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Veteran Member
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: USA, Missouri
Posts: 3,070
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Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic
Mark calls that charge "false witness." According to mark, Jesus didn't say that, he was falsely accused of saying it by someone else (and it's obviously not historical anyway, since the entire statement presumes knowledge that the temple would be destroyed).
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Why does it matter if Mark thought it was a false charge? He doesn't say anyone in the trial thought it false, and anyway we are talking about the people's perceptions. IF people thought he said that it certainly implies that Jesus was claiming to be more than human, does it not? As for your charge that it isn't historical because it presumes knowledge of temple destruction, the charge doesn't predict the temple destruction, so your objection fails. He certainly could have said it without predicting it.
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Yes. The Talmud explicitly states that no one has committed blasphemy unless he utters the Tetragrammaton.
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According to this site (bolded below) this is a narrowly applied viewpoint. I've included the total analysis regarding the subject. You'll see that even people like Robert Price think there was blasphemy:
http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jesustrial.html#h
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Blasphemy or Baloney?
Matthew: The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" "He is worthy of death," they answered.
Mark: Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked. "You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" They all condemned him as worthy of death.
Luke: "If you are the Christ, " they said, "tell us." Jesus answered, "If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I asked you, you would not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God." They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?" He replied, "You are right in saying I am." Then they said, "Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips."
Whichever of the views of the trial above we may subscribe to, it is clear that a turning point in the Sanhedrin "trial" of Jesus is that in which Caiaphas asks Jesus directly if He is the Messiah - and Jesus answers in the affirmative and adds further descriptions, leading Caiaiphas to declare that blasphemy has been spoken.
There are two parts to Jesus' answer. First part first, claiming to be Messiah - was this the blasphemy? Our skeptical friends say no. Carmichael says that the claim to be Messiah was "definitely not blasphemy," [Carm.DJ, 21] but makes no effort to explain why it was not, and does not even address the second part of Jesus' response. Sanders [Sand.JesJud, 298] observes that "Subsequent would-be Messiahs were not charged with blasphemy, and 'son of God' could mean almost anything." (In a later work [Sand.HistF, 271] , however, Sanders concludes that Caiaphas had resolved in advance to charge Jesus with blasphemy, found the most opportune statement, and tore his garments as a way of persuading the rest of the council to go along with him!) Brandon [Brand.TJ, 90] remarks: "...Josephus does not mention that any other of the many Messianic pretenders, whom he records, was adjudged worthy of death for blasphemy." Sloyan [Sloy.JT, 61] asserts: "Obviously, the claim to messiahship was not blasphemous. Many had made it before, and Bar Kokhba would make it subsequently."
Note, to begin, these things about Messianic pretenders in general, and Bar Kochy in particular:
* A difference in the Messianic-claim example of Bar Kokhba - according to rabbinic lore, Rabbi Akiba pointed to Simon Bar Kochba as the Messiah [Mark.BKB, 6] . Simon Bar Kochba did NOT make the claim for himself! The title was only bestowed upon him by others. As we note elsewhere, to claim on your own to be the Messiah would be taken as proof that you most assuredly were not telling the truth - and thus, you could very well be charged with blasphemy.
Admittedly, there IS a tradition in the Babylonian Talmud - a few hundred years after the fact! - that Kochy, after two and a half years of leadership, DID claim to be the Messiah; but when he failed a test put to him, he was executed! [Juel.MTm, 70] . But even if this is a reliable retelling, it hardly fits where Jesus was concerned: Kochy had been a leader of the people for some time, and was in a position where he might well have been given the benefit of the doubt; whereas Jesus, arrested, bound, and standing before the Sanhedrin, was certainly in no such position! Or as Blinzler [JBz.TJ, 107] puts it:
...(T)hat revolutionary hero corresponded absolutely ideally with the popular Jewish mental picture of the belligerent political Messias, whereas Jesus must have appeared to his contemporaries to be the complete antithesis of that picture.
* Brandon cites the reports of Josephus, but he errs in doing so - for the truth is that bar Kochba was the "first recorded" of the Pseudo-Messiahs! Not ONE of the rebel leaders recorded by Josephus claimed to be anything more than a "king" - they had some "messianic" ambitions, but they did NOT make a claim to be a Messiah! [Harv.JTr, 9-10n; see also Brow.DMh, 475] As far as we can tell, then, Jesus' claim was the first of its kind!
* So, to call upon what we noted elsewhere, in this context, in the words of O'Neill [ONi.WhoD, 48-53; Bamm.TJ, 75] : "the blasphemy lay in saying one was the Messiah," for, by Jewish thinking, "the Messiah is not to glorify himself." And: "The blasphemy would then consist not in the particular title chosen but in the very temerity of using any title at all before God the Father had himself announced the enthronement of his anointed one." Jesus' blasphemy in this regard was, by this view, a blasphemy of presumption to know God's mind.
* Re "Son of God," and the comment by Sanders: It is quite possible to see this messianically, in a rather direct way! This could have been equated with "son of David," a clear messianic title, based on certain OT passages (2 Sam. 7:14, Ps. 2:7, 89:26-7 - Broo.Mk, 243).
But is the phrase used by Jesus indeed an affirmation? O'Neill saw the phrase as an "avoidance of the direct denial the court required", and therefore less than equivocal, [ibid., 120n], but does note that other commentators see the statement by Jesus and the others as meaning, "As you have said, so it is." And indeed, the further evidence that I have uncovered indicates that this is more of an affirmatory phrase, and one actually in line with social constraints of the day. Let us look at two examples of its use in detail:
*Judah the Patriarch is dying, and it has been said that anyone who announces the death will suffer severe consequences. Rabbi Bar Kapparah announces the death euphemistically by referring to angels snatching away the tables of the covenant. Those around Kapparah exclaim, "Rabbi is dead!" Kapparah replies, "You have said it; I have not said it." In this Catchpole [Catch.AJC, 219] sees "an affirmation, qualified only by reluctance to state the matter openly expressis verbis." This presents an interesting parallel to Jesus' reply, for He would know what the result of an affirmative answer would be.
*Simon the Modest, in reply to Rabbi Eliezer's question concerning his lack of adherence to Temple protocol: "Are you ashamed to admit that the high priest's dog is more beloved than you?", replies "You have said so" - which may be seen as a "shame-faced acquiescence and an embarrassed admission" that Eliezer has caught him. [ibid., 220]
Indeed both of these examples fit in with the observations of Herzog [Herz.JJ, 130] that in an honor and shame society like first-century Palestine, such an "evasive" answer would have been what we would expect if Jesus were an honorable man. His silence before his accusers, and "evasive" answer, are part of the honor-shame paradigm: "The honorable man never defends himself against a charge or answers directly a question posed by an enemy." Instead one must shiftthe focus -- which is exactly what Jesus does in the Son of Man statements that follow: "Yes, I am -- and I'll prove it, and you'll see it!"
The difficulty here, then, is non-existent. It is probable, indeed quite likely, that part 1 of Jesus' answer was blasphemy - what about part 2, all that stuff about the Son of Man coming on the clouds and all that? Was that blasphemy? Interestingly, we find a defense of this idea from none other than Robert Price himself - who says this in Beyond Born Again:
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I dare say that most readers of this text naturally assume that this statement (the second part) was the alleged blasphemy in question. And I think they are right.
If one still wants to go in search of extrabiblical corroboration, it is there to be found. Rabbinic literature refers to a Jewish "binitarian" heresy, whereby some claimed that "There are two Powers in heaven." This binitarian heresy was particularly associated with the idea that one of God's servants should be so highly exalted as to be enthroned by his side. According to one rabbinic text, a scholar suggests that David will occupy a throne next to God. A colleague reproaches him: "How long will you profane the Shekinah?" In the late book III Enoch, the exalted Enoch is given the divine Name and a throne next to God's. A later redactor tries to tone this down for fear of binitarianism. What we can see in all this is that Jesus' claim to be enthroned by God's side could be taken by hearers as blasphemy even if not intended as a claim to be God.
In the examples just referred to, the binitarian divinity claim was a conclusion drawn not by the original speaker (or writer) , but by his opponents who feared what they saw as the implication of his words. We might be justified in reading the "blasphemy" charge in the Marcan text as one more example of this. My appeal to Jewish literature merely supports what l believe to be the natural' reading of the Marcan text. Stauffer's on the other hand serves to interpret the text in a way that is rather less than obvious. In short, once again, it is not at all clear that we must reckon with a "claim to be God."
Although some commentators have considered the "Shekinah" comment not relevant in this case, there is still indeed a "blasphemy" here - and Price fails to see the very obvious claim to divinity right in front of him. "Son of Man" was one of Jesus' appellations for Himself. Therefore, Jesus was affirming for Himself this enthroning by God's side - and as God will not share His glory with another, this is a declaration of equality, and hence identity, with God! This amounts, then, to a constructive blasphemy - making oneself an assessor and peer of the Most High. It may not have met the technical, legal definition of blasphemy (assuming that rule to have been in effect - see below), but it was clearly, and "correctly," recognized as such in the mouth of One who was presumed to not be deserving of it. As Brown [Brow.DMh, 531] puts it:
"The only likely historical charge would have been that Jesus arrogantly claimed for himself status or privileges that belonged properly to the God of Israel alone and in that sense implicitly demeaned God."
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But critics take another turn in this regard, and it involves another appeal to the previously-referred-to constraints of the Mishnah. Winter [Wint.TJ, 102n] observes that according to these rules, "The blasphemer is not culpable unless he distinctly pronounces the [divine] Name." Jesus did not say the Divine Name, according to the Gospels; therefore, Winter says, there was no blasphemy.
Again, this objection fails on the grounds that there is no absolute certainty that these rules were in effect at the time of Jesus, nor that they were strictly observed - and in fact, there is evidence that there was a broader definition of blasphemy in effect at the time. Let's first look at some relevant verses from the OT:
Lev. 24:15-6 Say to the Israelites: 'If anyone curses his God, he will be held responsible; anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.
Harvey [Harv.JTr, 78-80] observes that the Jewish writer Philo, a contemporary of Jesus, "finds it inconceivable that any form whatsoever of cursing or blaspheming God should not carry the death penalty" in light of that other offenses, like cursing your parents, did - thus, he interpreted "his God" in v. 15 as meaning "anyone who blasphemes his OWN god" - whether the true one or a heathen one. Philo also records that blasphemy includes "any 'unreasonable' uttering of God's name" - which we might equate today with cursing after hitting one's thumb with a hammer. Harvey sees in this observation by Philo the possibility that Jesus was charged with referring to God in an "unreasonable" way - and he concludes:
...it would be unreasonable to reject out of hand the remarkably consistent testimony of the Gospels that Jesus, by claiming or admitting that he was Messiah and Son of God, laid himself open to a charge of blasphemy that was punishable by death.
Other evidence for a broader definition of blasphemy is found in Mark's Gospel. Blasphemy is said to include the power to forgive sins (2:17) and attributing the works of the Holy Spirit to Satan (3:28). These may be seen as infringements upon the prerogative of God [Juel.MTm, 102-3] - "constructive blasphemy," if you will - in much the same way that Jesus proclaimed for Himself the prerogative of God with the "clouds" remark.
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Yes, it's unbefitting. For one thing, crucifixion was forbidden under Jewish law. It did not exist as a Jewish legal option for capital crimes and it was despised as a cruel Roman practice. For another thing the legal penalty for blasphemy (if Jesus had committed blasphemy which he hadn't) would have been stoning.
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And yet, the earliest of Jewish Christians believed that their Messiah had been crucified. How could they have created such a repugnant death for their messiah? It seems to me that a reasoned-out creation is less likely than a real event created out of real emotion and political disruption. How could a highly Jewish document like Matthew have allowed it?
ted
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01-01-2006, 07:59 PM
