The Jesus Seminar

1. I Believe 'in' Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Recently I was visiting a sick minister in hospital. He told me of a 95 year old Indian man in the next bed who every morning prayed aloud and began by saying, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth...and in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord...."

I believe in God...in Jesus Christ, his Son.

The tiny word 'in' says it all. Our Christian faith is not a religion of virtue, nor of repeated rituals, nor of following the example of our founder, which would somehow counterbalance our moral shortcomings. No, we believe 'in' God, and 'in' Christ, in particular, for the forgiveness of our sins and our acceptance by grace with God our Father.

What makes a person a Christian depends on a right understanding of little words like 'in' and 'to'. We believe 'in' Christ and we turn 'to' Christ, as our baptism liturgy reminds us. But we do this because we believe critical things 'about' Christ, 'that' he is the Son of God, 'that' he died for our sins and 'that' he was raised the third day for our hope of life in God's kingdom, 'that' he will come again. We believe 'that' Jesus is the Son of God as the basis for our personal belief 'in' him.

Here we are at the very heart of Christian faith and spirituality which has blessed the lives of millions of people across many cultures over two millennia, spanning various traditions.

But if it is not true 'that' Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who revealed God uniquely in his life and teaching, 'that' his death and resurrection were for our salvation, then Jesus is no longer One 'in' whom we believe. He is, at best, one whose life and example we follow. Thus we would speak of 'the faith of Jesus,' the spirituality of Jesus' not faith 'in' Jesus. And, if he is not the One 'in' whom we trust, it follows that he is but one among others whom we might in some way follow. So Jesus would take his place alongside Gandhi, Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed and other sages and prophets.

But this is precisely the view of Jesus taken by the JS.

2. The Jesus Seminar.

The Jesus Seminar is a group of mostly US scholars who began meeting 1985 under the leadership of Dr Robert Funk. Their initial interest was on 'What did Jesus really say ?' which they answered in a book called The Five Gospels (1993). By colour coding sayings of Jesus from 'red' (authentic) through pink and grey to black (inauthentic) the Seminar believes it is getting close to the 'real' Jesus. The JS believes a radical and new Jesus, the 'forgotten' Jesus is emerging from its researches into the text of the gospels.

One novelty is the JS's use of a fifth gospel, the Gospel of Thomas, discovered 1945 in Egypt but not taken too seriously as a sayings source for Jesus until the advent of the JS. The JS dates the Gospel of Thomas c. 50, but almost all other scholars date it 100 years later.

The parables of Jesus, in particular, are where we are supposed to hear the authentic 'voice print' of Jesus. This Jesus is a 'sage,' an enigmatic 'wise' man who is more in the Greek cynic tradition than recognisable as one of the succession of prophets of Israel. He does not speak about himself, nor about the future; the kingdom is only here and now as you radically trust the father in hearing the pithy words of this Galilean. His intention is to subvert existing structures to bring about 'bottom up' social reform.

The JS proposes that there were originally churches which held to the beliefs about Jesus found in 'Q' - the so-called 'Q' churches. But the early church moved on from this the 'real Jesus,' preferring instead the end-time world-view of John the Baptist. According to this the Christianity as we have it in our NT is a perversion, owing more to the Jewish apocalyptic of John the Baptist and the corrupting influence of Paul, the apostle, than to the so-called 'real Jesus.' The 'real Jesus' is now the 'forgotten Jesus.' Thus in discovering the 'forgotten' Jesus the JS has driven a wedge between John the Baptist and Jesus, on one hand, and Jesus and Paul, on the other. But this is outright and utterly arbitrary revisionism. This is finding a Jesus that they went looking for.

Funk is an accomplished scholar, as also are Crossan and Borg. The greater majority of the members of the JS are relatively unknown, academically speaking, and are graduates of the most liberal schools in the US. The breadth of scholarship in the UK, Europe or North America has not endorsed the radical findings of the JS.

3. The 'Two Faces' of Jesus

Let me speak by way of illustration to the 'two faces' of Jesus. A person has 'two faces,' or profiles. This is captured in the Hebrew word for 'face,' which is pan'im, 'faces' - plural. The person Jesus of Nazareth had two 'faces,' one he showed to the people, the other, additionally, to the Twelve, who were the new Israel in embryo.

What face did Jesus show to the people of his day ?

At Caesarea Philippi Jesus asked the Twelve, 'Who do men say that I am ?' They replied, 'John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets.' This is understandable. When the people heard him booming his message of the kingdom of God across the hillsides of Galilee, they concluded that he was a prophet. That was the public side or face of Jesus, the face of a prophet.

But there was a second 'face' which was revealed to the Twelve, but hidden from the people at large. 'But you, who do you say that I am ?' he continued. Peter replied, 'You are the Christ.' 'You are long-awaited son of David, the anointed of Yahweh, his Son.' To their insight, which he said was God-given, Jesus would add further even deeper insights, not all of them welcome

'The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected...and be killed ... after three days rise again ... come again in the glory of his Father...'

The Christology must be noted. In speaking of himself as Son of Man Jesus was accepting Peter's confession of Jesus as 'the Christ.' Son of Man was a messianic title at that time (see Mark 14:61-62). Furthermore,when Jesus spoke of 'his Father' (Mark 8:38) it must mean that Jesus saw himself as the Son of God. From Jesus' own lips we hear him say who he is (the Christ, the Son of God) and what will happen to him (be killed, rise the third day, come in glory). This is very close to the second main section of the Apostles' Creed, as it will be formulated in years to come. But it was the Apostles' Creed because it was first Jesus' Creed.

Here is the other 'face' of Jesus, revealed to the Twelve, but hidden from the people. To be sure, he was a man, he was a rabbi and he was a prophet. But he was also the Son of Man, the Messiah, the filial Son of God, who must die - as a ransom for many - but be raised from the dead and return in glory.

But to the people of Israel he remained just a prophet, just a rabbi, or perhaps, in more sinister tones, a false prophet, a false messiah, a charlatan. The latter, certainly, is how the Jews came to portray him in their traditions which are to be found in the Talmud.

So there were two views of Jesus at the time, a public face of a prophet or rabbi and also a private face revealed to the Twelve of the hoped-for Messiah, Son of God and Saviour. The apostles preached Jesus as he had revealed himself to be to them, as clinched by his resurrection and the coming of the Spirit to inaugurate a new age.

4. The Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith

Throughout history there have been varying responses to this preaching. Some have believed 'that' he is the Son of God and believed 'in' him. Others have rejected outright these claims. But there have been those who have been attracted to him - fascinated even - but who have not believed 'in' him. As early as late first century a certain Mara bar Serapion bracketed Jesus with Socrates and Pythagoras, though he does not mention him by name but only as a 'a wise king.'

Socrates did not die for good but lived on in the teachings of Plato.
Pythagoras did not die for good but lived on in the statue of Hera.
Nor did the wise king die for good, but lived on in the teaching which he had given.

The 'wise king' was not raised from the dead, but survived - 'lived on' - only metaphorically in his teachings.

The third century Porphyry wrote

Jesus is to be honoured as the wisest of men;
he is not to be worshipped as God.

During the eighteenth century the German Reimarus reached similar conclusions. The latter part of the nineteenth century witnessed a deluge of books from the Liberal theologians about Jesus as a romantic religious idealist. These were fiercely reacted against at the turn of this century by Albert Schweitzer in his Quest of the Historical Jesus. Schweitzer portrayed Jesus as a disillusioned apocalyptic prophet who forced the issue and brought his own life undone in Jerusalem. Martin Kähler, with greater orthodoxy, insisted that the Jesus of history was one and the 'same' as the Christ of early Christian faith, preaching and worship. Peter makes precisely this point on the Day of Pentecost when he states three times that Jesus of Nazareth who worked miracles (the Jesus of history) is 'Lord and Christ' (the Christ of faith), having been crucified, raised up from the dead and exalted (Acts 2:23, 32, 35).

The twentieth century has been dominated by Bultmann whose Lutheran view of faith as an existential leap prevented him from searching for the Jesus of history. Bultmann thought that next to nothing could be known about Jesus of Nazareth, but in any case a 'faith' which depended on 'facts' was a contradiction in terms. But that is not what Luther meant by the 'faith' that justifies the sinner. Luther meant personal trust in the saviour revealed in the historically based, historically reliable gospel.

Bultmann's reticence has been overturned with a vengeance in the so-called 'third quest' for the historical Jesus which has witnessed an outpouring of books on Jesus in the past twenty or so years. The explosion of knowledge about Jesus' world through the Dead Sea Scrolls, through Josephus studies, through Talmudic studies and through the archaeology of Jerusalem and Galilee has re-created a hitherto unknown context for Jesus the man from Nazareth.

Insofar as these studies help us to grasp who Jesus the man might have been in his times, as rabbi or prophet or revolutionary we are helped. Jesus was a man. He did show one side of his face to the world. The doctrine of the Incarnation has always said this, though modern Jesus studies sometimes show us more clearly what he might have been like as a historical figure. Certainly he was not the flaxen haired, blue eyed figure of Sunday School halls, rather, he would have been a dark eyed, dark haired Jewish man. However and nonetheless, it must be said that there is no consensus as to who the 'third questers' think he was or the role he might have fulfilled. There are almost as many Jesuses as there are people writing about him.

5. Criticism of the Jesus Seminar

There are several fatal flaws in the method used by the JS. Let me mention five.

5.1 The JS is selective in its use of sources.

The JS is chiefly based on two texts:

a. 'Q.' This is a hypothetical sayings source underlying Matthew and Luke (with 250 verses in all). It is called 'Q' from the German Quelle, a 'fountain' or 'spring.' 'Q' is a collection of Jesus' teachings which follows the same sequence as Mark, though 'Q' has little to say about Jesus' death or his resurrection. The JS seizes upon this as evidence of a cross-free, resurrection-free faith. But this is an argument from silence and logically precarious. Another explanation might be that 'Q' originally had sayings for Jesus' last days Jerusalem, but that Matthew nor Luke did not reproduce them because those writers preferred the material set out in Mark, their other main source.

'Q' is also said to have a low Christology, though as we shall see, this is not the case.

b. The Gospel of Thomas, the Second Century, Egyptian, Gnostic document which was known in the early centuries but which was not then regarded as genuinely part of the documentation of early Christianity. It is patently a collage of various parts of the NT as well as dreamy Gnostic sayings. Astonishingly, the Gospel of Thomas or alleged underlying sources of Thomas is dated by JS with the earliest sources of the synoptic tradition. Few scholars support this view.

At the same time the JS has virtually ignored the Gospel of Mark which, with 'Q,' is the other major building block for Matthew and Luke. Mark, of course, has a high christology (for example, the Son of Man who inaugurates the Kingdom of God by his death and resurrection) and teems with eyewitness detail (for example, Jesus asleep on a cushion in a boat crossing the lake, along with other boats). Yet Mark has effectively been left out of account because its portrait of Jesus does not fit within the frame predetermined by Robert Funk. Only one sentence from the entire Gospel off Mark is deemed worthy of 'red letter' treatment, 'Pay the emperor what belongs to the emperor, and God what belongs to God.' Astonishingly, no other saying in the whole of Mark is considered authentic by the JS.

The JS disregards the unanimous opinion of 2nd century church fathers that there were four authentic gospels. Four not five. Furthermore, our earliest references to the gospels has each gospel headed editorially with the word kata, 'according to,' followed by the name of the author of that gospel. There is one gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ - but it is that gospel 'according to Matthew,' that gospel 'according to Mark,' that gospel 'according to Luke' and that gospel 'according to John.' A second century father, Tatian, compiled the first so-called 'harmony' of the gospels. He amalgamated the four gospels into one and it was called diatessaron, dia ('through') tessaron ('four') gospels.² There were and are four gospels, not five according to the JS.

Sound historical method uses all the sources that are available and relevant, prudently weighed as to their quality. But the JS uses 'Q' and the late and dubious Gospel of Thomas while virtually ignoring the Gospel of Mark.

5.2 Because it is selective the JS is necessarily inconsistent.

This is evident in at least two instances. First, the JS relies on 'Q' but not the Gospel of Mark which is also reproduced in Matthew and Luke and must, like 'Q' predate those gospels. The Gospel of Mark must be at least as early as 'Q' so why does the JS use the one, but not the other ? This is inconsistent.

Secondly, the JS depends on 'Q' but discards Matthew and Luke where 'Q' is discovered. The JS is inconsistent in depending on 'Q' while rejecting the only documents where 'Q' is to be found, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Does the JS two thousand years later know better than Matthew and Luke.

Such inconsistency has no place in genuine historical research and inevitably attracts the accusation of bias.

5.3 The JS is arbitrary.

This is seen in the use of the so-called criterion of dissimilarity. By this criterion a saying of Jesus is judged authentic only when it is dissimilar . 'Dissimilar to what ?' you ask. Dissimilar to two things - antecedent Jewish tradition on one hand, and subsequent Christian tradition, on the other. In other words this criterion arbitrarily demands that Jesus cannot have spoken as a man in the religious tradition of Second Temple Judaism. Likewise it demands that we must remain agnostic about any later church teaching found from Jesus' lips because it may have been read back to Jesus from the liturgical or credal life of the early church. Thus Jesus did say 'Love your enemies' because that was not current Jewish teaching, but he may not have said, 'take, eat, this is my body,' because this arises out of the liturgical tradition of the early church.

By this criterion of dissimilarity the JS automatically eliminates 82 % of Jesus sayings in the gospels because they are either too Jewish or too Christian. What foolishness this is. It demands, first, that Jesus was not a Jewish man who had a real life context in the Judaism of that time, and second, that his teachings did not shape the movement that he founded. Inevitably it issues in a Jesus who is a kind of 'free-floating iconoclast, artificially isolated from' the Jews 'and their Scriptures and artificially isolated from the movement he founded' (R.B. Hays, 'The Corrected Jesus,' 4).

Several other examples of arbitrariness may be given.

One is that the JS turns a blind eye to the so-called 'bolt from the Johannine blue' in which Jesus claims to be the Son who alone makes the Father known. And where is this great statement by Jesus about himself to be found ? Remarkably, in 'Q' (Matthew 11:25-27/Luke 10:21-22).

Another example appears earlier when John the Baptist sent the question to Jesus, 'are you he that is to come ?' We not Jesus' answer.

Go tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight and lame walk. Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up and the poor have the good news preached to them.

These words echo Isaiah 35, a passage about the Messiah, that promises 'your God will come...to save you.' In effect Jesus is claiming to be God's messianic messenger, in whom God had 'come.' Where is this passage found ? Again, in 'Q' (Matthew 11:2-6; Luke 7:18-23).

Here are two passages which express the highest of high christology and and they are found in 'Q.' But they are arbitrarily ignored.

This arbitrariness leads into a fourth error, circularity.

5.4 The JS is guilty of circularity.

In a recent meeting in Sydney I heard Dr Funk argue that the JS was committed to scholarship. But in the same breath it was clear that he approached the whole JS enterprise as a disillusioned Christian, one who had essentially given up on anything resembling orthodoxy. The churches are tired, the seminaries are tired and university departments of theology are tired and the academic journals are tired. Funk confessed he was looking for something new, a new Jesus, not the tired 'old' Jesus, but the 'real' Jesus. He confessed that he was looking for an inclusive Jesus who would be right for our pluralistic times.

When Funk set out on his odyssey he knew what he did not want to find, the 'Jesus' of orthodoxy, the 'Christ of faith.' Inevitably, therefore, he found what he was looking for. Rather like a Royal Commission with such narrow terms of reference that only certain conclusions could be reached. Funk and the JS are trapped within their own loop, hemmed in by their own circularity.

And yet their Jesus is not 'new,' not the 'real' Jesus. This Jesus never was, except in the imagination of the JS. He is not even the Jesus of the single face, such as the people of Jesus' own day saw, the face of a prophet or a rabbi.

The 'real' Jesus is not 'forgotten,' but is recoverable through the pages of the gospels. He is the Jesus who did impact on the populace of Galilee as a powerful prophet and on the Jerusalem scribes as a powerful disputer from the north. But there was another 'face,' the face of 'great David's greater son,' the 'Son of Man' who is the 'Son of God,' who is the shepherd of the 'lost' and the 'friend of sinners' and their saviour. The Jews at large were not shown that face, only the Twelve. This face as revealed to the Twelve lives on in the faith, teaching and worship of the apostles and the early church, becoming the faith, teaching and worship of the church 'catholic.'

5.5 The JS fails to understand the dynamics of history.

The JS fails to ask and answer fundamental questions. For example, why was Jesus of Nazareth crucified ? The Romans reserved crucifixion as a severe punishment for and deterrent to revolutionaries and insurgents. A self-styled Messiah of the Jews, or one that could be cast in that role, was certainly exactly the kind of person the Romans would crucify. It must be regarded as a secure fact of history that Jesus was crucified under the titulus which stated the crime for which he was charged, KING OF THE JEWS. So how do we get from a Jesus who is a benign teller of enigmatic parables to one accused as Messiah and crucified for that capital crime ? This is a problem for all versions of Jesus as the 'pale Galilean' of liberal theology spanning from Reimarus to the JS.

A second example of failure to understand the dynamics of history relates to the rise of earliest Christianity. Here the writings of Paul are very important. Several of Paul's letters - Galatians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians - can be dated pre-50, that is, twenty years or less on from Jesus. Furthermore, the historical information they contain is gratuitously rather than intentionally conveyed. From these earliest letters the following emerges:

First, Paul persecuted 'the church of God' and 'attempted to destroy the faith' (Galatians 1:12,23). On his return to Jerusalem within three years of his conversion as an apostle of Christ he met the 'apostles' Peter and James (1:19). Soon afterwards Paul himself was forced to leave Judaea. In other words, 'the church of God' and 'the faith' and 'the apostles' were already in place before Paul's persecutions. Paul did not invent these things as liberals claim, for he attempted to destroy them.

Second, as to when did these persecutions of Saul of Tarsus in Jerusalem occur red straightforward calculations indicates that the y occurred no later than one or at most two years after the crucifixion. The book of Acts entirely supports the sequence in Paul's letters: the apostles, the church, the faith, Saul's persecutions, his conversion, his return from Damascus to Jerusalem, his own forced withdrawal from Judaea.

All of this this raises the question, what launched 'the church of God' and 'the faith,' both of which were so offensive that Saul sought to destroy them ? Remember that these were launched within months of Jesus, in all probability, back-to-back with him, as the book of Acts clearly teaches. The answer, of course, is that it must have been someone very like the figure we find in the pages of the four gospels. The feeble mystic of the JS could never launch the kind of movement earliest Christianity immediately became.

The so-called 'real' Jesus of the JS is a religious wimp, who would never have been crucified as 'king of the Jews' nor be the catalyst for a movement that the zealot Saul attempted to destroy, which subsequently changed the course of history. The JS fails completely to understand the dynamics of history.

6. Conclusion

My understanding is that Dr Funk and many of his colleagues are reacting against US protestant fundamentalism, with its extreme pre-millennial eschatology and insensitivity to social injustice to blacks and other minority groups. I am told that the eschatology of many American protestants is the reason some members of the JS are looking for a non-apocalyptic Jesus, an enigmatic sage rather than a doomsday preacher.

If this is correct I think there is a danger in doing theology by reaction. In that case they have reacted to one fundamentalism by another fundamentalism, in the case the fundamentalism of the 'new liberalism' like that espoused by John Spong and others in the US episcopal church, which has now rejected every tenet of the Christian creeds.

As Christians we are called to stand within a circle called 'orthodoxy,' what Ignatius in the early second century called the 'catholic faith.' That is the faith of the 'whole' church, what the church at all times and in all places has believed. That is what 'catholic' means, 'according to the whole,' kath' holike. It was a word devised to protect true believers from the sectional and schismatic heresy of gnosticism in the Second Century. Well there are new heresies abroad, and the findings of the JS are among them.

Blind dogmatism is no answer to heresy; it never has been. The sanctified mind applied to the Holy Scriptures, seeking to understand, but also to reply to that which is untrue to God, is the path to tread. Orthodoxy in liberality.

There is only One Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the Son of God - perfect God and perfect man - who taught us the way of God, who died for our forgiveness and who was raised to give us hope in the face of death and he will come again in a second advent. This is he and there is no other. We believe 'in' him.

This was a paper given at a public debate at St Francis's College in Brisbane against Dr Gregory Jenks.

December 9, 1998

Myths of Greek Sexuality Exploded

A ‘must’ read for those interested in the ‘politics of sex’ including the present day gay lobby is Bruce Thornton’s, EROS - THE MYTH OF ANCIENT GREEK SEXUALITY (Westview, 1997).

Thornton, a classics professor with a prodigious knowledge of Greek literature in its original dialects, has exploded three myths about the Greeks and sex. Nothing in the book suggest that Thornton writes from a Christian perspective. But he is an accomplished scholar.

The Greeks had a completely free and easy attitude to sex generally, yes ? Actually, no. They feared Aphrodite and her son Eros as beings capable of bringing chaos and cruel harm to individuals and society.

The Greeks approved of older men making homosexual love to boys, yes ? Actually, no. A tiny minority of the very wealthy consorted with boys, but to mentor and groom them intellectually. Sexual intercourse by an older man with a boy was disapproved of.

The Greeks accepted gay couples in stable relationships, yes ? Probably, no. Supporting evidence is lacking. But in any case the passive partner in a homosexual act was despised as ‘soft’ and homosexual intercourse was spurned.

Thornton’s demolition of these myths does not say, in effect, that Greeks did not engage in the above activities. Most certainly they did. But they did so against their own beliefs and standards. In fact, it is possible that their theoretical standards in the public domain were more conservative than ours today in the public domain.

Footnote: A personal observation
The Greeks’ problem was their theology, that is, they were stuck with the gods they had created, who were a rum lot. By contrast the God of the Bible has revealed himself - as ‘the Holy One.’ His revelation, couched in ‘words’ from above, are unambiguous in sexual matters - ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ In the fullest light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus’ bloody death and his bodily resurrection men and by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit women find a power beyond their own for redemption from the destructive power of unfettered Eros.

An enlightening book, but not for the faint-hearted.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity

It is possible to overstate the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the study of Christian origins.

There is at least one fundamental difference between the Essenes and Jesus. The Essenes were separatists but Jesus was an inclusivist.

The Essenes had withdrawn from mainstream Jewish life some years after the Graeco-Syrian assault on Israel two centuries before Jesus came on the scene. The identity of the Teacher of Righteousness, apparently the sects founder, remains unclear, though the dating of the formation of the sect to that era is broadly agreed.

The sect expressed its separation physically by living apart from others, whether as celibates at Qumran near the Dead Sea or as married people in the communes at the fringes of cities and towns. Because they intentionally followed a solar calendar, as opposed to the adjusted lunar calendar of the Temple authorities, they were always at odds with fellow-Jews, celebrating the religious feasts at their own times and in their own ways.

Admission to an Essene Community took several years and was stringently controlled. Among others not admissible were the 'mad, the blind, the lame, the deaf and children' (Damascus Rule xv). It is true that the Essenes shared their goods in common, but they did not (to my knowledge) share them with outsiders.

These and other features of the ancient Essenes make them the object of continuing fascination, both scholarly and popular, as witnessed by the outpouring of books and the present exhibition.

But - and this is my point - their relationship with Jesus was more one of contrast than similarity. Whereas the Essenes cut themselves off from their nation and individual Israelites Jesus engaged the nation and its individual members.

Jesus, like John the Baptist, was readily identifiable at that time as a prophet of Israel who, like prophets of former times, addressed the whole nation. Jesus message was that the hand of God was about to be revealed to Gods historic people. 'Turn back', therefore was his plea to them.

Chris McGillion (SMH 25 July) approves of Fidel Castro's view of Jesus as a champion of just one section of society, those at the bottom of the social pile. Certainly Jesus fraternised with disabled folk, with children and with the morally and ritually 'impure', in sharp contrast with the exclusivist Essenes. But he also mixed with individuals across the whole socio-economic spectrum of society - a middle class bureaucrat (Levi), the wife of the Galilee ruler's estate manager (Joanna), a wealthy out-sourced tax contractor (Zacchaeus), a synagogue president (Jairus), an eminent scholar and ruling council member (Nicodemus). Whoever they were - rich or poor- Jesus gracious invitation was, 'Come to me...'

As well, I cannot agree with Mr McGillion about a 'transition of the Christian movement' in the 'early years' that 'domesticated its radical potential'. He is only half right in speaking about Jesus 'in the backblocks of Galilee'. Jesus also spent much time in Jerusalem, the Holy City, in debate with hierarchs and theologians. He is less than half right in not noticing that Jesus 'social radicalism' was an expression of his prophetic and messianic radicalism in which he (obliquely) identified himself as the human instrument of the present intervention of God.

Jesus' messianic radicalism continued without interruption but with intensified zealous enthusiasm after the first Easter as his disciples became preachers in the Holy City and across the length and breadth of the Land of Israel. And their messianic preaching 'back to back' with his was happening fifteen years before Paul began taking the message westwards towards Rome.

Mr McGillion is also off the mark in implying that post-New Testament Christianity disengaged socially from the poor and needy. Rodney Stark, the eminent sociologist of religion, has now demonstrated that, if anything, it was precisely such engagement (especially in times of plague) that won the hearts and minds of so many within a mere two centuries of the advent of the Man from Nazareth.

Speaking personally, the only sense I can make of the origin of Christianity is to accept the opinion of its earliest documents, that God was 'in Christ', the Son of God, no less.

Galatians and Earliest Christianity

(A Paper delivered to the Conference, 'Off the Beaten Track with St Paul,' Macquarie University 12 May, 2000)

About a year ago I visited Yalvac (Pisidian Antioch) where I was warmly welcomed by Dr Mehmet Tashlialan, an eminent Turkish archaeologist.

It is truly gratifying that he is with us for our conference at Macquarie and I thank the Society for the Study of Early Christianity for their vision.

Dr Tashlialan was appointed to Yalvac 21 years ago as Museum Director and the chief archaeologist of Pisidian Antioch.

There is a long history of investigation of site (including by Sir William Ramsay), but little had been done throughout greater part of twentieth century.

But under Mehmet Bey, from 1979, the work has been continuous and methodical and very patient. And there is much now to see.

It is safe to say that perception of Pisidian Antioch been permanently changed through his labours and passion. The following is now clear.

1. Antioch was the oldest and biggest colony of Caesar Augustus in Pisidia. As a colony of Rome, town planning followed features of its mother city.

2. Augustus created the colony created 25 BC shortly after Actium 31 BC. Actium was the decisive battle that installed Augustus as Princeps and ended the Roman Revolution. The great Temple of Augustus and various epigraphic and other signs commemoration Actium signal the importance of the new colony.

3. Antioch was a place of strategic military importance. The best access across Anatolia was through Pisidia, a narrow corridor between the coastal Taurus escarpment and the Sultan range. Pisidian Antioch was situated in a high and commanding location and controlled the rout from Ephesus to North East Anatolia and to Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine. Clearly Antioch was of immense strategic importance to Roman interests in the east.

Discovery of milestones near by reveal that Antioch was the hub of Via Sebaste, the highway named after Augustus.

4. Many serving legionaries lived in Antioch, and retired legionaries as well.

Antioch, the Roman colony was the kind of place Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, who was a Roman citizen, would go.

The more so, since Dr Tashlialan has unearthed several inscriptions bearing the name SERGIUS PAULLUS.

Did you get that ?

These Sergiis must have been related in some way to Sergius Paulus, the Proconsul of Cyprus, to whom Paul preached in Acts 13. Sergius Paulus was first high Roman official to profess faith in Christ. Subsequent to this Saul adopted his name, Paulus. And also his patronage, one supposes. Paul went directly from Cyprus to Antioch, a region where the Sergii family was influential.

There must be some connection between this triangle of facts:

The conversion of Sergius Paulus in Cyprus
Sh'aul adoption of the name Paulus
Paul's direct and immediate journey through Perga to Antiocheia.
Mehmet Bey's discoveries have opened up very interesting questions for the study of early Christianity

*******************

Let me turn now to Paul's Letter to the Galatians.

This letter has excited ongoing questions for NT scholars.

1. Were the people of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe 'Galatians'? The Province of Galatia is rather more northerly that the regions Paul visited in Acts 13-14.

2. Was his Letter to the Galatians written soon after Paul's missionary tour to Pisidia and Lycaonia , that is c. 48 or was it written a decade later ?

In regard to (1) the Galatians, Stephen Mitchell and Colin Hemer have established that the people of Pisidia and Lycaonia could, indeed and would, have been called 'Galatians.'

In regard to (2) the dating, my own reading of the letter urges an early date as the more likely. Paul's reference to the Galatians' faith having been overturned 'so quickly' makes more sense relative to recent missionary preaching than to the advent of later 'troubles' among the Galatians.

Paul's extended review of events in this letter begins with his 'former life in Judaism' and ends with the 'troubles' among the the 'foolish Galatians.' Paul's historical review does not extend beyond the Galatians to the Macedonians, to the Achaians or to the Asians, or to his second and third visits to the Galatians - as otherwise the Letter would have done. Nor are any further relationships with the Jerusalem leaders mentioned after the private meeting when it was agreed that Paul and Barnabas should 'go' to the Gentiles.

The Letter is concerned only with the aftermath of Paul's initial preaching. The Letter makes most sense if it is understood to to relate the 'troubles' that arose 'soon' after Paul's first visit to the Galatians.

In this case, as I now firmly believe, Galatians is Paul's earliest extant letter. Here I follow distinguished Roman historians like William Ramsay, Fergus Millar and Stephen Mitchell. Would that more NT specialists listenedto their ancient history cousins.

*******************

I turn now to the main part of my paper. Paul's review of events, people and places in in Galatians.

Paul's most comprehensive rehearsal of past events is to be found in this letter. The data is not given as a straightforward narration of events, however. Paul's details are given apologetically, to defend himself while at the same time undercutting his opponents in Galatia and his critics in Jerusalem.

Paul's details - as details - are unlikely to be wrong. He would not risk misstating raw facts whose integrity could be overturned by his critics in Jerusalem. Interpretation of those facts, however, may have been another matter.

Why is Galatians important for the history of early Christianity ? It is because the Gospels and the book of Acts, that are overtly historical in character, have been viewed so negatively by many critical scholars . Paul's letters, however, are pastoral in intent, but have many historical detail which are mentioned incidentally rather than to provide new information. So Paul's letters form a kind of template by which to measure history in the Gospels and Acts.

But of no letter is this so true as Galatians. Galatians takes on even greater significance if, as I am proposing, it is Paul's earliest extant opus. This would make it the most ancient document of early Christianity, the work closest in time to the historical Jesus and the rise of the new faith.

1. Jesus Christ in Galatians
The name 'Jesus' does not appear on its own, but as 'Jesus Christ' or 'Christ Jesus.' The name 'Christ,' however, occurs on its own quite frequently, without 'Jesus.'

It is likely that Paul's use of the word 'Christ' still carried the idea of a title, the Christ. In the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, the Messiah Jesus (4:4; 3:13; 1:1).

Presumably when Paul preached he sketched in many personal details about Jesus of Nazareth. Today we are well removed in time from the NT era so that reference to 'Christ' and 'crucified' have become almost exclusively theological terms. But hearers as close in time as they were to Jesus must also have had historical and biographical questions: 'Who was he ? Where did he come from ? Who were his parents ? What was he like ? What did he do ?' But these would have been addressed when the missionaries first came to Pisidia and Lycaonia so that by the time the letter was written the answers were already known.

Yet Galatians is not without historical references to Jesus. Paul speaks of him as the messianic Son (the Christ) but also as the filial Son of God ('[God's] Son' - 1:16; 4:4, 6). For his part Christ (based on Mark 14:36) called God, 'Abba, Father' (4:6; cf. 1:1,3,4). Christ was 'born of a woman' (a reference to the Virgin Birth, perhaps) and 'born under the law' (that is, into a family of observant Jews). Jesus had a brother named James. Jesus the Christ was killed by crucifixion (3:1; 5:11, 24; 6:12, 14). God his Father raised him alive from the dead (1:1).

Galatians mentions historical details about Jesus that broadly coincide with the figure we see in silhouette in the Gospels.

2. 'The Faith'
Paul reports that the churches of Judaea 'had been hearing,' that 'he who was once persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith that he was once trying to destroy' (1:23).

This is revelatory.

Paul himself says that in his 'former way of life in Judaism' he 'was persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy her' (1:13). Paul does not directly identify 'the faith,' or doctrine, held by 'the church of God.' But there is a creed-like passage in Galatians that possibly reflect s that early 'faith' Paul attempted to destroy.

When the time was fulfilled
God sent forth his Son
born of a woman
born under law
to redeem those under law
that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Because you are sons
God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts
crying, 'Abba, Father.'

The 'faith', whether this or something else, must have been in place within a year of Jesus since Paul's persecutions must have occurred within a year of the historical Jesus. Paul did not invent this' faith' since he had attempted to destroy it.

3. Early Christianity in Galatians
a. Apostles in Jerusalem

According to Galatians Paul made two visits to Jerusalem. The first was within three years of his Damascus experience 'to become acquainted with' Peter. Paul also 'saw James' but none of the other apostles (1:18-19). So, no more than four years after the historical Jesus we find 'apostles' in Jerusalem, among them Peter and James.

At the second visit (2:1-2), 'after a lapse of fourteen years' Paul with Barnabas met privately with the three 'pillars' of the Jerusalem church, the leading apostles.

These two references tell us that 'Jerusalem' was the headquarters of 'the apostles.'

b. James, brother of the Lord, apostle and 'pillar'

During that first return visit to Jerusalem three years after his conversion James 'brother of the Lord' was already called an 'apostle' and regarded as sufficiently important for Paul to meet.

At his next visit to the holy city more than a decade later, however, James' name is listed before Peter's. A year or so later it was 'from James' in Jerusalem that 'certain men' went to Syrian Antioch apparently to address some local irregularity.

We note James' progress. First we meet him as an apostle, important enough of the the apostles apart from Peter for Paul to meet. Next, however, he is, 'primate' in Jerusalem and 'the Land of Israel.' Finally as the the incident in Antioch shows, James also exercised a kind of primacy beyond the borders of Land of Israel (modelled perhaps on the authority of the High Priest in Jerusalem that extended beyond Israel's borders).

c. Peter, apostle to the circumcised

James' progress is matched by Peter's regress.

At first Peter is 'apostle to the Jews' in the Land of Israel, entrusted by God to take the Gospel to them. Peter began this ministry before Paul began his since Paul is measured against Peter and found acceptable.

So Peter is 'Primate' of Jerusalem and of the Land of Israel when we first meet him three years after Paul's great turnaround near Damascus. But at the meeting in Jerusalem more than a decade later he has slipped in behind James. At our third glimpse of Peter he is not even in Jerusalem but now in Antioch in Syria. When James' people arrive Peter merely succumbs to James' directive. One other small piece of evidence is Paul's rebuke that Peter had 'lived like a Gentile.' Most likely this refers to Peter going to the house of the Gentile Cornelius and eating with him. Once more, a passing reference in a Pauline letter corroborates a detail in the book of Acts.

Mention of John as the third of the 'pillars' (2:1) suggests that he, too, had been involved in ministry to Jews in the Land of Israel throughout thesame period, very probably working alongside Peter in his 'mission.' Whenever John appears in the book of Acts he is always with Peter. In the Fourth Gospel the 'beloved disciple' and Peter appear to be specially connected.

The rising fortunes of James in Jerusalem and the corresponding declining fortunes of Peter are also broadly discernible in the book of Acts.

4. Paul, apostle to the Gentiles
Throughout his appeals to the Galatians Paul mentions a number of autobiographical details. These are not gratuitous, however, but intentional to the 'case' Paul is arguing throughout. Furthermore, these references appear to be in chronological sequence.

a. 'Former Life in Judaism' (1:12-13)

Paul speaks of his 'former way of life in Judaism' in which he 'was advancing beyond many of his own age from his nation.' His pre-eminence is explained as 'being more exceedingly zealous than them in the traditions of [his] fathers.'

This did not mean mere scholarship. His pre-eminence among his contemporaries, evident in zeal for the traditions, was concretely expressed in his 'immeasurable' persecution of the church of God in order to to destroy it. Consistent with this extreme 'zeal' Paul at that time also 'preached circumcision' (5:11). Presumably this was to close off to proselytes an easy, circumcision-free, route into the covenant of the God of Israel.

But Paul gives this brief autobiographical in 1:12-13 for a purpose, to show that his radical turnabout owed nothing to man. It was God's doing. Paul is arguing that he owed his authority to preach to the Gentiles to God and not to men, not even the apostles in Jerusalem.

b. Damascus Road 'call' (1:15-17a)

Some time during his persecution of the 'church of God' going to Damascus God 'called' Paul to proclaim '[his] Son' to the Gentiles.

Paul 'did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,' that is, 'go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before [him].' Years later when he met a second time with senior apostles there they were to add nothing to his message (2:2, 6, 9).

Paul's sense of God's 'call' changed the direction of his life and, indeed, the course of early Christian history and, in time, world history. Without Paul's westward, Romewards missions it is likely that Christianity would have been circumscribed to the fringes of Judaism and confined to the Levant. Without Paul it may easily have become another relic, a bygone curiosity of the religions of Antiquity.

c. Damascus, Arabia, Damascus (1:17b)

Rather, as he relates in the briefest terms, he 'went away into Arabia and came back again to Damascus.' In all this occupied a period of up to three years (1:18), the greater part of which I suppose was in Arabia.

A passing reference in another letter suggests that Paul's activities in 'Arabia' provoked Aretas king of the Nabataeans to seek Paul's arrest in Damascus (2 Cor 11:32). Presumably this indicates that Paul had been preaching the Son of God to the Nabataeans to the annoyance of King Aretas. God 'called' Paul to 'proclaim his Son to the Gentiles' and Paul set about doing this immediately, chiefly in 'Arabia,' initially. It is by no means impossible that Paul reached even to the capital, Petra within this three year period.

d. After three years up to Jerusalem (1:18-20)

Even after his foray into 'Arabia' he did not go up to Jerusalem directly, to confer with those who were 'apostles before him.' Rather, he returned to Damascus. Only then, in his own time, I hear him saying, did he at last go up to Jerusalem.

We do not know by what means or through whom the former extreme persecutor of the church of God came into contact with its leader Peter in Jerusalem. Their first moments together may have been very strained. Paul's verb historesai means 'to become acquainted with,' or perhaps 'to inquire of' but it gives nothing away to Peter. Paul does not say that he 'reported to' Peter, or 'took instructions from' Peter. Furthermore, he only 'saw' James, brother of the Lord but no other apostles.

e. Syria and Cilicia (1:21-24)

During that visit Paul had no exposure to 'the churches of Judaea that are in Christ' who had not seen him in the flesh. These Judaean Christian churches are to be distinguished from the 'church of God' in Jerusalem. They had come into existence during the persecutor's three year absence from Jerusalem.

But though they had not seen him they 'had been hearing' for some time that the former persecutor and would-be destroyer of 'the faith' was now its preacher. They began hearing this during his ministry in Damascus and Arabia and also from distant Syria and Cilicia (that is from the region of Tarsus) to which he had now gone.

f. After fourteen years up to Jerusalem (2:1-10)

This was a lengthy span to have been 'proclaiming the faith' away from Jerusalem, unsupervised and unendorsed by the apostles. Paul accompanied Barnabas as to Jerusalem where they met privately with the 'pillars' James, Peter and John. The uncircumcised Gentile Titus from Antioch was also present.

Three closely connected decisions were made behind closed doors. First, Paul successfully resisted the attempt of 'false brothers' to compel Titus to be circumcised (2:3-5). Paul states that he fought and won that battle 'for you,' that is, to preserve 'the truth of the Gospel' for you Gentiles in Galatia. Second, the 'pillar' apostles endorsed Paul's circumcision-free gospel that he had been preaching to the Gentiles (2:2, 6). Third, the 'pillars' recognised that God had 'entrusted' to Barnabas and Paul an 'apostolate' to the Gentiles and that they should 'go' to them.

The momentous journey from Antioch in Syria to Cyprus and from there to Pisidia and Lycaonia followed from the private concordat between the Jerusalem 'pillars' and Barnabas and Paul, recorded in Gal 2:7-9. The importance of that concordat has not been sufficiently recognised. But it changed the course of early Christian history and within a few years it began to change the direction of world history. It was the first major step in bringing the message of Jesus, the Messiah of the Jews to the Nations of the world.

g. 'Go[ing] to Galatia (3:1-5; 4:12-20)

Paul speaks at some length about coming to the Galatians and their warm welcome despite his 'weakness in the flesh' which appears to have been related to his eyesight (4:13,15).

He reminds them that when he preached Christ crucified they received the Spirit and witnessed miracles but also suffered (persecution, presumably -3:1-5).

The emphasis on the Spirit appears to be connected with the strength of the Galatians' experience of the Spirit when Paul preached his Christ-centred, circumcision-free Gospel among them. Because God sent the Spirit of his Son to their hearts they - like Christ - cried, 'Abba, Father' (4:6). Through that Gospel and the inner work of the Spirit they were free from the bondage of law-keeping, free to know God directly as 'Father' in and through his Son, Christ, which they would not otherwise have been 'free' to do. In consequence, too, they had begun to enjoy 'freedom' through the Spirit from'the works of the flesh - fornication, uncleanness, riotous behaviour, idolatry, magic, domestic and local conflict, jealousy, bad temper, selfishness, division, factions (5:19-20).

h. Incident in Antioch

I estimate their missionary circuit took Paul and Barnabas away from Antioch in Syria for a period of between six to twelve months.

At about that time Paul returned to Antioch in Syria he found Peter there. At first Peter ate with the Gentile Christians but upon the arrival of envoys from James he withdrew table fellowship from his Gentile brothers and sisters. Other Jewish believers including Barnabas joined Peter in this separation from uncircumcised fellow-Christians. Presumably the circumcision question meant separation at the Lord's Supper, making the fracture in the church absolute.

i. News from Galatia

Equally seriously, troubles had arisen in the brief period since Paul left his Pisidian and Lycaonian mission churches . In that general era many Gentiles had become God-fearers attending the synagogues, seeking inclusion among the Lord's covenant people, Israel. Jewish opinion was divided. Some felt inclusion was only a matter of a morality, fulfilled by observing the ethical decrees of Judaism. Others, however, insisted on circumcision as the sine qua non, the only gate to righteousness with God and inclusion among his people.

The latter had been Paul's pre-conversion view, apparently.

But when he came to these 'Galatians' Paul actually insisted on circumcision-free access to the covenant, based solely on inclusion 'in Christ' crucified and risen, by faith-commitment to him signalled by baptism. According to Acts that preaching provoked hostility at the time. The hostility probably intensified after Paul returned to Antioch-on-theOrontes.

Most probably the local opponents of Paul and Barnabas sent envoys to Jerusalem from whom they had received back a letter or even a visit from counter-missionaries bent on overturning Paul's circumcision-free preaching. Galatians implies there was now considerable opposition to Paul and his doctrines among these Galatians.

A group (of Jews, presumably) led by one man (5:10, 12) is now 'troubling' these churches whether by courting them (4:17) or by some form of duress towards them, (6:12) perhaps even persecution (4:29).

Critical to their strategy, however, is an attack on Paul, the source of which - directly or indirectly - must have originated from Jerusalem since Paul must go into so much detail in his defence about his relationships with Jerusalem. It was being asserted that Paul had no authority in his own right but was entirely subject to the apostles in Jerusalem (cf. 1:1, 11-12, 18-19; 2:1, 7-9, 11). Also, in his 'former life in Judaism' he had been - it was claimed - a 'man-pleaser' and 'still' is (1:11) and he 'still preaches circumcision' (5:11).

As a result of this counter-mission Paul believes the Galatians now regard him as their 'enemy' despite the warm and compassionate welcome they extended originally (4:4:12-16). Equally, their progress in Christ on the basis of a circumcision-free Gospel has stalled (5:7).

Although their Gentile believers have not yet submitted to circumcision (5:2) they have begun to observe the Jewish calendar, a first step perhaps, to being circumcised (4:8-11) in a counter-proselytizing process. Although Paul is concerned at developments in these fledgling assemblies (4:11, 20), ever the optimist he remained confident that they will return to the teachings he had given them originally (5:10).

Paul's own story, as he tells it for apologetic reasons corroborates Luke's version of it in the book of Acts, which he gives for differing apologetic reasons.

5. Significance of Galatians for History
I have argued that Galatians is Paul's earliest letter and therefore the earliest document of Christianity. Many scholars of the New Testament, though not all, accept the earliness of Galatian. The corollary, that Galatians is accordingly the first document of the new faith has not been widely noticed.

Although Galatians is designed to exhort and correct in doctrinal and pastoral matters it has numerous details of a historical kind, pressed into service for Paul's apologetic and polemical concerns in the Galatian churches.

Two words may be applied to the historical details in Galatians - those details are (1) early, and (2) they would have been subject to unsympathetic scrutiny by his critics in Jerusalem. As such these details, which are likely to true, be form a template by which some of the narratives about Jesus in the Gospels may be measured and by which, to a greater degree, the narratives in Acts covering the first two decades of Christianity may be measured.

While there are one or two matters in the book of Acts that do not easily square up with Galatians, by and large we must declare that the corresponding narratives in the book of Acts, measured against Galatians, shape up well. In short, the historical and geographical detail in Galatians tends to corroborate the historical and geographical detail in the book of Acts, and to a lesser extent, the Gospels.

One final observation. The earliness of Galatians allows us to lay to rest the old liberal myth that Paul was the founder of Christianity. This letter tells us that such entities as (1) 'the church of God,' (2) 'the faith,' and (3) 'apostles' headquartered in 'Jerusalem were well and truly in place prior to Paul's Damascus 'call' to preach to the Gentiles. It must be regarded as a matter of fact that the young and pre-eminent zealot was on a mission to destroy 'the church of God' and her 'faith.'

Paul may have become the most famous missioner of early Christianity, but he did not invent it. The blame for that must be laid at the feet of others before Paul, the apostles in Jerusalem before him and shortly before them, a man named Jesus.

These are among the issues of history and for historians raised by Paul's Letter to the Galatians.

Dr Paul Barnett
May 2000

Jewish and Christian Misunderstanding of One Another and the change in Jewish and Christian identity since the Second Temple period

Jews and Christians have very long histories. In each case there is a deep sense of identity. Indeed, 'remembering' is fundamental to both traditions. Both traditions have annual as well as weekly acts of 'remembering.' Great past events are continually brought to mind by 'remembering' and these contribute mightily to our sense of 'who we are,' that is, to our respective identities.

Yet here we make an assumption that must be questioned. We easily assume that that our respective sense of identity means that we had the same or very similar identity at previous times. After all, both traditions tend to be conservative, enshrined in liturgies and regulated by calendars. Thus we assume that a Christian in 1999 believes and acts in much the same way as a counterpart did in 1099 or 599 or 299 or 99. Likewise the Jew when the same slices are made at those historical moments.

My interest lies in the period of the New Testament and the era leading to it as from the Macedonian invasion and conquest of the Levant in the 300's BC/BCE. Broadly speaking this corresponds with what is called the 'Second Temple period.' What I am questioning is the assumption that a Jew from that period closely resembles a Jew of today and that a Christian in the New Testament era resembles a Christian now.

I repeat. This opinion may come as a shock because of our 'tradition' and our sense of 'identity' formed by that tradition. I must have a reason for this.

My point is this: The Jewish war in 66-70 AD/CE, when the Temple and much of Jerusalem was destroyed, and the war of 132-135 when the demolition of the Holy City was completed and a Roman city Aelia Capitolina erected in its place, cut a swathe through history. That critical period separated Jews before and after from one another, but also Christians before and after from one another.

Continuity for Jews was breached by the destruction of the Temple, the disappearance of the High Priests and the sacrifices and the emergence of 'rabbinic Judaism.' To be sure, there were synagogues everywhere as from the late Persian period. But after the destruction of the Temple and the Romanizing of Mt Zion the synagogue, the rabbi, the liturgies and many other things assumed new shapes and infinitely greater importance.

Before those wars Jews engaged in various missionizing activities among Gentiles. To be sure, it was uneven and sporadic. But there is a sense in which Second Temple Judaism was a missionary religion. Closely associated was the welcome extended by Jews in the Diaspora to those Gentiles who attached themselves to the synagogue and its meeting, the so-called 'God-fearers' or 'worshippers of God.' The Aphrodisias inscription puts the existence of such God-fearers beyond doubt. According to Philo, their numbers were considerable. Some scholars have explained the massive growth of Jewish numbers in the Second Temple period as due to successful Jewish missionizing. While I prefer to attribute that growth to the stability of Jewish marriage and family life as compared to the domestic chaos among Gentiles. For example, I am thinking of serial marriages, the termination of pregnancies with the consequent loss of life of many mothers, and the exposure of children which was a mark of the ways of the Gentiles. But there can be little doubt that the Jews of the era had a certain openness to the inclusion of the Gentiles. But this did not continue and to my knowledge has not at all been a feature of Judaism in the decades and centuries since. It is an example of the unwisdom of assuming that Judaism today resembles too closely the Judaism of that period.

Continuity for Christians was also fractured because until the 66-70 Jewish war, the new movement and its leaders were predominantly Jewish, whereas by the beginning of the second century, the movement itself was overwhelmingly Gentile. At the turn of the second century Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, said that was not possible to practice Christianity and Judaism. Nonetheless, Jewish Christianity continued for several centuries, the so-called 'Church of the Circumcision.'

Pre-70: Access Through Surviving Sources

This is not to say that the pre-70 era is cut off absolutely. Not at all. It is cut off from continuity of identity to a significant degree for both Jews and Christians but it is not cut off from scholarship. The pre-70 era is known to us through the surviving historical sources and these are accessed by the proven methods of scholarly research.

Judaism of the pre-70 epoch is known to us from the so-called Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, by the pre- 70 traditions retained in the Mishnah and, not least, from the data within the New Testament itself. The New Testament must not be overlooked as a source of information about Judaism, it has its well formed viewpoints. But so too does all relevant literature from that era, for example Josephus. Critical scholarship has a role here.

For its part we know about pre - 70 Christianity from the New Testament, the post-apostolic church fathers, along with scraps of information found in Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius.

However, we must not underestimate the depth of scholarship required to be acquainted with Judaism and Christianity within this period. It calls for an understanding of the languages of antiquity, together with extensive knowledge of the immediate texts set within their respective historical contexts.

Judaism within the Second Temple Era

The era of Persian hegemony of Palestine is now passed. Alexander has swept through Anatolia and down into the Levant to Egypt and back again en route to Mesopotamia and further to the east. His diadochi (Greek military successors) will bed down Greek cities and everything that went with that culture bringing an impact that will last for centuries. From Macedonia, through Anatolia, the Levant and Egypt to Mesopotamia the revolutionary culture of the Greeks was unleashed. Most cultures gladly succumbed to the heady wine of Greek language, education, philosophy, drama, history, athletic competition, military technology, town planning, architectural style, agricultural practices, financial and political administration.

What resulted in most places was a mish-mash of Greek and local cultures especially in Egypt and Syria. Democracy, as in the Athenian ideal, was conspicuously absent, however. The Macedonians had kings. So did the Syrians and Egyptians. Their kings, however, were god-kings. The kings of the new Hellenistic kingdoms were also god-kings. The Seleucid, Antiochus IV, sought to impose this view on his province Judaea. This led to the zealot-like Maccabean revolt in 175 BC/BCE.

The Jews in Palestine alone offered serious resistance to the cultural influence of Hellenism. For their part, the upper echelons of Jewish society gladly submitted to Hellenism. The Maccabee rulers, though at first resistant to the inroads of Greek ways, soon capitulated to them. The Herodian dynasty of Idumea which superseded the Maccabees were all of Greek name - Antipater, Herod, Antipas, Archelaus - a symptom of their commitment to Hellenism. The court and the courtiers of both Maccabees and Herods were those of minor Hellenistic potentates. The aristocrats who progressively gobbled up the land from the peasants were glad captives of Greek ways. Likewise the Sadducees and the constituent families of the High Priests were traditionalist Jews only in a shallow sense. At heart these people had become Greeks.

Resistance to Greeks and Jews who were Greek-influenced tended to come from the poorer sections of the community, from Hasidic and Zealotic types. From the Hasidim, who some time after the Macabbean revolt split into the Essenes and the Pharisees, came the intellectual and spiritual resistance to Hellenism. Physical muscle came from the 'Zealots,' or more exactly from a mind-set Josephus calls the 'Fourth Philosophy.' (The 'Zealot' faction, as faction did not emerge until the period of the war, 66-70 AD/CE.) The 'Fourth Philosophy' was composed of 'direct action' men allied with pro-active Pharisees.

For our purposes in this paper neither the Essenes nor the 'Fourth Philosophy' are important. Both groups appear to have disappeared from the scene after the wars in 66-70 and in 132-135. But the Pharisees and their influence survived those wars and their social disruption. Their teachings lived on through the creation of religious and scholarly academies (e.g., at Jamnia and Sepphoris) and through the synagogues and their liturgies, the powerful influence of the rabbis, the traditional commitment of Jews to the Sabbath and to household religion under the leadership of the father. The Mishnah bears witness to the survival of that tradition through the critical period of the wars and the physical and spiritual losses of Temple and City.

From the Mishnah and the Gospels it appears that the Pharisees were essentially defenders of the faith of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Based on the Law and the Prophets these scholars established clear boundaries within which children of the covenant must live. Clearly the Sabbath was critical to the religious identity of the people of the land. The Pharisees established an elaborate and complex code of teachings as what could and could not be done on the Sabbath. Spiritual purity was equally fundamental. The daily immersion in the mikve (household purity bath), the washing of vessels and goods purchased in the market-place before use were critical. Such boundaries served to mark off those who were 'in' and who remained 'true to' the ancient covenant. Equally, those people who were unobservant were defined as 'outside,' as 'sinners.' They were broadly classifiable with Gentiles.

During the 'Second Temple' period the Pharisees adopted an end-time eschatology which divided the present age from the coming age. This age was evil, ruled by Satan and his legions. By contrast the coming time was glorious and good. It was heralded by the Resurrection of all and the judgement and punishment of Satan and the wicked.

Broadly speaking, Jesus and the writers of the New Testament subscribed to the Pharisees' eschatology and dualistic world-view. Christian eschatology incorporated itself within the pre-existing Pharisaic framework.

Jesus

There are three things about Jesus which must be noted. One is that he believed himself to be the long-awaited Messiah, the greater son of great David. This messianic conviction was based on his consciousness of belonging to the line of David, but also of being assured from the Voice in the Jordan River that he was, indeed, the Son of God. Initially he was known as Jesus the Christ, but then as Jesus Christ, and then as Christ. His followers were dubbed by the authorities of Antioch as Christianoi, adherents of Christ, in the same way that adherents of the Herod the tetrarch were called Herodianoi. The various references to Christ and Christians in Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, but also in Eusebius make clear that the name Jesus was relatively secondary and that the title 'the Christ' which became the surname 'Christ' was uppermost. The title ho christos meaning 'the smeared one' or 'the painted one' would mean nothing to a Gentile at that time. We understand well how the title must become a name.

Another thing about Jesus which must be noted is that he re-defined Messiahship. To Jesus, Messiahship meant a special filial relationship with God beyond the notion as in Psalm 2, for example, that the Anointed One as the Son of God was understood in a merely titular sense. Jesus related to God as his own abba, an intimate and domestic relationship which he mediated to his disciples, as witnessed in the Lord's prayer. Furthermore, it is historically certain that the earliest communities of Christians called God abba, 'dear Father.' Again, Jesus believed that he must die redemptively for the people of God, based on texts from the prophets like Isaiah 53 and Daniel 7. But the Messiah must be raised to life on the 'third day,' again in fulfillment of the prophetic hopes. Thus Jesus believed that the future had been foreshortened in his own person. The coming age had been dragged back into him as messianic fulfiller, in his coming, his redemptive death and his resurrection from the dead. The blessings longed for in the future were now to be had by those who belonged to him, his messianic people.

As well, Jesus held that the total 'movement' of the Law and the Prophets pointed to him and was now in process of being fulfilled in him. On one hand he was, as St Paul declared, 'servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth.' But he was also the means by which 'the Gentiles would glorify God for his mercy' (Romans 15:7). Jesus was the minister to both, forming one new people. In Jesus's own understanding he would be the New David, the messianic shepherd over Israel but also over 'other sheep,' the people of the Nations. This is the New Temple which he will build after 'three days.'

Mission and missionary work, then, lies at the heart of Jesus's self-consciousness.

Jesus and the Jews then: No Misunderstanding

At the heart of the New Testament lies a profound difference of opinion. That difference is focused on the identity and mission of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, before his death, and his followers afterwards, held that he was the Messiah and that the end-times had come and with them the time for the ingathering of the Nations.

Numbers of modern scholars in the liberal tradition for more than a century have sought to make Jesus a more or less acceptable Second Temple Jew, though with some more or less bearable eccentricity. Perhaps he was somewhat apocalyptic, or zealotic, or pietistic, or whatever, depending on the writer's point of view and emphasis. An endless stream of Jesus books keep flowing from the presses. Others want to say he was more of a Greek Cynic preacher than any kind of recognisable Jew within the tradition of the covenant. Anything but Messiah, Son of God, Lamb of God, resurrected Judge.

But these are desperate and transparent forms of revisionism. They all fail to cope with the amazing speed by which Jesus was proclaimed precisely as Messiah, Lord, Son of God and Saviour and the immediate rise of earliest Christianity which confessed him along these lines. Surely these views lay at the heart of Jesus's own view of himself. Any other view, that these were corruptions arising later, in particular from Paul, is historical nonsense making the immediate origins of Christianity and the early writing of much of the New Testament quite inexplicable.

So the problem must be located in the three or so years of the events narrated by the gospels. Here is the primal storm centre, Jesus himself. This is perfectly clear from the gospels themselves, in both the synoptic and the Johannine tradition.

This is not to deny that there were subsequent storms, especially in the fifties when Paul seriously began to incorporate the Gentiles as full and equal members of the covenant of Abraham. But those Pauline storms were precipitated by Jesus himself. Jesus's welcome to the 'sinners' among the people of the land was the signal for the welcome to the 'sinners' among the Gentiles as a sign of the end-times. For his part, Paul is grief stricken that the historic people Israel are not, as a people, responsive to the claims of Jesus as the Christ. This is quite striking in view of the considerable degree to which the former Pharisee suffered from 'his own countrymen,' to use his own words (2 Corinthians 11:26). But Paul's language about those 'countrymen' are far less polemical than the references to 'the Jews' in the Gospels and the book of Acts. To the end Paul remained a Jew. 'Are they Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Israelites ? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham ? So am I' (2 Corinthians 11:22).

The stormy and polemical language of the gospels gives a historically accurate account of the stormy relationships stirred up by Jesus himself. This agitation arose not because he was in the public perception some kind of prophet or rabbi, though clearly those categories lent themselves to various attempts to describe him.

Something far more fundamental was the source of the storms. That 'something' was Jesus's own sense of end-time fulfillment which he proclaimed in public and taught in private to the Twelve. Even that number was provocative. Twelve disciples pointed back to twelve tribes and pointed now to a New Israel, at least in embryo. In that fulfillment there was, he asserted, something new and radical. The old wineskins could not hold the new wine. This radicalism, as already noted, lay in his identity as the messianic Son, in his conviction of a redemptive death awaiting him followed by his resurrection at the head of a resurrected messianic people, who must now also include the Nations. In the end the disputes with the Pharisees about Sabbath breaking and purity infringements and his headlong battle with the High Priest arose out of his utter conviction as to his identity and mission.

For various interests within Judaism these claims were intolerable. For the Pharisees, Jesus's breaches of Sabbath and purity and his friendship with 'the sinners' represented an unspeakable breach of their efforts to protect the ancient covenant. But for Jesus the inclusion of 'sinners' spoke of the grace of God and was a necessary prelude to the inclusion of the Gentiles in the blessings of God. For the 'Fourth Philosophy', Jesus's insistence on his upcoming death was scandalous. A Messiah securing victory by enduring the defeat and humiliation of crucifixion could only mean the humiliation of the nation and the humiliation of the God of the nation. Crucifixion could be no route to God's salvation of Israel. The way of the cross appeared utterly offensive in contrast to the way of the sword. For the Temple hierarchy, a David pretender who promised to demolish and rebuild the House of God, and who upturned the traders' tables, was unendurable.

In short, at every point Jesus's person and mission cut across the beliefs, values and programmes of the stakeholders in Israel's future.

I do not think we serve the interests of historical truth by pretending things were different.

The various Jewish interests recognised very clearly what Jesus was about. For his part Jesus recognised the sources of opposition against him and the reasons for that opposition. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, which he somewhat redefined, and the Jews of that time rejected and opposed those claims.

Notwithstanding these storms recorded in the Gospels Jesus-messianism made good progress among Jews in Judaea, including among Temple priests (of lower orders, one supposes) and among numbers of Pharisees. This progress may have continued unabated with greater numbers of Jews accepting Jesus as the Messiah without in any way relinquishing their full involvement in Judaism. Even a quarter of a century on from Jesus James could say to Paul on his return to Jerusalem, 'You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the Law' (Acts 21:20). Josephus records James' death at the hands of the High Priest in c. 62, but mentions James' popularity with the chief proponents of the Law (Antiquities 20.200).

Why did this growth in Jewish Christianity stop ?

I suggest two reasons.

First, numbers of members of the Jesus-messianic community in Jerusalem opposed Paul's admission of Gentiles to the Abrahamic covenant on a circumcision-free basis. The leading opponents of Paul and his mission among the Gentiles were Jews who were also Messiahmen / Christians. I believe that Paul's efforts to include the Gentiles released forces among the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem, then among Jews in general which militated ultimately against the survival of Jewish Christianity. Had Paul not sought to win the Gentiles for Jesus as Messiah it is quite possible that Jewish Christians may have been able to coexist as a sub-group within the wider community of Jews. All the evidence about the first Christians in Judaea supports this proposition.

Secondly, I attribute to the Jewish wars of 66-70 and of 132-135 a cause of the parting of the ways between Jews and Gentiles in the Roman world. This schism has shaped relationships in Europe for nineteen centuries. Those wars were a long time coming, due mainly to Graeco-Roman fears at the astonishing growth of Jewish populations throughout the Roman world during the era of the Second Temple. Jews represented about twenty per cent of the population of the Roman world. The vilification of Jews and Judaism is all too obvious from the writings of Juvenal and Tacitus.

For decades there had been grave relational problems between Greeks and Jews in the great cities of the eastern Mediterranean, for example Alexandria, Antioch and Caesarea Maritima. Serious disturbances which approached the dimensions of the civil war had erupted in the decades before the flash point in October 66. Possibly it was feared that the Parthians, the Romans' great enemy on her vulnerable eastern flank, would join the Jews in any empire-wide uprising. Julius Caesar, Augustus and Tiberius had managed to keep the lid on the cauldron, but as from Gaius the mad Princeps, the slide to war seemed inevitable. But Rome's ruthless war machine spelt defeat first over the Jews' factional chaos of 66-70, and also under Ben Kosiba's more focused leadership in 132-135.

The Fiscus Judaicus (Rome's tax imposed on Jews after AD 70) and the erection of Aelia Capitolina utterly and permanently changed Jew-Roman relationships. By that time Jesus-messianism was becoming a predominantly Gentile movement. Furthermore, Jewish Christians declined to fight for the Jewish cause, either in the 66-70 war or in Kosiba's battles half a century later. Jews would not have regarded Jewish Messiahmen / Christians even as half brothers.

Meanwhile the Romans were as ill-disposed to Christians as they had been towards Jews. Indeed, Tacitus speaks with revulsion against Christians in terms quite similar to those he employed about Jews. He spoke of both as a spreading disease. Because they refused to give Caesar primacy above Jesus as Lord the Romans deemed Christians to be a superstitio, a sect of bloody minded 'haters of the human race.'

Periodic and violent persecution against Christians occurred, often involving lynch mobs offended that their gods had been offended by these 'atheists,' as they called the Christians. 'If the Tiber floods or the Nile doesn't the cry is at once, "Christians to the lion.'' Natural disaster was evidence that the Pax Deorum / 'the peace with the gods' had been disrupted - by these 'atheists.'

The hated Fiscus Judaicus levied on Jews after the destruction of the Temple did at least give Jews liberty not to worship the Roman gods. The Christian, who had equal revulsion at idolatry, enjoyed no such protection. This is the historical backgound to the sufferings of Christians in the Book of Revelation, written c. 96.

It did not help Christian relationships with Jews that Jews sometimes provoked and facilitated the violent action of local governors against Christians, even if indirectly. The death of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, in the mid-second century is but one example.

It is important to reflect on the circumstances that prevailed when Constantine adopted the sign of the cross as the way to victory and as the new religion for the tottering empire. The Romans would not forget two wars waged against the Jews as an obstinate people with, to their eyes, comical beliefs. The Jews would regard themselves as humiliated by the Romans and their Sacred Place deliberately defiled by them. They are driven from the historic homeland of the Patriarchs. With good reason Jews would now see the Christians as coextensive with the very empire itself. For their part, Christians, now seated in power, remember too well the involvement of Jews in persecutions in the fairly recent past, even if indirect. Christian rulers like Theodosius begin to discriminate against Jews and the synagogues. Synagogues are now burnt and Jews killed by mobs of Christians.

And so on into the pogroms and ghettoes of the middle ages into the anti-semitism of modern times. A grim and tragic history. But a grim and tragic history that should be separated at least to some degree from the Second Temple Period. I am arguing that on the other side of the wars 132-135 and 66-70 Judaism was different from what it would become and Christianity was different from what it would become. And I have argued that we must detach ourselves from our present identities to analyze through scholarship why Jesus did not accommodate himself to Second Temple Judaism and why Second Temple Judaism did not accommodate itself to him.

Understanding: A Millennium Hope

Jews and Christians have much in common. We hold to a common body of literature which we call the Scriptures. From those Scriptures and the 'Ten Words' we learn about our Creator and his abhorrence of idols but also of the sanctity of human life and of critical human rights. The reading of the Law and the Prophets is as fundamental in the Church as it is in the Synagogue. Likewise the Psalms are precious to Christians both in corporate worship and private devotion.

I am ashamed that fellow Christians at this time and in earlier times have treated Jews in the way they have. For what it is worth I offer my apology for wrongs done by others.

But I see no point in obscuring the historic circumstances surrounding Jesus which led to the schism within Judaism that became Christianity. I am deeply saddened by the social consequences of that schism and express my deep regret for them. But I cannot deny what I believe to have been true of Jesus's identity and mission.

I must allow you the right to see Jesus through the eyes of his contemporaries who rejected his claims and to assent to their verdict on him. I may disagree, as I do to that verdict. I am committed to Jesus as the Messiah. But we have to live together on this planet in decent and harmonious relationships.

Two words I apply to myself are orthodoxy and liberality. I hold to orthodoxy as a Christian. That is my world-view, including my end-time world view and my view that Christianity is a missionary religion. It is my view of God and of goodness and of hope for all people everywhere. But as a person set in the kaleidoscope of humanity by the God in whom I believe then I am committed also to the principle of liberality within ordered societies. Oppression of religious minorities and the ghastly 'ethnic cleansing' are utterly abhorrent. Jews have suffered from it and are suffering from it. Christians have suffered from it and are suffering from it. Muslims in Kosovo are suffering from it as we speak and the source appears to be a version of Christian religious culture.

But I can only pray that the new Millennium may give to others what I desire for myself - the right to be orthodox as to what I believe and the freedom to disseminate those beliefs in circumstances of liberality and decency. Both of these appear to be fundamental to democracy.

I include in that the freedom to express the views I do in this forum tonight.

This paper was to be given at The Aquinas Academy, Sydney, May 13, 1999. The other speaker was to be Professor Emeritus Alan Crown. The meeting was cancelled.

Exploring Antioch - A modern scholar answers age old questions

For many years I had longed to visit the places St Paul visited during his 'First Missionary Journey'. I had been to 'Second Missionary' sites like Alexandrian Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens and Corinth. Likewise I had walked the streets of Ephesus where the 'Third Mission' was centred. And I had imagined him in Jerusalem learning at the feet of Gamaliel and departing from but also imprisoned in Caesarea Maritima. But the Pisidian cities of Antioch and Iconium and the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe? No, that had not been my pleasure. Too far off the 'beaten track.'

Perhaps such a visit would help answer a question that had lain unanswered at the back of my mind for many years, a puzzle, I suspect for many who had tried to work out Paul's theory for his missionary enterprise in central Anatolia. Why did Paul strike so far inland to such a remote place as Pisidian Antioch to launch that 'First Mission'? What possible reason could he have had for ignoring ministry opportunities in the numerous Roman settlements in Pamphylia, cities like Perge, Attalia, Side or Aspendos? Or, why did he not sail on round the corner into the ports of the Aegean, Ephesos for example, or Troas, or Philippi or Corinth where was destined to come within a few years? Why struggle up through the daunting Taurus Mountains along a narrow Roman road to such an out of the way place as Antioch-in-Pisidia?

At last my dream is a reality. A once in a lifetime opportunity has come. With my wife Anita and good friends Greg and Margaret Shepherd we drive from Ankara across the treeless plains of Anatolia through Konya to Yalvaç in the rolling high country bounded by the Sultan Dagh range and Lake Egidir. By great privilege we were the guests for the day of the distinguished archaeologist Dr Mehmet Tashlialan, Director of the Museum at Yalvaç and Supervisor of the 'dig' at ancient Antiocheia since 1979.

During that memorable day we drive up to the stony remains of the Temple of Men 2,000 metres above Yalvaç / Antioch surrounded on all sides by distant snow capped peaks. Beneath us are patches of cultivation and groves of walnut and apricot about to burst into blossom. We catch glimpses of Lake Beyshehir to the south east and Lake Egedir to the south west. Then from the south I see the road that St Paul must have traveled up from Perge on the coast. In my imagination I see him with his companion Barnabas on horseback riding towards Roman city Pisidian Antioch to the west of our high vantage point just beyond the present town, Yalvaç.

'Can you help me with my question, Mehmet,' I ask the scholar. 'Why did St Paul come here, to Antioch-in-Pisidia '?

He replies immediately. 'When you understand Antiocheia you will understand why he came.'

A long time admirer of St Paul, Mehmet has retraced the steps of the Christian apostle from Perge to the city below us. And he knows why Paul came here. Mehmet 's great predecessor in Antioch was Sir William Ramsay who visited the site repeatedly between 1880 and 1920. Ramsay thought that Paul had contracted Malaria in the swampy lowlands around Perge on the Pamphylian Plains. (This was Paul's famous but unidentified 'thorn in the flesh' according to Ramsay.) Mehmet gives some credence to the 'Malaria' hypothesis. But I have problems. The book of Acts conveys a sense of high intention: 'Paul came to Perge ... and passing through from Perge came to Pisidian Antioch...' He came to Perge for one reason, to travel on to Antioch. But was that the reason?

Ramsay had correctly identified Pisidian Antioch as a Roman colony, as Colonia Caesareia Antiocheia but he had mis-identified critical elements of the site, for example, the Temple of Augustus. Above all, because he did not do much actual excavation and cleaning of stone he underestimated significantly the size and importance of the ancient city. For Ramsay, Antiocheia was 'an unsightly ruin' and a 'desolate site.' By these words the immensely influential Ramsay unintentionally yet effectively deflected interest of three generations scholars from this place , that is, until the arrival of Dr Mehmet Tashlialan in 1979. Throughout the intervening years this scholar has worked closely with a number of international scholars, including the eminent Dr Stephen Mitchell.

While others before him worked on tangential issues like surviving sculptures and inscriptions, Mehmet applied himself more fundamentally to digging and cleaning within the established perimeters of the site so as to establish the outlines of the city. Dispel all cinema images of Indiana Jones with stockwhip riding into then out of romantic antique temples. The real work of archaeology is mundane, trivial, time consuming and painfully exacting.

What Dr Mehmet and his accociates have established reveals a very different city from that envisaged by Ramsay and those of his generation. We are now able to enter by the remains of a majestic triple gate to walk on the Cardo Maximus past a theatre seating fifteen thousand and a massive bath house to come to the pinnacle of the city, a huge Temple to Augustus himself set in a substantial open space. This was a city whose greater population must have exceeded one hundred thousand, which was home to no less than two legions and many thousands of legionary veterans. Augustus established it in 29 BC in the immediate aftermath of the critical battle of Actium in 31 BC by which he became the undisputed ruler of the Roman world. The signs of Actium's victory are everywhere to be seen.

A symbol of Antioch's greatness was the discovery that this city was one of the few to be honoured with the Emperor Augustus' inscription of his many achievements, his so-called Res Gestae, proudly on view at the Museum. In short, 20 years of painstaking labour on Ramsay's 'desolate site' has revealed a large, elegant and very important city. On entering this colony of Rome the traveller met Rome herself, in embryo as it were. Moreover, it is now clear that it was the hub of important converging roads from the south and the north, but more significantly from the west to the east. It is no exaggeration to say that for the overland traveller from the east Pisidian Antioch was the gateway to Rome.

Dr Tashlialan's 20 years of hard work on the site itself have made plain what remained obscured from Ramsay, despite 40 years familiarity with it. Now it is clear to Mehmet and to anyone who visits Antiocheia why St Paul came here. Paul came here because it was the first steppingstone from the east to Rome, the world-centre of the Gentiles, which he longed to visit to establish the Christian religion there. He sailed from Paphos in Cyprus to the coast of Pamphylia up the Kestros river to Perga the chief city of Pamphylia for only one reason, to travel through the Taurus mountains to come to Pisidian Antioch so that, having established Christianity in that city and its satellites, he could begin to move westwards to other Roman centres ulimately to arrive at the Eternal City, Rome, of which he was a free-born citizen.

But this prompts another question. 'Why did he come by that route? Why did he come via Cyprus? Why not from Tarsus through the Taurus by the 'Cilician Gates' as he did on his two subsequent visits to the now-established churches in Pisidia and Lycaonia?'

Mehmet also knows the answer to this question. Again the patient labours of the archaeologist provide the clue. In the Museum in Yalvaç he points to two inscriptions, one of which very visibly has a name that rivets my eyes to the stone. It is the name 'Sergius Paullus.' This is the name of the Senate-appointed Proconsul of the Province of Cyprus, whom St Paul had visited a few weeks prior to his arrival in Antiocheia. It is not clear from the inscriptions whether it was Sergius paulus himself or a son or grandson. But it is clear from two inscriptions that the Paulli family were domiciled in this city.

'The Paulli family were quite a force in this district,' comments Mehmet. In a flash it becomes clear - to me at least - why St Paul initially came to Antiocheia via Cyprus rather than by the overland route. Paul knew that he would need some kind of protection and patronage when he preached the controversial new religion in Antiocheia, especially in view of the the large and influential Synagogue community in the city, which included a substantial 'God-fearer' group. He visited Cyprus in the hope of some support from the governor who for the one year of his proconsular tenure was accessible to him ahead of a journey to a strategic region where that man and his family were highly influential. As it happened things turned out better than Paul may have dreamed. Sergius Paulus was converted to Christianity, historically the first public official in the empire to do so.

Suddenly something else falls into place for me. In Cyprus, upon meeting Sergius Paulus Saul of Tarsus changed his name to Paul, the name by which he will be forever known. Saul had been a Christian and a missionary for no less than 14 years. Why does he now change his name? Was it because he wished to acknowledge the moment when a Roman Proconsul adopted the new faith? Was it because he was now seriously headed Rome-wards and needed a Roman rather than a Jewish name? (Nonetheless, Paulus was a relatively uncommon Roman name). Was it because he wished to acknowledge the Paulli family in some special way in view of his intended visit to the Pisidian city where this family was prominent? One reason merges with the other, but the latter most likely was uppermost in the mind of St Paul.

The patient spade of Dr Mehmet Tashlialan of Yalvaç has now answered questions which have long puzzled readers of the Bible. We now know why he came of Pisidian Antioch, why he came there initially by way of Cyprus and - most probably - why at that time in that place he changed his name to Paulus.

The Importance of Paul for the Historical Jesus

For some time now it has been claimed - rightly I think - that a "new quest" for the historical Jesus is under way. [1]

Overwhelmingly, the historical Jesus now sought is Jesus the Jew, Jesus who can be demonstrated to fit into the increasingly well-known environment of first century Judaism.

Such scholars are sociologically aware as well as knowledgeable in the history of the period. They often tend to locate Jesus in one or other of the streams of the Judaism of that period. Jesus is seen as a Pharisee or a zealot or an Essene. [2]

Although, as the following sample shows, unanimity is lacking as to their opinion of Jesus' identity, the "new quest" scholars tend to classify Jesus as some kind of rabbi or prophet. [3] For Vermes (1973) Jesus was a Galilean charismatic rabbi, "Jesus the just man...zaddik...helper, healer..teacher and leader." Wilcox (1982) saw Jesus as a hasid, a devout rabbi broadly, but not uncritically, part of the Pharisaic movement. E.P. Sanders (1985) determined that Jesus was an eschatological prophet of a soon-to-appear kingdom. Horsley and Hanson (1985), for their part, regarded Jesus as some kind of a prophet - an oracular prophet or a sign prophet. [4]

It can be said that among the "new quest" scholars there is a significant if not dominant weight of opinion which views Jesus in humanistic terms as no more than a "charismatic" figure of first century Judaism and not as the NT confesses him to be, the incarnate Son of God. [5]

Such low views of Jesus' identity are by no means new. In the eighteenth century the German scholar Reimarus reached broadly similar conclusions. [6] Indeed, as early as the third century after Christ, the anti-Christian polemicist Porphyry wrote

Jesus is to be honoured as the wisest of men;
he is not to be worshipped as God. [7]

In reply, orthodox believers might point to the many confessions of Jesus as the Son of God within the Epistles [8] and also to the Gospels' clear presentation of Jesus to the reader in those terms. [9] The rejoinder - typically - would be that the early church transformed the "Jesus of history" into the "Christ of faith." In effect, this would mean that Jesus as he was is significantly different from the Christ whom believers came to confess and worship. The liberal scholars suggested that there was a ditch or gap between the Jesus of history and the church's Christ.

How was the Jewish Jesus of history transformed into the Christ of the church's faith ? The answer the liberal scholars gave could be summed up in just one word: "hellenization." [10] Hellenization means to make a person or a culture "Greek." Since the time of Alexander the Great (died 323 B.C.) Greek culture had permeated the eastern Mediterranean region. Greek religious culture believed in "gods many and lords many," as the Apostle Paul noted (1 Corinthians 8:5). It was by a "hellenizing" process, so these scholars argued, that the historical Jewish Jesus - the charismatic rabbi/prophet - came to be confessed by the church in exalted and hellenistic terms as "Son of God" and "Lord." This is because the notion of "sons of God" and "Lord" were deemed to be part of "hellenistic" but not Jewish culture of the period in question. [11]

If, in turn, one were to ask by what means or by whom did this process of the "hellenizing" of Jesus take place, the answer given by many would be: just one man - Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. By way of illustration, one recent author has evocatively entitled his book about Paul The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity. [12] But this is only to declare - in dramatic terms - what many, scholars and non-scholars alike have believed, namely that Paul was in fact the "mythmaker," the inventor of Christianity in the form in which it came to be received by the western world. This opinion was expressed by the popular medium of Scorcese's movie version of Kazantzakis' novel, The Last Temptation of Christ.

These scholars have certainly got one thing right - Paul is indeed critical to our understanding.

I now want to argue exactly the opposite case, however, that Paul's letters - so far from being the bridge from a Jewish to a "hellenistic" Jesus - are, in fact, a roadblock to such ideas. Here I could develop a case from what Paul himself wrote; his letters are historically the earliest written part of the New testament. Instead, however, I will concentrate not on Paul's own words but to words earlier than his which he quotes within his letters, in particular to words within First Corinthians, words - which says - he "received" from those before him. [13]

First Corinthians, written c. 55 is not the earliest letter to refer to such "received" information, to "traditions." The two Thessalonian letters, written c. 50, use the critical "tradition" vocabulary, suggestive of pre-Pauline material that Paul, in turn, had verbally "handed over" to the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:6; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 4:1). Among this pre-Pauline, un-Pauline [14] material the teaching about the unheralded nature of the parousia clearly originated in the teaching of the Master (1 Thessalonians 5:2; Matthew 24:42; Luke 12:39; [15] cf.1 Thessalonians 4:15).

The most probable moment Paul "received" such information was after his conversion at Damascus in the context of his baptismal instruction.

Before proceeding further, two important related chronological facts should be noted. One is that about seventeen years separated the first Easter A.D. 33 [16] from Paul's arrival in Corinth in A.D. 50. [17] Both these dates are now widely supported through research, the former in particular by two Cambridge astronomical scientists, Humphreys and Waddington. The other chronological fact is that fourteen years separates Paul's conversion from the beginnings of formal mission work among the Gentiles (Galatians 2:1,9). If to this period of fourteen years we add the two or three years it must have taken for Paul to reach Corinth we arrive at approximately the same span as between Jesus' Easter and Paul in Corinth - about 17 years. [18] If we regard Paul in Corinth in A.D. 50 as a fixed point and work back from there we conclude that Paul's conversion occurred very close in time to the first Easter, in all probability within less than a year of it.

Thus, contrary to widespread belief, Paul the Jew, Paul the Pharisee is actually a very early convert to Christ and he was converted on a road between Jerusalem and Damascus, only several days distant. Paul is not a Greek converted many years later at a place geographically and culturally remote from Israel.

This closeness in time between Paul's conversion and the historic Jesus - which is not often given the weight it deserves - has two profound implications for the integrity of those traditions which Paul was to "receive." First, traditions about Jesus formulated within the Jerusalem church in so brief a period are unlikely to have been distorted precisely because the period was so brief. [19] Second, it would be incredible if such traditions did not reflect the mind of the Master who had been so recently with the disciples.

Turning now to traditions embedded within1 Corinthians, which - explicitly or implicitly [20] Paul had "received" - we note four teachings:

i. The husbands and wives among God's holy people should not separate, but if they do, they must remain unmarried or else be reconciled (7:12-13; Mark 10:2-10).

ii. Those who proclaim the gospel should get their living through the gospel (9:14; Luke10:7; Matthew 10:10).

iii. On the night of his betrayal Jesus spoke words and took actions with a loaf and a wine cup which pointed to his death for his disciples, words and actions, he said, they were to "do in remembrance of [him]" (11:23-26; Mark 14:22-25).

iv. A four-part formula was the basis both of the apostles' proclamation and the church's credo (15:11), namely:
that Christ had died for the sins of his people according to the scriptures,
that he had been buried, [21]
that he had been raised on the third day according to the scriptures
and that he had appeared to persons listed on a number of occasions (15:3-5).

The closeness in time of these traditions to Jesus makes it probable that they reflect Jesus' own teachings and self-disclosure in the following areas:

1. Jesus saw himself to be the Messiah of Israel whose mission was in fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures.

2. Jesus regarded his death as the instrument by which he dedicated the Twelve forgiven, to God as the seed of the new covenant people of God. Since the "three day" tradition is deeply rooted in the sayings of Jesus it is likely that he foresaw his resurrection after "three days." [22]

3. Jesus envisaged his continuing covenant people "remembering" him in a cultic meal.

4. Jesus foresaw a continuing covenant people whose families would observe a stringent marital code.

5. Jesus anticipated ongoing work of mission and therefore of missionaries and their need to be financially supported through their work.

But these teachings about Jesus from the earliest faith community, the Jerusalem church - which we regard as historically secure because of the brevity factor and which almost certainly reflect or are consistent with Jesus' own view of himself and his mission - are very different from the reconstructions of the scholars within the "new quest" school who diminish Jesus, regarding him as nothing more than a charismatic rabbi or prophet, lacking uniqueness of any kind. [23] Doubtless there were numerous other such teachings "received" by Paul from the Jerusalem church and "handed over" to the Corinthians. It was only because of aberrations regarding the practice of the Lord's Supper and of belief in regard to the resurrection of the dead that caused Paul to rehearse those matters in 1 Corinthians. It is reasonable to argue that there were many other "traditions" about Jesus and from the Jerusalem church which are unmentioned because there was no pastoral need to do so.

In passing, it is worth noting that in the general period of Jesus there were a number of "charismatic" leaders with substantial followings - e.g. Judas the Galilean, Barabbas the revolutionary, Theudas the prophet - in each case their movements ceased with deaths of the leader. By contrast the followers of Jesus continued as a movement after his death. There is no break in continuity between Jesus and the disciples from the ministry period and the birth of the first church in Jerusalem. Our argument here is that the early tradition referred to by Paul corroborates the general picture of Jesus presented in the gospels as opposed to the humanist reconstructions in the minimizing stream of the "new quest."

More could be said. One could point, for example, to the Aramaic words - abba, mara [24] - embedded in Paul's letters. These words - because they are in the vernacular Aramaic - reflect the influence of the earliest Jewish faith community on the apostle Paul in critical aspects of Christ's identity ("Son of God" and "Lord") which are supposedly of Hellenistic cultural influence. But these words reflect the Aramaic - not the Hellenistic origin - of Jesus (1) as the "Son" of his Abba, Father and (2) as the "Lord" who was invoked marana tha "Lord, come [back]." [25] While the dating of Paul's exposure to these aramaisms about Jesus is less secure than the traditions embedded in 1 Corinthians, along with with those traditions they point consistently to a Jewish not a Hellenistic well-spring. That well-spring - almost certainly - was the Jerusalem church, which in turn - because of the brevity factor - must have been sourced by Jesus himself. These words strongly imply that Jesus was invoked as Mara and the God of Israel as Abba, his Father. Prayer to the Father was through the Son, in whose name the Amen - another Aramaism - was uttered. [26] Reconstructions of Jesus merely as a charismatic rabbi/prophet of first century Judaism cannot explain these pre-Pauline Aramaisms which individually and together imply an early, "high" Christology, which are specifically un-hellenistic, but Jewish, in character.

This line of argument serves to point up the importance of Paul. It should not pass unnoticed that not only are the "received" traditions from and about Jesus very early, going right back to the immediate aftermath of Jesus and beyond that to the ministry of the Master himself, Paul's letters are themselves early. Indeed, their earliness is not in dispute. Whatever the uncertainties of dating the Gospels-Acts, the letters of Paul are almost universally agreed to have been written c. A.D. 48-65. The importance of Paul is that his letters and the non-Pauline, pre-Pauline traditions from and about Jesus which Paul had "received" stand as a roadblock against whatever heterodox views of Jesus may be raised against him.

Notes:
1. See e.g. N.T. Wright, "Jesus, Israel and the Cross," Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers (1985), 70-95. In the nineteenth century there was considerable interest in the historical Jesus which was, however, severely criticized first by Schweitzer and later by Bultmann. In the post war era the was a mild re-emergence of interest in the historical Jesus by Bultmann's students (e.g. Bornkamm). Thus the present movement has been called the "third quest" for the historical Jesus.

2. E.g. M. Wilcox, "Jesus in the Light of his Jewish Environment," ANRW ii (1982), 131-195.

3. See generally P.W. Barnett, The Two Faces of Jesus (Sydney: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990), also the review in L. Swidler, "Contemporary Implications of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue on Jesus Christ," Dialogue and Alliance 2/3 (1988), 95-116.

4. For references to Vermes, Wilcox, Sanders, Horsley/Hanson and others see Barnett, Op. cit.

5. The "new quest" is useful in giving us a clearer understanding of the man Jesus, a Jew in a Jewish culture. The un-Jewish picture of Jesus in children's books and Sunday School halls with long fair hair and blue eyes is clearly untrue and unhelpful. The insistence that Jesus is both fully human - as a Jew - and fully divine must be upheld. In the earlier centuries the cultural pressure was to minimize his humanity. Since the Enlightenment, however, the cultural pressure is to minimize his deity in favour of his humanity. Just as orthodox believers had to contend for his humanity in the early centuries so believers today need to argue for his deity.
6. See C. Brown, Jesus in European Thought 1778-1860 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), 3-6.

7. Quoted R. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 145.

8. See V. E. Neufeld, The Earliest Christian Confessions (Leiden: Brill, 1963).

9. See e.g. E. Lemcio, "The Intention of the Evangelist Mark," NTS 32/2 (1986) 187-206.

10. For a brief survey of this and related hypotheses see I.H.Marshall, The Origins of New Testament Christology (Leicester: IVP, 1977).

11. This notion, which is associated with Bousset and his famous pupil Bultmann, has been challenged by M. Hengel, The Son of God (London: SCM, 1976). See also L.W. Hurtado, One God One Lord (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988); R.T. France, "The Worship of Jesus: A Neglected Factor in Christological Debate ?" in Christ the Lord ed. H.H. Rowdon (Leicester: IVP, 1982).

12. H. Maccoby (London:Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1986).

13. See A.M. Hunter, Paul and His Predecessors, (London: SCM, 1961); B. Gerhardsson, The Origins of the Gospel Traditions (London: SCM, 1979).

14. So Hunter, Op. cit. 129.

15. Revelation 3:3; 16:15; cf. Hunter, Op. cit. 126-127.

16. A.D. 33 is the date favoured here for the crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus. See C.J. Humphreys & W.G. Waddington, Nature 306 (1983), 743-746; Nature 348 (1990), 684.

17. See C.J. Hemer, "Observations on Pauline Chronology," in Pauline Studies ed. D.A. Hagner and M.J. Harris (Exeter: Paternoster,1980), 6-9. For a survey of opinion on Pauline chronology see A.J.M. Wedderburn, "Some Recent Pauline Chronologies," Expos. Times 92/4 (1981), 103-108.

18. It is difficult to envisage a period much less than 17 years elapsing between Paul's call/conversion and his arrival in Corinth:
a. Fourteen years separated his call/conversion and the missionary meeting in Jerusalem (assuming Paul is calculating this as from his conversion). At this meeting it was agreed that Barnabas and Saul should "go" to the Gentiles (Galatians 2:1,7-9). Because part years were then counted as full years it is possible that the period may have been not much more than 13 years.
b. An estimated 2-3 years must be allocated for all that happened between that missionary meeting in Jerusalem and his arrival in Corinth: Acts Antioch -> Cyprus & central Anatolia ->Antioch 13-14 Antioch -> Jerusalem -> Antioch 15 Antioch -> central Anatolia -> Mysia -> Macedonia -> Achaia -> Corinth 16-17

19. An observation made long ago by the distinguished historian of religions A.D. Nock rebutting the reconstructions of Bultmann. See A.D. Nock, "A Note on the Resurrection,"in Essays on the Trinity and Incarnation ed. A.E.J. Rawlinson (London: Longmans, 1933), 47-50.

20. The absence of the "received" vocabulary in regard to 1 Corinthians7:12-13 and 9:14 - or 1 Thessalonians 4:15 - is no reason to believe these sayings were "received" at a time later than the traditions in 11:23-26 and 15:3-5 where the "received" vocabulary is used. Most probably the disciples remembered well the Master's distinctive teaching about marriage, the support of the missionary and the sudden nature of the parousia so that such teachings were secure within the earliest tradition of the Jerusalem church when Paul the Christian first came to Jerusalem. On the sayings of Jesus in the writings of Paul see generally, D.L. Dungan, The Sayings of Jesus in the Churches of Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971); D.C. Allison, "The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels: The Pattern of the Parallels," NTS 28 (1982) 1-31.

21. It is sometimes claimed that Paul knows nothing of the "empty tomb" tradition so prominent in Mark 16 and John 20. It should be noted, however, that the verb translated "buried" really means "en-tombed" (ejtavfh). Although each evangelist prefers the word mnhmei'on as the location of Jesus' burial (Matthew 27:60;28:8; Mark 16:2,3,5,8; Lk 24:2,9,12,22,24; John 24:1,2,3,4,6,8,11), the word tavfo /taphos is also used by Matthew as a synonym (Matthew 27:61,64,66; 28:1). If Christ died and was "entombed," the implication surely is that when he was raised on the third day, the "tomb" was indeed empty. Thus the "received" tradition appears to exclude the notion that the "appearances" of the risen Lord were in some merely visionary or subjective manner. The "entombment" confirms both the reality of the Messiah's death and, when taken the "appearances," confirms the physical reality of his bodily resurrection.

22. John. 2:19; Lk. 13:31-35; Matthew.12:40-41; Mark. 8:31;9:31;10:34. By contrast the "first day" rests in the narrative rather than the sayings' tradition (Mark 16:2; John 20:1; cf. John 20:19,26; 1 Cor 16:2; Acts 20:7).

23. So E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, (London:SCM, 1984), 240, 318,320.

24. Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 16:22.

25. Revelation 22:20.

26. 2 Corinthians 1:20.