Fortunate Son

Paula Fredriksen in her book Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (or via: amazon.co.uk) argues that some aspects of ethical teachings in the Gospels and Paul make sense only in light of the expectation that the Kingdom of God was soon to appear. Jesus was not giving instructions for a church he knew would last for several millennia, but for the short-term, just to get his followers through until God established his righteous rule by the Son of Man. In this light, the long term application of Jesus’ instructions would be simply impractical:

No normal society could long run according to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. Total passive nonresistance to evil—indeed, compliance with injustice ( Mt. 5:38-48//Lk. 6:27-36)—and an absolute refusal to judge (Mt. 7:1-2/Lk. 6:37-38) would simply lead to the exploitation of those abiding by such rules by those who do not. Voluntary poverty ultimately only increases the absolute numbers of the poor. Not worrying about tomorrow—a principled refusal to plan—can be disastrous: Lilies of the field live one kind of life, but humans another.

And as we see already from Matthew’s emendation, society, in the long run, cannot tolerate an absolute prohibition of divorce. To live by their stringent codes, the Essenes formed their own society, withdrawn from the rest of the world. Much later Christianity, acting on some of these injunctions to poverty and sexual abstinence, of necessity did much the same, variously institutionalizing monasticism and the practice of celibacy, collecting those who would live out their religious commitment in this way into their own settlements.

But the earliest followers of Jesus did not retreat into separate communities and did not establishing institutions. Why not? Because these early Christians, and Jesus before them, did not expect a long run. The Kingdom was at hand. In the intense and idealized ethics of this new community we see literally embodied, through the way they led their own lives, their utter commitment to this view. Perhaps, too, they viewed their own behavior as a proleptic enactment of eschatological society, bringing into the present what life would be like in the Kingdom. (p.110)

This seems to me to make sense of Jesus' teachings in the Beatitudes and elsewhere.

Christians freely admit they don't follow Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount literally, but many claim to try to live by them as best they can. In light of Frederiksen's argument, this all seems beside the point. These teachings were not meant for Jesus' followers thousands of years later. They were meant only for his listeners in the first century because Jesus didn't think the present order would continue beyond that time.

Thoughts?

Toto

I have seen the argument (from Robert Price, I think) that the requirements of the beatitudes were meant for in ingroup only - not for the wider society.

Fortunate Son

The only in-group would be those following Jesus who wanted to enter the Kingdom of God.

Joan of Bark

It is clear that Jesus and Paul both believed the end times to be near, so yes, Fredericksen's point is correct. Of course, Christians have interpreted away their statements with a lot of unconvincing hand-waving -- business as usual.

Chili

Exactly and that is why the Gospels take place in Galilee which is what we call Purgatory in Catholicism and put a reader censorship on the bible to avoid people getting burned by it.

Good thinking Son

Chili

You must excuse Christians for their half baked opinion on the bible, or should I say fried.

Solo

The absolutistic character of the early Christian ethics I think reflects two things. One, these people were not well and lived under a great deal of stress - which was exacerbated by the communal validation of the depressive and anxiety mentation from which they developed their allegoric lore. In the absence of a threatening physical agent (e.g. an asteroid known to be on a collision course with the planet), the idea of the end of the world is by definition morbid and occurs invariably as a result of pathological development. It is therefore not by accident that the first two beautitudes on the Mount go to the depressed. To channel all one's energy into preparing oneself for the end, to impose sexual abstinence and try to stop procreation, to accept injustice passively, cannot be in any sense said to be in a model of mental health.

Two, there is - especially in Paul - a marked substitution of individual for group narcissism. Unlike the 'apocalyptic psychology', this feature became permanent. Paul taught - and much of it ended up in the gospel Jesus' mouth - separation and withdrawal from the communities at large, while imposing the kind of "proselytic love" that would not leave anyone alone. There is an elementary problem with loving one's enemies, however. If you love someone you will not call them an enemy, and if you call them an enemy it is not because you love them. The Christians are even today widely thought of by outsiders as having an ugly sort of holier-than-thou attitude, and their charity a hostile ulterior motive (Orwell called Salvation Army soup kitchens 'calculated nastiness', designed to feed the hungry but only after making them feel like the lowliest scum).

The external view of the Christians has probably not changed in this respect, in the two thousand years since they appeared.

Jiri