Bible Topics

You mentioned the 3 Jewish feasts — Hanukah, Yom Kippur and the Pesach or Passover. The Jews have kept their national group alive in every country and civilization since Father Abraham.

They have been on the bottom of the social heap and they moaned and groaned. They have been on the top of the pile and they ground everyone down who opposed them. They have a tradition of being great financiers and this is the way they gain control. The Bar Mitzvah is the most important date in a boy's life and of his family.

Jesus Christ was a Jew who had a totally different philosophy of life. He was hated by the Jewish leaders and turned over to Roman authorities for his opposition. When Pilate tried to turn him back into their courts, these leaders replied, "We have no power to kill!" They wanted him dead so Pilate did their dirty work.

The Good Friday liturgy in the Catholic liturgy turned into a morbid dive. The words on the cross were gathered into a single group and then presented as something tragic. Actually they were words of victory in each Gospel. John and Mary had to be the source of whatever Jesus said because they were the only ones present — John was a kid and Mary was really grieving.

Mort Zuckerman wrote a full two page editorial in the U.S. News and World Report this week. He is commenting on the situation in Palestine. He could just as well have gone back to the OT, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings and copied his writing from there. Only the names were different. Saul was the King. David and his 600 were the Army and they were destroying the native Palestinians so that the tribes of Israel could move in.

David finally got the upper hand. He and his men slaughtered mercilessly in the name of Yahweh. He became King in 1012 BC. He lasted 40 years. Saul took over and he lasted about 40 years. With his death, the ten northern tribes broke away from the south — Juda and Benjamin. The Northern Kingdom was destroyed in the 8th century and Jerusalem fell in 587 B.C. From that time to the present day, the picture has been the same. Only the names and weapons change.

Mark's version of the life of Christ is the oldest of the 4 Gospels. Mark was the companion of Peter all his last years. He had seen the condemnation of Christ and his punishment and death. He was an eager youngster and went with Paul but quickly left him. Then Mark worked with Barnabas for a bit and then as the companion of Peter.

The first Christians were not out to form some kind of separate society as the Jews had done. They were to be part of the society in which they lived and worked to establish a true "sharing" based on sincere love. This is what Christ meant by his "Gehala" or "Church." It was to be recognized and attract followers because of the sincere practical love the people had for each other.

The only characteristics the first Christians laid down for the "church" was to be "Holy" and spread to the whole world. As long as this concept was in vogue the work Christ envisioned was carried out.

The idea buzzing around in my head has to do with the 12 apostles and why Jesus picked those men out of all the possible. Peter was to be the Kepha or foundation and yet Jesus said he would fail miserably in the big challenge. He did fail but he went on to become a great leader for over 30 years. John was a young teenager, 13 or 14 years old. Yet Jesus saw him as a real pillar of strength. He confided Mary to John's care. James and John were Boanerges, sons of thunder, because they were always ready to go in swinging. A more unlikely group seems impossible and yet they did a tremendous job.

I think the one who intrigues me the most is Barnabas. He is not one of the twelve but he was a really strong person. He was able to put up with the moods and tyranny of Paul through the entire first journey. He took Mark whom Paul rejected and helped him develop into a great person. In Migne's Patres Apostolici, there is a whole section on Barnabas. Lyonnet talked about him quite a bit.

I had a fine day beginning my spade work on the Apostles. There are fifteen who received the name — the original 12, Matthias who took the place of Judas, Paul and Barnabas.

The twelve who were with Christ during the public life did not really get the key message as Luke points out clearly in Acts. Only after Christ was gone did they realize that the key message was the "Holy Spirit" — the sense of community and sharing. This basic idea would turn the world from a self-centered, destructive group to a creative productive unit to establish peace and harmony.

They started off by putting all their goods in common. They quickly dropped the practice because of greed and disharmony. By the time the group was firmly established in Rome, about 40 AD, they were noted for mutual love and sharing. This led to the persecutions by the Roman leaders and led to a flocking of people to join up.

Finally, in 313 AD, the Emperor is converted, the persecutions stop. In a few generations, the top-heavy structure begins and squashes the ideals of Christ. With the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD the frozen structure is in place.

I finished reading all 77 references to the Apostles in the NT. I have some of these ideas already developed in a separate article and in the commentaries on the New Testament. Now I want to pull them all together and see the picture as a whole.

In the first years, the Apostles were the leaders. Then they appointed presbyteroi or elders to take charge when they were working elsewhere. Out of this simple picture came the "priests," episcopoi (bishops) and archbishops, cardinals and Pope. With Trent in the 16th century, this was given as the leadership in the Roman structure. A clear separation between clerics and laity was established. The Code of Canon Law was frozen into 2414 canons in 1918. All other laws were declared null and void. Rubrics and liturgy became the "church Life" and the church had destroyed the work of Christ and restored the Saddusaic form of Judaism.

I think Judas comes off with a worse popular picture than should be. As he was hanging on the cross, Christ proclaimed his universal forgiveness of all who had wronged him. Judas was certainly not excluded. His crime was certainly not as cowardly as that of Peter. All of them deserted Christ in the end, except the teenager, John.

I spent the time on the personality of Jesus as the Gospels present him. From his first days he learned the true meaning of the plan of Yahweh as it had been presented by the OT writers. He showed how much he had mastered these ideas and thought beyond them at his Bar-Mitzvah test.

He realized that the whole goal of the previous revelation was to establish an earth peopled by people who shared everything. The details he did not give. He outlined basic ideas and ideals and expected his followers to adopt and adapt as they lived.

I do a lot of thinking about the person who was Jesus Christ and I really like him as a man. It's a shame we lost the real person the first Christians knew and came up with the God-Man farce and then spent all our time trying to justify the pagan concepts.

That Last Supper was a real meal like the one we had at Norma's last night. You prepared the crock pot. Norma supplied a leftover salad and strawberry pie. We ate and enjoyed each other's company. We played a game of Scrabble and went back home.

Jesus and the 12 were having a big dinner recalling their past history and drank the friendship cup. When they came to the end of the meal, he said, "From now on, eat this meal in memory of me." He knew he was going to let himself be taken.

My head has been buzzing with the image of Christ. Part of this was occasioned by your question, "Why did he go to Jerusalem when he knew what was going to happen?" He stressed again and again that he didn't want such an end but he knew it was inevitable.

I think the public life lasted only one year as the Synoptics indicate.

I woke up to the words of Christ talking to Peter. He says, "You are Kepha, the foundation stone, and upon this Kepha I will build my kingdom (ekklesia-gathering). The gate of ge-hinnom (gehenna) will not prevail against it. Whatever you decide, I'll back up."

The "valley of Hinnon" was the temple dump where all the remains of sacrifices were dumped and burned. Christ is promising that nobody will be excluded from this church or gathering. Later, in the same gospel, he says there is only one reason why a person can exclude him/herself. That is the refusal to share with others.

I like what Edersheim (author) has to say about the mission of Israel, how the people failed even though the prophets tried to wake them up. Then Ezra gave them a new destiny out of the exile and the people worked for a few years. Then they complained that life was too tough and turned to paganism again. The teachers, Daniel and the Macabbee boys, made a try at reform. Then what had been Israel, a people, became a few orthodox families who were faithful in spite of the general failure. These were sincere believers like Zachary, Elizabeth, Joachim, Anne, Mary and Joseph.

Out of these people came a John the Baptist and a Jesus, men who decided to pick up the pieces and do something. Both of them had great followings among the ordinary people. Both were killed by the leaders but finally their work moved on. Their real success was that they got out of Jerusalem and went to Rome. They actually lived the message of Jesus. They established real community. Then the Papal Structure, the new Pharisees and Sadducees, approach took over.

There was a lot of friction between Alexandria and Jerusalem.

The Jews in Alexandria had made matters worse by building a Temple almost identical to Solomon's colossus. Then the Greek-Jews carried on the whole ritual in Alexandria. In the 11th century AD, we see the same animosity and hatred between Rome and the Greek in the Catholic fold.

John XXIII settled the whole dispute with a simple statement. He was told that the Eastern Prelate wanted to walk parallel with him. Protocol urged the Pope to lead and have the place of honor. John XXIII shocked all by saying, "I don't care where they walk — front, back or even, as long as they don't block my path." With that statement he laid to rest the centuries-old fight.

It's a lot like the Apostles who tried to keep the kids away from Christ. He said, "Let them alone. If you don't become as open as these kids, you won't even see the Kingdom of God."

John Baptist is the last of the OT prophets and the intro to the NT teachers. Jesus is the foundation of the NT teachers. John is a combination of Moses, Jeremiah, 2nd Isaiah and Daniel. He is a prophet in the sense of a moral teacher. He doesn't hesitate to foretell the dire consequences of the immoral failures of the present. Jesus is a teacher of how the present must be the solid basis of the future. The future lives in the present as the apple in the seed. The seed produces the tree and the tree produces new apples, year after year.

As I worked on John Baptist yesterday, I saw that I had missed the major point of his character — pointed out by Christ himself.

The Jews were expecting the return of Elijah before the coming of the Messiah. When asked about this, he said simply, "He's already here!" and he pointed to John the Baptist.

Elijah in the OT was a real "blood and thunder" preacher. The leaders of the Jews wanted to kill him again and again. Each time he outfoxed them. John B. certainly had this tone in his public work.

Last night, as I was waiting to fall asleep and often this weekend, I thought of how real Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Apostles and the other members of the Gospel days have become. When I read lives of Christ before, or read about Mary and Joseph, they were always unreal.

Now I see Jesus as a person who was really puzzled by his ideas and goals. He saw how foreign his ideas were to the official teachings of the day. Yet he liked to get along with people and live in harmony. J.B., his cousin, was more of a confronter and spoke out at meetings to whoever was there. Then John left and started his own approach with warnings and threats and uncompromising attitudes.

Jesus gradually decides he has to do his bit. He picks up some fishermen and a tax collector and starts for Jerusalem. The people liked what they heard and saw but Jesus was continually wondering about his true identity. He did not want to get into Roman or Jewish politics. Yet he had a drive that told him to forge ahead. In short, he is a real person with a goal, filled with dangers and yet is impelled from within to keep going.

I thought, again and again, about Joseph, Mary and Jesus in Nazareth. The kids in the area would have popped in and out of the house as kids do today. There would have been a "hi, Mary," "Hi, Joseph, where's Jesus?" Mary would have had a piece of bread or a cookie for them. She would have had no premonitions of what Jesus and John would do in their adult years.

They were real people, not pedestal saints.

I did not realize JB was such a fascinating and key person until we talked about the two cousins being together. They traveled to Jerusalem together three times each year for the major feasts. As a result both boys had a firsthand picture of the weaknesses of the Jewish leaders. They had a chance to discuss these ideas thoroughly as they walked along. We are told explicitly the type of clothes worn by John. He had the "camel's hair" cloak which would be the equivalent of jeans or overalls and a tee shirt. The flowing robes as seen in art works is misleading. They were ordinary kids in ordinary homes with all the questions of such boys.

We could call J.B. "John, the Dunker." "Baptize" in Greek means to put someone or something completely under water in order to wash it totally. With the crowds he had, he must have had a lot of aides to get the "dunking job" done and still do all his preaching and teaching. Fortunately, the Jordan is deep enough at that south end and the shoreline runs down to the water. This was the same area where the Israelites crossed the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua when they first came out of Egypt. Moses also stood on the east side and looked across the Jordan but was not allowed to enter because of his momentary doubt early in the trip.

The pagan influence and practices of Rome became evident. The lip-service of the Sadducees and the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees became ever more open and the sincere Jews discussed and condemned it.

I think Joseph would have spoken in these discussions and I think Mary and Joseph discussed the matter in the presence of Jesus. I see Mary and Joseph as outspoken young Jews who were convinced something had to be done. Jesus picked up their attitudes and ideas.

Zachary and Elizabeth would have a different approach. Zachary belonged to the priestly group and clearly was out of sync with their shallow hypocrisy. He would have talked about this openly with Elizabeth and JB got his education in this setting. Then Jesus and JB exchanged ideas.

The more I read the more I am convinced the notion of "church" in the Gospels and among the first Christians was no structure at all. They were a group who lived the ideals of harmony and sharing wherever they were. They had "potluck" suppers which were the Eucharist and then the "elders" explained more and more of the "Holy Spirit" which was to pervade all of society through them.

I was more and more impressed by the simplicity of the teaching of Christ and how often he stressed that one point. The Christian Way of Life is sharing with others in every need. The whole judgment at the end of life is based on this one point.