Books

I have been reading much lately. Which is funny since ‘reading much’ in my case probably means something like ‘reading insanely’ for most people. I usually read three or four books at the same time, choosing the one most appropriate to my state of mind and the time of day. Which sounds weirder than it actually is, I mean no soul in it’s right state of mind is going to read Plato before going to bed right? Reading is much like drinking, you don’t start with whiskey at 10 in the morning like you don’t drink rose at a cold winter’s night in front of the fireplace.

Currently, I have been reading the entire Sandman collection by Neil Gaiman. Now some of you will go something like ‘those are not books they are comics!’. I for one appreciate good story in any format. Sandman is far above simply ‘comics’. It is without any shadow of a doubt Art with a capital A. The metastory is phenomenal. Besides Sandman I am reading ‘Believe and Unbelieve in Medieval Europe’ by John H. Arnold which is a cohesive work and interesting enough to read although I don’t agree with some of his ideas. He basically says that during the middle ages there was room for atheism in communities. I do think that there was room for doubt and questioning faith but to go as far as atheism is pushing it. It would have placed the individual entirely outside the social structure. As a second ‘dish’ I am rereading the poetry of E.A. Poe, T.S. Elliot and Lewis Caroll. Not really related to each other but I appreciate all three of them. Main course however is a couple of books on early Christianity and it is with these that I have pushed my ‘reading’ into ‘reading much’. For starters I have been working through ‘Rise of Western Christendom’ during summer, I got it from my parents for graduating Propedeuse. The book is a decent history on the ‘Rise of Western Christendom’, which took me by surprise given the title ;-)… It was followed by ‘Geschiedenis van het vroege Christendom: van de jood Jezus van Nazareth tot de Romeinse keizer Constantijn’ (History of early Christianity: from the Jew Jesus of Nazareth until the Roman emperor Constantine). Which is a great but slightly long history on the first 4 centuries of Christian history. Thirdly, dr. Singor –who is one of my teachers– advised us to read the book ‘The Jesus Dynasty’ by prof. dr. James D. Tabor. I bought it, read it and am incredibly impressed. The remaining part of this blogpost will be about this book.

The Jesus Dynasty by James D. Tabor.

First of all a negative, this book was published in the mediahype that surrounds Dan Brown’s ‘Davinci Code’ it yells the same silly screams on the cover like ‘Stunning New Evidence’ ‘The Story of Jesus: The Facts’ etc. Let’s blame the publisher for this since what you get is the thesis of Tabor, historian and archaeologist, who for over forty years has been part of archaeological teams in Israel and expert scientist in understanding the New Testament. What he does in ‘The Jesus Dynasty’ is to give us his scientific ideas on the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth. ‘Scientific’ means in this case – for all you ‘I-know-Christian-history-because-I read-Dan-Brown’ persons out there – theory based on the interpretation of facts compared to theory based on the interpretation of well, nothing. But to get it over with, and reduce the amount of Brown-bashing: Brown is a fantast, Tabor a scientist. Tabor creates a stunning picture of Jesus as a Jew who at first belonged to the messianic sect of his kinsman John the Baptist to grow out to become one of its leaders. Tabor works around the idea that Jewish religion was not waiting for one but for two messiahs – the priest and the king – who openly challenged the established authorities to bring the Kingdom of God on earth. References to the coming of the Son of Man are to be interpreted as the re-establishing of the people of Israel instead of directly linking to Jesus himself. Tabor continues to create a restive Palestine whose Israelite citizens are eager to see the coming of God in their days. Based on the prophecies of the Torah, and the interpretation of John the Baptist and Jesus all signs are pointing to the fulfilment and the end of the Age. I help you remember that we are still talking scientific theory here and not Brownite overinterpretation.

After the death of John the Baptist, Jesus and his family are continuing his work. Nobody can tell whether or not Jesus himself believed he would be rescued by God from the cross, it is very likely that he would have expected the apocalypse during the Passover festival. After his death his followers were lead by his brother James the Just. Up until the crucifixion Tabor reconstructs the messianic movement in its historic context. After Jesus' death he tries to rebuild his true teachings through James. He basically works with the idea that Paul ‘hijacked’ the group's messianic, apocalyptic, Jewish teachings. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God would be established on earth, he would be king but there was no need for armed rebellion, because God would come to free the oppressed and the righteous. Jesus saw himself as the teacher of a message. Paul made him, in order to be able to work among the Romans and convert non-Jews, into the message himself. Paul claimed Jesus to be the Son of Man and created the spiritual Kingdom of God in Heaven. In short Paul made Jesus God. Jesus never did and his brothers were appalled by these teachings. Through deduction and scientific textual analysis Tabor and others have managed to find parts of the New Testament, non-biblical gospels and texts that refer to the original ideas of Jesus and his family. Ideas that have been overgrown by Christian mysticism and theology which deified Jesus, his mother and disciples instead of realizing the value of their human ideas.

“Love God first, and your fellow human as yourself, and whatever you find hateful to yourself, do not do to another, but do others as you would have them do to you. This is the essence of the Torah and the prophets. Don’t think I came to destroy the Torah or the prophets; I came to fulfill. Whoever relaxes one of the least of the commandments will be considered “least” by those in the Kingdom of God. Be doers of the Torah and not hearers only, for faith without works is dead.”

Jesus was a Jew and never intended his teachings to become the foundation of a contending religion. Tabor ends his work with the notion that although controversial, his work is intended to build and not to tear down. He states that with new interest in the historic figure and ideas of Jesus of Nazareth the three world religions can actually grow towards each other. He quotes the Jewish philosopher Buber: “I do not believe in Jesus but I believe with him”. Tabor’s ideas make striking connections with the way the prophet Isa (Jesus) is depicted in the Qu’ran which clearly rejects all Pauline doctrine. Without ever degrading these doctrines Tabor managed to make his point in the ‘Jesus Dynasty’ brilliantly. As a bonus, he proves that history can be much more intriguing than any made-up story. He has written in a popular language so his work is easily accessible to any non-historians, non-theologians and non-whateverians. In short, I am going to lend this book to a lot of people!