Chris Weimer

I'm sure others can give you examples, but I do recall reading several times in the OT about people tearing their clothes. I suppose it is a literary device. (that Jewish guy in Genesis when he impregnated his cousin because he thought she was a prostitute, I think David, Absalom? tore the clothes of the girl he slept with, IIRC)

sorry for such vagueness, its late.

Vorkosigan

From my website:

v63: This calls to mind 2 Kings 11:14:


....Then Athaliah tore her robes and called out, "Treason! Treason!" (NIV)

Athaliah, the Queen, is standing at the Temple when the true king, who had been hidden there, is brought out. The full text runs:

• 12 Jehoiada brought out the king's son and put the crown on him; he presented him with a copy of the covenant and proclaimed him king. They anointed him, and the people clapped their hands and shouted, "Long live the king!" 13 When Athaliah heard the noise made by the guards and the people, she went to the people at the temple of the LORD . 14 She looked and there was the king, standing by the pillar, as the custom was. The officers and the trumpeters were beside the king, and all the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. Then Athaliah tore her robes and called out, "Treason! Treason!" 15 Jehoiada the priest ordered the commanders of units of a hundred, who were in charge of the troops: "Bring her out between the ranks and put to the sword anyone who follows her." For the priest had said, "She must not be put to death in the temple of the LORD ." 16 So they seized her as she reached the place where the horses enter the palace grounds, and there she was put to death. (NIV)

In this scene Athaliah tears her robes when she sees the True King publicly revealed, just as the Chief Priest does. Whether this is an intended parallel or simply a coincidence is difficult to say. There is no question that the writer of Mark is intimately familiar with the text of Kings and has used it throughout his gospel. The passage connects the true king and the temple in a dramatic way, and may contain an indirect prophecy of the deaths of the destruction of the priests at Roman hands (in the death of the one who tore her robes).

2 Kings 18-19 also offers a sequence in which an uttered blasphemy results in clothes torn (18:37, 19:1).

Vorkosigan

Sheshbazzar

Pleased to provide you a few examples.

"And Ruben returned unto the pit; and behold, Joseph was not in the pit; AND HE RENT HIS CLOTHES." (Gen. 37:29)

"AND JACOB RENT HIS CLOTHES, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days." (Gen. 37:34)

"THEN THEY RENT THEIR CLOTHES, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city." (Gen. 44:13)

"And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that surveyed the land, RENT THEIR CLOTHES:" (Num. 14:6)

"And it came to pass, when he saw her, THAT HE RENT HIS CLOTHES," (Jud.11:35)

"And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day WITH HIS CLOTHES RENT, and with earth upon his head." (1 Sam.4:12)

" Then David TOOK HOLD ON HIS CLOTHES AND RENT THEM: LIKEWISE ALL THE MEN THAT WERE WITH HIM." (2 Sam.1:11)

Based on these and many other examples, the Fathers established a tradition, and a custom, but unlike the slow clap, it was limited by decree (Lev.17:9-12) to certain appropriate occasions.

Yes, indeed it is late, very late.
Sheshbazzar

Mr. Aardvark

Can a person make a living off that--renting their clothes?

Vivisector

We're probably coming at this from very different angles of attack. My approach is to start from from a known (or reasonably sure) situation and ask, what circumstances and events could have led to this situation? There's rarely one set of possible circumstances/events, so it becomes an exercise in assessing relative likelihoods of the competing sets of circumstances/events, with this assessment involving a combination of evidence for, evidence against, and explanatory power. In our specific case, restricting ourselves to Paul, we can simplify the choices as ministry and no ministry. You might point out (with some justification) that there's no direct evidence for a ministry, and I'd point out there was no evidence for no ministry. If you said there was no evidence against no ministry, I'd probably say there was no evidence against a ministry. Who knows, we might find one thing to agree on - that lack of evidence for one position isn't necessarily evidence for the other. That leaves us with explanatory power as a criterion, which is basically why I think there was some type of "ministry" (term used loosely here).

I suppose this is why I don't get too upset when there is no evidence for a particular position (evidence against, and evidence for a competitor are other matters); in this area, that's often very nearly the case.

Do you think that the James group formed in the absence of a Jesus "ministry?" And if so, what do you think brought them together motivated them to do whatever it was that they did?

I don't see a hypothesis that Jesus was unremarkable as having a great deal of explanatory power. It would seem more powerful, to me, to assume that Paul considered Jesus to be a worthy sacrifice (which implies that Jesus had to be worthy for some reason, and somebody had to know it). It seems that otherwise, Paul would have considered Jesus as, at best, just another poor wretch who got himself crucified and left behind some seriously deluded friends and family.

I'll try to reword. Let's assume that the gospel authors didn't really know under whose prefecture Jesus was crucified. But you and I agree on the authors' need to depict the prefect, whoever he was, in a good light.

I think you suggested yesterday that Pilate's prefecture would have been a good timeframe to pin the event to, because Pilate's predisposition toward rough treatment of the Jews was well known. I agree with you on this, also.

My question is, why would the Gospel authors choose Pilate on the basis of his brutality, and yet portray Pilate as nearly guiltless in Jesus's crucifixion? Maybe there weren't many Mr. Rogers-type prefects to choose from, but Pilate seems to be one of the absolutely worst choices available!

Cheers,

V.

Vivisector

I'm not sure I completely understand you here. It sounds as if you're saying, for the sake of assumption:

1. There was a HJ
2. He was the leader of a movement.
3. He got himself crucified.

and hypothesizing

4. The crucifixion and/or circumstances thereof were embarrassing to the remaining members and judged a threat to the continuation of the movement; therefore,
5. The remaining members revised the circumstances of Jesus's crucifixion to lessen the attending embarrassment and promote the well-being of the movement.

If so, then I would agree, but I don't think this occurred until the second or third generation of movement members. But I've probably missed your meaning altogether

I'm less sure I'm following you here; how could the resurrection justify the movement, but not vindicate Jesus's original aims, unless the movement being justified was inconsistent with Jesus's original aims?

Cheers,

V.

Vivisector

Interesting. I like it!

It was a bad year to cut back on coffee. I'm not seeing the connection to between 2 Sam and the severed ear - would you mind clarifying?

The other gave me a chuckle. I suppose "Luke" envisioned something along the lines of,

Jesus: Put it back! Put it back!
Peter: What, Lord, the sword?
Jesus: No, you idiot, the ear! The ear!
Peter: But it won't stick, Lord! The bloody thing keeps falling off!
Jesus: Do I have to do everything myself? Here, gimme that!

Mr. Aardvark

Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. Although I need to do more research about the claims for an HJ and I'm agnostic about it, I’m assuming it for the sake of the possibility I’m exploring in this thread. The reason is that I’ve always had this hunch that so much of early Christian discourse, either in the NT or in the formation of its early doctrines, was designed for its propagandistic and apologetic effect. (The doctrine of the trinity is the prime example: it’s “monotheism� thereby validating its source in Judaism yet it is also polytheistic since it allows multiplicity in the Divine, appealing to the Roman world. A little something for everyone. Pure manipulation.)

Sorry, my statement is confusing. Here is what I am after. The movement is allied historically w/ a man who was crucified as a common criminal. That is known and there is no denying it. Yet this man had a mission of some kind stopped by his crucifixion. This is a propaganda problem. The movement can’t escape its tie to its founder.

It’s also possible that HJ was crucified for something awfully embarrassing—perhaps he was a robber and that is why he was crucified (thus, perhaps, the disinformation “No, it was the 2 other guys who were crucified w/ Jesus who were the robbers�). If so, then the propaganda problem for the movement suffers from a double whammy: its leader is crucified and for a crime that is truly humiliating. What is a propagandist in the movement to do?

Well, there is no escaping the movement’s tie to its historical leader (HJ). But if the movement wants to continue, it has to do 3 things:

1. Since the movement is tied to its leader, it needs to overcome the failure indicated by his crucifixion. So he must be resurrected. Therefore, it’s perfectly OK then for potential converts to join a movement started by a man killed by crucifixion. Because he’s not dead anymore. And that makes him unique and a worthy founder of a movement, worthy to be followed.

2. Even so the HJ had certain aims: he planned to achieve x but didn’t because he was crucified. So the movement jettisons his aims and invents new ones to him. That solves the problem that Jesus was wrong. He wasn’t because, presto, now he had different aims, ones that didn't require him to be on the scene to be accopmplished. Therefore, a movement propagandist could say, “Whatever rumors you have heard about the mission of Jesus are wrong. This is what he really stood for....�

3. The crucifixion remains a stigma, however. It can’t be denied since it is known. So the story must be that Jesus was innocent, wrongly crucified and the significance of his crucifixion must be spiritualized in certain ways to make it palatable.

That’s how you overcome the problem of being part of a movement whose leader failed in his mission because, it is known, he was executed as a criminal. You change those parts of the story that you can while retaining the part that you cannot deny (viz., it began w/ this man named Jesus).

Asha'man

Good analysis.

Now, look at the problem of Pilate in the same light: an early version of the story had an accurate version of a brutal Pilate convicting Jesus for his obvious guilt. However, this is not going to be popular among the Romans. You can't change the name anymore, the name Pilate has already begun to circulate, but you can change the details of the trial.

In the revised version of the story, Pilate finds Jesus innocent, but is pressured by those evil Jews to crucify him anyways. The guilty party is now the Sanhedrin. However, we need to make the blame clear, so we fabricate a trial where they find Jesus guilty of Blasphemy.

I think the blame for Jesus' death was passed around a couple times as the story was developed and edited, but some of the details got locked into place as the story evolved.

Mr. Aardvark

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. "Are you talking about that Jesus fellow condemned by Pilate for being a criminal," someone in the Roman world might say as the movement began to spread. What do you do about those aspects of the tale you can't deny? You have to alter them, change their significance and some of the details, while maintaining the potentially verifiable aspects that cannot be denied.

Good point. Thanks.