An excerpt from Spong on the Gospels.
Aug. 19th, 2003 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaIn a deep and significant way, we are now able to see that all of the Gospels are Jewish books, profoundly Jewish books. Recognizing this, we begin to face the realization that we will never understand the Gospels until we learn how to read them as Jewish books. They are written, to a greater or lesser degree, in the midrashic style of the Jewish sacred storyteller, a style that most of us do not begin even now to comprehend. This style is not concerned with historic accuracy. It is concerned with meaning and understanding.
The Jewish writers of antiquity interpreted God's presence to be with Joshua after the death of Moses by repeating the parting of the waters (Josh. 3). At the Red Sea that was the sign that God was with Moses (Ex. 14). When Joshua was said to have parted the waters of the Jordan River, it was not recounted as a literal event of history; rather it was the midrashic attempt to related Joshua to Moses and thus demonstrate the presence of God with his successor. The same pattern operated later when both Elijah (2 Ki. 2:8) and Elisha (2 Kings 2:14) were said to have parted the waters of the Jordan River and to have walked across on dry land. When the story of Jesus' baptism was told, the gospel writers asserted that Jesus parted not the Jordan River, but the heavens. ... The heavens, according to the Jewish creation story, were nothing but the firmament that separated the waters above from the waters below (Gen. 1:6-8). To portray Jesus as spliting the heavenly waters was a Jewish way of suggesting that the holy God encountered in Jesus went even beyond the God presence that had been met in Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha. That is the way the midrashic principle worked.
Stories about heroes of the Jewish past were heightened and retold again and again about heroes of the present moment, not because those same events actually occurred, but because the reality of God revealed in those moments was like the reality of God known in the past.
We are not reading history when we read the Gospels. We are listening to the experience of the Jewish people, processing in a Jewish way what they believed was a new experience with the God of Israel. Jews filtered every new experience through the corporate remembered history of their people, as that history had been recorded in the Hebrew scriptures of the past.
If we are to recover the power present in the scriptures for our time, then this clue to their original meaning must be recovered and understood. Ascribing to the Gospels historic accuracy in the style of later historians, or demanding that the narratives of the Gospels be taken literally, or trying to recreate the historical context surrounding each specific event narrated in the Gospels -- these are the methods of people who do not realize that they are reading a Jewish book.
From Rev. John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes, pp. 36-37
The Jewish writers of antiquity interpreted God's presence to be with Joshua after the death of Moses by repeating the parting of the waters (Josh. 3). At the Red Sea that was the sign that God was with Moses (Ex. 14). When Joshua was said to have parted the waters of the Jordan River, it was not recounted as a literal event of history; rather it was the midrashic attempt to related Joshua to Moses and thus demonstrate the presence of God with his successor. The same pattern operated later when both Elijah (2 Ki. 2:8) and Elisha (2 Kings 2:14) were said to have parted the waters of the Jordan River and to have walked across on dry land. When the story of Jesus' baptism was told, the gospel writers asserted that Jesus parted not the Jordan River, but the heavens. ... The heavens, according to the Jewish creation story, were nothing but the firmament that separated the waters above from the waters below (Gen. 1:6-8). To portray Jesus as spliting the heavenly waters was a Jewish way of suggesting that the holy God encountered in Jesus went even beyond the God presence that had been met in Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha. That is the way the midrashic principle worked.
Stories about heroes of the Jewish past were heightened and retold again and again about heroes of the present moment, not because those same events actually occurred, but because the reality of God revealed in those moments was like the reality of God known in the past.
We are not reading history when we read the Gospels. We are listening to the experience of the Jewish people, processing in a Jewish way what they believed was a new experience with the God of Israel. Jews filtered every new experience through the corporate remembered history of their people, as that history had been recorded in the Hebrew scriptures of the past.
If we are to recover the power present in the scriptures for our time, then this clue to their original meaning must be recovered and understood. Ascribing to the Gospels historic accuracy in the style of later historians, or demanding that the narratives of the Gospels be taken literally, or trying to recreate the historical context surrounding each specific event narrated in the Gospels -- these are the methods of people who do not realize that they are reading a Jewish book.
From Rev. John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes, pp. 36-37
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history+ York and Robinson
Date: 2003-08-19 07:11 am (UTC)how did Austin work out as to future eetc?
I missed some posts...
this will be a reactive response but as always
not to the poster, the post is interesting indeed,
but with a little exasperation at the fellow
who is subject and that too less personally
than as exemplar of a type.
My problem with Bishop Spong and there
are in the Anglican Churches rather many
of this sort, no doubt in others as well
but it is a particular style...a little that
of the university lecturer who wishes to hold
the attention of his students by making broad
statments, seemingly a bit iconoclastic, which
will hold the attention of his students... well
my problem with him is that he is therefore
always writing as an ideologue, reducing complex
questions to simple answers on the side he wishes
to stress to get a rise out of other faculty members
and appreciation from a set of students who will
cheer him on...
or so it seems to me. Here the whole thrust is to
say that the Gospels are Jewish books(Im not sure
actually it is quite certain that there may not
be Greek language originals, though this would be
not so undermining of his point) and so Midrashic
and so not historically accurate and so the
students do not need to think much of what is there
actually happened...However turned around another
way the Jews would seem to be, in a sense more
than the Greeks, the originators of history(see
Oscar Cullman's Christ and Time for the small point
I am making here), and the Gospels at rather many
points appear circumstantial and clear and direct
in a remarkably, at moments almost anachronistcally
modern way, historical dont they? It is not really
a choice of historical or not is it? every historic event
has multiple levels of meaning...
well this slight aniamadversion but the post is
interesting and I should think repreesentative of a
way of doing talk about relgion down to the attention
getting "God Presence" substituted for the English
"Presence of God" or "Divine Presence".
the most interesting red sea parallel is perhaps in
John , chapter 6 or 7 slips mind, where the crossing
of lake seems to be center of the chiastic(ie 1=7,2=6,
3=5 and 4 at center) structure of seven
signs as parallel to Red Sea...
Of this type I am imagining, earlier examples showed
another side to the thing...that it is really partly
show like patches on a sports jacket in university lecutrers
.... J Robinson of Honest to God later wrote a learned
book to the effect that John, the most metaphysical if you
will, was earler in date than the other three and was
by the son of Zebedee himself...
so here he turns the iconoclatic impulse against the
dominant academic tendency and alines with Biblical conservatives...
On that question I would think Dodd's "Fourth Gospel" to
have a sound mediating posiion, but Dodd did not have
the iconoclastic lecturer psychology you see...
and then the Archbishop of York who years ago excitingly
questioned the bodily resurrection has a new book, read
reviews of in England, which conservatives find very
satisfying but I forget on what grounds... but as before
the contents are exciting and broad brush.
+Seraphim.
Re: history+ York and Robinson
Date: 2003-08-19 07:46 am (UTC)Austin... my goodness, you have missed a few posts, haven't you? I've been back from Austin for over a month now, it was a very good vacation but there are no prospects at this moment for my moving there or leaving New Orleans.
This will probably be in two or more parts, as I collect my thoughts and reply to everything you've posted.
my problem with him is that he is therefore
always writing as an ideologue, reducing complex
questions to simple answers on the side he wishes
to stress
I too have noticed this tendency throughout what I have read of Spong's work in general -- although I think that his tendency to make himself a "lightning rod" might be more problematic in the long run.
The difficulty I think when writing about these topics in general is that all such writings should come with an explicit caveat, that "no one book is going to present the one and final answer" to these questions. One reason the Gospels have been so enduring is the fact of their multidimensional mystery, and a "monolithic" declaration -- for example, that they reflect an entirely midrashic (or mythological, if you will) viewpoint -- is bound to overlook many deeper aspects of the mystery therein.
But this is the difficulty one must face if one is to say anything of substance about the Gospels at all.
If things must indeed be "said" about that which is inherently mysterious -- which is another question for another post...
Re: history+ York and Robinson
Date: 2003-08-19 08:03 am (UTC)say that the Gospels are Jewish books(Im not sure
actually it is quite certain that there may not
be Greek language originals, though this would be
not so undermining of his point) and so Midrashic
and so not historically accurate and so the
students do not need to think much of what is there
actually happened...
Greek vs. Aramaic -- most of the arguments either way depend on linguistic minutia... my own thoughts are that Jesus spoke in Aramaic and so at least the things that he said must have been translated into Greek at some point. The accounts of events seem to have been originally written in Greek.
Anyway there was obviously some Hellenistic cultural blurring in Jewish society between the time of the Old Testament and time of the New Testament -- but it seems to me that this in itself would not have significantly reduced the Jewish character of the Gospels. It simply means that a Hellenistic element has to be accounted for as well.
Spong naturally focuses on arguments that support his strongly figurative/mythological view of the Gospels. As you say though there is a distinct vividness to the Gospels in some places that makes it very hard to imagine it was constructed mythologically. For example there is a scene in Mark's Gospel where Jesus heals a blind man, mixing his spit with mud and rubbing this on the man's eyes, and the man's sight returning in stages... To argue that this is myth, one has to account for the appearance of such detail.
Re: history+ York and Robinson
Date: 2003-08-19 10:05 am (UTC)I agree with
But Spong is also right, the Gospels are very Jewish books. I wrote a paper about a very related topic. My contention was that the nativity accounts were reconstructions that were more concerned with putting Jesus within the Jewish tradition of deliverance - Moses and Isaiah specifically - than historical accounts. In essence, they were little different from John's introductory exposition which establishes Jesus in a cosmological context. The details of the nativity were likely largely unknown to them, so they reconstructed it from the events that had historically marked the coming of one who would deliver the Jewish people. They were likely built around real events, but it was establishing the context of deliverance of the Jewsih people that was the real point of telling the nativity stories in Mt and Lk. I think this also explains the 12-30 gap.
However, at the same time, many events, especially those from Jesus' public ministry, were more literal accounts. As you pointed out, the detail given in many of the episodes in Jesus' ministry is vivid and uncommon of Midrashim-like explanations and extended metaphors. I often come to this when discussing with scriptural literalists - as I am quite certain you do as well - that if you want to understand scripture, you have to understand it as literature. Divinely inspired or not, literature is the vehicle.
Re: history+ York and Robinson
Date: 2003-08-20 05:14 am (UTC)Interesting point. The only counter I can think to offer is that the first century AD was a time of considerable insight, social upheaval, and spiritual discovery. Clearly something powerful happened then, because it echoes to this day.
Actually the main purpose of Spong's book was to present for a lay audience the arguments of a group of scholars led by one Michael Goulder, that the Gospels were structured so that they would match the weekly Torah readings and certain observances of the Jewish liturgical year. (The Passion narrative meant to line up with Passover, etc. etc.)
The point about midrashim is rather minor, overall, but it would have taken too much space to post any meaningful excerpt from the main argument of the book.
I know Spong is writing for the interested lay audience, but he does tend to oversimplify a bit more than many other authors in the field.
Thank you for sharing that information about the paper you wrote. That is a fascinating perspective on the nativity, and I can see right away what you mean. The Gospels do more than tell the story of Jesus (otherwise a single gospel would have sufficed): they frame Jesus in the context of his society, and they define the context of the Christian teachings as well.
Thank you for your thoughts!
Re: history+ York and Robinson
Date: 2003-08-19 08:12 am (UTC)book to the effect that John, the most metaphysical if you
will, was earler in date than the other three and was
by the son of Zebedee himself...
Hmm,
On that question I would think Dodd's "Fourth Gospel" to
have a sound mediating posiion, but Dodd did not have
the iconoclastic lecturer psychology you see...
Would you recommend Dodd's work? I am not familiar with it.
and then the Archbishop of York who years ago excitingly
questioned the bodily resurrection has a new book, read
reviews of in England, which conservatives find very
satisfying but I forget on what grounds... but as before
the contents are exciting and broad brush.
Would that be this one:
Journey to Jerusalem?
Jenkins
Date: 2003-08-19 10:32 am (UTC)and dcontraversial then archbishop of York
was a doctor Jenkins it comes back to me...
so no not this book.
afraid I havent read arisbe's posts
consistently either these last three weeks
the problem with mostly using internet cafes
and not having much time to do so is that
it is hard to do more than a minimum of things
so like the one you refer to here I missed
also your posts on austin(or the most of
them...sometimes did take shallow excursions
into friends page...shallow in that it tends ot
go 2 or 3 pages deep rather quickly and might
do 1...)
+S.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-19 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-20 05:24 am (UTC)There is a lot of debate about this. Luke was certainly not a resident of Palestine or Galilee. He was also clearly familiar with certain aspects of Greek and Hellenistic society. I think though the case can be made strongly that he was a Hellenized Jew from the Diaspora.
Spong for example argues that one element of the Lukan gospel not prominent in the other gospels is a set of links between Jesus (not John the Baptist) and Elijah. Someone who did not identify with Jewish belief in any way would not take pains to establish such a parallel.
The question of Jesus' education is a startling one. The arguments he poses in debate are subtle and reflect a strong background in both Jewish scripture and classical Greek education. So, it seems to me that he was "bred" for a career in the priesthood, but was so upset by what he saw that he abandoned that path. Vocation mattered little to him.
Thank you for your thoughts!
yay spong
Date: 2003-08-19 08:31 pm (UTC)