PhilosopherJay

The comedian Harold Lloyd was first successful as a Charlie Chaplin knock-off character named Lonesome Luke. He did not become a superstar until he abandoned the silent film clown's tradition of ill-fitting clothes and simply put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. The "Glasses character" of Harold Lloyd was the most popular character in silent films after Chaplin's "Tramp"

The glasses made Lloyd look quite meek. In many of the films the character would perform miraculous and daring stunts which seemed to contrast with his mild appearance.

The most interesting thing, perhaps, about Lloyd is that of all the Hollywood stars, he is the only one who went unrecognized by the public that adored his movies. Without his glasses, Lloyd looked so different that even his fans did not see him. People were so use to seeing him as the glasses character that he could stand outside a theater, underneath a marquee with his name and the exiting customers who had just seen him for 90 minutes would walk right by.

It was probably the dual identity of Lloyd that gave Jerry Siegel the idea of using glasses as a disguise for Superman and his Clark Kent character. Yet Siegel got it wrong. It is easy to identity a person we know well when they put on glasses. As with the case of Lloyd, it is much harder to recognize a person who we have always seen with glasses when they take it off. Since everyone in Metropolis was familiar with how Superman looked without glasses, they would have immediately recognized Clark Kent as Superman wearing glasses. It should have been Superman wearing the glasses and Clark Kent without the glasses. As with Lloyd, people would have been looking for Superman in his other identity as someone wearing glasses.

Now, in the gospels, there is a recognition and identity problem. Why do the Jews and especially the Jewish leadership not recognize Jesus as the Messiah/Christ/Son of God. The typical answer is that they misread their own scriptures and were looking for someone else. In other words, Jesus appeared with glasses (weak) and they were looking for someone without glasses (strong). But as with the case with Harold Lloyd, this should not prevented them from recognizing him.

I went through the Gospel of Matthew looking for the disguise (the glasses) that Jesus was wearing that might have fooled the Jews. In fact I found none. There was no disguise. Jesus comes across as a stereotypical angry and hateful Jewish prophet calling the straying Jews back to God from the beginning to the end. This is how he appears and this is how the Jewish leaders recognize him.

There is only one passage where confusion and recognition seems to occur:

Here, he is apparently identified as "The Christ, the son of the living God". However, note that nothing whatever comes of it. Jesus says that Simon, son of Jona (John?) is right and makes a prediction about himself. Simon denies the prediction. Jesus gets angry and calls him Satan.

The lack of any questioning or explanation of what it means to be the Christ or the son of the living God, should cue us that there is something wrong with the text.

Imagine the following conversation in a novel where we have established the character was born in Geneva, Switzerland.

Since the character has been established as being from Switzerland and the all the dialogue, except for the one sentence regarding Jupiter, refers to him coming from Switzerland, we might presume that there is a mistake in the text. The reference to "Jupiter" instead of Geneva is some kind of error.

In the case of the Gospel of Matthew, since Jesus has behaved as a prophet and in fact makes a prophesy after Simon Peter identifies him we may assume that the identification that Simon Peter made was originally that Jesus was a prophet instead of "The Christ, son of God" Jesus will build his church on Peter because Peter has correctly identified him, not because he is the son of God. Why would the Son of God need a church anyway?

If we look at the beginning of the pericope, we also find evidence for this.
Note:

Note that the subject that Jesus asks about is the son of man. Who is the son of man? The disciples give four choices for the son of man: 1) John the Baptist, 2) Elijah 3) Jeremiah, and 4) One of the prophets.

Now, Jesus has asked who men say the son of man is? He begins the next sentence with, "Who do you say..." It is obvious what the end of this sentence should be: "he is," but the text has been clumsily edited. Instead of "Who do you say he is," the question has been changed to Who do you say I am, which logically makes no sense, as it makes the first question and answer meaningless.

Once we replace the awkward text that came down to us with the text that logically should have been there, we can easily reconstruct the answer that was there.

16.15 He said to them, "But who do you say he is?" 16.16 Simon Peter replied, "You are the son of man."

This now makes perfect sense. In other words, the answers of the other people are wrong. The "son of man" is not 1) John the Baptist, 2) Elijah or 3) Jeremiah, but the Son of Man is Jesus.

In the Book of Ezekiel, the prophet Ezekiel is called "the Son of Man" 94 times. It is most likely that Jesus is affirming that he is the prophet Ezekiel.

Note that "Ezekiel's greatest "miracle" consisted in his resuscitation of the dead, which is recounted in chapter 37 of the Book of Ezekiel." (wiki)

Here is how the passage read originally.
Note this from Ezekiel 34:

Is it any wonder that Jesus was identified as a shepherd surrounded with sheep in his early iconography?

For the original writer of Matthew, Jesus is not in disguise and there is no mistake in his identity. He is simply the prophet Ezekiel come back to life.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay (AKA Jay Raskin)

Elijah

Seems a little strange to expect people to be able to tell he was the messiah by appearance. I think the “glasses” in the story is that he comes from working class but the people in the story seem more than ready to believe he was something to the point of some pretty impressive stories of faith healings by people who thought he had the power spreading. I think the people who had a problem where the religious leaders who were worried about their place in society being upset by him or Rome responding to him.

I think the point is that Peter doesn’t like the prediction of the son of man having to die, not about Jesus being the person they are waiting on.

I agree the wording in Matt is super confusing. Glancing at Mark and Luke, it seems a little more clear with the straight, who do they say I am, without the son of man title confusing things.

Still confusing but that’s because understanding the beliefs that would be able to say he was a prophet from old or a guy who just died in John is hard to imagine. I don’t know if they are speaking figuratively about archetypes these people personify or literally John or Elijah they think he could be. How can they be worried/thinking this guy is John?
I think herding sheep is one of, if not the most obvious metaphor for leading people, so not something you can go look this time they use a shepherd metaphor is the sole influence on this other time.
I think the point of the story is to say he’s the messiah not a simple prophet.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Elijah,

Glancing at Mark, we see:

I think it is important that he says "Christ" and not Son of God. Probably Christ was in the original Matthew, which I believe Mark edited in this passage. I also believe that Simon Peter explicitly named Ezekiel. Otherwise, the fact that Jesus says that Simon Peter got the information directly from God wouldn't make sense, he could have guessed that Jesus was the Son of Man, but not that he was Ezekiel (choice number 4).

So a more precise reconstruction of original Matthew would be this:


Mark, simply eliminated the whole Son of Man thing, eliminating the first two lines and changing the answer "The son of Man, Ezekial, the Christ" to the simple "The Christ" answer.

The four choices that are given 1) John the Baptist, 2) Elijah, 3) Jeremiah, or 4) one of the prophets indicates that we are dealing with a pre-Marcion text. Otherwise, "a prophet from another God" would have been presented as another false choice.

This indicates the movement of the title "Son of man" in the text/movements
Probably John the Baptist was originally declared as "the Son of Man." Other Jews argued for Elijah, and others added to the debate by putting in Jeremiah's name as a candidate, and those who couldn't decide just said "one of the prophets."

That it was Ezekiel was a new revelation.

Also please note this: Ezekiel 20:49 [21:5]: "They say of me, 'Is he not a speaker of parables?'" (42). It is not a coincidence that Jesus and Ezekiel speak in parables.

The post/anti Marcion, Roman group who created the fourfold gospel included Matthew because it was so Jewish and changed the idea of the "Son of man" to "the Son of God." They probably eliminated all references to the "Book of Elekiel." Not a single reference is made to this prophet who raised the dead. The Romans had no interest in a Jesus who was not unique, but simply a revisiting Jewish prophet.

The Roman creators of the fourfold gospel were so successful that we look at Jesus through "Son of God" glasses. That is why we do not see that Matthew is presenting Jesus solely as a Jewish prophet -- the son of man -- Ezekiel.



Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Juststeve

Jay:

Do you contend that Mark edited Matthew and Matthew sis not use Mark as a source? If as most scholars agree the author of Matthew used Mark as a source then it would be the case that Matthew added to Mark and not the other way around.

Steve

PhilosopherJay

Hi Juststeve,

When I investigated this several years ago, I found that there was good evidence that in a number of passages Matthew was expanding or working from Mark, but also good evidence in a number of passages that Mark was cutting or working from Matthew. I am not sure how this situation came about, probably one had a proto version of the other and then the other made changes to his response version.

I don't really know if Mark or Matthew came first.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Juststeve

Jay:

My understanding of the idea that Mark is prior is based on the observation that when Luke and Matthew agree they also agree with Mark. Where they do not agree with Mark they don't agree with each other either. This seems to me to be quite consistent with the idea that both Luke and Matthew used Mark as a template and then added material from other sources.

I have read people who want to place Matthew or even John first, but that seems to be for apologetic reasons which I reject. Can you recommend a non apologetic book that places Matthew first?

Steve

PhilosopherJay

Hi Juststeve,

Here is a page with many of the different hypotheses listed: The Synoptic Problem Home Page

I'm not sure of the personal views of these writers. I tend to look at the arguments and not worry about what agenda they may seem to be promoting.

Helmut Koester would certainly qualify as non-apologetic. His theory that Matthew and Mark used a proto-Mark would work for me here, as well.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Elijah

I’m a little lost, sorry. This is a stab at it. Him using “son of god” you think was originally “son of man” and that this is a title for Ezekiel who is different from the messiah which is a later addition? You also think that it’s too obvious for Peter to guess that Jesus was the messiah so he had to say something else to get the type of response that it was a revelation from God?

Do you think they are suggesting that it’s Ezekiel resurrected, reincarnated or just Jesus is a prophet of his type/spirit? When they say “son of man” they mean the guy who was called it in the OT, it’s not a title but a nickname of a particular person?

I think that the "it’s a revelation from god" is more likely a response to one of the other gospels who showed Peter’s faith in Jesus as coming from John the Baptist (Mark, John). If you look at Mark and John he’s just someone who believed what John said but that wasn’t good enough for the writer of Mathew who wanted to make it look like Peter was divinely revealed instead of man made.

Did Ezekiel actually raise the dead or have a vision that his prophecy could do it? You have other prophets in the OT that resurrect the dead so it’s not necessarily a reference to Ezekiel or the other two who actually did but just trying to put their messiah on equal footing with the feats of the OT folks collectively.

I forgot I wanted to make a quick statement about why the Churches. They are trying to establish a new kind of kingdom within the literal kingdoms with the churches. A new kind of kingdom that could provide for the people, without borders or a king to oppress you; because instead of having to die and serve the authority like in the standard kingdom, with this kingdom the king served and died for the people.

But I do agree that Jesus probably couldn’t have envisioned the Church aspect of the movement, so that’s not something he could have said but not because he was so powerful that they would be unnecessary. Which I guess you are suggesting with why would the “Son of God” need a church instead of “Jesus”.

Elijah

I thought the Q material was the material that was similar between Luke and Matthew that wasn't in Mark?

Juststeve

That's what those who believe that Q existed think.