JR44: Mark's Themes of Understanding and Strength

This is a research paper I wrote in 2009 for a course on New Testament exegesis. It explains in detail some of the major themes found in the Gospel of Mark. 

The paper pasted here is exactly as I wrote it, including the endnotes, where I confess I don't yet understand how the word "artos" (leavened bread, loaf) is being used by Mark. Since then (with Jesus' help), I've figured it out.

“Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, ‘Watch out — beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.’ They said to one another, ‘It is because we have no bread.’ And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve.’ And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ Then he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?'” (Mark 8:14-21). Photo credit JAT 2021.

 

 
RADICAL MESSIAH AND THE SHEMA: MARK’S THEMES OF
UNDERSTANDING AND STRENGTH

Graham Stanton, in his discussion about the Gospel of Mark, refers to "Mark’s genius as a story-teller" (41), and says, "perhaps Mark should be seen not so much as a block of toffee (form criticism) or as a string of pearls (redaction criticism), but as a piece of rope with interwoven strands" (41). Later in the chapter, he asks these questions: "Why was this gospel written? Many scholars have proposed quite specific historical or theological settings. But they are usually able to make reasonable sense of only one or two of the many interrelated strands which the evangelist develops" (57-58). One strand which I feel has been overlooked is Mark’s overt addition to the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9) in Chapter12:29 of the Gospel. So obvious would this change have been to a Jewish Christian audience in the early to mid-60's CE that the question of Mark’s purpose must be raised. What was he signalling to his audience with this change? Why did he dare add to a well-known prayer that, according to the Jewish Study Bible, was being formally recited late in the Second Temple period (379)? It is the thesis of this paper that Mark did not accidentally alter the Shema through lack of knowledge, and that he did not accidentally link the Shema to the commandment in Leviticus 19:18 to love one’s neighbour as oneself (12:31). There was a purpose to his addition of the phrase "and with all your mind (διανοίας)" to the existing formulation of "you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart (καρδίας) and with all your soul (ψυχnς) and with all your might (iσχύος)." This supposition is supported by Mark’s repetition of the Shema in 12:32-33, altered yet again, this time without genitive cases, and with a changed emphasis to understanding (συνέσεως). Here the sympathetic – and sensible (νουνεχwς) – scribe is allowed by Mark to voice the two most important commandments: "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ – this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." The penny then drops for readers as Jesus says to the scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God" (present tense verb, 12:34). Mark has just presented a major clue to unravelling some of the strands of his gospel.

The altered Shema is part of a teaching chreia (12:28-34) that can be seen, it is argued here, as an early creedal statement, the climax and summary of Jesus’ teachings about what it means to be "not far from the kingdom of God" (12:34). It is difficult to understand Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom of God, says Mark in different ways throughout the Gospel. Even Jesus’ closest friends, the disciples, do not understand (4:10-13). The whole thing can be boiled down to two commandments (12:28-31), which sound easy at first, but are much more difficult to practice than the old system of "burnt offerings and sacrifices," a system which requires Jews to show unswerving loyalty. (Loyalty, not private emotion, is the meaning of the verb aheb, "love," as it applies to the Shema, according to the Jewish Study Bible (380) and Sakenfeld (376)). A big part of Jesus’ version of faith, according to Mark, is the requirement that disciples use their minds. Fideism is not acceptable. God’s faithful must question the specific ways in which religious teachings are being misused (e.g. 2:23-28; 3:1-6; 7:1-23; 12:38-40; 12:41-44), just as in the past Jews once questioned harmful religious and societal conventions (e.g. Exod. 20:2-6; 21:1 - 22:16; 22:20-12). (Mark thus shows Jesus to be following the "wilderness spirit" of the Sinai Covenant in the Torah (cf. Mark 1:3,4,12), as opposed to the Temple and hierarchy-based Zion Covenant presented in the Psalms and the Deuteronomistic History.[1]) God’s faithful must be willing to not only open their hearts and souls to God’s kingdom, but also their minds (διάνοια) – their innate capacity to think and understand in moral ways (Harder 125). Moral thinking and moral decision-making is a higher form of loving God than being obedient and loyal to the laws of the Zion Covenant.

This kind of "thinking faith," directed towards loving God (e.g. 1:35-39; 15:25-32), loving others (e.g. 9:33-37; 10:41-45), and loving themselves (e.g. 12:31)[2], will put them in opposition to others – family (e.g. 3:21; 3:31-35; 10:28-31), friends (e.g. 6:1-3; 14:66-72), Pharisees (e.g. 3:6, 12:13-17), scribes and chief priests (e.g. 2:6-9, 3:16-17; 11:18), and Gentiles (e.g. 5:14-17; 15:16-20) – who choose to follow honour-oriented traditions. Understanding is not an instantaneous gift from God, however (clearly evidenced in 8:14-21)[3]. Nor is understanding a gift conferred only on the disciples closest to Jesus (e.g. 5:33-34; 9:33-37; 10:17-22; 12:34; 14:6-9). Understanding is a long, difficult process which disciples must willingly participate in (e.g. 4:13; 4:33-34; 10:23-27; 13:9-13). It requires strength, a theme which Mark repeatedly intertwines with the requirement for understanding, as shall be shown. God’s faithful must commit their strength (iσχύς) to a process spread out over time and geography (hence Jesus’ travels back and forth across Galilee and adjacent territories) and also over boundaries of class and honour (hence Jesus’ willingness to heal and teach people from disadvantaged groups). It is a process open to all people, regardless of race, religion, gender, state of mental and/or physical health, wealth, or status. But it is a difficult process.

Mark – for all that he is trying to describe a "thinking faith" – seems very wary of directly invoking Hellenistic or Judeo-Hellenistic notions of philosophy, rational thought, or "wisdom" (σοφία). Σοφία is used 51 times in the New Testament, but only once in Mark (on the lips of the surprised synagogue attendees in 6:2). The adjective σοφός appears 22 times in the New Testament, but not once in Mark. Whatever claim Mark is making, it is not a claim for σοφία (wisdom, insight, intelligence, knowledge, divine knowledge). He prefers the cognates of the more "practical" verbs συνίημι (understand, comprehend, perceive, have insight into) and διαλογίζομαι (discuss, argue, consider, reason, wonder about, question). It is notable that, although he uses the adverb νουνεχwς once, and the verb νοέω a few times, he does not use the Greek word νοuς, a noun meaning perception, understanding, thoughts, or reason. Νοuς is attested since Linear B; it was used by Plato to mean "the highest of the three parts of the soul" (Harder 122), and still later used in the post-canonical, apocryphal era of Jewish literature in a sense associated with the will or deliberation (Harder 125). It is difficult to tell whether Mark avoids using νοuς because in Hebrew there is no direct equivalent for it, and the Septuagint rarely uses it (Harder 124) (compare to Paul, who uses it in Romans and 1 Corinthians); or whether Mark avoids using it because he has a general tendency to not include abstract "wisdom words" such as "peace," "hope," and "righteousness" words in his writing[4].

It is interesting to ponder Mark’s non-use of the "wisdom words" frequently attested in books of the Old Testament, as well as in the other Gospels, Acts, and the accepted letters of Paul. Certainly it can be argued that these words are malleable enough to serve any purpose ("Peace in our time!"). Perhaps, by not making abundant use of "wisdom words," Mark hopes to make his readers think, to apply their minds in new ways to the difficult question of what it means to be close to the kingdom of God. (Mark himself lends this impression in 13:14, where he suddenly interjects with "let the reader understand (νοείτω).") "Out with the poetry, in with the praxis," seems to be his approach. He therefore intentionally avoids "telling us" at length what Jesus said, and insists on "showing us" what Jesus did – what Jesus’ actions and choices were, where he went, who he talked to, who he aided, and what he did despite his friends’ lack of courage, faith, and love. Mark’s Radical Messiah is a man of relatively few words who teaches by example, and is not interested in raising his own status. (Even the scribe in 12:28-34 is accorded great dignity by Jesus – and also by Mark.) Therefore, for Mark, the examples are what matter most. (By contrast, Matthew’s Jesus seems very fond of the sound of his own voice, and John’s Jesus has a case of the "I ams.")

It is clear from a review of word usage articles that, by the first century CE, there was a blurring between Jewish and Hellenistic concepts of heart, mind, and soul, and this may explain why Mark felt he needed to add to the traditional phrasing of the Shema. In the Septuagint translation of the Shema, for instance, leb is rendered as καρδία; yet Holloday’s Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon shows 11 different meanings for leb: the physical heart organ; the seat of vitality; the seat of one’s feelings and impulses; mind, character, disposition, inclination, loyalty, concern; determination, courage, high morale; intention, purpose; mind, attention, consideration, understanding; the self; conscience; metaphorically the "interior" or "middle"; and finally the organizing power of living beings (nefesh – the word which is translated as ψυχή in the Septuagint’s version of the Shema ) (171-172). Harder points out that Septuagint translators rendered the Hebrew leb or lebab as νοuς only six times, as διάνοια 38 times, and as καρδία in most other instances (124). Sorg reports that the Septuagint occasionally translates leb as ψυχή (181). Meanwhile, ψυχή itself (used 101 times in the New Testament) encompasses a broad range of meanings: the whole person or creature; a person’s actual, physical life; the seat of the emotions; the inner life or personality of a person; the part of the person that lives on after death (Harder 682-686; Carrigan). Καρδία can be used literally to mean the physical heart, or it can be used metaphorically. In the New Testament, it is used in 148 passages with a variety of meanings: the seat of intellectual and spiritual life; the inner person or personality/ego; the seat of doubt and hardness; the mind or reason; will, desire, intention (Sorg 182-183). To state, as Cameron does, that "since Hebrew psychology lacked precise terminology, there is some overlapping in the use of nepesh, leb/lebab, and ruah" is something of an understatement. Perhaps Mark, aware of the confusion amongst Jews and Jewish Christians about the meanings of leb and καρδία, nefesh and ψυχή, decides to make certain that no one can dispute the necessity of "mind" and "understanding" (as distinct from Hellenistic wisdom!) by his explicitly including both διανοίας and συνέσεως in the crucial teaching chreia of 12:28-34.

Mark wants to talk about the Radical Messiah’s "thinking faith," but at the same time he demonstrates a prudent fear of both Jewish and Roman authorities. He does not wish to be arrested for apostasy or political treason (he is writing during a time of heightened political-religious conflict, both within Judaism itself, and between Judaism and the Roman Empire). Therefore, while he shies away from "wisdom words," he makes ample use of allegory. It is difficult, for instance, to see Mark’s repeated use of boat crossings on the "Sea" of Galilee as anything but a metaphor. It is a lake, after all, and not a very big one, at that – a fact that early Jewish Christian readers in the region would have known. Pheme Perkins points out that the Q Source has no sayings about fishing or grapes, and no stories about storms on the Sea of Galilee (94-95). Mark, however, introduces the Sea of Galilee, fishermen, and boats in his first chapter (1:16, 1:16-20, and 1:19-20 respectively). He is hinting at something. What does a boat do? we then must ask. A boat helps us cross the waters. What have bodies of water traditionally represented in Jewish thought? The forces of chaos that are overcome by the sovereign powers of God (Gen. 1:2 - 2:3). And how does one overcome the forces of chaos? In part, by using one’s strength – at which point it is very hard to overlook the similarity in sound between the word for "fish" (iχθύς) and the word for "strength" (iσχύς). (We know that Paul uses plays on words, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that Mark does the same.) Once this is observed, the two miraculous feedings of the crowd with bread and fish (6:34-44 and 8:1-9) become emblematic of the "strength" with which Jesus feeds the people [5,6] – the same strength that is spoken of in a positive light twice in 12:28-34, in a negative light in 14:37, in a perplexing light in 3:27 and 5:4, and in a contextual way in 15:46, where Joseph of Arimathea has the strength to roll a "very large rock" across the tomb by himself.

In the important verses of 8:14-21, Mark draws an overt link between the allegorical feedings – with their relationship to the theme of strength – and the issue of understanding. Here, while Jesus and the disciples are sitting yet again in their boat (8:14 – the final reference to boats in the Gospel of Mark), Jesus castigates the disciples harshly, in several different ways, because they do not yet understand (νοεiτε) or realize (συνίετε). This pericope is filled with Greek verbs related to the thinking faculties of people (thinking faculties which include input from the senses): the disciples "forgot" the bread (8:14); Jesus cautions them to "see" the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod (8:15); the disciples "reasoned" among themselves (8:16); Jesus "knows" their attempt at reasoning and asks them why they are still "reasoning" that way instead of "understanding" and "realizing" (8:17); have their "hearts" been hardened? Jesus asks (8:17); do they have "eyes" that don’t see, and "ears" that don’t hear? (8:18); do they not "remember"? (8:18); do they not yet understand? (8:21). Verses 14-21 of Chapter 8 can be seen to conclude and epitomize the first half of Mark’s Gospel, as some scholars have suggested (Perkins 131); however, reading the Gospel in this way does, as Perkins points out, present "as much of a challenge to the audience as the ending of the Gospel does" (131) because of its critical depiction of the disciples. The disciples, both male and female, lack understanding and strength. They have not applied "all their mind" and "all their strength" to loving God or their teacher, Jesus, and therefore – unlike the scribe of 12:28-34 and perhaps unlike Joseph of Arimathea – they have not been able to draw near to the kingdom of God. It is not enough to be loyal, according to Mark. It is not enough to be close to the Rabbi. The disciples will not be able to understand what the kingdom of God is like until they give themselves heart, soul, mind, and strength to the praxis of loving God and loving other people, the sort of praxis which Jesus models on every page of this complex gospel.

ENDNOTES

1. The two covenant thesis in the Jewish Bible is convincingly argued by W.M.

2. Not all scholars agree that 12:29 commands people to love themselves (Klassen 389).

3. Mark does not tell us how Jesus acquired his understanding. We know only that God has adopted Jesus as his son (1:11 and 9:7), and is well pleased with him.

4. In marked contrast to other New Testament authors such as Matthew, Luke in Luke/Acts, and Paul, Mark uses the words "peace" (only 3 times), "hope" (zero times), "love" (X 4), "joy" (X 1), "freedom" (X 0), "glory" (X 3), "just/righteous" (X 3) or "holy" (X 7). (Nelson's Concordance)

5. I have not yet figured out how "artos" is being used in these passages.

6. In this context, the numerological references in the two miraculous feedings (e.g. 5,000 people, 12 baskets of leftovers, 7 loaves) can be read as being indicators to treat these passages allegorically (unlike the healing miracles, which Mark treats in a factual way).


WORKS CONSULTED

Berlin, Adele and Marc Zvi Brettler, Eds. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.

Cameron, W.J. "Soul." New Bible Dictionary. 2nd Ed. Ed. J.D. Douglas. Leicester and Wheaton IL: Inter-varsity and Tyndale House, 1982. 1135.

Carrigan, Henry L. "Soul." Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Ed. David Noel Freedman. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000. 1245.

Coogan. Michael D., Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, College Edition. 3rd Ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.

Ellison, John W., Ed. Nelson’s Complete Concordance of the Revised Standard Version Bible. New York: Nelson & Sons, 1957.

Harder, Georg. "νοuς." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 3. Rev. Ed. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 122-130.

Harder, Georg. "ψυχή." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 3. Rev. Ed. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 676-689.

Goetzmann, Jurgen. "σύνεσις." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 3. Rev. Ed. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 130-134.

Holloday, William L., Ed. A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988.

Klassen, William. "Love in the New Testament and Early Jewish Literature." The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. 4. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 381-396.

Morrison, Clinton. An Analytical Concordance to the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979.

Perkins, Pheme. Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007.

Sakenfeld, Katharine Door Sakenfeld. "Love in the Old Testament." The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. 4. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 375-381.

Schattenmann, Hans-Georg. "Iσχύς." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 3. Rev. Ed. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 712-716.

Sorg, Theo. "καρδία." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Vol. 2. Ed. Colin Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 180-184.

Stanton, Graham N. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.

JR 43: The Case for "Mark Versus Paul"

A: Today, I'm shifting back into academic mode on the question of what Jesus actually taught 2,000 years ago -- as opposed to what the Church says he taught. 

I've had an inquiry about my academic arguments on the "Mark versus Paul" question -- that is, on my thesis that Mark wrote his gospel as a direct rebuttal of Paul's First Corinthians. To present this argument in its entirety would fill at least one big fat Zondervan text (as if Zondervan's editors would publish such a thesis!) so all I can do at this stage is present a brief list of comparisons between the two texts. I'm aware that in order to build a case for each "talking point" in a complete academic format -- a format that would be acceptable to a peer-reviewed journal -- would require many months of research for each point and a long research paper for each. The work would go faster, however, if others were willing to help. If you're interested in helping with this project, please contact me. 

I'm going to present some of the major contrasts I see between First Corinthians and the Gospel of Mark. I'll assume for this purpose that the extant copies of these two books represent with a fair degree of accuracy the original texts as they were written by Paul and Mark respectively, with the exception of Mark 16:9-20 (the very ending of Mark), which is generally believed to be a later addition.  

If you want to see which researchers I rely on, please refer to the post called "The Author's Research Bibliography" (http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/03/authors-bibliography.html).  

Study of the Gospel of Thomas, which has strong links to the Q Source and the Synoptic Gospels, makes it easier to see what Jesus was actually saying and how Jesus’ teachings differed radically from Paul’s teachings. Ceiling mosaic in the original Queen’s Park entrance of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Photo credit JAT 2017.

I use more than one form of biblical criticism -- more than one analytical tool -- in this comparison. I tend to start with traditional methods -- socio-historical criticism, source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism -- and then I cross-reference these arguments with recent scientific insights from quantum theory, neurophysiology, psychotherapy, archaeology, and recent historical findings. I also use my own personal mystical faculties, but I won't apologize for this, since insights derived from mystical conversations are only a starting point, not an ending point. Other researchers get "aha" moments and call them intuition, or divine revelation, or just plain ol' personal brilliance. Me, I'm being honest about where I get my starting point for this discussion. After that, it's up to me to use logical human tools to make my case. 

Fortunately for me, what Jesus and my angels pointed out to me leads to an extremely strong case. To the best of my knowledge, there are no biblical scholars currently publishing on this topic. So this is original research you're reading. You'll probably wonder straight away how I -- an obscure blogger from Canada who has no PhD and no publishing record of note -- could see evidence of a book-to-book biblical feud that nobody else has seen. To this I must reply that the feud has been obvious "to those who have eyes and those who have ears" (Mark 8:18) since these two texts began to circulate simultaneously in the latter part of the 1st century CE. Christians have always been called to decide whether they choose Paul's teachings or Jesus' teachings (even if they haven't been able to articulate the choice in scholarly terms). However, it's only now that Christians are getting round to being honest about this fact. 

If Mark had simply written about entirely different themes than Paul did, there would be no point in trying to show that Mark wrote his gospel as a rebuttal of Paul's First Corinthians. But Mark didn't write about different themes than Paul did. He wrote about exactly the same topics and inverted them. He also chose his words as carefully as Paul did. He never uses Paul's favourite word: nomos (Greek for law, authority, unbreakable tradition). Nor does Mark use the words charis (grace) or elpis (hope). The words nomos, charis, and elpis are part of the vocabulary of apocalyptic thought. And Mark is trying to show, contrary to Paul's claims about Jesus, that Jesus himself rejected apocalyptic thought.  

Mark never uses the words nomos, charis, and elpis. But for a man who never uses these words, he talks about them a lot in his book. He talks about what it means for a person of faith to be in full relationship with God the Mother and God the Father.  

Here is a point form list of some of the direct comparisons. I reserve the right to edit, modify, add to, and clarify this list whenever additional information comes to light in future. If information is suggested to me by other writers, I will so note the contribution(s).  

Concerns of Form:  

1. Viewpoint Character In Paul: The viewpoint character is Paul himself. In Mark: The viewpoint character is Jesus; the author (Mark) is not present; reference to "a certain young man" in Mark 14:51 may indicate an eyewitness to whom Mark later spoke about events surrounding Jesus' arrest.  

2. Narrator's Voice In Paul: The narrator speaks in first person (Paul himself). In Mark: Third person narration. 

3. Literary Genre In Paul: Written as a letter; uses rhetoric, exhortation. In Mark: Written as a biographical narrative interspersed with parables, sayings, and teaching actions (i.e. teaching chreia).  

4: The Narrative Hook: "The Hero's Journey" In Paul: The hero Paul recounts highlights of his long and arduous journey to save the Gentiles; the focus is on important urban centres; the hero's personal journey is a metaphor for the path of spiritual ascent (i.e. the vertical path that leads to salvation and eventual bodily resurrection). In Mark: The hero Jesus takes many small trips around a small freshwater lake; the focus is on unimportant outlying communities; the hero's journey is horizontal, not vertical; the path is not straight; bad things happen on high hills; good things happen near boats and water.  

Theological and Social Concerns:  

5. Relationship to the Jerusalem Temple: In Paul: The physical Temple has been replaced by Jesus and "believers" (1 Cor 3:9-17; 6:19-20); the Temple is now purely mystical; it is more important than ever. (Note: the actual physical Herodian Temple was still standing in Jerusalem at the time Paul wrote his letter and Mark wrote his rebuttal). In Mark: The physical Temple exists and is the centre of corruption in Palestine (Mark 11:12-24;12:35-44; 15:38). 

6. Relationship to the city of Jerusalem: In Paul: Jerusalem is still favoured as shown by the collection for the Jerusalem church (1 Cor 16:1-4). In Mark: Jesus spends little time in Jerusalem; healing miracles all take place outside the city; Jesus' friends live outside the city; Jerusalem is the place where genuine faith withers away (Mark 11).  

7. Healing Miracles: In Paul: No mention of healing miracles. In Mark: Several healing miracles take place; the theme of healing is introduced early on and repeated until Jesus reaches Jerusalem.  

8. People With Disabilities: In Paul: No special mention of individuals with physical or mental illnesses or disabilities or special needs. In Mark: Those deemed "impure" according to Jewish custom and law are healed, touched, spoken to in violation of purity laws.  

9. The Kingdom of God: In Paul: The Kingdom is a reality outside the self; it depends on power (1 Cor 4:20; 15:24-28; 15:50). In Mark: There is no simple explanation of the Kingdom, but empathy is central to it (Mark 10:13-31; 12:28-34).  

10. Relationship of Body to Soul: In Paul: Influenced by Platonic dualism.; the flesh is corrupt (1 Cor 3:1-4; 7:8-9; 9:24-27; 15:42-49). Souls are in peril without belief in Christ. In Mark: Holistic attitude toward the body; non-Platonic and non-Covenantal; flesh is not impure or corrupt; right relationship with God involves caring for the body. Souls live as angels in the afterlife (Mark 12:24-27)  

11: Forgiveness: In Paul: No mention of forgiveness. In Mark: The theme of forgiveness is introduced early on (Mark 2:1-12); both God and humans can forgive (Mark 11:25).  

12: The Definition of Human Virtue: In Paul: "Foolishness" (morias) and unquestioning faith are the highest expressions of right belief (1 Cor 1:10 - 2:5); obedience, fellowship, holiness, "strong consciousness," and the proper exercise of freedom are emphasized. In Mark: Courage (ischys) and a questioning faith are the highest expressions of right belief (Mark 8:11-21); egalitarianism, service, forgiveness, and insight (suneseos) are emphasized.

JR27: Paul's "Temple" versus Jesus' "Kingdom"

J: Today I'd like to talk about the starting place for understanding the many differences between what I taught and what Paul taught. 

“Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world. I came to them in the flesh. I found all of them drunk. I found not one of them to be thirsty. My soul was saddened by the sons of men for they were mentally blind. They do not see that they have come into the world empty and they will go out of the world empty. But now they are drunk. When they sober up they will repent” (Gospel of Thomas 28). Photo of Komombo Temple, dedicated to Sobek and Horus, Aswan, Egypt. Author Dennis Jarvis. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

A: Sounds good to me.
 
J: I've mentioned before that Paul and I had different motivations, different purposes behind our respective religious movements.* One of the few things we had in common was a strong sense of conviction. Paul believed in his cause, and was willing to argue for it. I believed in my cause, and was willing to argue for it. We both had strong opinions. We just didn't have the same opinions.
 
A: Part of Paul's cause involved arguing against your cause.
 
J: Definitely. Paul rejected -- even feared -- my teachings on the nature of the Kingdom. He was sure my Kingdom teachings would lead to anarchy. Widespread civil and social disobedience. His fears were shared by others.
 
A: Why was he so afraid?
 
J: Well, Paul, like so many others then and now, had allowed his brain to become focussed -- riveted -- on the perfection of Divine Law. Of course, he thought it was Divine Law he was giving all his time, energy, and devotion to, but really it was human law, human authority. He didn't see it this way, though. He convinced himself that he was doing the right thing in aggressively attacking me because he was protecting Divine Law. He believed that Divine Law justified -- gave sanction to -- his actions.
 
A: Where have I heard that before?
 
J: Rigid, perfectionistic thinking is a symptom of imbalance and dysfunction in the wiring of the biological brain. It's common in bullies throughout the world.
 
A: Paul spends a lot of time in his letters telling the people of his churches that they don't need to follow Jewish laws on food and circumcision. If he believed so much in the law, why was he dissing it? It doesn't make sense.
 
J: It makes perfect sense if you understand that Paul wasn't trying to protect the "praxis" laws of regular Jewish people -- laws about "petty little daily practices," as he saw them. To him these minor practices were nothing, they were of no consequence. He wasn't interested in the small stuff, the things that matter to regular people on a day to day basis. He was after the big stuff. The End Point. The Omega. The be all and end all. He was after the Power.
 
A: What power?
 
J: The power that he and many others close to him believed was woven into the fabric of Creation. The power to command the universal Law of Cause and Effect.
 
A: That sounds seriously creepy. And not even very Jewish.
 
J: Well, as we've talked about, there were different schools of religious and philosophical thought that used the sacred Hebrew texts, and these schools fought fiercely among themselves. In the 1st century CE, there was no agreement on what it meant to be a pious Jew, just as today there's no agreement on what it means to be a pious Christian. Most people forget that there was a civil war among Jews in Judea in the 60's CE. Sure, the Romans came in eventually and torched everything in Jerusalem. But before the Romans sent in their troops, the Jews were doing a fine hatchet job on themselves. This mood of dissension among Jews was already brewing when I was teaching and healing in Galilee. It's part of the reason I left my home in Philadelphia (modern day Amman) and went to Galilee. There was a measure of religious sanity that still existed there.

 
A: The Bible claims that Paul was a Pharisee.
 
J: In Philippians Chapter 3, Paul is very clever about the claims he makes for himself. He says that according to Jewish laws of bloodline, he's a member of the tribe of Benjamin. Big deal. Lots of people could make that claim. He says that according to prevailing Jewish customs around religious authority, he's a Pharisee -- a sort of rabbi/lawyer/teacher who deserves to be treated with respect for his religious knowledge. Then comes the clincher: he says that according to "zeal" (zelos in Greek) he was an early persecutor of the church and according to "righteousness" he was blameless in his actions against the church. When Paul talks about "zeal" and "righteousness," he isn't talking about "beliefs" or "opinions." He isn't saying he was just really enthusiastic or really committed. He's saying he had "the zeal" inside of him. He's saying he had a piece of Divine Law inside of him, a spark of God inside of him that was guiding him, commanding his thoughts and actions. He's saying he was a "vessel of humility" into which God had poured the divine substance called "zeal." Zeal is a kind of love, therefore -- a love for the Law. Devotion to the Law. Obedience to the Law. Adoration, even, of the Law. It sees the Law as a quasi-divine being. Sort of an embodiment of the Divine desire for orderliness in Creation. More than just a philosophical structure. An animated, conscious entity, if you will. Wisdom -- Sophia -- was also envisioned in this way as a semi-divine female being.
 
A: Plato talked about the Laws in this kind of weird anthropomorphic way.
 
J: Yes. And so did the Essenes. The Essenes were very much a fringe cult within Judaism. They had the most highly developed mystical rituals, the most "out there" beliefs about God and Creation and occult magic. They were also highly devout, highly wealthy, and highly powerful. They were a scary bunch. And Paul was greatly influenced by Essene teachings about God, the Spirit, the indwelling Temple, and occult ritual.
 
A: Would you say that Paul was an Essene? An accepted member of the yahad?
 
J: No. He wasn't teaching pure Essene thought. But he was influenced by their thought. He also had strong links to another important school of thought that's harder to track. He blended ideas from Essene thought and Hellenistic thought to create his "new and improved" version of the Law of Cause and Effect. By the time he began his "mission to the Gentiles," he was no longer interested in mainstream Judaism, with its focus on Mosaic Law. He'd "moved up" on the spiritual ladder of ascent, on that ever so narrow and hard-to-find ladder of spiritual hierarchy. He'd found an enticing and intoxicating blend of occult magic and hidden knowledge -- the kind of hidden knowledge reserved only for a few select apostles. He was drunk on the idea that this new knowledge would lead him to power -- power over evil entities.

A: What evil entities?

J: The corrupted versions of Law and Wisdom and Life -- their "evil twins."

A: Their evil twins? This is sounding like some of the "contemporary horror" dramas that are so incredibly popular in books and movies and TV shows these days.
 
J: Same old, same old. It's just a dysfunctional, distorted version of the Law of Cause and Effect when taken to occult extremes. It goes like this: "Well, if there's a Perfect Law, a semi-divine being who brings only virtue and righteousness to people of virtue, then, logically speaking, there must be an evil twin of Perfect Law -- a powerful semi-divine being who sows vice and corruption in the world." It's a nice, neat, simple mathematical formula to explain why evil exists. Sons of Light versus Sons of Darkness, as the Essenes clearly formulated it. What could be easier to understand?
 
A: It's so easy to see what you're saying by looking at Paul's Letter to the Romans. Romans is filled with paranoid, dualistic, judgmental thinking. Paul tells people in gory detail how they can fight the evils of Law, Sin, and Death, and overcome these evil cosmic forces through the power of Christ's name.
 
J: Yes. For Paul, Mosaic Law had become the evil twin of the pure Essene Temple Law. Sin was the evil twin of Wisdom (implying by analogy to Wisdom's femaleness that Sin was also female). And Death was the evil twin of Life. Paul called this evil trinity Law, Sin, and Death.
 
A: On my God. That makes a ridiculous amount of sense. It explains how Paul could go around telling people they wouldn't die if they believed in Christ -- a promise that soon proved to be a lie, because some of Paul's followers had already died, and he had to answer for it in his letters.
 
J: It's popular these days for theologians to make excuses for this kind of apocalyptic promise, excuses based on the naive assumption that people in the 1st century CE "just didn't know any better" and "can't be blamed for believing in salvation from death." This, I'm sad to say, is hogwash. No balanced, mentally healthy individual is going to accept the idea that human beings can escape physical death and continue to live for centuries on Planet Earth the way their mystical forebears had (e.g. Methuselah). It's just goofy. It's what Paul promised his followers in the beginning of his mission, but it's goofy. In his Letter to the Romans, he has to go through huge theological contortions to try to salvage people's belief in him. It's a pretty sad way to go, if you think about it.
 
A: Promises, promises.
 
J: You know what works best in the Gospel of Mark? The fact that there are no "Cause and Effect" promises. Everything's messy. Everything's unpredictable. Shit happens, but so what? It can't take away your courage or your faith or your trust in God or your desire to help other people. Even shit can be turned into very useful fertilizer.
 
A: So your Kingdom is about turning shit into fertilizer, and Paul's Temple is about the quest to stop shitting at all?
 
J: And you say I have a way with words!


* Please see also "Materialism, Pauline Thought, and the Kingdom" and "Mark's Themes of Understanding and Strength"
 

JR18: The "Trilemma"

A: This morning it seemed like a good idea for me to post part of the cognate paper I wrote for my Master's degree. I've included the abstract, the information from the Schematic Model that underlies my argument, and an introduction to the argument itself. This paper has not been published, but, like all original writing, is covered by copyright laws.

This research paper was the product of years of combined academic and mystical research. I got a lot of help from Jesus (though I couldn't put that in the bibliography!), and I got little help from my supervising professor, who was somewhat bewildered by the paper. The paper was read and marked by a second professor -- P.H., a theologian of Pentecostal stripe -- who hated the paper and who, strangely enough, accused me of wasting 20 pages in the middle on "nothing" and then in the next breath accused me of not backing up my stated theory about Jesus' teachings. She literally could not see, with her fundamentalist background, that the "wasted pages" constituted an analysis of radical claims about Jesus made by the author of the Gospel of Mark. People see what they want to see, even in academia.

If you're interested in reading the paper in its entirety, it's posted on my website on the Doctrines of the Soul page.


ABSTRACT:
This paper compares different theological claims that were made about the soul in Hellenistic philosophy, Second Temple Judaism, and early Christianity, and shows through the use of a new theoretical model that these claims cannot be grouped by religion. Doctrinal claims about the soul can instead be grouped into one of three main fields of theological inquiry: the physis versus nomos debate; the nomos versus the Divine debate; or the physis versus the Divine debate. These three debates have operated in parallel within Christianity since its inception. The Gospel of Mark provides evidence that Jesus’ own teachings on the soul may have been part of a novel solution to the physis-Divine debate. By contrast, Tertullian’s detailed doctrine of the soul, presented in The Soul’s Testimony and A Treatise on the Soul, draws on the traditions of the nomos-Divine debate, and yields very different claims than those presented in Mark. Tertullian’s doctrine of the soul, and his related doctrine of original sin, have exerted great influence on the orthodox Christian understanding of the soul. The church today has the option of reexamining the history of early Christian soul doctrines and assessing the three parallel strands of thought to uncover a previously overlooked biblically-based understanding of the soul that can meet today’s pastoral needs.


Schematic Model for the Theological "Trilemma":

(c) Jennifer Thomas 2010

1. The Rift Between PHYSIS and NOMOS The Problem: How can we reconcile the necessities of nature with the themes of justice and judgment derived from human laws? The Solution: Elevation of human authority and human status (arete). IN TENSION WITH 2 AND 3.
2. The Rift Between NOMOS and the DIVINE The Problem: How can we reconcile the themes of justice and judgment derived from human laws with the puzzling long-term relationship we have with God. The Solution: Elevation of prophetic authority, and lack of accountability to the necessities of nature. IN TENSION WITH 1 AND 3.
3. The Rift Between PHYSIS and the DIVINE The Problem: How can we reconcile the necessities of nature with the puzzling long-term relationship we have with God? The Solution: Elevation of secret knowledge, mysticism, and cult rituals. IN TENSION WITH 1 AND 2.

The model I propose is shown in diagrammatic format in figure 1, Schematic Model for the Theological "Trilemma." This figure is elaborated on in tables 1, 2, and 3. Although a much longer paper would be needed to examine this model in detail, in the current paper I will use this model to examine three major streams of theological thought that have all, in their own way, used doctrines of the soul to resolve issues of religious and political authority. By placing the different doctrines of the soul mentioned above into this framework, it is easier to see in what way Tertullian’s theology differs markedly from that of Jesus in the Synoptics. The contrast between these two demonstrates clearly that doctrines of the soul do not line up neatly according to the respective religious tradition from which each emerged. In other words, there is not a soul doctrine that is unique to Judaism, a different soul doctrine that is unique to Hellenism, and a third one found only in Christianity. Instead, a distinctive three-fold pattern exists, a pattern that is shared among Judaism, Greek religion/ philosophy, and early Christianity, and this three-fold pattern is the basis of the model I am proposing. This three-fold pattern, or "trilemma" as I have chosen to call it, partly explains the "why" of fierce theological debate. It also helps explain why we are so confused today about the nature of the soul.

The pattern I am proposing as a theological framework to help us analyse our current confusion arose in response to observations made by Walter Burkert in his book Greek Religion. Towards the end of this important book, Burkert discusses the religious and philosophical crisis that erupted in the fifth century BCE when sophists and atheists undermined Greek religious certainty with their observations about nomos and physis:

Nomos, meaning both custom and law, becomes a central concept of sophistic thought. Laws are made by men and can be altered arbitrarily. And what is tradition if not the sum of such ordinances? Horizons are extended through travel and the reports of travel: with growing interest men became aware of foreign peoples among whom everything is different, witness the ethnographic digressions of Herodotus. In this way the unquestioned assumptions of custom can easily be shaken. The discovery of the changeability of custom becomes particularly dangerous when nomos is set in opposition to physis, a concept provided by the philosophy of nature where it is used to denote the growing of the cosmos and of all things contained in it from their own laws. Archelaos, a pupil of Anaxagoras, is supposed to have been the first to formulate this antithesis about 440 BC: the just and the unjust, the ugly and the beautiful are not defined by physis but by nomos, by arbitrarily changing human convention.

But it was on tradition, nomos, that religion primarily rested, as the Greeks knew well. Its foundations were seen to be threatened, at least in theory, as a result of the questioning of nomos.[1]

Burkert then goes on to outline how pre-Socratic thinkers such as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Sophocles, and Diogenes of Apollonia "delivered" the pious from this crisis of uncertainty by asserting that "[t]here are laws of eusebeia which are rooted in heaven, removed from human caprice, and eternal like the cosmos itself."[2] Thus, concludes Burkert, "nature speculation provides a starting-point from which to close the rift between physis and nomos, and so to give a new, unshakeable foundation for piety."[3]

"The rift between physis and nomos" is a phrase so powerful, so meaningful, that it seems almost paradigmatic, and Burkert’s recognition of the pattern opened the door to a pursuit by this author of other such paradigmatic rifts. This line of enquiry led to the observation that there seem to be two other major rifts: the rift between nomos and the Divine, and the rift between physis and the Divine. Each of these rifts is not a simple duality but rather a complex philosophical/theological tension that encompasses perennial questions about what it means to be human, and what it means to be a human in relationship with God.

The three-fold pattern I suggest here can be represented by the triangle shown in figure 1. Each point of the triangle represents one of the three rifts. Although other writers have proposed three-point triangles to highlight both doctrinal and scholarly incongruities[4], what distinguishes the "trilemma" from other three-point models is the fact that each point in the proposed triangular scheme represents not a single concept but a complex tension between two difficult-to-reconcile concepts that seem to be separated by a rift. Each of these rifts, on its own, represents a valid question. For instance, it is perfectly valid for religious seekers to ask in what way human laws and traditions should (or could) align with the laws of nature (nomos in tension with physis; table 1); or in what way religious laws are (or could be) made in the image of our relationship with God (nomos in tension with the Divine; table 2)[5]; or in what way the actual laws of nature reflect our relationship with a God who allows death and suffering (physis in tension with the Divine; table 3). These are all straightforward and important themes of theology. What is not straightforward is the way in which the answers to these questions gradually resulted in three divergent theological solutions, as shown on tables 1, 2, and 3. Each of these three theological solutions presents a different view of who God is, and how we can be in relationship with God. These solutions are mutually incompatible. For instance, if you "cut and paste" the three different versions of how God is perceived in these three different solutions (that is, if you try to put them all together on one point in the centre of the triangle), you arrive at a God who is simultaneously distant and transcendent, fully immanent, unchanging, emotionally detached, interventionist, emotionally involved, in conditional relationship with us, in unconditional relationship with us, and proleptically in relationship with us. This simply cannot be, unless one resorts to the time-honoured tradition of explaining away overt contradictions as mysterion.[6]

What emerges upon examination of the "trilemma" is the extent to which these three theological solutions are mutually incompatible. The questions that underlie the three points are not incompatible; but the solutions that have arisen and been accepted as dogma over many centuries are very much incompatible. A person who attempts to hold all three solutions together as a unified whole is likely to end up confused at the very least. Yet for centuries Christians have been trying to do this very thing. Before that, the people of Judah/Israel and the people of classical Greece wrestled with the same confusion. This is not a new problem. But until we recognize it as a reality that is causing us problems, and until we look for new ways to de-complicate our Protestant theology, we will continue to be confused about our relationship with God.

This same confusion manifests in our current understanding of the soul, which, as I will show in the next two chapters, presents a theological solution based on only one point of the trilemma – the nomos-Divine rift – while using a confusing blend of vocabulary that seems to point to the other two points as well. Thus we will see the emergence of a soul doctrine that means one thing while ostensibly saying another. The intent of this soul doctrine is to entrench the inviolability of divine contract laws (the nomos-Divine rift), but it refers often to the language of free will (physis-nomos rift) and of mystery (physis-Divine rift). In this context, it is little wonder that today’s church is so reticent about the soul – at present, the orthodox understanding of the soul makes no sense!

[1] Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. John Raffan (1977; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 312-313.
[2] Ibid., 318.
[3] Ibid.
[4]Dr. W. M. pointed out to his Winter 2009 class the triangular models of Mattitiahu Tsevat and James Barr respectively. Tsevat’s model shows the doctrinal dilemma of the Book of Job, which can be summarized as "just Creator, just persons, just rewards: pick two." Mattitiahu Tsevat, "The Meaning of the Book of Job," Hebrew Union College Annual 37 (1966), 73-106. James Barr presents a threefold process for studying the Bible – referential, intentional, and poetic – in The Bible in the Modern World (London: S.C.M. Press, 1973), 61. James Rives, however, comes closest to the model I’m suggesting when he describes the three kinds of advantage offered by religion in the Greco-Roman period: (1) traditional benefits, (2) intensification, and (3) salvation. James. B. Rives, Religion in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 168-179.
[5]As the entry on nomos in the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology points out, "[t]he legal, ethical and religious meanings of nomos are inseparable in antiquity, for all goods were believed to come from the gods, who upheld order in the universe and in relations between men . . . . Philosophy (even that of the Sophists), kept alive the awareness that, since human laws are so fallible, man cannot exist unless he conforms to cosmic, universal law . . . . Whereas the Sophists criticized the idea of absolute validity attaching to nomos, Plato and Aristotle each in his own way connected it with the nous, the human spirit, and thereby once again with the divine." Hans-Helmut Esser, "Law, Custom, Elements," in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 2, rev. ed., ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986),439.
[6]Although I am a practising mystic, I would not want to fall back on the excuse of mysterion to try to force these different images onto a single page. Mystery as a concept can be dangerous when used as a catchall to smooth over doctrinal inconveniences or to uphold church authority at the expense of the oppressed. The church needs mystery – but it does not need the kind that has been used to justify longstanding abuses in the church towards women and the disadvantaged.

JR6: John and the Gospel of Thomas

A: I had a letter from a reader in the U.S. who's curious about the Gospel of Thomas, so I thought we could switch gears a bit and talk about the manuscript known as the Gospel of Thomas.

Papyrus fragment: Gospel of Jesus' Wife (sourced from Wikimedia Commons, author unknown). This fragment is not from the Nag Hammadi collection, but is a good example of an early Christian text written in Coptic on papyrus. This fragment has itself been the source of much recent controversy.

J: Okay. Where do you want to start?

A: Well, for readers who aren't familiar with it, maybe we could start with some background.

J: I happen to know you already have a book on your desk with the relevant facts, so perhaps you'd like to talk about the history of it.

A (referring to textbook): The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas was one of those serendipitous finds, so extraordinary that you'd expect to see it in an Indiana Jones movie. But the history isn't disputed. Late in 1945, two Egyptian men discovered a large sealed pottery jar hidden beneath a large boulder near the village of Nag Hammadi in southern Egypt. They smashed the jar and found 13 leather-bound volumes inside, which were later sold. These volumes, which date from the mid-4th century CE and contain more than 50 texts, soon attracted the attention of scholars. The collection is called the Nag Hammadi library, and it's proven to be a goldmine for scholars of early church doctrine. The texts are considered to be Gnostic Christian rather than orthodox Christian, and some scholars have suggested the texts were hidden to protect them from a wave of persecution against Gnostics. The most famous of the books is the collection of Jesus's sayings -- your sayings -- called the Gospel of Thomas. There's disagreement among scholars as to whether the Gospel of Thomas should be considered a Gnostic text. Some believe it should instead be considered a text originating in a different but very early school of Christianity -- not quite Gnostic but not orthodox, either. Anyway, it's unique because it doesn't follow the narrative format of the four gospels we know from the Bible. Instead, it's a collection of sayings. Some of those sayings have sparked renewed mystical and creative interest in Jesus' original teachings. The movie Stigmata is an example of that interest.

J: And don't forget all those Da Vinci Code type books.

A: Those, too. You don't want to be learning your history from these books and films, but it's fun to sit down with a cup of hot tea and an entertaining novel on a cold snowy day.

J: Like today.

A: Yes. That's quite the storm out there today. A storm front all the way from Texas to Nova Scotia. I hope my boss calls to say we're closed today. Then maybe I could do a little reading. Catch up on the Gospel of Thomas -- which, to be honest, I haven't looked at in about two years. Last time I read it, I hadn't figured out the Gospel of Mark. But I think it's time to revisit the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas and try to figure out how they relate to Mark. All I really know at this point is what you've told in the past about the authorship of the Gospel of Thomas.

J: You mean the fact that the apostle John wrote the Gospel of Thomas.

A: It's so confusing. Who wrote the Gospel of Mark? Oh, that would be Matthew. But not the Matthew who wrote the Gospel of Matthew, because that author would be Paul's disciple Barnabas. And don't forget that Luke and Acts weren't written by a physician named Luke. And the newly discovered Gospel of Thomas wasn't written by Thomas, but was actually written by John. It's enough to give a person a headache.

J: It's interesting, isn't it, that John's name is actually on his other writings -- the Gospel of John, the letters of John, and Revelation.

A: Yes. How is it that John's name got preserved in so many places, and Paul's name got preserved in so many places, and your name didn't get preserved on any writings at all? We have texts we call "Pauline," and we have texts we call "Johannine," but we don't have any "Yeshuan" texts. In fact, we don't even have an adjective in English that corresponds to the name Jesus, so I have to use an adjective based on the Aramaic form of your name, Yeshua. Yet I know you did a lot of writing. So what happened? What happened to your name? And what happened to your writings?

J: Long story. It's complicated. It makes more sense if you understand the cast of characters, the people I actually lived with and worked with. It makes more sense if you understand the personal motivations for each person involved.

A: Including your own motivation.

J. Yes. Mine, too.

A: Okay. Let's start with your motivation, then. Can you describe briefly the core of your motivation?

J: To bring healing to disadvantaged children so they didn't have to go through what my daughter had to go through.

A: Oh.

J: Theologians have been pontificating for centuries about who I was and what I was trying to do. But nobody's taken the time or trouble to ask me. They all want me to be a reflection of themselves -- somebody who's more interested in how many angels can fit on the head of a pin than somebody who's interested in the core questions about humanity. Life and love. Healing. But after my daughter died, I couldn't have cared less about the Covenant or the Law. The Covenant did nothing to help my daughter. In fact, I'd say the Covenant was partly to blame for her death. After you've had a child die -- a child you care deeply about -- your life changes. It's no great mystery. I embarked on a journey of spiritual questioning and spiritual agony because I felt I owed it to my beloved child. It's as simple as that.

A: I understand.

J: Yes, because you've gone through the same thing. Nobody but a bereaved parent can completely understand. To lose a beloved child is to have your heart ripped out. Except that you don't lose your heart. If you accept the grief and you accept the loss, you end up finding your heart. It bleeds a lot, but it's there.

A: Many of the theologians who've written about you over the centuries have been neither parents nor bereaved parents.

J: Augustine of Hippo was a bereaved parent. This didn't help him find his heart, unfortunately.

A: Perhaps he was in denial. It's not uncommon for bereaved parents to withdraw completely from their emotions because it's too painful. They retreat into logic and end up focussing on the "mind" and "reason" so they don't have to feel anything anymore.

J: Exactly. Unfortunately, the orthodox Church is riddled with the immature "victim" psychology that comes with being emotionally crippled, with abandoning healthy, mature relationships with each other and with God.

A: Explain what you mean by "emotionally crippled."

J: I mean men and women who are emotionally immature, emotionally stunted, emotionally dissociated. Adults who don't have the courage of their own hearts and souls. It's hard work to deal with grief. And love. And Pauline Christians aren't good at it because they haven't been taught how. Whenever I hear the phrase "one body in Christ," I think of a zombie -- a lifeless corpse walking around with no heart and no capacity for empathy or deep compassion. There's lots and lots of talk in the Church about free will and reason and blind faith, but if you look closely, you'll see there's little talk about emotional maturity or emotional healing or faith based on empathy rather than on pure logic. That's why the Church doesn't teach people about forgiveness. Forgiveness is part of a messy package that includes love and grief and pain. Forgiveness is very hard work at an emotional and spiritual and psychological level. It has no appeal for people who are emotionally immature.

A: People like Paul.

J: And people like John the Baptist.

A: Hey -- that's a non sequitur.

J: Not when you know that John the Baptist and John the Evangelist were one and the same person.

A: I take it that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated?

J: There are always wars and rumours of wars. Always deaths and rumours of deaths. Sometimes the one prevents the other.


Update on August 9, 2015: (1) Photo of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife was added.

(2) For an interesting commentary on the Gospel of Thomas, please see the article called "The Gospel of Thomas: Jesus Said What?" by Simon Gathercole in the July/August 2015 Biblical Archaeology Review.  In this article, Dr. Gathercole talks about the history of the Gospel of Thomas's discovery, discusses theories for its date, and reviews some the Gospel's major theological themes.

On the question of whether the Gospel of Thomas can be understood as a Gnostic work, he says this:

"Nevertheless, it has always been something of an embarrassment for the "Gnostic" view of Thomas that there is no talk of an evil demiurge, a creation that is intrinsically evil, or of other familiar themes such as "aeons" (a technical term for the divine realms in the heavens).  Properly Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Judas and the Nag Hammadi Gospel of the Egyptians, have very complicated accounts of how multitudes of deities and aeons come into existence from a demonic power before the birth of the world.  There is nothing of this in Thomas, though."