|
Listen to this post:
|
The priest in Mark 14:63-64 thinks that Jesus has committed a sin of blasphemy. Of course, the priest can’t be right about this, but why? What is the priest’s mistake? Dr. Loke, summarizing the work of Dr. Bock:
He [Bock] argues that the claim to come on the clouds is a significant one, alluding to Daniel 7:3 but also using imagery that is associated with Yahweh (Psalm 104:3, Isaiah 19:1, etc.) (Bock 2000, 201).
Concerning the problem of understanding the phrase ‘the Son of Man,’ Bock observes that many scholars think that a formal title, or at least a unified Son of Man concept, did not yet exist in the first century. He argues that it is the idiomatic element in the Aramaic expression and the lack of a fixed concept in Judaism that any ‘Son of Man’ remark to be ambiguous unless it is tied to a specific passage or context. This means the phrase could be an effective vehicle as a cipher for Jesus, such that he could fill it with content and also define it as he used it. One can argue that Jesus initially used the term ambiguously and drew out its force as he continued to use it, eventually associating it with Daniel 7 and using it together with Psalm 110:1 (Bock 2007; 2011).
Bock concludes that in the trial scene Jesus is claiming to be seated in a that shares the highest honour with God. Only the figure of Enoch[‘s] Son of Man seems close to this imagery, and even his access to God in this way is controversial among the Jews. Bock argues that, while the portrayal of Enoch’s Son of Man shows that the existence of such a glorious figure was possible within first-century Judaism,
Let’s pause here for a moment. What Dr. Bock is saying by implication is that for at least many the Jews of Jesus’s time, it was thinkable that a human being, someone without a divine nature, could be invited up to share God’s throne – by God, of course. In other words, it was hardly self-evident then that being as it were seated at God’s right hand requires having a divine nature. Nor is it now. Nor is it a teaching of Scripture that only divine persons can share God’s throne. But given all of that, Bock observes (as summarized by Loke), that
…what would have caused the offence in Jesus’ case was that his claim to share the highest honour with God was made by himself without invitation from God (Bock 2000, 202—203). Bock argues that Jesus’ remarks would have been read as blasphemous along the lines Philo described in On Dreams and Decalogue concerning those who claim prerogatives of God, who dare to compare themselves to God and who give creatures the same honours as those of the Creator. This explains the high priest’s response to this remark, viz. ripping off his clothes, which provides a clear sign that a blasphemy has been uttered (Mark 14:63).
This is very plausible! The priest was thinking that not only was this guy not God’s Messiah, but that he was being outrageously presumptuous in claiming that in the future he’d be seated at the right hand of the Power (i.e. of God) and would be coming with the clouds of heaven. (Mark 14:62) That sort of presumption, plausibly, would be blasphemous, an outrage against the honor of God.
But again, clearly this whole book portrays Jesus in a most positive light, and we can’t think that we’re supposed to agree with the priest here! Yet the author does not jump in here with a narrator’s comment to the effect that while the priest thought this was blasphemy, in fact it was not.
But the author doesn’t need to do that. It’s a short book, and was meant to be read aloud, and the reader should remember two relevant things about Jesus and God. First, it’s clear throughout the book not only that Jesus is God’s Messiah, his Christ, but that he is also called “Son of Man.” (In this chapter, vv. 41, 62). Two chapters before, in Mark 12:35-37, Jesus clearly implies that Psalm 110:1 is to be understood as a prophecy about God’s Messiah, wherein God says to him, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” This is tantamount to claiming that God is going to invite him up to this position of great honor. But then, Jesus would not be presumptuously inviting himself up to that high place.
What about his coming on the clouds? Again, Jesus’s enemies would assume that it’s an outrageous act of chutzpah to say this will happen. But what is the reader of this gospel supposed to think? We need only remember chapter 13, in which Jesus is discoursing on how God is going to wrap up these latter days. In part, “Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’…” (Mark 13:26) Now, could this Son be, as it were, presumptuously striking out on his own? I suggest that in this apocalytic context the suggestion is ludicrous. This is all God’s will, it’s the fulfilling of God’s plan. And so, God has chosen that Jesus will play this exalted role of, Yahweh-like, coming in clouds, and it goes on to say gathering up his chosen ones.
The awake reader knows, then, that the high priest is making a bad mistake. They’re aware that a man such as God’s human Messiah can do these amazing, God-like things if God wills it. And the high priest’s mistake is thinking that Jesus is just absurdly claiming such privileges for himself; he thinks Jesus is, as it were, inviting himself up to the head of the table. But the reader knows that he’s been invited there by the master of the banquet! (Compare: Luke 14:7-11)
So there’s no material here by which to argue that Jesus is divine. His rights to sit at God’s right hand and to come back in glory have been granted by God; there’s no reason to think they require him to have a divine nature. But Loke, and it would seem Bock, are determined to find an implication or assumption of the deity of Christ here. Loke continues,
Hurtado objects that the implication that Jesus regarded himself as truly divine is weakened when one considers that in Revelation 3:21 it is stated that the Laodicean Christians are promised by Christ to sit with him on his throne, which he shares with God (Hurtado 2003, 47 n.66).
Right – God-throne-sharing doesn’t require having a divine nature; this confirms what was already plausible. It only requires God’s will and invitation; the reader assumes that Jesus has God’s permission to offer them this honor.
However, Bock can argue that the Laodicean Christians did not claim this seating for themselves, rather they were said to have been promised this by Christ, and as noted earlier according to Jewish tradition only God can direct such a seating (Bock 2000, 162).
Sure, but if God can extend such an offer, then it seems he could authorize another, such as his exalted human Son, to extend an offer too. But Loke concludes,
Thus the implication of Jesus’ true divinity is actually present in Revelation 3:21.
That doesn’t follow at all!
Skipping a few tangents, Loke says that Bock’s point is
…that Jesus claimed the prerogatives of God, i.e. claimed to share authority with God without invitation from God, which would be read as blasphemous by his Jewish audience, that seem to be of significance for indicating that he regarded himself as truly divine.
But why would Dr. Bock think that Jesus had no invitations from God for these things, especially as in this book (Mark) Jesus quotes what he believes is God inviting him up to share his throne? (Psalm 110:1) The high priest, seemingly not with God’s program, knows less than the reader of the gospel according to Mark. The reader knows that his charge of blasphemy is wrong-headed, not because the high priest falsely assumes that Jesus is not divine – this book doesn’t teach that he is – but rather because he falsely assumes that Jesus is not God’s Messiah, so he thinks it’s not part of God’s plan for these future glorious things to happen to Jesus. But he’s not a usurper, the reader knows, but rather a humble servant of God.
This all looks wholly unproblematic for a biblical unitarian Christian like me, who holds that God’s unique Son is human but not also divine. How can Bock, or anyone, think that there is support in this passage for a claim that in Mark Jesus is taught to be divine? In a later discussion than Loke cites, Bock is discussing the phrase “Son of Man.” He first observes that it was an Aramaic idiom for “human being.” But also, in Daniel 7:13, Bock says,
…Here the expression is not a title, but a description of a figure who rides the clouds and comes to the Ancient of Days to receive dominion from God. What is interesting is that although the everyday idiom points to a human being, the use in Daniel 7 points to a transcendent figure, since in the Hebrew Bible the only beings who ride the clouds are either God or the gods (Exodus 14:20, 34:5; Numbers 10:34; Psalm 104:3; Isaiah 19:1). (Who is Jesus? p. 167)
“Transcendent figure?” Certainly, it’s not just some average Joe who would be brought into God’s presence to be awarded with dominion. And certainly the risen Jesus is hardly your average Joe; having been raised to immortality, he can be called a “transcendent figure.” But there’s no reason to think that the dominion-recipient in Daniel 7 must be a god or a person with a divine nature.
In this later chapter, Bock plausibly defends the historicity of this episode in Mark 14 of Jesus before the high priest. And he adds that in his view, the Sadducee-dominated council would have been hostile to claims of any human whatsoever sitting at God’s right hand. (165-66) So then, “The leadership read [Jesus’s reply] as blasphemy, because in their view God shares his glory with no one and in Jesus’ response was the inherent criticism that the leaders were not God’s chosen representatives for the faith” (173) – which could be, in their context, considered a case of blasphemy (164). In short, Jesus claimed that he was God’s special servant, his Christ, and that God would vindicate him, and Jesus’s Jewish opponents here disagreed. But Jesus was right, thank God!
It seems to me that whatever you think it is that Scripture as a whole teaches about Christ, you should agree that Jesus’s trial as portrayed in Mark 14 gives us no grounds, by itself, for thinking that Jesus is God or that he is divine in the way that the one God is divine.
Bock is extremely restrained, at least in his later writings, about what he says this episode implies. But Loke seems to think (The Origin, pp. 185-86) that there is a hint or indication here of Jesus’s deity / divine nature here in Mark 14, at least when read in light of the forgiveness of sins incident earlier (Mark 2:1-12). That’s wrongheaded though. And the reader of Mark has no need of hints. The whole book of Mark portrays a Messiah who is a very special man, called by God to a very special role, and empowered by him to pull it off. This incident is just a key part of that whole portrayal, which comes so very short of the later catholic “godman” speculations.
On creedal apologetic arguments and the blasphemy accusation made at Jesus’ trial
First, how are the evangelists supposed to have found out what happened at the trial? All of the disciples had fled, except for Peter who hoped to avoid detection among the crowd in the high priest’s courtyard. But the interrogation of Jesus did not transpire where Peter could hear it. Indeed, Peter is busy undergoing his own interrogation in the courtyard at the same time!
The second problem with the trial narratives is that virtually every detail of them seems to fly in the face of everything we know of rabbinical jurisprudence. They are convening on Passover eve for a capital trial? Not likely! And why would a claim to be messiah, even if deemed false, amount to blasphemy? It sure didn’t some years later when no less a personage than Rabbi Akiba endorsed the ill-fated Simon bar Kochba as the messiah.
It even becomes an open question whether the Sanhedrin had any role in the trial and death of Jesus, simply because of the manner of execution. He was crucified, a Roman penalty inflicted on pirates, seditionists, and runaway slaves… If Jesus were to be executed for blasphemy, why did Annas and Caiaphas not simply seek Pilate’s permission to have Jesus stoned to death, since stoning was the required Jewish penalty? That they did not raises the real possibility that the grounds for the execution were entirely different, perhaps political, as many scholars have held.
My point here is that the trial narrative is a matter of just as much debate as the question of what Jesus may have claimed of himself. To treat the gospel trial accounts, and one particular interpretation of them, as undeniably factual, and to base on this a case for Jesus’ claiming to be God, is to build a house on sand.
One last apologetical distortion connected with the trial requires our attention. Apologists minimize the fact that the Synoptic trial narratives do not have Jesus say precisely the same thing in answer to the question of the high priest. Asked, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus replies, according to Mark, “I am,” but in Matthew and Luke, “You say that I am.” First there is the problem of whether the two versions contradict one another. Second, there is the problem of whether “You say” implies evasive ambiguity.
Apologists try to harmonize the two versions, as apologists commonly do. McDowell tries to make us believe that the ambiguous reply in Matthew and Luke really means the same as Mark’s forthright “I am.””These answers are really identical. The formulae ‘Thou hast said’ or ‘Ye say that I am,’ which to modern ears sounds evasive, had no such connotation to the contemporary Jewish mind. ‘Thou sayest’ was the traditional form in which a cultivated Jew replied to a question of grave or sad import. Courtesy forbade a direct ‘yes’ or ‘no.'” To quote apologist Frank Morison in Who Moved the Stone.
But Morison’s own explanation refutes itself. If “thou sayest” could conceal either a “direct ‘yes’ or ‘no,”‘ then how, pray tell, is the hearer to know which of the two, yes or no, is meant? It would certainly make things a good bit easier for the apologist who wants to use Jesus as a ventriloquist dummy to mouth fourth-century Athanasian dogma if “Thou sayest” were an unambiguous “You said it!,” but it is not. And to make Matthew and Luke’s ambiguous version tantamount to Mark’s unambiguous affirmation, simply because Mark has the one in the same spot where Matthew and Luke have the other, is pure harmonization. It is like saying that if I answer “maybe” and you answer “yes” to the same question we must be giving the same answer.
But in fact, there is a way to iron out the apparent contradiction in this case, though I don’t think Morison would like it much. As it happens, there are a couple of early manuscripts of Mark that agree with Matthew and Luke in attributing to Jesus an ambiguous answer: “You say so.” There is obviously no way to be sure how the original autograph manuscript of Mark read at this (or any other) point, since manuscript evidence from the first century or so of copying is practically non-existent (a crucial factor minimized to the vanishing point by apologists). But ask yourself which is more likely, that, faced with a clear affirmation of Jesus’ messiahship in Mark’s trial scene, Matthew and Luke would both, independently, deem it better to befog the issue by introducing the ambiguous “thou sayest” business? Or that Mark, too, originally had the ambiguous “thou sayest,” which Matthew and Luke both faithfully reproduced, but which some later copyist of Mark found theologically inadequate and changed to a nice, juicy “I am”?
I think the latter scenario makes the more sense, but really, who knows? Again, my point is that the facts are anything but clear, whereas they would have to be crystal clear to serve Morison’s apologetic purpose.
Some apologists point to Ethelbert Stauffer’s interpretation of Mark 14:62. According to Stauffer, when Jesus answers his accuser’s question with the phrase “ego eimi,” or “I am,” he is actually referring to the Jewish liturgical theophany formula “Ani (we) Hu” (“I and he,” meaning “I am he”). Thus, Jesus is supposed to be claiming possession of divinity. Stauffer comes to this conclusion from investigating extracanonical literature. [3]. This line of argumentation is summarized and applauded by Buell and Hyder [4] and Yamauchi. [5]
All this may be news to the reader, since this is not quite the first impression one receives in reading the text. Isn’t it more natural to assume that when Jesus is asked, “Are you the Christ?” and replies “I am,” that he simply means to reply to this question in the affirmative? While there is some difficulty in harmonizing the reply understood in this way with the Matthean-Lucan version “You say that I am ,” this latter version is certainly more nearly equivalent to a simple affirmation than to a claim of divinity, as those apologists read it! Besides Stauffer’s suggestions arrived at by his own detective work on Jewish literature, would hardly have been apparent to Mark’s audience without explanation. They even needed to have simple Jewish dietary laws explained to them (Mark 7:3-4) for Jesus’ words to make sense. Could they have understood the complex allusion suggested by Stauffer?
But the high priest tore his robe, as if in response to blasphemy. Before running off with Stauffer to investigate various extrabiblical texts, may l suggest that Buell, Hyder, and Yamauchi take a closer look at the Marcan text in front of them? Jesus claims in the same breath that he will be “seated on the right hand of Power” (14:62). l dare say that most readers of this text naturally assume that this statement was the alleged blasphemy in question. And I think they are right.
If one still wants to go in search of extrabiblical corroboration, it is there to be found. Rabbinic literature refers to a Jewish “binitarian” heresy, whereby some claimed that “There are two Powers in heaven.” This binitarian heresy was particularly associated with the idea that one of God’s servants should be so highly exalted as to be enthroned by his side. According to one rabbinic text, a scholar suggests that David will occupy a throne next to God. A colleague reproaches him: “How long will you profane the Shekinah?” In the late book III Enoch, the exalted Enoch is given the divine Name and a throne next to God’s. A later redactor tries to tone this down for fear of binitarianism. [6] What we can see in all this is that Jesus’ claim to be enthroned by God’s side could be taken by hearers as blasphemy even if not intended as a claim to be God.
In the examples just referred to, the binitarian divinity claim was a conclusion drawn not by the original speaker (or writer) , but by his opponents who feared what they saw as the implication of his words. We might be justified in reading the “blasphemy” charge in the Marcan text as one more example of this. My appeal to Jewish literature merely supports what l believe to be the natural’ reading of the Marcan text. Stauffer’s on the other hand serves to interpret the text in a way that is rather less than obvious. In short, once again, it is not at all clear that we must reckon with a “claim to be God.”
See also p. 140-143 in this work https://issuu.com/rodolfojrodriguez/docs/robert_m._price_-_the_christ_myth_t
Comments are closed.