Peter Kirby

Hi LWF,

Perhaps I am the long winded fool here!

I remain persuaded that the historical Jesus did not anticipate a world-wide church that included non-Jews as part of his movement. The main difference between the way you and I approach the issue is whether the texts are treated as forming a single coherent narrative, i.e. inerrant literary criticism, or as the product of actual human beings who recorded the events of the first century imperfectly. So, for example, you quote Matthew 28:19 and identify the risen Christ there with the man from Galilee, while I see this as evidence that the early Christians were not so bold as to show the man as advocating the inclusion of Gentiles, recognizing that such a directive was part of the unfolding revelation of the Holy Spirit and a point of controversy in the mid first century.

We will encounter the same difference in paradigm when interpreting these parables. The inerrantist will identify the interpretation of a Matthew or a Mark with that of the real Jesus, while the historicist will attempt to triangulate the data on the parable from several early Christian writings and find its most appropriate setting in the life of Jesus, if it indeed originated there. Hence my comments below.

This allegorical interpretation is certainly similar to the one adopted by Matthew, as made explicit by the statement in 21:43 that "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you," on which W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann comment: "This verse is not found in Mark or in Luke. It is almost impossible to reject the argument that this verse and the one which follows it [v. 44] are secondary commentary. ... the parable makes no judgment of the kind suggested in this verse, and the verse itself interrupts the connection between vs. 42 and vss. 44, 45-46." (Matthew, p. 265)

Here is the parable in Mark (Darby).

Mark 12
1 And he began to say to them in parables, A man planted a vineyard, and made a fence round [it] and dug a wine-vat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and left the country.
2 And he sent a bondman to the husbandmen at the season, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard.
3 But they took him, and beat [him], and sent [him] away empty.
4 And again he sent to them another bondman; and [at] him they [threw stones, and] struck [him] on the head, and sent [him] away with insult.
5 And [again] he sent another, and him they killed; and many others, beating some and killing some.
6 Having yet therefore one beloved son, he sent also him to them the last, saying, They will have respect for my son.
7 But those husbandmen said to one another, This is the heir: come, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours.
8 And they took him and killed him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard.
9 What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to others.
10 Have ye not even read this scripture, The stone which they that builded rejected, this has become the corner-stone:
11 this is of [the] Lord, and it is wonderful in our eyes?
12 And they sought to lay hold of him, and they feared the crowd; for they knew that he had spoken the parable of them. And they left him and went away.

The first thing to notice is that the setting of the parable is Mark's creation. E. J. Pryke writes, "The parenthesis in Mark 12:12 is part of a redactional verse, explaining the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. The vocabulary and syntax are Marcan; the verse also contains the evangelist's second reference to the hostility of the Sanhedrin. ... The scribes' fear of the populace because of Christ's popularity with them is a familiar redactional motif." (Redactional Style in the Marcan Gospel, p. 47)

Another thing to notice is that the parable is pre-Marcan. One indication is that the story doesn't presuppose Mark's crucifixion-burial-resurrection narrative. Taylor writes: "The statement that they cast him out of the vineyard (EKBALLW, i. 12; EXW, i. 45) implies that his body was left unburied. In Lk, but probably not in Mt (so D [etc.]), the inversion by which the casting out is mentioned first may reflect a desire to bring the story into closer agreement with the tradition that Christ 'suffered without the gate' (Heb. xiii. 12)." (The Gospel According to St. Mark, p. 475)

John H. Sieber points out another indication (A Redactional Analysis of the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 231-232): "In all three Gospels the parable itself is followed by the addition of an Old Testament quotation, Ps. 118:22-23. It seems more probable that this addition is a secondary feature since it has no direct connection with the content of the parable. Bultmann attributes the addition to Mark, but an examination of Mark's citation formulas for such quotations leads to the conclusion that Mark found the two units already joined in his sources." Sieber notes, "Mark commonly uses GEGRAPTAI to introduce Old Testament quotes: 1:2, 7:6, 9:12, 13:13, 11:17, 14:21, 14:27. Only here does he use AI GRAFAI." (p. 232, n. 4)

Next, here is the parable in Luke (Darby).

Luke 20
1 And it came to pass on one of the days, as he was teaching the people in the temple, and announcing the glad tidings, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up,
2 and spoke to him saying, Tell us by what authority thou doest these things, or who is it who has given thee this authority?
3 And he answering said to them, *I* also will ask you [one] thing, and tell me:
4 The baptism of John, was it of heaven or of men?
5 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, If we should say, Of heaven, he will say, Why have ye not believed him?
6 but if we should say, Of men, the whole people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.
7 And they answered, they did not know whence.
8 And Jesus said to them, Neither do *I* tell you by what authority I do these things.
9 And he began to speak to the people this parable: A man planted a vineyard and let it out to husbandmen, and left the country for a long time.
10 And in the season he sent to the husbandmen a bondman, that they might give to him of the fruit of the vineyard; but the husbandmen, having beaten him, sent [him] away empty.
11 And again he sent another bondman; but they, having beaten him also, and cast insult upon him, sent [him] away empty.
12 And again he sent a third; and they, having wounded him also, cast [him] out.
13 And the lord of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: perhaps when they see him they will respect [him].
14 But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir; [come,] let us kill him, that the inheritance may become ours.
15 And having cast him forth out of the vineyard, they killed [him]. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do to them?
16 He will come and destroy those husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it they said, May it never be!
17 But he looking at them said, What then is this that is written, The stone which they that builded rejected, this has become the corner-stone?
18 Every one falling on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.
19 And the chief priests and the scribes sought the same hour to lay hands on him, and they feared the people; for they knew that he had spoken this parable of them.

Luke 20:19 reproduces redactional Mark and is, as evident on other grounds, dependent on the Marcan Gospel.

Here is the parable in Thomas (Lambdin).

(65) He said, "There was a good man who owned a vineyard. He leased it to tenant farmers so that they might work it and he might collect the produce from them. He sent his servant so that the tenants might give him the produce of the vineyard. They seized his servant and beat him, all but killing him. The servant went back and told his master. The master said, 'Perhaps he did not recognize them.' He sent another servant. The tenants beat this one as well. Then the owner sent his son and said, 'Perhaps they will show respect to my son.' Because the tenants knew that it was he who was the heir to the vineyard, they seized him and killed him. Let him who has ears hear."

(66) Jesus said, "Show me the stone which the builders have rejected. That one is the cornerstone."

Sieber writes: "Since none of the editorial traits found in our analysis of the Synoptic passages occur in Thomas, and since those claimed by Schrage are not editorial traits, we can only conclude that Thomas did not use our Synoptic Gospels at this point. Many further points support this conclusion. One, Thomas contains readings unexplainable either by the Synoptic texts or by gnostic tendencies: The master's explanation of the beating of the first servant; the TOTE (Plate 93, 11); the EPEI (Plate 93:13); the addition of the 'ears' saying. Two, the inclusion in Saying 66 of the same Psalm quote found in our Gospels but without the Synoptic connecting-links and without reference to the Old Testament is significant. The latter indicates clearly that the two sayings had been orally transmitted as a pair of sayings for so long that the Old Testament quote was finally also placed on Jesus' lips. If the sources of Thomas had been our Gospels, it seems unlikely that this would have happened even in the light of Thomas' lack of references to the Old Testament. Three, Thomas completely lacks the allegorical references of our Gospels. That he might have eliminated some of them because of their lack of gnostic importance is possible; that he would have eliminated all of them is improbable; that he would have eliminated one such as 'my beloved Son' is highly improbable. The complete lack of allegory is far more easily explained by assuming that the original parable was something like the one in Thomas and that it was made into an allegory by the early Church and included as such in our Gospels." (pp. 235-236)

Funk and Hoover write: "The following allegorical elements are not found in the simpler version of Thomas: (1) The allusions to the song in Isa 5:1-7 (about someone who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a winepress, and built a tower). (2) The repeated sending of slaves and groups of slaves in the synoptic version is omitted; Thomas employs a simple, triadic structure that is a typical feature of oral storytelling. (3) No one is killed prior to the son; in Matthew some are killed in each group. (4) No mention is made of throwing the son outside the vineyard (a reference, presumably, to Jesus' death outside the walls of Jerusalem). (5) There is no concluding question addressed to the audience and therefore no punishment of the tenants. To be sure, some of these traits are missing from Mark and Luke as well. It is Matthew who carried the allegorization to its ultimate degree. Nevertheless, it is striking that Thomas has virtually no allegorical features." (The Five Gospels, p. 511)

Thus, while the parable is an allegory of the death of Christ in the Synoptics, the opinion of such as Dodd and Jeremias that it was not always an allegory is probable. In addition to the independent evidence of Thomas, pre-Thomas scholars argued for this conclusion on the basis "that not all the details of the Synoptic parable can have allegorical meaning and that hte relationship between the accounts of Matthew and Mark and Isaiah 5:1-7 indicate a deliberate attempt to modify the parable to bring it in line with the passage of Isaiah" (ibid., p. 232). In other words, the church allegorized an existing parable that may go back to Jesus.

What might the story have been about originally? Funk and Hoover write: "In the original story, the tenants saw an opportunity to lay claim to the land themselves by killing the heir, the son of the owner. Tenant farmers were common in Galilee at the time of Jesus, and their situation was undoubtedly extremely difficult. Rich landowners readily took advantage of them. The story probably ended with the crime. Jesus did not draw a moral or pass judgment. In this respect, the parable of the leased vineyard is comparable to the parable of the shrewd manager (Luke 16:1-7). The two parables also share a basic realism about economic and social conditions in Galilee." (The Five Gospels, p. 511) Taylor writes, "More convincing is the explanation of Dodd [The Parabels of the Kingdom], 125, who suggests that the parable reflects the disturbed conditions, partly due to economic causes, which existed in Palestine during the half century which preceded the revolt of A.D. 66." (The Gospel According to St. Mark, p. 475) I would like to look up Dodd's book sometime. If such an understanding of the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen is not permissible (though I think it is), the next most likely position is that it was created as an allegory by the early church (as maintained by Julicher, Bultmann, Ludemann, et al.).

Here is the Gospel of Matthew (Darby).

Matthew 22
1 And Jesus answering spoke to them again in parables, saying,
2 The kingdom of the heavens has become like a king who made a wedding feast for his son,
3 and sent his bondmen to call the persons invited to the wedding feast, and they would not come.
4 Again he sent other bondmen, saying, Say to the persons invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatted beasts are killed, and all things ready; come to the wedding feast.
5 But they made light of it, and went, one to his own land, and another to his commerce.
6 And the rest, laying hold of his bondmen, ill-treated and slew [them].
7 And [when] the king [heard of it he] was wroth, and having sent his forces, destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8 Then he says to his bondmen, The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy;
9 go therefore into the thoroughfares of the highways, and as many as ye shall find invite to the wedding feast.
10 And those bondmen went out into the highways, and brought together all as many as they found, both evil and good; and the wedding feast was furnished with guests.
11 And the king, having gone in to see the guests, beheld there a man not clothed with a wedding garment.
12 And he says to him, [My] friend, how camest thou in here not having on a wedding garment? But he was speechless.
13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him feet and hands, and take him away, and cast him out into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
14 For many are called ones, but few chosen ones.

Funk and Hoover write: "There are three versions of this story. The one that appears in Matt 22:1-14 has been allegorized: a king (God) plans a banquet for his son (Jesus) and issues invitations to his subjects (Judeans). They dismiss the invitations or abuse the king's servants (the prophets). The king then destroys their city (Jerusalem) and sends invitations to others (gentiles). Allegory is employed in this version to transform the parable into the Christian version of the history of God's dealing with the elect. Matthew's edition has virtually lost touch with Jesus." (The Five Gospels, p. 509)

Here is the Gospel of Luke (Darby).

Luke 14
16 And he said to him, A certain man made a great supper and invited many.
17 And he sent his bondman at the hour of supper to say to those who were invited, Come, for already all things are ready.
18 And all began, without exception, to excuse themselves. The first said to him, I have bought land, and I must go out and see it; I pray thee hold me for excused.
19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee hold me for excused.
20 And another said, I have married a wife, and on this account I cannot come.
21 And the bondman came up and brought back word of these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, in anger, said to his bondman, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring here the poor and crippled and lame and blind.
22 And the bondman said, Sir, it is done as thou hast commanded, and there is still room.
23 And the lord said to the bondman, Go out into the ways and fences and compel to come in, that my house may be filled;
24 for I say to you, that not one of those men who were invited shall taste of my supper.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer writes: "The sense of the parable is not difficult to discern. As a whole, it makes the same point as does the form in the Gospel of Thomas: Those who say no to the master's summons to come to the dinner now prepared will never taste of it. ... The Lucan form of the parable goes still further, allegorizing the original in terms of Luke's ideas of salvation-history. In the separate sending of the servant 'into the streets and lanes of the town' and then 'into the highways and the hedgerows' (outside the town), the implication is clear that first further contemporaries of Jesus' patris (recall 4:24; see p. 528) are invited, the outcasts of the town, Jewish people of less noble standing. Then those form outside the patris are also brought in, viz. the Gentiles. This allegorization of the original parable (see J. Jeremias, Parables, 64) fits into a Lucan motif which finds even more explicit expression elsewhere in his writings, e.g. in Acts 13:46: 'It was necessary that the word of God be addressed to you first [i.e., Jews and God-fearers in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia]. Since you reject it and consider yourselves not worthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles.' See further Acts 18:6; 3:26; 28:23-28. Indeed, the servant is told to 'make people come in' (i.e. compel them with persuasion to do so) so that the house of the kingdom will eventually be filled." (The Gospel According to Luke, pp. 1052-1053)

Here is the Gospel of Thomas (Lambdin).

(64) Jesus said, "A man had received visitors. And when he had prepared the dinner, he sent his servant to invite the guests.
He went to the first one and said to him, 'My master invites you.' He said, 'I have claims against some merchants. They are coming to me this evening. I must go and give them my orders. I ask to be excused from the dinner.'
He went to another and said to him, 'My master has invited you.' He said to him, 'I have just bought a house and am required for the day. I shall not have any spare time.'
He went to another and said to him, 'My master invites you.' He said to him, 'My friend is going to get married, and I am to prepare the banquet. I shall not be able to come. I ask to be excused from the dinner.'
He went to another and said to him, 'My master invites you.' He said to him, 'I have just bought a farm, and I am on my way to collect the rent. I shall not be able to come. I ask to be excused.'
The servant returned and said to his master, 'Those whom you invited to the dinner have asked to be excused.' The master said to his servant, 'Go outside to the streets and bring back those whom you happen to meet, so that they may dine.' Businessmen and merchants will not enter the places of my father."

Fitzmyer writes: "When one looks more carefully at the form of the parable in the Gospel of Thomas, one sees that the point of it is clear: Those who were invited to the dinner and have refused to respond to the servant's summons will find no place at the Father's banquet; their places will be taken by others brought in from outside, and they will be excluded only because they have excluded themselves. In the context of the Gospel of Thomas, which normally strings together sayings and parables of Jesus that are quite unrelated, this form of the parable follows on a form of that of the rich fool (cf. Luke 12:16-21; see p. 971). In effect, the two parables caution the rich. ... In my opinion, one should regard the form of the parable in the Gospel of Thomas as more primitive and closer to what might have come from the lips of Jesus himself in Stage I of the gospel tradition. In this, I agree with J. Jeremias (Parables, 176), E. Haenchen ('Das Gleichnis'), G. Schneider (Evangelium nach Lukas, 317), N. Perrin (Rediscovering, 113)." (The Gospel According to Luke, p. 1051)

Now I have a theological question: would you maintain that everything that is true about Christianity must be derived from the teachings of Jesus? You seem to be arguing as if to accept that the historical Jesus didn't anticipate the Gentile church would nullify the justification of Gentiles. I would say that Paul, at least, would disagree--Paul didn't know of any teaching of the man from Galilee about extending the mission to Gentiles, which would be pure gold for justifying his own ministry, yet Paul believed that his apostleship was guaranteed by direct revelation, which is why he had authority to baptize Gentiles and to eat with them, etc., as part of the community of brothers. A theologian would likely regard this as one of the many examples of the way that God's revelation unfolds over time.

best,
Peter Kirby

long winded fool

No Christians are the "true Jews" according to the NT. Jesus was not a "Christian" so to speak. He represented what Judaism is supposed to be. There is no real difference between Judaism and Christianity from this point of view. The Jews came to be known as Christians because they were Jews who followed the teachings of Christ. Since this is the "correct way to be a Jew," according to Jesus, Christians then would be the "chosen" and the faith known as modern day Judaism are the servants who rejected the invitation in the parable. So, for a Christian, an adherent to the Jewish faith is a Christian, because Jesus was a Jew. For those who reject that Jesus was the messiah, Christians are not Jews. (And neither was Jesus, if they're honest.) When I say that a baptized Gentile becomes a Jew, I'm assuming Christianity and Judaism is the same thing, since this is the point of view of the NT. There was ever only one true religion and it simply changed names. Those that splintered away took the old name and those who stayed loyal became known as Christian in order to separate them from the offshoot religion who still called themselves Jews.

Understand, I'm not saying that these are my beliefs, I'm saying that this is how the New Testament sees things, and that is what we're talking about.

Well, no. I was just always under this impression due to the parables and I suppose I read the Gospels with this in the back of my head. When you attempt to understand the teachings of Jesus in context, you have to take into account all the things he's recorded as saying and incorporate them into the doctrine. Your points are very interesting, some even compelling, however they all seem to be highly speculative. I've never been impressed with the whole "conspiratorial text manipulation in order to lend credence to the religion," even in the first century. While I don't rule it out as a possibility, I find it highly improbable. The motive seems hollow, and the idea that anyone who believed that the words of Jesus were gospel, (so to speak,) would deliberately change them or add to them in any way seems rather absurd. No other historical figure is subject to such wild speculation and hairsplitting scrutiny as this man from Nazareth whose ministry is apparently recorded in the four Gospels. While the points you make do seem reasonable enough given the intricate weaving of evidence, I'm not sure that it isn't more reasonable to simply assume that the authors of the Gospels were merely communicating the truth as clearly and accurately as they saw it. And this information is the primary information from whence we get our knowledge of this ancient ministry. If we question the validity of such a large amount of historical evidence, shouldn't we be questioning the validity of other historical figures whom we have far less information on that much more? Could the plays of Shakespeare actually be the plays of Joe? Could Socrates, perhaps, really have been Plato's dog?

Like most good conspiracy theories, (and I apologize if this term offends anyone in regards to the various attempts to invalidate the Gospels as historical records of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth,) the idea of the fabrication of Christianity for some dubious purpose is rife with possibilities. Many of them extremely compelling. Unfortunately, they are all speculation. Like modern conspiracies, they tell us what we like to think might be the case and give us evidence, often thoroughly convincing, when what we want to hear starts to match what we are told. The documents we have may differ in some areas, but I don't think the speculation of intentional alteration is justified. While mistakes ought to be identified, there is a fine line between objective comparison and deliberate extrapolation. Again, I think subjecting any historical document to such inordinate scrutiny and with the preconceived intent to invalidate it will bring to surface any number of "what ifs?"

Some of what Jesus is recorded as saying may very well not be representative of what was actually said. None of it might be. But we have a series of manuscripts which claims to record the words of Jesus, and I have yet to find any non-personal reason not to believe that they do just that. If I did, this wouldn't nullify the salvation of Gentiles, or even the remaining probability that Jesus intended the salvation of Gentiles, it would simply subtract one small aspect of Jesus' doctrine from the countless aspects that we assume cohesively represent Jesus' message. The rest of the ideas of "love your brother" and "everyone who hears these words..." would make this small vacuum hardly worth noticing. Until, that is, one has a specific motive to invalidate the doctrine in general, in which case a tiny vacuum can become the final crushing blow in the hands of a talented (even well-meaning) spin-doctor.

Peter Kirby

So I was right. You approach the texts (well, just the Big Four, not all the things he's recorded as saying) in terms of inerrantist literary criticism, rather than as the product of actual human beings who recorded the events of the first century imperfectly.

"Speculative" is one of the words that is easy to throw around when you have no cogent argument.

Your "conspiratorial" accusation falls flat. What I argued in my last post is that two parables told by Jesus were allegorized in directions not anticipated by Jesus. Rather pedestrian suggestion, really.

Let me quote Stevan Davies in his best disarming style:

The flip side to the difficulty in understanding the logia is the ease with which one can build one's own ideas on top of them by way of allegory. Such activity revealed by my discussion of the two parables mentioned above, which you have hardly touched, would be a case in point.

Argument from personal incredulity.

One reason that Christian persons would add to the sayings is the belief that in so doing they were guided by God. Here is Jim Holman on one way in which this happened:

Further, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When one works through the gospels in a synopsis, it is easy to see many ways in which the writers did make modifications to material found elsewhere.

It is true that much more study is given to the Gospels than to other literature in antiquity, on account of the number of Christian historians and theologians and the importance such study has to them. However, the idea that scholars don't attempt to identify redaction and development and fiction in other documents can be founded only in ignorance.

As far as the author of Mark and the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen is concerned, I did agree that the author was passing on a pre-existing tradition.

For the author of Matthew, the truth as he saw it was that the city of Jerusalem had been destroyed by the King on account of the wickedness of the Judaeans, and the kingdom given over to the Christians.

I have been arguing that Jesus didn't preach (or give instructions on preaching) repentance to the Gentiles on the basis of the very same primary documents, taken seriously and historically (not as an inerrantist-harmonization literary puzzle). Remember the detailed first post I made to the thread to which you proof-texted the Great Commission?

Although the canine theory is new to me, I am certain that many of the things put on the lips of Socrates in the dialogues were not actually said by him.

What do you mean by validity of a historical figure? Is Jesus invalid if he didn't tell people "hey, go preach to the Gentiles after I get crucified, will ya? I'll be kind of tied up at the time, ya know?"

best,
Peter Kirby

gregor

The comparisons of the gospels and Thomas on these parables is compelling, indeed. Thanks Mr. Kirby for the effort.

And as to the question about preaching to the Gentiles, the statement about Paul's justification is surely a debate stopper. There is really no rebuttal to the silence of the epistles.

Paul's epistles devote a vast amount of space to justifying his ministry. He was, quite literally, fighting for his life in traveling and giving his brand of pro-Roman Judaism, using Jesus as his justification. If there was an existing sayings tradition that Jesus, during his life, wanted the apostles to go amongst the Gentiles and convert them, Paul would have been citing that in each letter.

Surely Paul would have had hats and t-shirts printed up saying "As Jesus promised, I'm here."

long winded fool

Well, I don't argue that there is hard incontrovertible proof that Jesus wanted anything to do with Gentiles. It is just difficult to imagine reading the Gospels as a coherent story (with a few difficult parts) and not have enough intuitive information on the character of Jesus to simply presume this conclusion. It would be "out of character" for Jesus to have not assumed his word would eventually be delivered to Gentiles. Again, I agree that there is an absence of actual directives. But it seems extremely difficult to read the Gospels objectively and assume that Jesus never meant for the Gentiles to hear the message. To do so seems to require an ulterior motive which would take away the objectivity of the reader. But I do agree based on the evidence you've presented that there's no hard verbal evidence that Jesus wanted his apostles to preach to the Gentiles. The evidence comes from the character as he is painted in the Gospels. To assume that Jesus did not want the Gentiles to hear the message after the crucifixion is grossly out of character. Of course, this has no real weight empirically, but knowing the character of an historical figure allows for much more probable explanations of things which are missing in the empirical evidence file.

Toto

LWF - how do you know that Jesus didn't expect the immanent end of this world? It appears he may not have assumed that there would be any time to carry his message to the gentiles before God delivered the final message.

Oh, and when you say how do you know the character of this allegedly historical figure?

Peter Kirby

Well, you're not the only one claiming access to the character of Jesus. I have a web page with the views of two dozen different writers on what the Jesus thing is all about. Some of these people have been studying the gospels professionally since before I was born.

The controversy started with CX stating, "Jesus didn't preach to the Gentiles. There's no evidence he ever intended to. That was Paul's idea after Xianity fell flat with the Jews." We soon reached an agreement that Jesus himself didn't preach for the repentance of Gentiles, but some left the possibility open that Jesus intended for his disciples to undertake such a task after his expected crucifixion. After some more intense wrangling, we seem to have forged a consensus that the empirical data doesn't demonstrate the hypothesis that Jesus spoke during his life on earth about the expansion of a Christian church to Gentile believers. Now we are left to make a decision on the third dictum of CX. Is it the case that the character of Jesus is such that he meant for his followers (after an anticipated death on a cross) to go out around the world to preach salvation open to non-Jews who believe the gospel, even if Jesus left no clear teaching on the subject to which Christians could appeal during the controversies of the mid first century? Or was the idea of making the movement available to non-Jews the brainchild of Paul (who received his authority by direct revelation), a good move that to this day shapes the way in which we think about the character of Jesus, i.e. as savior of the world? The cards are on the table.

best,
Peter Kirby

long winded fool

Good point. It does appear that Jesus felt that the world would end shortly after his death. The fact Jesus spoke in allegory so much of the time and the fact that he constantly rebuked his own apostles for hearing but not understanding his words leaves open the distinct possibility that his talk of the imminent return of the kingdom and the end of days was a parable and symbolic of something other than the literal interpretation. If it was symbolic and if he didn't actually think that his apostles would physically live to see the end of days, then it is likely, (based on his character described by his apostles,) but not definite, that he meant for the Gentiles to hear his word.

Which leads to your next question. When I say character, I'm not referring to the personal character of an historical figure; I'm referring to my familiarity with the character in the story. For instance, of someone told me a story containing Scarlett O’Hara that painted her as a whiny, idealistic little girl, I'd say that this was out of character for her and the story told to me would sound apocryphal relative to Gone With the Wind. If Scarlett O'Hara were a real person, and if Gone With the Wind were our guide to her life, I'd be far more inclined to believe a story in which Scarlett O'Hara's behavior paralleled her character in the book. The fact that the accepted evidence for Scarlett O'Hara is from someone who "knew" her, so to speak, it tends to have more weight than pieced-together clues and scrutiny on various minor inconsistencies in the author's story. While movements to historically and apocryphally change her character might sometimes sound compelling, and even in the face of the distinct possibility that they're correct, the majority of accepted evidence shows Scarlett's character as a strong, rational pragmatist. Things she is said to have done or not done, or motives she had or didn't have, which reflect this type of character are more believable than things which reflect a different personality. The accepted personality may be incorrect, but without the woman herself to evaluate all one can reasonably do is trust the portrayal provided by someone who actually "knew" her. (In the case of my analogy, Margaret Mitchell.)

And Peter Kirby is right in that there are numerous opinions on what Jesus was all about, however I think it all boils down to: Do we trust the people who actually knew him, or people who knew people who actually new him, (in other words, first and secondhand information of the apostles' description of the events) or do we not trust the authors, reject firsthand information, piece together two-thousand year old clues and come to our own conclusions millennia later? Or a little of both? Either choice presents possibilities, but also leaves us with questionable information. While some reputable scholars disagree, IMO the reasonable, objective standpoint, (objective as in treating the Gospels as any other historical texts and Jesus as any other historical figure,) is to assume that the Gospels are honest records of the events of Nazareth, correct to the best knowledge of the authors. I don't think assuming any kind of ulterior motives or text alterations is justified. Inconsistencies should be viewed as a simple clerical error long before jumping to a conspiracy to manipulate recorded history. Yes, things could have been added to lend credence to the religion. But why should we assume adherents to a particular religion would alter the words of their own God in order to "strengthen" the religion? Since it is highly unlikely that any of the first-century disciples of Jesus would change anything about his message, this being expressly forbidden by the man himself, it is highly probable that preaching to Gentiles, if not explicitly, was implicitly contained within Jesus' message to his apostles. No proof, just a likelihood given the structure of the story. To assume otherwise is to assume a character inconsistent with the character described by those who knew him.