act
aggressively no matter the cost.
The value of this idea is that we can accept that Jesus,
perhaps, was not completely legally
innocent. Just because Jesus redefined what the kingdom of God meant does not
mean he did not break the law in enacting it. This seems to be the message the
Gospels are consistently trying to portray – Jesus being completely innocent in
the eyes of Rome. To do this, they frame the conversation as an inner-Jewish
debate wherein the Jewish authorities pushed Pilate into killing an innocent
man. However, if we simply read more carefully, we might not have to put as
much weight against the Jews as this. We can still read the gospels literally
and historically arguing that the Jewish leaders really did want Jesus to die
(as Wright shows well in this chapter), while allowing that the Romans also did. The Jewish authorities then,
could have made an argument that Pilate did not disagree with. This is the
view, by the way, that is presented relatively clearly in the Gospel of John.
If this is done, then perhaps the charge of anti-semitism/not can be simply
avoided to be more nuanced.
The challenge I have with Wright in this chapter is not his
conclusion. It is simply that he seems to have an interest that is governing
his data. Everyone does this, but Wright, on this point, is not as clear that
this is what he is doing and that does need to be addressed.
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