Spiritual Formation and Christ's Resurrection pt7

Did the disciples invent the resurrection?

            How many people do you know that are some flavor of Christianity?  In that context, I mean to paint with the absolute broadest brush possible, any religious movement that can be appropriately identified as Christianity.  How many people do you know are practicing Simon-ists?  Or practitioners of Bar-Kokhba-anity?  Do you know anyone who believes in Bar-Giora-ism?  As an honest question, do you know who Simon bar Giora or Simon bar Kosevah were?

They were both historical Jewish figures, Giora was proclaimed as the King of the Jews during the First Jewish War, and Kosevah was the messianic figure and leader of the Second-Jewish revolt.  Both had followers, both were second-temple Jews*, both were killed by Rome, and like Jesus, both are called false messiahs in Rabbinic literature.  Yet, the followers of these messianic figures never proclaimed their messiah had been raised from the dead.  They never continued their movements.  That’s mainly because there was no messianic expectation in second-temple Judaism for a dying messiah.  Why are there no religions based on these messianic figures?  To be blunt, they died and stayed dead.  Sure, some dead people still have a religious following from them, but not from the second-temple period and as a fulfiller of Judaism.

Did the disciples steal the resurrection story?

            This is a trendy idea online.  As has been previously pointed out in this series, many of the dying-rising god myths, both from Ancient Near-eastern Texts and European sources, are connected to the seasonal cycles.  There ways to explain why things die in the autumn and come to life again in the spring.  Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection have nothing to do with the seasonal cycle and has the backdrop of second-temple Judaism and the Passover instead.  Moreover, a good question would be how pagan mythology that explains seasonal cycles, repackaged as a dying and rising Messiah, convince second-temple Jews to abandon their religion and cultural identity?  As has already been established, the disciples were not well-traveled and highly educated men.  They were, for the most part, second-temple Jewish peasants.

            Keep in mind that Churches from various backgrounds, traditions and denominations annually celebrate Easter; however, there is no belief that Jesus just rose again last Sunday (or next Sunday if you’re Eastern Orthodox).  Easter is the remembrance of His resurrection, a resurrection that happened once in history and doesn't happen every year.  However, as pointed out above, many of the dying and rising gods of paganism are connected to the seasonal cycles, and therefore, they were believed to die and raise annually.

            As N.T. Wright points out, when Paul preached Christ’s resurrection in Athens (Acts 17), he was met with mocking and misunderstanding, but no one was saying things like, “Oh, this is a re-interpretation of X [Osiris, Attis, etc.])” (Wright, 81).  Which raises another good question, if second-temple Jews took pagan mythologies and used them to explain away the fact that their Messiah died, how would that get pagans to convert to a Jewish movement?  Especially if it was their myths that the Jesus followers were adapting to fit their non-Jewish dying and rising Messiah?

            Finally, on this point, early Christians believed that Jesus died, was buried and then rose again; i.e., He returned to life, this life and returned to this world.  Osiris was quite different. Egyptologist Dr. Frankfort, who was not a Christian, explains in his book that Osiris was a god who survived his passing through death but never returned to life (Frankfort, 185).

Perhaps this leads to another good question, did the first-century and second-temple Jewish followers of Jesus believe in a literal (bodily) resurrection of Jesus?  Which is the topic that we’ll take up next week.

(* The second-Jewish revolt was 132-136 AD, and Simon ben Kosevah died in 135, both of which are after the Second-temple period since the temple was destroyed in 70 AD.)

Written by Pastor Ozzy

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Works Cited

Frankfort, Henri. 1948. Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wright, N. T. 2003. The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3). New York: Fortress Press.

Spiritual Formation and Christ's Resurrection pt5

            From the New Testament (NT) texts, we learn that Jesus of Nazareth chose 12 men to follow Him (Matt. 10:2-4, Mark 3:16-19, Luke 6:14-16, and Acts 1:13 minus Judas Iscariot) as “apostles”.[1]  These men are then described as witnesses to God having raised Jesus from the dead (Acts. 3:15).  What do we know about them and what would they have meant by saying that God raised Jesus from the dead?

Second-temple Jews:

            The Second-temple period extends from the sixth-century BC to the first-century AD, when the second Jewish temple was built in Jerusalem after the return from the Babylonian captivity, until its destruction in AD 70.[2]  Therefore, we refer to Judaism during this time as Second-temple Judaism.  That is not to say that there was only one type of Judaism during this time.  During the NT period, there were two major sects: the Pharisees and the Sadducees, both of which are involved in NT events.[3]  There was also the Zealots and the Essenes, but neither play a significant role in the NT.[4]

            According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the Jews liked the Pharisees over the Sadducees, but then again Josephus was a Pharisee (Antiquities, Book 18, Ch 1. 16).  The main difference between the two related to our topic is that the Pharisees believed in a resurrection of the dead, whereas the Sadducees did not.  Therefore, it is difficult to determine with complete accuracy what the peasant Jew in Galilee would have believed about the resurrection.  However, one thing that is perfectly clear, there is no evidence from second-temple Judaism in the belief of a dying messiah, let alone a dying and rising again messiah.  So it must be asked, where would second-temple peasant Jews have come up with such an idea?

What do we know about the 12? pt.1

            Two were the sons of Zebedee, James and his brother John, the latter of which is identified as the disciple that Jesus loved (Jn. 13:23) and had been a disciple of John the Baptist (Jn. 1:35). Their mother was Salome, who may have been the sister of Mary, Jesus’ mother (cf. Mt. 27:56, Jn. 19:25).  They were fisherman from Galilee, and business partners with Simon Peter (Lk. 5:10).  Two final details are that they own multiple boats (Lk. 5:11) and employed servants (Mk. 1:20) and therefore, may not have been poor.  Simon Peter and his brother Andrew were the sons of Jonas (John) and were from Bethsaida.  Peter was married (Mk. 1:30) and lived in Capernaum.  Andrew had also been a disciple of John the Baptist (Jn. 1:40).  Philip was also from Bethsaida (Jn1:44) and traveled from Galilee to hear John the Baptist (Jn. 1:43), likely with Andrew.  Perhaps because of his Greek name, it was him that the Greeks came to hope to get to talk to Jesus during the Passover (Jn. 12:20-33); ergo, it’s reasonable to think that he was fluent in Greek.  Philip went and found Nathanael/Bartholomew (Jn. 1:45), who may have been a fisherman from Cana in Galilee (Jn. 21:2).[5]  He also had gone to Bethany where John the Baptist was preaching (Jn. 1:28) and it seems was well versed in the Old Testament (Jn. 1:46).

           Thomas who is also called Didymus (Jn. 11:16) and was best known for being a doubter in the resurrection (Jn. 20:25).  He was the one that told the others they should go with Jesus to Bethany for the raising of Lazarus, saying that if Jesus were to die there, they should die with Him (Jn. 11:16).  Also, on the eve of the Passover, he was the one who questioned Jesus about them knowing the way (Jn. 14:5).  Next, Matthew, who is identified as Levi (cf. Mt. 10:3, Mk. 2:14 and Lk. 5:27) and called the son of Alphaeus (Mk.2:14) which raises the question if he is the brother of James the son of Alphaeus, of which there is no clear text calling them brothers as there is with Peter and Andrew or with James and John.  Levi does not seem to have been a follower of John the Baptist and was working in Capernaum as a tax collector, when he was called by Jesus (Lk. 5:27).  He must have had some education and been acquainted with Greek because of this position.  James son of Alphaeus, is sometimes referred to as James the less, beyond this little is known.  Judas, the son or brother of James, not Iscariot (Jn. 14:22) and sometimes identified as Thaddeus.[6]  He does not play a significant role in the gospels and only speaks once (Jn. 14:22).  Simon the Canaanite (Mt. 10:4, Mk 3:18) or Zelotes/Zealot (Lk. 6:15), these designations should be understood that at some point, Simon was associated with the movement of Judas of Galilee who opposed increased taxation during the census of Quirinius.  Simon was most likely from Galilee.  Simon does not play a significant role in the Gospels and as noted above, it is possible that he is to be identified with Nathanael, not Bartholomew.

            Lastly, Judas Iscariot, who is identified as the son of Simon (Jn. 13:2).  It is possible that he is the only non-Galilean, Iscariot meaning, man of Kerioth, which was somewhere south of Judea.  John’s Gospel gives us the most details regarding Judas.  Sufficient for the purpose here is to identify him as one of the 12.  As to the spreading of the gospel after the resurrection, Judas plays no part seeing how he was already dead from suicide by hanging (Mt. 27:5) and that afterward, wither the rope or branch broke, he fell to the ground in a gruesome manor (Acts 1:18).

Next week, we’ll continue to explore how the message of Jesus went out into the Greco-Roman world and changed it forever.

Written by Pastor Ozzy

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[1] Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew (Nathanael Jn), Thomas, Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Judas (Thaddaeus Mt & Mk) the son or brother of James, Simon the zealot and Judas Iscariot.

[2] Despite the fact that there were two temples during this period, Ezra’s temple and Herod’s temple.

[3] Josephus mentions three groups, we know there were more, but they are not relevant to this discussion.

[4] Some people have speculated that John the Baptist and Jesus were associated with the Essenes; however, there are no explicated NT references and there is no data from the DSS to support this notion.

[5] The Nathanael-Bartholomew connection is not for certain, others have identified Nathanael as Simon the son of Cleopas.

[6] There are seven people mentioned in the New Testament with the name.  We only need to be concerned with three of them.  First (1) Judas Iscariot.  Second, the apostle identified as (2) Thaddaeus and called Judas of James in Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13 and finally a (3) brother of Jesus mentioned in Mt. 13:55 and Mk. 6:3.  There is no clear reason from the New Testament to identify 2 and 3 as the same person.  3 is commonly believed to be the author of Jude in the New Testament, he is identified as the brother of James, the author of the book that bears his name.