JR59: News of the World: "New Lamps For Old"

A: I see a lot of similarity between the current phone hacking scandal in the U.K. and the behaviour of the apostle Paul and his cronies in the first century CE. In both situations, a very powerful man does whatever he wants regardless of how unethical, corrupt, manipulative, and cruel it is. The only difference between then and now is that Rupert Murdoch's employees have received a public shaming. Without the huge public outcry that accompanied the recent re-revelation about phone hacking at the News of the World, the authorities wouldn't have reopened the investigation or arrested more people. The authorities -- or rather I should say certain individuals in senior positions of authority in the police and government -- knew about the accusations of unethical conduct and did nothing much about them until regular people started yelling and putting their foot down.

“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at their image and, on going away, immediately forget what they look like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act — they will be blessed in their doing” (James 1:22-25). Replicas of Ancient Greek vessels. Photo credit JAT 2014.

J: The parallels are uncanny. If people today are having trouble imagining what it felt like for my followers soon after my death, they can read about the phone hacking scandal and put themselves in the shoes of the families of the murder victims who were psychologically assaulted by the News of the World reporters, editors, and decision makers.

A: I think most people would be shocked to learn how unethical Paul really was. How cold and calculating he really was.

J: He was a business man. Very practical, very logical. He was like the editor at the News of the World who approved the phone hacking strategies. Anything was okay as long as it got the job done. "The end justifies the means" and all that crap. Success at any price. Just the way his bosses in Alexandria wanted it.

A: Yet you've said in previous discussions that Paul truly believed in what he was doing.

J: Sure. A successful psychopath is an ideologue. It's what separates the successful psychopaths -- "snakes in suits," as researcher Robert Hare calls them -- from the garden variety criminals who get caught and thrown in jail for reckless, impulsive crimes. An ideologue, on the other hand -- and Paul was a religio-political ideologue -- uses "The Big Idea" as a crutch to hold up his dysfunctional brain. It's a coping mechanism. It's an external framework of ideas that the psychopath clings to because he's lost his own internal compass. He can't hear the voice of his own soul telling him what's right and wrong. But he's still very logical, very goal-oriented, and he's addicted to status. So if he can "attach" himself to an external Big Idea, and apply his logic and ambition to it, he can acquire status and not end up in prison.

A: Why won't he end up in prison? Aren't psychopaths inherently impulsive? Prone to risk-taking behaviours and uninterested in consequences? Doesn't this make him more likely to do something criminal?

J: Yes. It's part of the package for psychopaths. But if you put a psychopath in a structured organization where there are very strict rules, very clear punishments, and rigid ladders of governance, he'll be so busy trying to claw his way up "the ladder of success" he won't bother going out to rob banks or gas stations. The buzz he gets from plotting his long-term strategy for "success" is much better than the temporary high of terrorizing a gas station attendant.

This is not to say the snakes-in-suits are "nicer" psychopaths. They're not nice people at all. But no one can question their ability to promote "The Big Idea" (whatever their Big Idea happens to be) with charismatic passion. Regular people are easily sucked in by this passion.

A: So Paul was a snake-in-a-suit. I kinda like the way this ties in with the conversations we've had about the Book of Genesis.

J: Paul was promoting the Big Idea of salvation. Escape from a life without status. Escape from a death without status. He and his followers built a humongous empire on the "4 S's" -- sin, separation, sacraments, and salvation. But Paul's Big Idea was just that -- an idea. A belief system. A theory without proof. A theory that's never had proof. Its very lack of provableness is what makes it so attractive to psychopaths. Why? Because there's nothing in the Big Idea that can act as a mirror for a psychopath's true intent. There's nothing to make him look at himself honestly. There's nothing to challenge him to be his best self. The Big Idea gives him 1,001 excuses to brush his abusive behaviour under the carpet. Unfortunately, until the psychopath sees himself as he really is, he has no incentive to change.

A: I think we've just spiralled back to your analogy between a psychopath and the Greek monster Medusa. Medusa's hideous face turned everyone into stone until Perseus held up a mirror-like shield and forced her to look at herself.

J: Part of the problem here is that regular people don't understand what makes a psychopath tick. Regular people look at a "successful psychopath" -- the guy who has the drive and ambition to work 16 hour days -- and they think he must really know who he is and what he wants. They think they should try to be like him. They think they themselves are failures if they want to go home to their families after working an 8 hour day. But the honest truth is the successful psychopath has no idea who he really is. All he has inside himself is a score card. A score card instead of a heart. His soul is all heart, of course, but he long ago stopped listening to this core part of himself. This is why he has no conscience and no empathy. His soul isn't defective, but his biological brain is seriously out of balance. He's so used to living this way that it's normal for him. Even worse, he likes living this way. He likes hurting other people. He likes to make regular people feel small and useless. And he's not going to change until he recognizes the honest truth that he's not a nice person.

A: It took me years to understand this lesson. I misunderstood what compassion was. I thought compassion meant you should never intentionally make another person feel bad about themselves. That's before I learned (the hard way) that a lot of people out there want to hurt other people and consciously choose to hurt other people and get a high out of psychologically abusing other people and won't decide to stop this behaviour until they're forced to look in the mirror. I also learned the hard way that the more dysfunctional a person is, the more insulted and offended she'll be when you tell her she isn't being a nice person.

J: You're thinking of someone in particular when you say that.

A: Yes. I'm thinking of Grace, the modern day "spiritual leader" (a.k.a. apocalyptic prophet) I hung out with for several years before I came to my senses.

J: These are the people who are quickest to say, "You have no right to say such things about me."

A: Hey, don't forget the other favourite response of the psychopath who insists she's a nice person: "Oh, my dear, tut tut, how can you say such things about me? Why, everyone knows what a good person I am and how hard I work on behalf of the community. I'm so concerned for you, you poor thing. You really need to get some help."

J: A psychopath has extremely strong defences against hearing the truth about his or her own behaviour. It's scary how strong these defences are. The doctrines of orthodox Western Christianity have served as excellent body armour for its successful psychopaths. Pauline Christians are not called upon to look honestly at themselves and make changes to live up to their true potential. Instead they're encouraged to stoop to the level of a psychopath's dysfunctional mind so the psychopath doesn't have to feel bad about himself.

A: You said pretty much the same thing in James 1:22-25.

J: I'm a consistent fellow. But it's not hard to be consistent when you're trying to speak the truth. Truth has an annoying habit of being consistent and provable and open to new and unfolding sources of knowledge. Even if it takes a couple of thousand years for the truth to be recognized, for the facts to be identified, remembered, understood, and acted upon.

A: I'm glad there's finally a solid and widespread foundation of research in place so the truth about Paul's "News of the World" can finally come out.

JR48: Second Step in Healing the Church: Restore the Mystery of Divine Love

A: I was rearranging a couple of my bookshelves yesterday -- actually, I was tidying up because my parents are coming over -- and I felt drawn to set aside a book I picked up last fall in the remaindered book section at Chapters. It's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Christian Mysteries by Ron Benrey (New York: Alpha-Penguin, 2008). It's not a bad little book. And it sure beats trying to wade through Jaroslav Pelikan's massive 5 volume history of church doctrine.  

Anyway, Benrey's book is divided into 4 parts and a total of 24 chapters. Part 1 is called "The Christian Mindbenders." The 6 mysteries included in Part I are "the mystery of the incarnation," "the mystery of the trinity," "the mystery of Jesus' dual natures," "the mystery of Jesus' resurrection," "the mystery of the atonement," and "the mystery of the last things." A few days ago, you said there's not enough mystery in the church.* Yet Bender has filled a whole book with Christian mysteries of various sorts -- most of which you've trashed in your discussions with me. So I'm wondering if we can return to the question of mystery in the church today. How do you envision the role of mystery in healing the church?  

J: First, it's important for church leaders to accept that people want and need mystery. If you strip away the mystery, all you really have is a secular service club devoted to charitable causes. That's not faith. Faith and mystery go hand in hand. 

“Jesus said: Images are visible to people, but the love within them is hidden in the image of the Father’s love. He will be revealed but his image is hidden by his love” (Gospel of Thomas 83). Standard translations of this saying use the word “light” where I’ve used the word “love.” But for Jesus, Divine Love — rather than hidden knowledge — was the great light that shines upon us all. There was no word in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic that adequately captured this concept of love, so he sometimes used the Greek word φως (phos) to try to capture the intensity and sense of life in God’s love. Strange as it may sound, mystery, and love are always associated with a sense of movement, beauty, grace, and transformation. St. Margaret's Church, London, UK. Photo credit JAT 2023.

 

A: Why?  

J: Because faith -- as opposed to piety or fear of God -- is about relationship with God. And as soon as you start talking about relationships, you start entering the realm of mystery. 

A: That feeling of awe about somebody else's gifts and gaffes -- their amazing courage, their brilliant insights, their hilarious mistakes.  

J: Perhaps the greatest mystery of all is consciousness -- what it means to be a person. This mystery extends to the origins of our divine Mother and Father. God the Mother and God the Father are distinct consciousnesses -- two distinct people -- with vastly different talents and abilities, yet they share their journey together in the deepest love and trust and gratitude. What they create together is so much bigger than what either could create alone. There's an immense sense of wonder on the part of all angels at the richness and kindness and patience that's infused in everything our Mother and Father create together. The creations themselves are cause for much appreciation and emulation. But it's not the creations themselves (stars, moons, planets) that convey to us -- their angelic children -- the deepest sense of divine mystery. It's the love itself. The deepest mystery -- the startling mystery, the core mystery, the infinite puzzle -- is the mystery of divine love. And this is a mystery based on relationship.  

A: Some Christian theologians like to talk about the "scandal of particularity." In Christian terms, it's related to the doctrine of the incarnation -- the idea that God entered one particular, limited existence. Namely you. It's interesting that what you're describing as the mystery of divine love sounds nothing like the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, yet it sounds an awful lot like the scandal of particularity -- though not at first. You have to ponder the feeling for a while to notice the connection . . . which reminds me that I've noticed over the years that some of the doctrines Christians cling to so desperately contain an echo or a hint of something true. The doctrines have become all twisted around and knotted so we can't see the original truth anymore. But at the same time we don't want to let them go because we sense there's something important there.  

J: You've really nailed that. There IS a "scandal of particularity," but it applies to God the Mother and God the Father, not to me.  

A: I've been hanging around with you for too long.  

J: The same thing applies to the idea of the Christ archetype. I was not -- and am not --THE Christ. The original Christ archetype is held by God the Mother and God the Father TOGETHER. I seek to emulate their courage, their love, their devotion as an angel, as a child of God, and in so far as I choose to emulate their example, I am a "small-c" christ. But when angels think of Christ, we think of our divine parents. We think of God. It's a term of affection. And gratitude. It's a positive epithet. But Paul and his successors took this term of affection and turned it into a word that means power and control and hierarchy. They mutated and subverted the meaning of everything that God the Mother and God the Father stand for together as the Christ.  

Sure, there really is a Christ. And sure, regular Christians don't want to let go of the idea that there's a Christ. But they're pinning the tail on the wrong donkey. I'm not the Christ. I'm a child of Christ -- as, indeed, are all souls in Creation.  

A: When we started talking about the "scandal of particularity" a few minutes ago, I got my butt off my chair and retrieved another book -- this one called Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes, edited by Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). In it there's an article called "God With Us in the Dust" by Karen Baker-Fletcher (pages 188-190). Baker-Fletcher says this:  

"What, then, is the difference between Jesus and other humans? It is not that we are like Jesus in the suffering we humans endure. It is the other way around; Jesus is like us, relates to us, identifies with us, having experienced the violent consequences of human sin. Jesus is like us because Jesus has been sinned against. He therefore can identify with human suffering. Jesus is like us because Jesus also feasts and rejoices with us. But we are not Christs [emphasis added]. Jesus does not sin but is sinned against. Jesus is unlike us because he is the Christ, the anointed one, one with God. God alone in Christ can promise restoration, redemption, salvation. As human beings we may participate in this activity, but we do not initiate it (page 189)." How do you respond to these thoughts?  

J: Well, she's managed rather neatly to allude to the Christian mysteries of the incarnation, the trinity, Jesus' dual natures, Jesus' resurrection, the atonement, and the last things all in one paragraph. She gets points for brevity. But she gets no points for understanding my ministry or my true relationship with God.  

A: You've said in the past that all human beings have the potential to live as Christs-in-human-form.  

J: Yes. It's a question of living your human life in imitation of Christ -- not as Paul taught the nature of Christ, but as I and others have taught the nature of Christ. Since God the Mother and God the Father are THE Christ, it's a pretty good bet that if you live your life in imitation of their love -- their courage, their devotion, their gratitude, their trust -- you're going to be "in the zone."  

A: In the Christ Zone, as you've called it before.  

J: Yes. I've called it the Christ Zone for a modern audience but 2,000 years ago I called it . . .  

A: The Kingdom of the Heavens.  

J: Same thing, different name. It's not the name that matters, after all. It's the intent. Paul's intent -- his choice of ground on which to sow the seeds of human potential -- was barren and rocky because he didn't actually want people to understand their potential to initiate the activities of healing, forgiveness, and redemption. He wanted them to feel helpless and hopeless about themselves so they would turn first and foremost to church leaders (such as himself) for authority and guidance.  

A: And you?  

J: I wanted people to feel helpful and hopeful about themselves so they would turn to God the Mother and God the Father for direct guidance.  

A: How very Protestant of you. 

* http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/06/first-step-in-healing-church-rescue.html

JR46: First Step in Healing the Church: Restore the Soul

“Jesus said: If your leaders say to you ‘Look! The Kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds will be there before you are. If they say that the Kingdom is in the sea, then the fish will be there before you are. Rather the Kingdom is within you and it is outside of you. When you understand yourselves you will be understood. And you will realize that you are Children of the living Father. If you do not know yourselves, then you exist in poverty and you are that poverty” (Gospel of Thomas 3a and 3b). Photo credit JAT.

A: Jesus, what would you say to those who are asking how we can heal the church of the third millennium?

J: That's an easy one. First you have to rescue the soul. Not save it. Rescue it. Restore it to the place of sanity it deserves. Give it some credit. Give it some trust. Be kind to it. Rescue it the way you'd rescue a dog who's been shut out of the house without food or water. Bring it in from the cold.

A: Or in from the fiery pits of hell.

J: There's a trend at the moment among Progressive Christians who want to try to rescue me. They want to rescue me from the clutches of the evangelical, charismatic, and fundamentalist Christians. While I appreciate the effort, the Progressive movement won't solve anything by trying to rescue me. I'm not the problem. And I'm not the solution.

A: In the Christology course I took, we studied a book by Wayne Meeks called Christ Is the Question (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). At the beginning of the book, Meeks identifies this issue. He says, "As a brand of shampoo promises the answer to frizzy hair, a detergent brand the answer to unbright laundry, a new model car the answer to loneliness and (by innuendo) sexual longing, so Jesus is the answer to -- what? Whatever you wish. Indeed [mainly in the context of American Protestantism] Jesus has become whatever you wish, an all-purpose brand, the answer to all needs, desires, fantasies, and speculations" (page 2).

J: It's true. But it's not really a new development in Christianity. It's exactly the outcome the apostle Paul desired. From the beginning, Paul's intention was to convert me -- a real flesh and blood person -- into the new face of the well-known Saviour brand. Sort of like redoing the label on a familiar brand of soap. You want your target audience to believe your "new and improved" brand of soap can clean away absolutely anything. You know you're lying, but you hope your audience won't catch on -- at least not until you have their money in your pocket.

A: Old lies beget new lies.

J: There's nothing to stop people from taking Paul's imaginary Saviour figure and adding their own imagination to the story. Who's to say they're wrong? It happens all the time in story-telling traditions. Somebody comes up with a captivating (but purely fictional) hero or heroine. The character and the plot catch on. Other people start dreaming up their own chapters in the hero's saga. Some of these catch on, too, and enter the myth. King Arthur is a good example of this. People are still writing their own versions of this story. Five hundred years from now the fanzine additions to favourite comic book heroes will blur together and create one giant new myth about Superman. Traditions evolve. Stories evolve. But story-telling traditions aren't selling fact. They're selling story. Fantasy. Speculation.

A: You're saying that there's too much story in Christianity and not enough fact. 

J: Yes. There's too much story. On the other hand, there's not nearly enough mystery. When I say mystery, I mean there's not enough room for individuals to have a transformative experience of redemption. Redemption and divine love and divine forgiveness are emotional experiences that lie well outside the boundaries of pure logic. Words like "wonder" and "gratitude" and "humbleness" spring to mind. But redemption doesn't just change your thinking. It changes everything -- everything in your whole being. It changes the way your physical body works. It changes the way you see colours. It changes the way you see patterns. It changes the way you learn. It changes the way you remember. The way you smell things. The way you feel rain on your skin. The way you eat your food. The way you sleep. The way you dream at night. The way you dream while you're awake. It changes absolutely everything about your relationship with yourself and with all Creation. Where once you crawled and chewed endlessly as a caterpillar, now you fly with beauty and grace as a winged butterfly and sip from the nectar of flowers. It may sound cliched, but it's true. The experience of transformation is that profound. You were "you" when you were a caterpillar, and you're still "you" as a butterfly. But the way in which you relate to the world has been completely altered. Your whole life is completely changed. The change is so sweet. So kind. So mysterious. It takes your breath away.

A (nodding): Even while you're still living here as a somewhat confused and baffled human being. You don't have to die to feel the mystery. You have to live.

J: The process of redemption -- the experience of mystery -- begins for a human being with the soul. The soul is not fictional. The soul is real. The soul -- the true core self of each consciousness within Creation -- is your laughter. Your empathy. Your conscience. Your curiosity. Your sense of wonder. In other words, all the least explainable, most mysterious parts of being human.

The soul is not one substance, but many substances -- many substances of a quantum nature. Its complexity and sophistication at a quantum level lie outside the bounds of current scientific investigation. But this has no bearing one way or the other on the soul's scientific reality. Scientific researchers have failed to detect many things in nature: the soul is just one of many things on a long list of "undiscovered countries."

A: How would a renewed understanding of the soul help heal the church today?

J: At the moment the Progressive movement has concluded -- based on erroneous starting assumptions -- that the past errors of the church include a belief in the eternal soul, a belief in miracles, and (for some) a belief that a guy named Jesus ever existed. They assume that if these "errors" are swept out of the church, and replaced with teachings based on pure logic and pure praxis, or, on the other end of the scale, replaced with teachings based on pure symbolism and hidden truth, then the church can be restored to a state of health and balance. This is not so.

A: They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

J: Yes. They've failed to realize that the problem with the church is that church leaders long ago put a lien on people's souls, as you and I discussed last time.

A: I was pretty indignant, wasn't I?

J: For good reason. The problem for Christianity is not a belief in the existence of the soul. The problem for Christianity (or rather, one of the problems) is the body of lies being taught about the soul. Over the centuries, Christian orthodoxy has done everything in its power to preserve the lien on the soul so it can preserve its power. The lien has to go. Church leaders are going to have to stand up and be honest about the fact that their teachings on the soul have damaged people's confidence and trust in God. They need to start from square one on the question of the soul -- no resorting to "tradition," no rooting around in the writings of early Church Fathers for justification. This will be a terrifying prospect for most theologians. But it must be done. The answers to their questions are already there -- not in the pages of the Bible, and not in the pages of Plato and Aristotle and Augustine and Aquinas and Wesley, but in the pages of God's scientific reality. Theological inquiry must stop clinging to tradition. You're in the third millennium now. Start acting like it.

JR45: Lien or No Lien on Your Soul?

A: Last week, I bought a 2007 Pontiac to replace my 1998 Nissan, which was close to death. The Carproof report found a lien against the Pontiac -- a financing lien held by Chrysler. At first I wasn't worried. I figured the paperwork for the clearance of the lien hadn't yet made it into the computer system at the proper government ministry. But being a thorough person, I decided to phone the ministry yesterday morning to make sure the lien had been cleared. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the lien was still attached to my car! I quickly got the problem straightened out with the dealer I bought the car from. But in the meantime I had a chance to reflect on my feelings about the lien. In Ontario, as in many other jurisdictions, a person who unwittingly buys a car or house that has a lien against it can lose the property they bought. It can be legally seized by the lien holder if the debt hasn't been paid by the original debtor. The car you think you own outright can be towed away in the blink of an eye by the original lender. It's a scary thought. 

“His disciples said to him: When will the resurrection of the dead take place and when will the new world come? He said to them: What you look for has come, but you do not know it” (Gospel of Thomas 51). In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus talks often about “life” and “beginnings,” yet his sayings involving “death” are not what we typically find in eschatological or apocalyptic teachings. Rather, the sayings about “life” and “death” in Thomas seem closely related to parts of the first century CE text known as The Didache, in which “the way of life” and “the way of death” are used as metaphors for how to live a moral life in full relationship with God. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus spends quite a bit of time and energy trying to persuade the disciples to let go of the eschatological doctrines held by the Pharisees and the Essenes at that time.  Photo of my red car. Photo credit JAT 2015.

Anyway, I was thinking about my feelings around the lien on my car. I was noticing how upset I was at the thought that somebody could -- theoretically -- swoop down on my little Pontiac and take it away with no say on my part. I was thinking how I'd paid for the car in full, how I could lose all the money I'd invested (unless I were inclined to sue, which would cost me even more money). I was thinking how unfair it would be for such a thing to happen. I'd bought the car in good faith. Why should I be punished for somebody else's mistake? Or somebody else's willful fraud?

So I'm standing in the bathroom and I'm drying my hair so I can get ready for work and it suddenly dawns on me that the feelings I'm expressing to myself about the lien on the car are the same feelings I have about orthodox Western Christianity's teachings on the soul. The Church teaches us there's a lien on our souls!

J (grinning): Yes. Not a nice feeling, is it?

A: No! It totally sucks. I never noticed till yesterday how deeply, deeply unfair the church's claims are. I knew their claims about the soul were based on the writings of Paul, Tertullian, Augustine, and so on. I knew their claims were self-serving. I knew their claims were just plain wrong in light of God's loving and forgiving nature. But I never felt the unfairness of it before at such a deep level -- at a gut level, a visceral level. It's just wrong to tell people their soul can be taken away from them by lien-holders. It's so . . . so . . . unfair. And cruel. It's cruel to tell people they have to invest themselves wholly in their faith while at any time the great big tow truck in the sky could show up to haul them or their loved ones away to the fiery pits of hell. Not to pay their own debts, but to pay somebody else's debts! Namely Adam and Eve's debts!

J: Ah, the wages of sin.

A: Very funny. This God-and-Devil-as-lien-holders thing means that devout Christians are always looking over their shoulder, waiting for the cosmic tow truck they can't do anything about. It makes people feel helpless. It makes them feel like slaves-in-waiting. Their soul isn't their own. Their time isn't their own. Their life and their choices and their free will aren't really their own. They're always on tenterhooks because they think they don't fully own their own soul. This is abusive.

J: That's why it works. From the perspective of certain members of the church hierarchy -- stretching all the way back to the time of Paul and his backers -- it's an excellent strategy for gaining control of the populace. People who feel helpless and hopeless tend to cause less trouble. They ask fewer questions. They tend to do what they're told because they're frightened. Frightened people turn to strong leaders -- in this case, church leaders. The Church is using a psychological control strategy that other groups in other cultures have used to similar effect. Paul's teachings have been particularly successful in this regard. 

The teachings of myself and other like-minded spiritual teachers are useless for this kind of psychological strategy. Totally useless. You can't frighten people into submission if you're actually giving them real hope. Real hope doesn't come from words. Real hope comes from actions -- from people's ongoing choices to help their neighbours. Real hope comes from healing and relationship and dignity and change. If the early church had wanted to teach real hope, it wouldn't have chosen the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Chalcedon Creed as its operative statements of faith.

A: Ah. You mean they might have mentioned the themes of divine love, forgiveness, healing, redemption (as opposed to salvation), and egalitarianism?

J: If the bishops in the first few centuries of Christianity had spent one tenth the time on compassion that they spent on their endless arguments over the "substance" of the Trinity, medieval Europe would have been a much nicer place to live in.

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.

JR38: The Peace Sequence

The Peace Sequence: First Education, Second Mentorship, Third Personal Responsibility, and finally Peace. Like shovelling after a heavy snowfall, it’s hard work and you can only take it one shovelful at a time. But in the end, the pathway is cleared, and you can move forward. Photo credit JAT 2015.

A: Back in August 2005, before I'd set foot in graduate school, or even considered doing so, you wrote a piece about "the peace sequence." At the time, you flagged what John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed had written at the beginning of their book In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004). Crossan and Reed wrote this:

"Paul's essential challenge is how to embody communally that radical vision of a new creation in a way far beyond even our present best hopes for freedom, democracy, and human rights. The Roman Empire was based on the common principle of peace through victory or, more fully, on a faith in the sequence of piety, war, victory, and peace. Paul was a Jewish visionary following in Jesus' footsteps, and they both claimed that the Kingdom of God was already present and operative in this world. He opposed the mantras of Roman normalcy with a vision of peace through justice or, more fully, with a faith in the sequence of covenant, nonviolence, justice, and peace. A subtext of In Search of Paul is, therefore: To what extent can America be Christian? (page xi)"

I can still remember your reaction when I read this paragraph back in 2005. At the top of the page, I wrote down your response: "Jesus: peace through personal responsibility in the sequence of education, mentorship, personal responsibility, then peace." It's taken me years of research and ongoing discussion with you to more fully understand what you meant that day.

J: As I said then, I don't disagree with Crossan and Reed's formulation of Paul's peace sequence. Paul did, in fact, teach his followers to reject the Roman ideal of peace through victory -- the Pax Romana -- and to choose peace through divine justice or justification. But this isn't what I taught. So they're wrong to state that Paul was following in my footsteps. Paul wasn't following me or my teachings. If anything, he was going along with a straw broom trying to erase all evidence of my footsteps.

A: Last week on the Vision Channel, I watched an episode of The Naked Archaeologist where Simcha Jacobovcivi looked at the idea that Paul was actually an agent of the Romans. Biblical scholar Robert Eisenman has been saying this for years -- and in fact Eisenman was interviewed by Simcha on last week's episode. If Paul actually was an agent of the Romans, why would he have taught his followers to reject the Roman version of the peace sequence and accept his own Christ-based peace sequence? It doesn't make any sense.

J: It doesn't make sense if you view Paul as being an agent of the emperor in Rome. However, it makes a ton of sense of you view Paul as being an agent of other powerful Roman figures -- members of the Roman elite who wanted to seize power for themselves. It would have been in their best interests to set up a religion to compete head-on with the Roman Emperor Cult.

A: Oh. Why haven't I read that anywhere else?

J: Because it sounds like a low-down, dirty rotten, scandalous political ploy. A cold, calculating, ruthless attempt by one party to seize power from another party. With Paul as the chief spin doctor for the down-and-out party. Who wants to say that out loud?

A: Maybe the producers and writers of the Rome TV series? That series certainly pulled back the curtain on the behaviour of the Roman aristocracy -- the things they did to try to get power.

J: The truth about Paul isn't pretty. He was no saint. On the other hand, he believed in what he was doing. He believed he was doing the right thing. He felt totally justified in trying to convert the Diaspora Jews and the Gentile God-Fearers to "the cause."

A: And what cause was that?

J: Deposing the evil, corrupt Julio-Claudian dynasty and restoring the One True Religion and the One True Emperor.

A: You've got to be kidding.

J: Nope. I'm not kidding. There was a huge group of disaffected Romans still living in Alexandria, Egypt, and they believed that their divine right to rule over all lands had been usurped from them by the upstart Julius Caesar and his family. They were convinced that Alexandria, not Rome, was meant to be the centre of the world, and that one of their own bloodline was destined to be Emperor. When Augustus manoeuvred to have Rome declared a Principate -- until then it was officially a Republic -- the Alexandrians went beserk. The situation was not improved by the institution of the Emperor Cult -- meaning worship of the man who sat on the throne in Rome. The Alexandrians believed this was sacrilege. Furthermore, the Emperor Cult was undermining the Alexandrians' ongoing efforts to gain popular support for a shift in power from the West to the East. They knew they needed a strong religious structure in place before they could gain that popular support.

A: So they needed a new religion -- one tailored to their needs.

J: Some of the greatest religio-political thinkers that ever lived found their way to Alexandria.

A: Because the Great Library was there?

J: In part. But powerful mystery cults had their roots there, too. The importance of mystery cults in the history of ancient politics can't be overstated. Official rulers couldn't rule without the support of the local religious priests -- a reality that still exists in many parts of the world today.

A: So Paul's Christ-Saviour religion was invented as a way to secure a widespread religious power base for the Alexandrian group. By the way, did this group have a name?

J: Not one you'd recognize today. For the purposes of our discussion, we'll call them Seekers of the Rock. There's a reason for this name -- a reason based on their occult beliefs.

A: Okay. Seekers of the Rock. Why did this group conscript Paul to do its work?

J: Paul was an angry man -- a man looking for a way to undermine my teachings. You could say that Paul and the Seekers had many interests in common. Paul had no love of the Emperor Cult, and he had no love of me. The Seekers of the Rock offered him a deal he couldn't refuse. Over a number of years he developed a religious formula he thought would work in the new religious climate of the Empire. Then he went on the road to preach it and gauge the response. He had to fine-tune it as he went along. This is why you see changes in his theological claims over the course of his "ministry."

A: Well, whatever he did, it turned out to be spectacularly successful.

J: He didn't do it by himself. The Seekers were powerful and wealthy, and they did everything they could to back him up. They footed the bill for his "Amazing Race" around the Eastern Mediterranean, kept him in hiding when the Romans were getting too close, arranged to have his scrolls copied and distributed. It was very much a team effort.

A: Sounds a lot like the federal election we just had here in Canada.

J: It's a good analogy. Except they weren't trying to win an election -- they were trying to establish a theocracy with their own man as divinely-appointed emperor.

A: Who was "their man"? Was it Paul himself?

J: No. Paul's job was to lay the theological groundwork for the coming "return of the king." The original plan was to build on Jewish apocalyptic and prophetic texts so people would be expecting the imminent return of the Saviour. The Saviour was given a new and distinctive name -- Jesus Christ, Jesus the Anointed One. Once enough people were "on board" with the idea of the return of the Saviour, and once the necessary political and military and economic measures were in place, the idea was to "reveal" the newly returned divine Saviour. They planned to secretly train a prince from their own bloodline and present him publicly as Jesus-Christ-returned-in-the-flesh when the time was right. They would claim he was the divine son of God and therefore the rightful claimant to the religious and political power of Rome.  This is why they needed a religious power base in Rome. The Seekers believed that pious Christians would roll out the welcome mat for the man they claimed was the Messiah. All they needed was enough time, patience, and money to bring their plan to fruition.

A: Obviously it didn't work out the way they planned. What happened?

J: God made sure that an obscure scholar in Judea got his hands on Paul's key doctrinal statement: the letter now called First Corinthians.

A: Your great-nephew. The man we know as Mark.

J: Mark saw right away what they were doing. And he answered it word for word with his own non-covenantal, non-pious testament to the power of education, mentorship, and personal responsibility in achieving peace and relationship with God.

A: I love a good conspiracy theory!

JR29: Eucharist: The Temple Sacrifice

A: One thing I've noticed over and over in my studies is the idyllic portrait that's been painted of the apostle Paul. "Paul was such a good man." "Paul was such a brave missionary." "Paul teaches us how to be imitators of Christ." "Paul was a selfless servant of God." "Paul was a man I can relate to." "Jesus is my saviour, but Paul is my hero. I want to be like Paul when I grow up." I wonder sometimes if the Christians who are saying these things have ever read what Paul's letters actually say. Paul's own letters -- Romans, First & Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, Philemon, and probably Colossians -- reveal clearly that Paul was every bit as interested in "pagan" occult magic and mysticism as the "pagans" were at this time. This wasn't a "modern" or "progressive" religious movement at all.

“His disciples said to him: Show us the place you are, for it is essential for us to seek it. He responded: He who has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and it lights up all the world. If it does not shine, it is dark” (Gospel of Thomas 24). This saying can be understood as a central thesis statement in guiding your understanding of Jesus’ original teachings. Among those who believe in dualistic traditions about light versus dark that include good versus evil, purity versus sin, and mind versus body, a quick glance at Thomas 24 suggests that Jesus is talking about the light of divine knowledge and salvation. But only those who haven’t been paying attention to Jesus’ teachings on love, forgiveness, and healing could conclude that, for Jesus, the inner light sought by the disciples is gnosis (occult understanding, illumination, pure wisdom). For Jesus, the highest state of human experience was not gnosis but Divine Love — how to feel it, how to share it, how to be healed by it. You can choose to accept a life of relationship with God, in which case you’ll begin to live a life of wholeness, expansiveness, empathy, and healing -- entering the Kingdom that can’t be “seen” but can be “heard,” or, more properly, emotionally sensed. Or you can choose to block God’s love and forgiveness in your life by allowing ancient occult rituals and beliefs to get in the way of your daily relationship with God -- that is, choosing Paul’s movable Temple with its occult feast of body and blood). The photo shows a marble head and torso of Dionysos, God of Wine, Roman copy after a Praxitelean work of the 4th century BCE, on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017.

J: In the first century of the Roman Empire, the idea of gods and goddesses and cult rituals and visions and prophecies and sacrifices and divine fools and chosen oracles and sacred pools and sacred temples and sacred stones and sacred forests was -- by far -- the dominant understanding of humanity's relationship with the divine. This way of thinking has become foreign to the modern mind. But it was the context in which I was teaching. It was also the context in which Paul was teaching. In my time as a teacher and healer, I was not only trying to undermine the authority of the Jerusalem Temple -- I was also trying to lessen the authority of occult magic in people's minds. I was trying to say that visions and prophecies and sacrifices get in the way of people's relationship with God. I wanted to make the experience of faith consistent with the experience of the human senses and the natural world. Some would call it a form of natural theology.  

A: If this is what you were trying to do, it doesn't come across well in the New Testament. 

J: No. It can only be seen clearly in the Gospel of Mark. There's also an indication of it in the Gospel of Thomas and in the parts of the Letter of James I myself wrote. The Kingdom parables that Matthew and Luke cut and pasted from earlier written sources also give an indication of my lack of support for ritual, magic, prophecy, and the like. The images I used in my teaching parables were all very practical, very normal. You won't find any mystical flying chariots in my teachings.  

A: Or any trips to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2). On the other hand, there are lots of references to healing miracles in Mark, and many people today would want to lump healing stories into the same category as other first century superstitions. 

J: Well, the honest truth is that healing miracles do take place, and always have, because healing miracles aren't a form of magic. They're a form of science. Healing miracles, when they take place, are the result of conscious choices made by God or by God's healing angels. At a scientific level, God is collapsing probability wave functions and shifting quantum energies by means of non-locality (quantum entanglement) to effect changes at the macroscopic level. In other words, if God decides to give you a "miracle healing" -- and only God is in charge of this decision -- then God uses perfectly acceptable scientific tools to bring about the healing. This is just a more sophisticated form of what today's medical researchers are doing with targeted therapies and surgeries performed with computer-aided magnification. Really, it's just goofy to claim that healing miracles aren't scientifically possible. Just because the human mind can't grasp the scientific principles God uses doesn't mean those principles don't exist. Modern science gives people more grounds for believing in healing miracles, not fewer.  

A: What does a human being have to "do" in order to receive one of these healing miracles? What sort of religious observance will lead to a healing miracle? 

J: What I was trying to get at 2,000 years ago was the idea that occult magic gets in the way of the relationship between each person and God. It's the relationship that's central to the healing process. It's the choices that people make around their relationships -- all their relationships, not just their relationship with God -- that affect the functioning of the body's built-in healing abilities. Human DNA comes with some pretty amazing built-in "healing subroutines." If those subroutines are functioning properly, the body can bounce back quite quickly from all sorts of injuries and illnesses. I'm not saying there won't be scars, and I'm not saying there won't be psychological and emotional adjustments. Human beings can't escape occasional illness or eventual death. (Though to listen to Paul, you might think you can.) On the other hand, you can make the most of your DNA package. You can make the most of your human biology. You can work with God rather than against God towards a state of healing.  

A: I continue to be amazed that Paul's silence on the question of healing and healing miracles doesn't bother today's orthodox Christians.  

J: The author of Luke-Acts did a brilliant job of making it seem that Paul's spiritual concerns were the same as my spiritual concerns. Acts makes it seem that Paul cared about healing the disadvantaged in society. Paul's own words say otherwise. 

A: In 1 Corinthians 11:23-30, we see Paul instituting the Eucharist. In his own words, Paul says he received a revelation from the Lord in which you supposedly commanded your faithful followers to eat bread in remembrance of you and to drink the cup which is "the new covenant in [his] blood." How do your respond to that?  

J: The same way I respond to all Temple sacrifices: they gotta go.  

A: You're implying that Paul's Eucharist is a Temple sacrifice? 

J: I'm saying it right out loud. I'm saying that Rabbiniic Judaism freed itself from the horror of Temple sacrifices more than 1,900 years ago, and now it's time for Christianity to follow suit. Paul's mystical Eucharist is nothing more than an extension of Paul's Temple theology. First he tells people that if they have blind faith in Christ, the Temple will come to them. Then he institutes a classic Temple sacrifice -- in this case the sacred Messianic bread and wine of the Essenes (1QS 6 and 1QSa). This would have made perfect sense to a first century audience steeped in occult magic -- you go to a Temple to offer a sacrifice. Logically, however, you can't take an external sacrifice to the Temple of the Spirit if the Temple is already inside of you. So to keep the Temple clean and make it habitable for the Spirit (so that the Spirit can come in and bring you lots of special spiritual goodies) you have to ingest the sacrifice. You have to drink holy blood and eat holy flesh because nothing else in the corrupt material world is powerful enough to purify your inner Temple.  

A: But this inner Temple isn't really "you." It's something that originated outside of you -- something that God gives and God can take away. It's like a surgical implant, a pacemaker or a stent or a pin in a broken hip. Right?  

J: Exactly. It's a Gnostic idea. An occult idea. Paul's Eucharist is a pagan ritual. A cult ritual. A vampiric ritual. It has nothing to with "remembrance" and everything to do with occult power over evil forces. The very idea of drinking blood would have offended and horrified mainstream Jews, including me and my followers. Even John the Baptist doesn't speak of the Eucharist in his gospel. Paul's Eucharist crossed a big line. 

 A: And I suppose Mark confronted this very issue in his gospel? 

J: Oh yes. Most definitely. 

 A: Good. Then I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that topic.

JR28: Paul's Easy Salvation

A: You've said that Paul's Temple teachings were very different from your own Kingdom teachings -- so much so that when your great-nephew "Mark" read what Paul had written in the letter called First Corinthians, he blew a gasket and started work on his own version of your teachings. Why was Mark so upset about Paul's Temple teachings?  

J: Mark knew that one of my basic teachings had been about the Jerusalem Temple and the stranglehold the Temple and its priests exerted on regular Jewish people. It was much the same equation as Martin Luther faced when he decided to go public with his rejection of Papal and Vatican corruption in the early 1500's. Luther didn't reject the idea of faith in God -- far from it. But he rejected a number of official claims made by the Church. He thought the Church was no longer representing the ideals of true Christian faith. So he protested. 

A: This was part of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.  

J: Yes. But Luther was protesting from within the Church, not from outside it. He was an Augustinian monk and priest, highly educated and highly devout. He held a doctorate in theology. So he wasn't easily dissuaded from the idea -- once he saw it -- that the Church wasn't "practising what it preached." I had the same problem with the Jerusalem Temple and the priestly hierarchy in my time. Once I saw the problem, I wasn't easily dissuaded. Much to the chagrin of my aristocratic family. 

A: You've said your mother was descended from the priestly bloodline. That must have given your family a lot of status, a lot of authority. 

J: My family was somewhat on the fringes of the power and authority that priestly families were entitled to. This was partly due to the fact that my mother's line wasn't descended from the "first son of the first son." We were related to the "junior sons," so to speak -- pretty good as far as pedigrees go, but not "the best of the best." Another factor was our geographical location. I wasn't born and raised in Jerusalem -- one of the hotbeds of Jewish political intrigue. I was born and raised in the city of Philadelphia, on the other side of the River Jordan. It was a Hellenized city, but also quite Jewish in its cultural norms, so I was raised with a strange mix of values and religious teachings. That's what allowed me, when I reached adulthood, to be more objective about trends in Jewish thought -- by that I mean the blend of religious, political, cultural, and social ideas that were intertwined in people's hearts and minds. I was far enough away from the Temple -- physically and geographically -- to be sceptical about the grandiose claims being made by the Temple priests.  

A: In the Gospel of Mark, it's quite apparent what the author thinks of the Temple. Mark shows you visiting all sorts of Jewish and Gentile locations to teach and heal, but the one place you don't visit till the end is Jerusalem. Things start to go badly for you as soon as you get to David's city. This is a strange claim to make if you're trying to promote the idea that Jesus is the prophesied Saviour of the Jewish people.  

J: Well, my great-nephew did think I was an important teacher, a rabbi who could help the Jewish people become free from oppression, but his understanding of my role was not the traditional Jewish understanding of who -- or what -- the Messiah would be. Mark was a very spiritual fellow -- a free thinking Jewish scholar who made his own observations and his own decisions. He got a little carried away, I think, with the idea that I was an important teacher, but on the whole he embraced my ideas about the Kingdom and did his best to live them. 

A: Mark wrote his gospel before the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. 

“Jesus said: Grapes are not harvested from thornbushes, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit. A good person brings forth good from his treasury; a bad person brings forth evil things from his mind’s corrupt treasury, and he speaks evil things. For out of the excesses of his mind he brings forth evil things” (Gospel of Thomas 45 a-b). The photo shows a marble Mithraic relief, (restored), from Rome 100-200 CE on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Mithraic Mysteries, in so far as we know what they entailed, showed uncanny similarities to the teachings of Paul. The teachings of Jesus, meanwhile, explicitly rejected the occult practices and secret rituals of mystery cults. Photo credit JAT 2017.

J: Yes. And this is an important detail to bear in mind. Paul and Mark both wrote their comments about the Temple before the Temple was physically destroyed. This fact is important to bear in mind, especially when you're trying to understand what Mark is saying. Mark was seriously -- and I mean seriously -- pissed off about Paul's "moveable Temple." For Mark, as for me, the only way to free the Jewish people to know God and be in full relationship with God was for us to confront the harm and the hypocrisy of the Jewish Temple -- a huge, bloated, phenomenally expensive physical structure that had robbed people of their livelihood through high taxes and ongoing dues, payments, sacrifices, and obligatory pilgrimages. Herod the Great spent a fortune -- a literal fortune -- on his building projects. His children continued his habit of profligate spending on status symbols to impress the rest of the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, the widows and orphans and foreigners we were supposed to look after -- according to Exodus -- were going hungry and selling themselves into slavery because of their poverty. This was unacceptable to me and to many others. I certainly wasn't alone in being outraged at the unfairness, the hypocrisy, the status addiction, and the corruption. 

A: Chapter 13 of Mark has long puzzled Christian scholars. It's viewed by reputable scholars such as Bart Ehrman as a "little apocalypse" because it seems to prophesy the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. They use this chapter as part of their proof that you yourself claimed to be an apocalyptic prophet. How do you respond to that?  

J: Without wishing to be harsh, I'd say these biblical scholars need to refresh their memory on what the earlier Jewish prophetic books and Jewish apocalypses actually said about the role of the Temple in the prophesied End Times. It's clear that highly revered earlier writers such as First Isaiah and Second Isaiah and Zechariah believed the physical Temple on Mount Zion (i.e. Jerusalem) would be absolutely central to the ideal future restoration of Judah in the End Times. Yet Mark uses imagery from apocalyptic texts like Daniel to turn these predictions on their head. Mark 13 shouldn't be called the "little apocalypse": it should be called the "anti-apocalypse" because of the way it intentionally subverts and repudiates the prophecies of Zechariah. Mark may be attacking Paul's theology throughout his own gospel, but he uses well-known Hebrew prophecies to do it. Mark's own Jewish audience would have understood these references. They would have understood that Mark was openly attacking traditional Jewish teachings about the future End Times when God would one day return and "fix everything."  

A: Traditional teachings that Paul continued to endorse in his letters (1 Corinthians 15).  

J: Yes. Paul enthusiastically taught his followers about the coming End Times -- a traditional Jewish teaching in itself -- and on top of that he added a wonderful new theological guarantee. He promised people that if they gave themselves over fully to a belief in Christ, then God's Spirit would be able to live inside of them in the "Temple" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19-20). Paul took the sacredness of the Jerusalem Temple and made it "moveable," an inner sanctuary of purity for the Spirit, just as the Essenes had already done in their Charter (1QS 3 and 1QS 8). He didn't try to undermine the importance and authority of the Jerusalem Temple. He actually added to it (as the Essenes had done) by elevating it to an inner mystical state that could only be known to true believers who followed Paul's teachings. This is a simplified version of Paul's Temple theology, but you get the picture. He's offering his followers the ultimate in "easy salvation." "You no longer have to go to the Temple; the Temple will come to you." 

A: And once you have the Temple, you can access all those spiritual goodies that Paul promises (1 Corinthians Chapters 2, 12, and 14).  

J: It's a theology that's very appealing to people who want all the benefits without doing the hard work.  

A: I've said it before and I'll say it again -- your teachings are much harder to stick to than Paul's are. It's impossible to follow your recommendations for connection with God without making spiritual commitment a regular part of everyday life. Once a week on Sundays -- or twice a year at Christmas and Easter -- won't do it. You ask a lot of regular people.  

J: Only because I have faith in you. Only because I have faith.

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"