How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee (14 page)

One of the most important aspects of Judaism for understanding the historical Jesus is a widespread worldview shared by many Jews of his time that scholars have called
apocalypticism
. This term comes from the word
apocalypse
, which means a “revealing” or an “unveiling.” Jewish apocalypticists believed that God had revealed to them the heavenly secrets that could make sense of earthly realities. In particular, they were convinced that God was very soon to intervene in this world of pain and suffering to overthrow the forces of evil that were in control of this age, and to bring in a good kingdom where there would be no more misery or injustice. This apocalyptic worldview is well attested from Jewish sources around the time of Jesus: it is a view that is prominent among the Dead Sea Scrolls—a collection of writings discovered in 1947, produced by Jews from about the time of Jesus and not far from where he lived—and among other Jewish texts not in the Bible; it was the view of John the Baptist; it was the view of the Pharisees; it was the view widely held throughout Jesus’s world. Here I summarize four of the major tenets of this view, before showing that Jesus almost certainly held this view himself.

Jewish apocalypticists were dualists—by which I mean that they believed there were two fundamental components of reality: the forces of good and the forces of evil. God, of course, was in charge of all that was good; but for these Jews, God had a personal opponent, the devil, who was in charge of all that was evil. God had angels on his side; the devil had his own evil spirits on his. God had the power to give life and to bestow righteousness; the devil had the power to dispense death and to promote sin. The powers of good and evil, for Jewish apocalypticists, were engaged in a cosmic battle, and everything, and everyone, had to take a side. There was no neutral territory. Everyone was on the side of either good and God or evil and the devil.

This cosmic dualism worked itself out in a historical scenario. The history of this world was divided into two phases: the present age, which was controlled by the forces of evil, and the age to come, in which God would rule supreme. It is not hard to see that the present is an evil age. Just consider all the wars, famines, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, birth defects, hatred, oppression, and injustice. The powers of evil are in charge, and they are gaining in strength. But God will intervene to overthrow the forces of evil in a cataclysmic act of judgment, to bring in his good kingdom.

Jewish apocalypticists were pessimistic about the possibilities of improving things in this current evil age. The powers of evil were far more powerful than we mortals, and even though people could resist them, they could not overcome them. No one could make this world, ultimately, a better place—no matter how many good deeds were performed, no matter how many wise political decisions were made, no matter how many helpful technologies were developed. Things were bad in this age, and they were only going to get worse until its end, when literally all hell was going to break loose.

But apocalypticists believed that when things got just as bad as they possibly could get, God would intervene in a mighty act of judgment. In the previous chapter we saw that
1 Enoch
described the powerful Son of Man who would be a future cosmic judge of the earth.
First Enoch
embraces this apocalyptic worldview and maintains that indeed a time will come when God will judge all the powers of evil on earth and in heaven through his representative the Son of Man. Other apocalypticists too thought that judgment was coming, that God would destroy the evil powers aligned against him and his people, and that he would vindicate those who had chosen to side with him and had suffered as a result. He would send a savior from heaven, and a new kingdom would arrive to replace the wicked kingdoms of this age. In this kingdom of God there would be no more pain, misery, or suffering, and those who entered the kingdom would live an eternal utopian existence.

This coming judgment would not affect only the people who happened to be living at the time. It would affect both the living and the dead. Apocalypticists came up with the idea that at this climactic act of history, with the arrival of the end of the age, the dead would be resurrected. All people would be brought back into their bodies to face judgment, either punishment or reward. This was a comforting idea for those who had sided with God and were being oppressed by the forces of evil and their earthly representatives as a result. A reward was coming. Moreover, people should not think that they could side with the forces of evil, prosper as a result (since these are the forces in charge of this age), oppress others, become mighty and powerful, and then die and get away with it. No one could get away with it. God was going to raise all people from the dead in order to judge them, whether they were willing or not.

But when would this promised end of the age come? In fact, it was coming very soon.

Jewish apocalypticists believed that the world had gotten just about as bad as it could get. The powers of evil were out in full force making life a cesspool of misery for the righteous who sided with God. But they were very near the end. People needed to hold on for just a little while longer and keep the faith. God would soon intervene and set up his good kingdom. But when? How long did they need to wait? “Truly I tell you, some of you standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come in power.” Those are the words of Jesus, Mark 9:1. He thought the apocalyptic end would arrive very soon, before his disciples had all died. Or as he says elsewhere, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place” (Mark 13:30).

Jesus is portrayed in our earliest Gospels, the Synoptics, as being an apocalypticist anticipating the imminent end of the age and the arrival of God’s good kingdom. But how do we know that this portrayal is right? If the Gospels contain traditions of Jesus that were invented or altered in the course of oral transmission, how can we tell that the apocalyptic traditions were not simply foisted on him by his later followers?

There are in fact good grounds for thinking that Jesus himself, and not just his followers, was thoroughly apocalyptic in his outlook. Recall: we need to apply our rigorous methodological principles to the Gospels to see what is historically accurate in them. When we do so, it becomes clear that Jesus held very strongly to an apocalyptic view, that in fact at the very core of his earthly proclamation was an apocalyptic message. This will be a key factor in seeing how he understood himself, whether as divine or otherwise. Let me explain some of the evidence.
⁶

I
EARLIER POINTED OUT
that when establishing historically authentic tradition from the Gospels we are looking for lots of independently attested sayings and deeds. I should add here that in particular we are looking for such independently attested traditions from our earliest sources. Since stories were getting changed over time, the more time that had passed between Jesus’s life and the source that narrates his life, the more chance that traditions had been changed and even invented. And so we want our earliest sources. John is the last of the Gospels to be written, some sixty to sixty-five years after Jesus lived. The Synoptic Gospels are earlier. And the
sources
of the Synoptics are even earlier than the Synoptics. If we find traditions independently attested in, say, Mark, our earliest Gospel, and Q, the source for parts of Matthew and Luke, and M and L, the two independent sources (or group of sources) these other two Gospels used, then we have early, independent traditions. And that is as good as it gets.

As it turns out, this is precisely what we have with respect to apocalyptic declarations by Jesus. They are independently attested in all our earliest sources.

And in those days, after that affliction, the sun will grow dark and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the sky will be shaken; and then they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send forth his angels and he will gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of earth to the end of heaven . . . Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place. (Mark 13:24–27, 30)

For just as the flashing lightning lights up the earth from one part of the sky to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. . . . And just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving away in marriage, until the day that Noah went into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. . . . So too will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:24, 26–27, 30; see Matt. 24:27, 37–39)

Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the culmination of the age. The Son of Man will send forth his angels, and they will gather from his Kingdom every cause of sin and all who do evil, and they will cast them into the furnace of fire. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun, in the Kingdom of their Father. (Matt. 13:40–43)

But take care for yourselves so that your hearts are not overcome with wild living and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you unexpectedly, like a sprung trap. For it will come to all those sitting on the face of the earth. Be alert at all times, praying to have strength to flee from all these things that are about to take place and to stand in the presence of the Son of Man. (Luke 21:34–36)

These are just samples. And I should stress, selecting them to illustrate my point is not simply a matter of willy-nilly picking and choosing the verses that I want. I’m looking for a message that is found independently attested in all our early sources, and it turns out, that’s precisely what we find with the apocalyptic proclamations of Jesus.

It is also striking and worth noting that this apocalyptic message comes to be toned down, and then virtually eliminated, and finally preached
against
(allegedly by Jesus!) in our later sources. And it is not hard to figure out why. If Jesus predicted that the imminent apocalypse would arrive within his own generation, before his disciples had all died, what was one to think a generation later when in fact it had not arrived? One might conclude that Jesus was wrong. But if one wanted to stay true to him, one might change the message that he proclaimed so that he no longer spoke about the coming apocalypse. So it is no accident that our final canonical Gospel, John, written after that first generation, no longer has Jesus proclaim an apocalyptic message. He preaches something else entirely. Even later, in a book like the
Gospel of Thomas
, Jesus preaches directly against an apocalyptic point of view (sayings 2, 113). As time went on, the apocalyptic message came to be seen as misguided, or even dangerous. And so the traditions of Jesus’s preaching were changed. But in our earliest multiply attested sources, there it is for all to see. Jesus almost certainly delivered some such message. As we will see, this is a significant key for understanding who Jesus actually thought he was: not God, but someone else.

I stress again that it is important that any tradition of Jesus be placed in a plausible first-century Palestinian Jewish context. And there is no doubt that these apocalyptic sayings of Jesus do just that. Apocalypticism was very much in the air, as we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Jewish writings from around the time, such as
1 Enoch
and other apocalypses that have survived. Jesus’s message was not altogether unusual for his day. Other Jewish preachers were declaring similar things.

But can this apocalyptic message pass our criterion of dissimilarity? Some scholars have claimed it cannot, that in fact these are words placed on Jesus’s lips by his later followers who, unlike him, thought the history of the world was soon to come to a crashing halt. I think this view is flat-out wrong, for two reasons: one is that some of the apocalyptic sayings absolutely do pass the criterion of dissimilarity; the other—this one is a bit more involved—is that the apocalyptic character of Jesus’s proclamation can be demonstrated by considering in tandem both how he began his ministry and what happened in its wake.

A number of the apocalyptic sayings in our earliest Synoptic sources are not the kinds of things that early Christians would have wanted to place on Jesus’s lips. I give you three examples.

First, in the sayings about the “Son of Man” that I quoted above, there is a peculiarity that many people gloss over without thinking about it. This is somewhat complicated, but the issue is this. Early Christians, including the authors of the Gospels, thought that Jesus was the Son of Man, the cosmic judge of the earth who was to return from heaven very soon. The Gospels in fact identify Jesus as the Son of Man in a number of places. Do such identifications pass the criterion of dissimilarity? Obviously not: if you think Jesus is the cosmic judge, you would have no difficulty coming up with sayings in which Jesus is identified as the Son of Man. But what if you have sayings in which Jesus is actually
not
identified as the Son of Man? Even better, what if you have sayings in which it appears that Jesus is talking about someone other than
himself
as the Son of Man? Those are sayings that Christians would have been less likely to make up, since they thought he
was
the Son of Man.

Look again at the sayings given above. In none of them is there any hint that Jesus is talking about himself when he refers to the Son of Man coming in judgment on the earth. Readers naturally assume that he is talking about himself either because they believe that Jesus is the Son of Man or because they know that elsewhere the Gospels identify him as the Son of Man. But nothing in these sayings would lead someone to make the identification. These sayings are not phrased the way early Christians would have been likely to invent if they, rather than Jesus, had come up with them.