home | page down | next page

Archive




The New Testament in Detail
A Cartography of the Ecstatic and Meditative States
Cosmic Ray Muons and Relativistic Time Dilation

 

the New Testament in detail (see also The New Testament)

"vanae voces populi non sunt autiendae - the vain voice of the people is not to be listened to"
(Codex Justinianus IX:47, 12).

"Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord. But he shall not remain more than one day; or two days, if there's a need. But if he remains three days, he is a false prophet. And when the apostle goes away, let him take nothing but bread until he lodges. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet. But not every one who speaks in the Spirit is a prophet; and every prophet who orders a meal in the Spirit does not eat it, unless he is indeed a false prophet. And every prophet who teaches the truth, but does not do what he teaches, is a false prophet. Whoever says in the Spirit, "Give me money," or something else, you shall not listen to him"
(Didache, Chapter 11).

"Foxes have holes, and birds have their nests; but the Son of man has not where to lay his head"
(Lk. 9:52).

            
I. the canon 
II. the story
III. Jesus
IV. narrative ploys
V. his credentials
VI. Judas
VII. Jesus' arrest
VIII. the session of the Sanhedrin
IX. Pilate
X. witnesses 
XI. the trial
XII. execution

            
XIII. release of the corpse 
XIV. interment 
XV. "resurrection" 
XVI. Peter 
XVII. John the Evangelist
XVIII. Paul
XIX. second coming
XX. "Q" 
XXI. Cerinthus (c. 80-80 AD)
Bibliography
appendix I: biblical homophobia
appendix II: triads in Matthew

I. the canon
In 115 AD concerted insurrections broke out in the Jewish Diaspora of Cyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt. Supported and perhaps orchestrated from across the border (Dio, Epitome LXVIII p.421), this left Emperor Trajan little choice but to launch a military campaign against the Parthian empire (modern Iraq). The extremely atrocious upheavals - "like wolves trying to pass as believers and biting like rabid dogs, these weeds of the devil" - became somehow the cause for a bishop of Antioch, Ignatius (c.115 AD), to turn himself over to the authorities.

Under heavy escort he was sent to Rome to face execution. We have letters from his last journey. Ignatius refers to Paul, language and style remind of John's letters, but there is no evidence that Ignatius was aware of anything else from the New Testament. There is no mention of persecution and apostles, but he expresses the believe, that "these are the last times" (Ignatius - Eph. 11:1) and speaks of a cosmic Christ, "who was with the Father before all ages."

So the birth and death of Christ had been kept secret from the Prince of this World:

"How then was our Savior manifested to the world? A star shone in heaven beyond all the other stars. Sun and Moon were his chorus. And the human race was troubled about this new star so unlike others. And man's ignorance was taken away and the old kingdom abolished (Ignatius - Eph. 11:1, 14:2)."

This is a sentiment, quite similar to John the Evangelist's proclamation: that the end is not just imminent, but occurring right now (Jn. 5:25).

In a way it was. From 132 to 135 AD, Emperor Hadrian's generals suppressed in a torched earth campaign Bar-Kokhba's insurrection in Al-Qaeda style (Dio, Epitome LXIX p.447-449). Jerusalem was rebuild as a Roman garrison under a new name: "Aelia Capitolina." It became off-limit for Jews who had again lost their statehood and until 1948 remained to be a people without country. The next blow came from the renewal of Domitian's legislation against ostentatious extravagance by the emperors Nerva and Anthony Pius (Dio, Epitome LXVII p.319).

To make the acquisition of eunuchs more difficult, these laws prohibited circumcision as a form of castration. Medically this made little sense, even then, but this doesn't mean that the intention was misunderstood. Mosaic law is listing a mere 36 crimes as punishable by death. But of these 36 crimes, exactly one half are "crimes" involving sex, so in contrast to other legal systems the Hebrews developed the notion that crime and sex were intimately related. Unlike Greek, Egyptian, and other civilized nations, the Hebrews held the view that sex, the sex organs, and nudity were shameful.

In Levi. 18.6-19 there are as many as 12 prohibitions relating entirely to nakedness and most of the death-deserving laws occur in the context of "the uncovering of one's nakedness," whether for erotic purposes or on the precinct of Yahweh's real estate. (Ex. 20.26, 28.42). Whereas the Greek term for male genitals, medea, has no positive or negative connotations, the Hebrew term, erva, means "hideous flesh."It is a symbolic form of genital mutilation and has virtually no justification in terms of hygiene.

I myself noticed with interest, that it is usually the mother, who is most insistent in having this thing performed on her sons. The texts containing these prohibitions date from the 5th century BC, when a committed section of expatriates returned from Babylonian Captivity. It was a time of almost Maccabeean zeal and to assure the political and cultural survival, the Jewish leadership did everything to set themselves apart from the Babylonians, Canaanites, Egyptians, and later the Greek.

"Ritual nakedness" and ritual masturbation before the idol was a predominant feature in the other cultures, practices for which the Mishnah and Talmud prescribed stoning to death, as does Leviticus. (However this did not stop the rabbis to open a loophole for the common practice of pederasty: it was agreed that 13-year-old sodomites (i.e. minors) were not guilty of a crime because the Biblical phrase "men with mankind" referred only to adult males. The relationship between Jonathan and David was cited as precedent. (* see below, appendix I).

So Domitian's laws inevitably collided with Jewish legislation - however it affected only the Gentiles; Jews were exempt to practice the faith of their forbears. But it made it inadvertently a criminal offense to proselytize for the Jewish faith (Dio, Epitome LXVIII p.361) and effectively ended the already troubled partnership between Synagog and Christian sectarians. The idea of a parousia occurring in the present lost its Jewish proponents, the cosmic Christ no longer held the political aspect of a national Jewish Messiah and the tenet of his imminent arrival became obsolete (2. Peter 3:4).

Before the breakup, Christians, including Paul (Acts 16:3, 21:26), used to observe Jewish law, paid temple tax, and yielded to the jurisdiction of the Synagog (Acts 2:46; Mt. 5:23, 10:17, 17:24-27; Mk. 13:9). In fact early Christian mission would have been virtually impossible, if unsupported by the network of synagogs (Acts 14:1). Now the Church was on her own and the world still waiting to see a "second coming." The new independence inspired a cottage industry of Christian scripture.

In 130 AD, a certain Marcion of Sinope (c. 84-160), in an attempt to collect in a canon crucial material for his, as it turned out, "Gnostic" mission, had put together the letters of Paul and one unidentified gospel without nativity story and genealogies. However, in 144 AD, Marcion's membership card was revoked and the Church expelled the man for his Gnostic views and rejection of the Old Testament. Marcion went next door and opened his own church which continued to flourish for four centuries. But his legacy remained with the Church and became the seed for our "New Testament."

For centuries the content continued to fluctuate and at times included such items as "The Shepherd of Hermas," or the "Letter of Barnabas." The councils also hesitated to accept Cerinthus' "Revelations" because Cerinthus too was deemed a heretic. So the way to make "Revelations" acceptable, was to falsely ascribe authorship to John the Evangelist (Eusebius Ecclesiastic History III, 28:1-2). Not one complete copy of the canon antedates Diocletian's persecution from 303 to 311 AD, which went not just after people but also burned their books.

What date should we put to the gospels? I wonder whether this question had ever been objectively considered. There is an unfortunate tendency to shift about the date of authorship according to the doctrinal or theoretical bias of the critic. A frequent cop-out is the "canonical" position simply not to care what the author initially had meant to say and to take it from the final editor's hands. But texts have their own history and they use references. For instance Matthew obviously incorporated the entire Mark in the original order of entries, while Luke is more high-handed in the arrangement but quotes from Mark almost verbatim.

How do we know, Mark is not an extract from Matthew, as St. Augustine (354-430) thought it to be? We know it from the way Matthew consistently structures his own material in triadic groups. For instance Mt. 5:21-44 divides itself into two groups of three members each. Mt. 6:1-18 treats three subjects: almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Mt. 6:19-7:12 contains two more triads, all in perfect parallelism. And this kind of structuring his materials is not just confined to the Sermon on the Mount. Wherever Matthew goes his own way apart from Mark, he composes in tripartite units.

Three consecutive parables of growth (Mt. 13:24-30, 31-33) are introduced by a formula and Mt. 13:24-33 is followed by a small interpretative discourse (Mt. 13:34-43) which in turn is succeeded by a second triadic grouping (Mt. 13:44, 45-46. 47-50). The gospel opens with a title concerning three names (Jesus, David, Abraham), followed by a genealogy partitioned into three sections. Follow three infancy stories (Mt. 1:18-25; 2:1-12; 2:13-23). Chapter 3 about John the Baptist and Jesus introduces John (Mt. 3:1-6), his message (Mt. 3:7-12) and narrates the baptism (Mt. 3:13-17 * * see below appendix II).

However try as we might, we are unable to unearth any significant triads in the narrative material joining up with Mark after chapter 13. Matthew and Mark travel the same road beginning with Mt. 14:1 which concurs to Mk. 6.14. The point at which the two join up is precisely the point where Mt. ceases to exhibit triadic groups. In other words: when the author of Matthew composes on his own, he composes in triads; when he follows Mark the triads disappear. This makes it very difficult to uphold a primacy of Matthew over Mark.

For starters: it debunks the phoney traditions from the second century about the authorship of the gospels. It is generally agreed that Mark's gospel is not a translation, but was originally written in Greek. But the scholar's pet-witness, a certain Papias (about 120 AD) speaks of an Aramaic Matthew which preceded Mark before it was translated into Greek (Eusebius Ecclesiastic History III, 39:15-16). Papias was very fond of pointing out how recent the hearsay testimonies were he collected - which makes them as late as his own time - but this is not his only mistake:

It is simply inconceivable that a primary Semitic document such as Papias claimed Mt. to be, would have incorporated a Greek document (the gospel of Mark) almost in its entirety. It is even less conceivable, that a reputed companion of Jesus himself, would have allowed the Greek gospel of Mark to determine the order and content of his materials, when Mark was neither a companion himself, nor, according to Tertullian (Adversus Marcion 4:11), a Jew. The language is always a dead give away. Like the books of the Maccabees, Matthew was written in Greek by a thoroughly hellenized Jew.

The earliest surviving witness to at least parts of the canon as we know it, is a harmony of all four gospels from 174 AD, the "Diatessaron" by the radical apologist Tatian. Tatian chose for his composition the structure and chronology of John. Our earliest piece of extant manuscript is a tiny papyrus snippet of John's Gospel from c.125 AD (John Ryland's Greek 457). A possible marker for the actual date of composition for the synoptic gospels could be Mt. 15:1-2; Mk. 7:2 5; Lk. 11:37 38, which refer to the washing of hands before meals.

This was set down as a rule of law by El'azar ben Aralah in c. 80 AD, ten years after the fall of the temple. It remained controversial long after, whether its observance was a "mitzvah," a commandment:

"As the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel, but now a man's table atones for him" (B.Yoma 79b, Brachot 14b-15a, 55a).

Attempts to fill gaps in our tradition with witness-quotations from the Patristic literature of the period confronts us with a liberal choice of quotes from "scripture" that later ages declared to be "apocryphal," or which can't even be verified as "scripture," because the source is lost for us, it has turned out to be impossible to establish the root-quote for Jn. 7:38, Lk. 24:46, 1 Cor. 15:3-4, Mt. 27:9-10 and Mt. 2:23, which however are referred to as "scripture."

The gospels like the rest of the canon are layered texts, each stratum created in response to needs and criticisms of the current recipients. Apparently it was a slow editorial process, and analysis shows a gradual shift from a mouth-frothing fire and brimstone preacher, to the "prince of peace" with his haversack full of nuggets of wisdom picked from the Pharisee Rabbi Hillel and mendicant stoics (* * * see below appendix III & IV).

II. the story
Since about 200 BC, probably generated in the wake of Alexander the Great's Hellenistic reforms, the religiously minded began to agonize over the idea, that in the eternal bout between good and evil, this, our world, had fallen to the wrong side. Uncounted varieties of proto-Manicheism cropped up, inspired religious movements and tarnished the outlook, philosophies, and thoughts of the period. So from 30 AD to 315 AD a continuation to the "Maccabees" and the apocalyptic literature from "Daniel" to Qumran took shape: the "New Testament."

Like most of the Bible it went through stages of extended editing and over the centuries the original thrust changed its direction. But it began as a voice of anti-Roman sentiment. According to Mommsen, "Revelations" depicts the Emperors a "a great red dragon," with seven heads: Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero (the 5 who "are fallen,") Vespasian (the "one who is,") and Domitian ("the other not yet to come," Rev. 17:10). The ten horns of the beast are the Emperor's magistrates in the eastern provinces (Rev. 12:3, 17:12).

The mysterious individual, who under Vespasian's reign came forward in the East, and claimed to be the returning emperor Nero (Sueton: Nero, Tacitus Histories I:2), was hoped to stir up the Euphrates states (Rev. 9:14, 16:12) into war with Rome, "the Mother of Harlots and Abominations" (Rev. 17:5). In apocalyptic terms he is styled "the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition" (Rev. 17:11). It would be the signal for the Orient's joint attack on the West.

After Armageddon (Rev. 16:16) the kingdoms of this world would return into the fold of the Lord and his emissary (Rev. 11:15) and all time come to an end (Rev. 21:1-2).

"I am come to send fire on the earth, suppose ye that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, Nay!" (Lk. 12:49, 51) "The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Mt. 13:41).

However this was still music for the future - albeit thought to be imminent (Mk. Mark 9:1, 13:30; 1 Cor. 15:51, 52; 1 Thes. 4:13-17). But the gospels themselves started with a different schedule in mind. According to the initial concept as represented by Jn. 14:11, 20-21, 17:22; Lk. 4:16 21. The story in Jn. 2:7-10 like all the other "miracles" is an apt metaphor for an already fulfilled parousia (Jn. 1:45, 3:36, 5:14, 25-26, 39, 46, 6:47, 8:51, 11:25, 12:47, 14:6, 30, 16:33, 17:22; especially 21:23) So, "when the time was fulfilled" - past tense - God did send his emissary.

This emissary, himself a preexistent entity (which is an utterly Gnostic notion) on his arrival took on the guise of a human (Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:6ff; 2 Cor. 8:9; Jn. 1:14). His death on the cross, which he suffered like every other sinner (2. Cor. 5:21; Rm. 8:3) is supposed to be a ransom for the sins of the human race (Rm 3:23-26, 4:25, 8:3; 2 Cor. 5:14, 19; Jn. 1:29; 1 Jn. 2:2). His rise from the dead is a cosmic event which overpowers the demonic forces (1 Cor. 2:6; Rev. 12:7) and he takes his seat to the right hand of God (Acts 1:6, 2:33; Rm. 8:34) - clearly a separate being from God himself.

III. Jesus
Evidently nobody knew Jesus' date of birth. How else is to explain that John is placing the date before 10 BC (Jn. 2:20) and attaches it to a native of Galilee (Jn. 8:57) with Greek as his first language (Jn. 3.3), who is not at all known to be of Davidic stock (Jn. 7:41; 52), while Matthew and Luke (Mt. 2:1; Lk. 1:5) connect the birth date with Herod the Great's death in 4 BC? But then Luke suddenly has second thoughts (Lk. 2:2) and places a second birth date in the census in Judea under Quirinius, governor of the province of Syria in 6 AD. But contrary to Lk. 2:4, Galilee was not part of the census.

All the gospels give the impression of a rather young man except for Jn. 2:20 and 8:57 which suggests an already advanced age of 46, if we follow a rabbinical interpretation. Jn. 2:14 and 6:15 put Jesus - in the understanding of his time - at the center of a felony. His action on the Temple's precinct challenged the authority of the Temple's most important patron - the Roman Emperor: the Temple performed a daily sacrifice on behalf of the Emperor and received an imperial donative to cover the costs.

So it is a bit of a mystery, why the Temple's authorities had failed to proceed instantly against Jesus (Jn. 2:14; Mt. 21:12-13; Mk. 11:18; Lk. 19:47), but Jn. 6:15 unequivocally explains the inscription on the cross. From a Roman perspective we are looking at an indictment for lèse-majesté. His actions and utterances, not only in Mt. 5:23-24 and Mt. 17:24 (the Temple tax demanded at Capernaum) present us with a Jesus who apparently was deeply concerned with his participation in the Temple cult, which by itself, if nothing else, is a testimony for authenticity, given the unimportance of the temple for later Christianity.

Even after the incidents in Jn. 2:14 and 6:15 and with the authorities looking for him, Jesus continued year after year to risk apprehension and to celebrate the holidays in Jerusalem (Jn. 5; Jn. 11 etc.). Notice especially Jn. 7:8-10:

"then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret,"

presumably after his companions, who had arrived in Jerusalem before him, gave the all clear (Jn. 7:10). But

"the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, where is he?"

There is certainly a political aspect to Jn. 6:15. If put on a map, - Engev-Hippos in the Decapolis - the feeding of the five thousand has all the appearance of a political rally in the desert. For the rest of the time the gospels make Jesus live the life of an itinerant fugitive (Jn. 7:30, 44, 8:20, 59, 10:39, 12:36; Lk. 9:52). His itinerary included Galilee, Samaria, "all Syria" (Mt. 4:23) the Decapolis and beyond Jordan, the coasts of Caesarea Philippi (Mk. 7:24), the Phoenician coasts of Tyre up to Sidon in the north as well as Idumaea (Mk. 3:7, 8:27).

He appeared to have avoided contact with the authorities, whenever possible (Jn. 7:1; Mk. 7:24, 9:30), even went into hiding (Jn. 11:54; Mk. 7:36, 8:26). Whenever Samaritans are mentioned, the message is almost universally positive. In Lk. 10:33, the Samaritan qualifies as the good neighbor, Lk.17:12, has of all the cured lepers only the Samaritan come back and worship Jesus, and in Jn. 4:5 Jesus accepts a refreshment from a Samaritan woman of ill repute and then spends the day addressing her people (Jn. 4:3-4, 39-40).

Only John provides a convincing schedule for all of Jesus' activities:

       27 AD
Autumn: ............................................ John the Baptist     

       28 AD
March: .............................................. baptism of Jesus
April: ................................. Jesus in Cana and Capernaum
April 28 - May 5: ................... Jesus at Passover in Jerusalem
May: .......... Judea, arrest of John, Jesus' departure for Galilee
June - October: ..................................... Jesus in Galilee
October 23-31: .... Jesus in Jerusalem for festival of Tabernacles
November 28 - April 29: .......................... Jesus in Galilee        

       29 AD
Spring: ............................... execution of John the Baptist
April: ........... retreat into desert, feeding of the five thousand
April 18: ....................... Jesus at the Passover in Jerusalem
May-September: .............. Jesus in Phoenicia, Idumea, Galilee
October 12-19: ... Jesus in Jerusalem for festival of Tabernacles
November-December: ................. Jesus in Judea and Perea
December, 20-27: . Jesus in Jerusalem for festival of Dedication         

         30 AD
January - February: .................. Jesus in Bethany and Judea
March: ............................................. Jesus in Ephraim
April 2-6: ......................... Jesus in Bethany and Jerusalem
April 7: ............................... Jesus executed in Jerusalem

Since the year of execution is conjectural, the whole table shifts up and down, according to the chosen year. However if we look at the Baptist's execution as anchor point, the given data appear to be the most likely. Jesus, his companions, his brother James and the first 15 bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews; and the congregation over which they presided united the law of Moses with the apocalyptic doctrine of the descended Christ.

Jesus performed faith healing, preached in the Synagogs and drew fanatical crowds. His idiosyncratic knowledge of the scriptures and a prophetic "Gnosis" allowed him to assume authority, but "not as the scribes" (Mk. 1:22):

And the Jews marvelled, saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned? And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people" (Jn. 7:15; 7:11).

IV. narrative ploys
The eclipse after Jesus' demise on the night of Passover is a careless invention, since Passover is always falling on a full Moon. (The full Moon can never lie between the Sun and the Earth.) And how is it that in the synoptic gospels Jesus and his companions had already had their Passover meal, when Jesus was crucified before eve of the feast? As so often, only John makes sense, and makes it clear that the meal was nothing of the kind.

Then there is this abundance of figurative names which often in a nutshell give away an entire story, such as "Scariot" meaning "the Surrenderer," or "Lazarus," which means "God has helped." Even Jesus' own name can be translated to "Jehovah is salvation." Figurative names are age-old narrative ploys for fairy tales. Or take the tight schedule for Jesus' day at the office in Matthew. A single day stretches from chapter 5 to chapter 8:17 It includes the Sermon on the Mount, the healing of the leper, of the Centurion's son, and of Peter's mother in law.

The next day goes from Mt. 8:18 to 9:9 and the schedule is even tighter, containing the sayings about discipleship, the stilling of the storm, the demon exorcism in Gadara, and, after repeated sea crossings the healing of the paralytic and the calling of Matthew. It is useful to read this with an eye on the map and to remember that these people travelled on foot and didn't use speed boats. But Matthew obviously had neither a map nor any idea about time and localities. He didn't need to. His intention was to narrate a miraculous event.

Both Sabbath stories in Mt. 12:1-8 and 9:14, which Mark joins summarily with a simple "palin," occupy in Matthew just one day. Luke too digs himself a hole, when he struggles to squeeze his story into six hours (Lk. 22:66-23:46). Lk. 22:66 reports, that the Sanhedrin convened only at daybreak, in order to provide the meeting with legal status. So if we allow an hour for the meeting and half an hour for bringing Jesus from the high priest's house to Pilate's praeterium, then Pilate could have started the trial not earlier than half an hour before the third hour.

But Lk. 23:44-46 informs us that it was the sixth hour when Jesus had already been on the cross for some time (several hours at least to bring about his death) which leaves barely any time at all to account for the proceedings before Pilate. Yet for some reason Luke sees it necessary to pitch in an additional session before Herod, which wouldn't be possible even if we allow for Luke's altogether unfounded assumption that Herod and Pilate had taken residence in the same palace in Jerusalem, so that no time was to be lost to bring the prisoner to and fro.

V. his credentials
In essence all four gospels and many of the letters reflect on a doctrinal dispute over the messianic credentials of a convicted and crucified sectarian (Jn. 1:41, 4:25, 6:42, 7:26-27, 31, 41, 9:22, 10:24, 11:27, 12:34, 20:31). In Galilee a tiny group championed a certain Jesus as the Messiah (Mk. 9:2-10), and after his execution proclaimed his resurrection in bursts of emotional revivalism (Acts. 2:4; 1. Cor. 15:3-8; 2. Cor. 12:2-4). It seems a Davidic pedigree was required to qualify for the job. Yet John and Mark don't even try to bring Davidic lineage into the equation.

Jn. 7:41; 52 defends his champion against the valid objection that Jesus is neither of Davidic stock nor born in the right place (Jn. 8:48). Mark evades the problem altogether by referring to his hero's prowess as magician (Mk. 8:11; Lk. 11:20; Mk. 3:27 ff), and leaves it to demons and lepers to do the recognizing (Mk. 1:23; 10:47) This is really all that Jesus can say for himself, when asked to explain his activities (Mk. 3:27). Critics must have picked on this from early on, which makes Matthew and Luke the earliest apologies on record who mean to answer such criticism. Luke says so himself (Lk. 1:1-3).

Luke's apology addresses an Gentile audience, Matthew focuses more on rabbinical issues in an attempt for reconciliation with the Jewish communities before Bar-Kokhba. Consequently Matthew and Luke add the notorious genealogies and badly bungle it. But it was too late for reconciliation and the polemical exchange between the faiths had become more and more acrimonious. At the same time, satirists like Lucian, rabbinical polemics, Christian apologies and Gentile criticism would attack their respective opposition as imposters or "heretics."

I am not sure who came first, Celsus (Origin Contra Celsum 1:28) or rabbinical libels, to identify Jesus as the illegitimate son to a Roman solder, a Syrian Archer Pantera. The Mishnah cites a Rabbi Elizah ben Damah:

"Jacob came to heal him in the name of Yeshua ben Pantera, but he died being forbidden to do so."

Incidentally in 1859 near Bingerbrück on the Rhine, a tombstone from the first century was found, of a Roman soldier by the name Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera. The stone is now in the museum of Kreuznach.

The inscription reads:

"Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera of Sidon, aged 62, a soldier of 40 years' service, of the 1st cohort of archers, lies here" (Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, XIII, 7514 and Dessau, Inscriptiones selectae, 2571).

Pantera is specifically identified as a Sidonian and therefore probably an ethnic Phoenician. The first two words are the Roman name he was obliged to take when he was given Roman citizenship; "Abdes" is the Semitic name with which he was born, and "Pant(h)era" is his personal name. Opinions are divided whether the name Pandera, Pantera or Panthera is unusual or very common. Before the tombstone came to light it was thought to be a rabbinical invention.

But even if the name Pantera had been as common as it is now generally claimed, the odds are extremely long to actually find such grave not only from the right time, but in the logical location, and of an individual not only by the right name, but who was born and had served in all the right places. In 9 AD the Romans made a bid to extend their control over German territories to the river Oder, but a confederacy of Germanic tribes under Arminius annihilated three legions, and the Empire scrambled to plug the losses.

So Pantera was transferred from service in Caesarea to Germany, where he died a natural death. It tallies well with Jesus birth some twelve (or perhaps even twenty four) years earlier and the location of Pantera's barracks in Caesarea was only a brisk four hour's walk away from Nazareth. The Gospels themselves may have caused the rumor: there is this strange episode of a Roman centurion who asks Jesus for help (Mt. 8:5; Lk. 7:2) but displays remarkable sensitivity for the Jewish fear to defile themselves when they enter the home of a Gentile!

Commentators think he was an observant Gentile, i.e. a Gentile who attended the synagog and followed Jewish law. But how observant could an active officer be in the Roman army? In camp, he had every day to swear allegiance to the emperor and pray to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, as well as to the image of the emperor's genius. No observant Gentile would do that. Thing is, stories of a virgin-birth open themselves wide to any kind of ridicule and did so since the earliest times.

For instance why on earth had Matthew to include in his genealogy those women of ill repute, though women should not figure at all in a Jewish genealogy? The four women named are: Tamar, who seduced the father of her late husband; Rachel, a common prostitute; Ruth, who, instead of marrying one of her cousins, went to bed with another of them; and Bathsheba, an adulteress, who espoused David the murderer of her first husband (Mt. 1:3, 5, 6). Apparently even for Matthew a non-Jewish father was not completely out of the question.

And what should we think of Mary's relationship with a foreigner? In an orthodox neighborhood an "affair" could have spelled trouble (Deut. 22:23). But then, how orthodox was the place of Jesus' upbringing anyway? There might have been more to his Samaritan connections than meets the eye (Jn. 8:48). So if it wasn't an affair it could have been anything, even rape, in which case Deut. 22:27 provided a legitimate way of social damage control. The Talmud unequivocally accuses Mary of adultery. This is of course intentionally malicious slander.

But what can be expected? Even a regular Joe from Galilee, with Greek as his first language (Jn. 3.3), simply for the inevitable gaps in his biography would invite all sorts of gossip. Which is exactly the point: the historical Jesus had nothing to show for his messianic credentials. It apparently never ceased to rankle the mind of Mary's oldest son, who at times could be downright rude to his mother (Jn. 2:4; Mt. 12:48-49), and whenever the gospels make Jesus touch the subject of adultery, he expresses his disgust in no uncertain terms. (Mk. 10:5, 11, 12; Mt. 5:31, 32; Lk. 16:18; Jn. 4:17-18).

It is also worth noticing that the author of John never mentions by name Jesus' mother or, for that matter, her sister (Jn. 19:25)! However it is a curious fact that Jesus seems to have received financial support mostly from a group of women of diverse origin:

"And he went through every city and village, preaching the kingdom of God: and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Herod's steward, Susanna, and many others, ministered unto him of their substance" (Lk. 8:1).

VI. Judas
The Christian apologist Aristides in his address to the Emperor Antonius Pius (c.170 AD) speaks of twelve apostles in terms which negate the possibility that he had heard of Judas Iscariot as a traitor. So do all the other apocryphal narratives except for "The Narrative of Joseph of Arimathaea," and there Judas doesn't even figure as one of the twelve. In John there is nothing of any conspiracy between Judas and Jewish authorities, in fact Lk. 22:30 and Mt. 19:28 may indicate that the betrayal had been grafted on as a late addition.

VII. Jesus' arrest
The gospels disagree on the time of the Jewish trial. Mk. 14:55-64; Mt. 26:59-66 give a night trial before the Sanhedrin, Lk. 22:66-71 speaks of early morning, Jn. 18:19-21 turns the trial into an informal hearing. The gospels are even more at variance for the proceedings before Pilate. However there are also significant agreements:

1) Jesus was arrested at night,
2) brought to the high priest
3) and before Pilate next morning.
4) Jesus pleaded guilty to Pilate's charges
5) Pilate delivered Jesus to be crucified
6) Jesus was crucified together with two others.

Experts still debate the mere possibility of a Jewish trial. A session of the Sanhedrin at night, especially on the night to Passover, was strictly against the law. Would it not have been as simple as it was expedient for the Sanhedrin to keep their prisoner in custody until after the festival, as suggested in Mk. 14:2? Then why the rush? There is only one possible explanation: Pilate was already waiting to open proceedings. The governor must have known his man beforehand because he himself had issued the warrant of arrest.

We can be positive about this "fact" because according to Jn. 18:12 the arrest was carried out under the supervision of a Roman commanding officer. His presence would be inexplicable without orders by his superior. (Wellhausen.) So there must have been two warrants (Jn. 11:57), but the governor's had priority over the Sanhedrin's injunction. The most curious fact of the arrest is that an act of armed resistance should not have led to the additional arrest of Jesus' companions (Mt. 26:51; Mk. 14:47; Lk. 22:50; Jn. 18:10).

The disciple who drew his sword (why was he armed in the first place?) was allowed to go free. Such restraint calls for an explanation, but I have none. Finally: since the arrest was conducted by Roman troops on a warrant issued by Roman authorities, one would expect Jesus to be held in Roman custody. Instead he was handed over to the Jewish temple police. The explanation could lie in Jn. 11:57. Before the Romans would deal with their man, Jewish authorities were given an opportunity to have a word with him.

VIII. the session of the Sanhedrin
Jewish authorities had repeatedly tried to get a hold on Jesus (Jn. 7:30, 44, 8:20, 59, 10:39, 12:36), now they had Jesus in custody and interrogated him. Contrary to protestations at the trial (Jn. 18:31) the Sanhedrin did have the authority to pass capital punishment by means of stoning, burning, or slaying (see Acts 6:12; 7:59), as long as the defendant was not a Roman citizen or a verdict would not infringe on the governor's prerogative. So ironically the Roman warrant seemed to have protected Jesus from immediate legal prosecution by the council.

The gospels are unequivocal on the serious nature of Jesus' differences with the Jewish authorities, which affected even relations with the Roman occupants (Mk. 11:8, 14:1; Mt. 26:3; Lk. 22:1-2; Jn. 5:17, 10:30, especially 11:49-51). The Talmud too reflects a fundamental antagonism. Rabbi Hisda (Sanhedrin 103a) comments on Psalm 91:10

"Thou shalt have neither a son nor a disciple who will publicly let his food burn (forfeit his salvation in a public display) like did Jesus the Nazarene."

Rabbi Abbahu is even more explicit:

"If a man say unto thee "I am God" he lieth; if he saith "I am the Son of Man" he will live to regret his words; and if he says "I ascend into Heaven" he will not bring to pass that which he says."

The existence of a Roman warrant can only be inferred from the circumstances of Jesus' arrest, but Jn. 11:57 leaves no doubt about the existence of a Jewish warrant. Yet whatever the council may have held against Jesus, it had to wait till after the Roman trial.

Opinions are divided whether Pharisaic or Sadducean law applied to the proceedings. But Deut. 17:6 and 19:15 definitely render Mk. 14:59, 62, 64, and Mt. 26:59-60, 65-66 unlawful in every Jewish law court at any time in any place. John and Luke apparently had been aware of the difficulty. John therefore made of the Jewish "trial" an informal hearing, while Lk. 22:66; 23:7-12, and 23:44-46, in an attempt to minimize the impossibilities, actually makes it even worse and schedules too many appointments in too brief a span of time.

The gospels are also divided on what had happened in the High Priest's house. How could they not! Who was there to witness? In Lk. 22: 63-65 Jesus was held all night in atrocious custody and encountered the council only at daybreak (Lk. 22:66). Jn. 18:43 has Jesus led into the house of Annas first to be interrogated (Jn. 18:19-24). There nothing is reported to have taken place until they

"led Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgement of the Roman governor" (Jn. 18:28).

Only Mark and Matthew say that Jesus stood that night in the high priest's house, "before all the council." But no Sanhedrin was allowed to sit and try criminal cases in any private house outside the Temple's precinct (Deut. 17:10, 18). Furthermore, no person was to be convicted of a capital offence unless two lawfully qualified witnesses testify that they first had warned the defendant of the criminality of the act and the penalty proscribed for it (B Sanhedrin 8b and 80b; T Sanhedrin XI).

Even more important, Deut. 17:6, 19:15 makes it clear that no person may be convicted on his own testimony, or the strength of his own confession alone; probably a provision to deterr from interrogations under torture. (This could explain why the gospels make Pilate respond to Jesus' plea of guilt the way he does, although it has no ground in Roman law.) So what is the meaning of witnesses dismissed as untrustworthy (Mk. 14:59; Mt. 26:59-60) and a "verdict" based entirely on Jesus' own "confession" (Mk. 14:62-64; Mt. 26:65-66)?

The gospel's testimony seems to refute any idea of legal procedures and of a "Jewish trial," except we concur with the pagan critic Celsus, that Jesus had been condemned in absentia (which was not against the law) but had managed to escape the punishment (Origin, Contra Celsum 2:9-10), in which case the nocturnal hearing was just a matter of confirming the verdict. There is also another possibility: the session could have been a hearing in preparation for the Roman trial! Pilate was already waiting!

IX. Pilate
Pilate is a well attested historical figure, though not the "procurator" from the gospels, but according to an inscription, the "legate of Judea." (This is indirectly confirmed by Jn. 18:12. As procurator Pilate would have had no legionaries at his disposal, only conscripted militia from the province and auxiliaries.) Pilate's contemporary Philo and a generation later the historian Josephus, depict the man unequivocally as an inflexible and relentless brute, vindictive, and of a furious temper.

When he was finally called to account, in 36, the charges against him were

"briberies, insults, robberies, outrages and indecent assaults, constantly repeated executions without trial (sic!), ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty." (Philo, De Legatione 301-3).

However, governing Judea was no easy task by any means. For instance Pilate had plans for the construction of a new aqueduct to improve Jerusalem's water-supply, which in itself was a very necessary and beneficial public work.

Pilate intended to finance the project in parts from the sacred treasury of the Temple. Predictably, Jerusalem's fundamentalist mob rallied in the streets. But the governor was prepared. Soldiers in plain clothes had mixed with the crowd and on his signal started trouncing the rioters with batons. In the ensuing stampede, many were trampled to death (Josephus Jewish War 2:175-177). At a first glance it doesn't look like it, but in the gospels too, Pilate shows his brutal disdain and conducts his duties in a fashion, offencive even for a Roman reader.

X. witnesses
Which raises another old question - certainly not the first time asked by Celsus in 178 AD: who was actually present at the event, to tell the tale? Mk. 14:66-72; Mt. 26:69-75; Lk. 22:55-62; Jn. 18:16-17 render even Peter unavailable as eyewitness. The gospels tell us of no one else, who could have witnessed proceedings. Apparently even Jesus' closest companions had fled in panic to Galilee. There is nobody we know of, who has given a direct account of the arrest, trial and crucifixion.

XI. the trial
A confession, not permissible in a Jewish court, could serve the purpose of Roman justice just fine. Yet Roman law did not require that criminal trials had to be preceded by any kind of preliminary inquiry. There was no such thing as a public prosecutor and it was at the discretion of the prosecuting parties's attorney to carry out inquiries, search for witnesses, and evaluate the evidence. Failure to deliver could lead to fines. Roman law is very specific how prosecution is to be conducted.

Specifics of this nature were not unknown to the Jewish council either. In Acts 24:1 we see the Sanhedrin appoint an individual prosecutor. Besides: to answer the purpose of a Roman trial, the Sanhedrin's own inquiry would have to investigate an offense under Roman law. However all the gospels agree that in Jesus' case the Sanhedrin did not concern itself with any possible offense under Roman law. So the reader is left in the dark who, before Pilate's tribunal, had acted as Jesus' legally appointed prosecutor; the gospels don't tell.

Instead Mk. 15:3; Lk. 23:2; and Jn. 18:30-31 give us a "multitude" shouting accusations. The charges are not brought before the court at the beginning of the trial nor placed before the defendant - so that he may frame his plea - but only bit by bit in the course of proceedings (Jn. 19:7-8) and presented by way of threats, blackmail, innuendo, and warnings shouted at the governor (Jn. 19:12 etc.). All the gospels report the presence of the chief priests, scribes and elders of the council (Mk. 15:3; Mt. 27:12; Lk. 23:4; Jn. 19:6, 15).

Their role is not quite clear. As a collective body Roman law does not allow them to act as prosecutors, and given their upcoming schedule for the feast days they certainly had better things to do than waste time with a Roman trial. Most likely, they had no choice in this matter, and observed a subpoena by the governor. Lk. 23:13 shows awareness of the problem and has Pilate "calling together" the chief priests, the rulers, and the people. Mark, Matthew and John appear to be ignorant of Roman law and simply substitute Jewish proceedings.

At least on paper, Roman law imposes severe penalties for false accusations or insufficient preparation (Digesta 47:23,2; 15,1-2; Codex Theodosianus IX: 36,1; IX:1,9-14; Codex Justinianus IX:12,7 and 46,7). Jn. 18:29 is of course merely a rhetorical question to open proceedings, but Jn. 18.31 is a very strange statement indeed. Jesus, who for all we know had not been a Roman citizen, was charged with contempt of the Emperor. Whether Jesus was aware of the consequences or not, Jn. 2:14 and 6:15 leaves no room for misunderstandings.

All the gospels agree that Pilate went straight to the point by asking Jesus: "Art thou the King of the Jews?" (Mt. 27:11; Mk. 15:2; Lk. 23:3; Jn. 18:33). It is Pilate's first charge and remains his last word, inscribed on the cross (Mk. 15:26; Mt. 27:37; Lk. 23:38; Jn. 19:19). An unsubstantiated claim of kingship in a Roman province was a serious violation of the "Lex Julia Maiestatis," first enacted by Caesar in 46 BC and reenacted by Augustus in 8 BC, the crime being to cause injury to the majesty of the Emperor.

So it is most surprising to have Pilate finding "no guilt." In a case not proven, Roman justice could and would resort to torture to extract a confession, even when the testimony of witnesses was available. (Slaves could legally testify only under torture). Only in one case, neither torture nor testimony of witnesses was required, and only if the defendant was not a slave: when the defendant pleaded guilty on his own accord. And that is exactly what Jesus did (Mk. 15:2; Mt. 27:11; Lk. 23:3; Jn. 18:37).

But only a Jewish judge under the directive from Deut. 17.6, 19:15 would have continued proceedings, because in a Jewish court a confession was not admissible (and lèse-majesté not a crime). But why should a Roman judge, especially this Roman judge, observe Jewish law? If Pilate had been oblivious to any charge under Roman law, then his only possible course of action could have been to release the prisoner and not just for lack of a proper indictment. In a Roman court a judge was punishable for the admission of evidence known to be false.

It could mean a murder charge against the judge, if such evidence had led to the sentencing and execution of an innocent (Marcianus, Digesta 48, 81 and Mommsen). And especially in this particular case the gospels report circumstances which make it clear that something more than merely the protestations of a lynch mob would have been needed to coerce Pilate in conducting an injustice. It is true, unlawful executions did happen, Pilate himself would eventually have to face such charges.

One also could argue, that an itinerant preacher was simply not important enough to raise any scruples, but at this particular point in time, according to Lk. 23:7-12, Pilate had powerful enemies who just waited to trip him out of office. It is well known that Pilate, as every other Roman official in the provinces, was not above taking advantage from his position, but his unusually long tenure also suggests, that he was not the man to recklessly expose himself to his enemies. However the gospels depict a governor bent to pardon Jesus at all costs.

So why didn't he? Pilate was the judge, not the mob! It was his prerogative to acquit the defendant (Jn. 19:10). Instead the gospels present us with a Roman governor who leaves it to the mob's choice to have pardoned either Jesus or an insurgent and zealot who had already been convicted for murder (Mk. 15:7; Lk. 23:19). The accounts differ as to whether the people clamored for Barnabas on their own accord (Lk. 23:18-21; Jn. 18:40) or whether edged on by chief priests and elders, (Mk. 15:11; Mt. 27:20), but it is really of no consequence.

It has also been debated whether there really was a custom to pardon a prisoner at Passover. This too is of no consequence, if Barnabas was an already convicted criminal. Pilate himself was answerable to his superiors, and it was exclusively the Emperor's prerogative to pardon a convicted criminal. Any violation of the imperial prerogative was a treasonable assumption of excessive powers and punishable under the "Lex Julia."(Digesta 48,8,4 and Mommsen; also reflected in the right of appeal - see Acts 26:32).

So what could possibly have compelled Pilate, to open himself wide to legal actions? Lk. 23:4 makes it look, as if Pilate tried to move on the buck to Herod the Tetrarch. But there was no provision in the law for Pilate to delegate the governor's powers inherent in the "Ius Gladii" to a tetrarch or any other individual, (Digesta 1, 6, 6; 1, 21, 1; 50, 17, 70). Herod himself had full criminal jurisdiction in Galilee. He could follow up on an acquittal by Pilate with an investigation of his own and even pass capital punishment.

It would have been a smooth move by the governor - deliver death, without being personally responsible - but that is not the story the gospels are telling us. Pilate did not acquit Jesus. But had he handed over a case of lèse-majesté to the tetrarch without such acquittal, Pilate would have made himself answerable to charges and thus invite political blackmail, and this, of all people, by the tetrarch who was the Emperor's good friend and up to this point in time Pilate's personal enemy (Lk. 23:7-12).

The author of John reports that the governor repeatedly "went out" of the palace, not only to pronounce the verdict, but to talk to "the Jews" when the trial proper was still in progress, even took the defendant out with him for another encounter with the mob. In other words the actual trial took place in the governor's chambers and withdrawn from the public (Jn. 18:28, 19:13; Mt. 29:27; Mk. 15:16, 27:19), but the law actually frowned on the practice and the secrecy implied (Codex Theodosianus I:16,7).

Executives of the Emperor often conducted trials in their chambers not only because they were not always members of the legal profession, but because their judicial power rested on the "imperium" and was restricted to criminal jurisdiction ("imperium merum") merely as a means to maintain public order and secure the authority of the Emperor. So the governor's right to pass capital punishment depended on the "Ius Gladii," the right of the sword, which was invested in him to govern occupied territory.

In other words, judicial proceedings in most of the provinces were proceedings under martial law. In fact, every province under the Emperor's "imperium," for all practical purposes, was in a permanent state of martial law. Only senatorial provinces enjoyed full civil jurisdiction (Mommsen). A judge by definition is supposed to "sit" trial, and in real life, if a Roman judge who wished to question a witness or acquire a piece of information, he would send his bailiffs to summon the witnesses before his seat.

Instead we see a judge going out of his way (and his chambers!) to solicit his verdict with a furious lynch mob (Jn. 18:29, 33, 38). He even takes no offence at the people's concern of being defiled by his unclean presence (Jn. 18:28), which is a rather surreal touch in the light of Num. 19:14, where only the presence of a corpse or a place of idolatrous worship could prevent the faithful to enter anybody's house or the courtroom. Of course as governor, Pilate, like the Emperor himself, had a certain freedom in his choice of conduct.

Unlike the restrictions for lower investigative officers, such as tribunes and centurions, who were not allowed to question a Roman citizen under torture (Acts 22:25), the governor was empowered to interrogate under torture even people with full Roman citizenship, and he was not bound by fixed rules as to whom he should summon for interrogation and when. And Jesus' explanation to be a king "not of this world," (Jn. 18:36) was of no help either! Before the law only the Emperor could claim superiority of divine status.

So Pilate was really left with little choice, but to condemn his man after all (Jn. 19:13-16). Which meant, as in every sentence of capital punishment, scourging was included as a matter of course (Mommsen), a treatment not just restricted on slaves, aliens, and people of low legal status. Under the "Lex Julia Maiestatis" torture was to be used against citizens and notables without distinction (Mommsen). Bottomline: Pilate ordered the crucifixion, which makes Jn. 19:16 an impossibility of which the author of John was aware himself (Jn. 19:23).

Not only was crucifixion foreign to Jewish justice, but in the interest of his own status and powers Pilate could not have tolerated any interference in his prerogatives. None of the gospels makes it explicit how Pilate had passed the verdict, they just make him "deliver" Jesus. That Pilate immediately after repudiated his own decision and washed his hands (Mt. 27:24), is an other reference to biblical law (Deut. 21:1-9) but a completely meaningless gesture for a Roman official or a Roman reader of the period.

XII. execution
The practice was to strip the delinquent of all his clothes before the flogging and only his head to keep covered. After the flogging (Mt. 27:28, 31-32; Mk. 15:19, 20-21; and Lk. 23:26) the convict had to carry his own "patibulum," the horizontal cross-beam, to the place of execution. "As they came out of the judgement hall," Mt. 27:32 and Lk. 23:26 introduce a Symon of Cyrene. It was of course against the law to ask an innocent bystander to bear a convict's cross for him, thus transferring part of the sentence on a blameless outsider.

I spare us the gruesome details of crucifixions (crosses used to be much lower in size than medieval artists suggest on their pictures, so that the delinquent had to be nailed to the cross in a contorted posture, with the knees bent and the thighs either both turned sideways or spread in a frog-position which exposed the genitalia). Only Jn. 20:25 and Col. 2:14 suggest whether Jesus actually was nailed to the cross. Nailing of course led to hemorrhage and a death too speedy for the incurable effects of gangrene.

For more than a century scholars keep themselves busy scouring the Old Testament to explain all the quirks and details from references in psalms and prophets, (the piercing of hands and feet (Ps. 22:16), mocking by the scribes (Ps. 22:7), vinegar and gall (Ps. 69:21), the piercing of his side with a lance (Zech. 12:10), Jesus' last words (Ps. 22:1). But all these scholarly pickings prove only that the authors of the gospels knew how to highlight significant points in their story.

XIII. release of the corpse
Roman law required a corpse to be left rotting on the cross. (Digesta 48, 241; Tacitus Annals 6:29). Sentries on guard detail prevented unauthorized burials; to lay a crucified convict to rest was a criminal offence. The illegal removal of convicts from the cross was common enough to entertain the ancient reader of popular fiction (Petronius, Satyricon 110.6-113.4). However the Emperor had the authority to grant exceptions and allow friends and relatives to bury a convict (Ulpian, Digesta 48:24,4; Paulus, Digesta 48:24, 3).

In a province the imperial prerogative was right of the governor (Mt. 27:58; Mk.15:43; Lk. 23:52; Jn. 19:38). Deut. 21:23 strictly forbade to let a corpse hang over night "upon the tree" (b Sanhedrin 35a-b; 36a). So

"Joseph of Arimathaea, who also waited for the kingdom of God, went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. (Mk. 15:42-45) And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph."

Jn. 19:31-34, 38 creates a reference to the paschal lamb (Ex. 12:46):

"therefore, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, the Jews besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away." But "then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water."

XIV. interment
The hasty interment in Joseph of Arimathaea's(?) tomb was of course meant to be temporary (Jn. 19:42). The plan was to wait till after the holidays and then remove the body for burial in his hometown. We have archaeological evidence for ossuaries which had been used to move corpses to different locations. So for some companions the quick removal of the corpse from Joseph of Arimathaea's tomb may have came as a surprise. The "removal of corpses" was also a popular motif in antique literature.

In the novel "Chaireas and Kallirroe" of the Greek fiction writer Chariton (1st cent. BC), a girl, mistakenly entombed alive, has been abducted by grave robbers. The scene clearly inspired the author of John 20:3-8:

"Toward dawn Chaireas approached the tomb. When he came close, however, he found the stones moved away and the entrance open. He looked in and was shocked, seized by a great perplexity at what had happened. Rumor immediately spread of the miracle. All then ran to the tomb; one was sent in and reported everything. It seemed incredible - the dead girl was not there. Many came in after him, disbelieving. Amazement seized everyone. Some said: 'The shroud has been stripped off, this is the work of grave robbers; but where is the body?"

There are no records of any attention for Jesus' actual resting place by early Christians. And the "empty grave" became a shrine only after the Empress Dowager, Helena, in 324 AD pointed her manicured finger at a grave in Giv'at ha-Mivtas in Jerusalem and declared it to be the place.

XV. "resurrection"
John was the first to identify an apparition at the Lake of Genesareth with Christ (Jn. 21:7). Technically the transfiguration scene in Mark 9:2-10 is no different from Paul's conversion at Damascus. Peter, James, and John are named as the only witnesses (Mt. 17:1). John with Peter was the first to proclaim the resurrection (Jn. 20:2, 10). Since then, the Church has only their word for it. Mk. 14:50 and Mt. 26:56 make it unlikely that the proclamation could have happened anywhere else but in Galilee.

XVI. Peter
Acts 5:1-11 depicts a chilling scene. A cult-leader, "Peter," helped by a gang of devoted thugs (the "young men,") enforces his rule of terror over the new sect. Two members hold back on their contributions and get the treatment for backsliding. They "mysteriously" die. Even Luke can't completely obscure the horror the sectarians must have felt after the incident. Not surprisingly, later in the expanding movement, "Peter" completely disappears from sight.

Perhaps he really went on mission to the Parthian capital Babylon (which may very well not be a metaphoric expression for the city of Rome). 1. Peter 5:13 says nothing else. Geographically the location makes sense in a period when Christianity was still searching for a political center. Preferably it should not be the capital of the (Roman) enemy: "Revelations" was written with other plans in mind. For all we know "Peter," the "rock of the church" (Mt. 16:16) never came near the city limit of Rome. This myth cropped up in the early 3rd century.

Apparently he always was the hatchet man, the enforcer, who would walk on water for his boss (Mt.14:29; 26:33) and Jesus seemed to know what he had in him (Mt. 16:18). However there were moments when the two got into arguments. (Mt. 16:22-23) Mt. 17:1-9 was apparently Peter's contribution to Christian doctrine. It may reflect the decisive moment when a distraught band of fugitives turned the game around and started a new sect. Peter was a dangerous man who resorted to "visions" (Acts 10:10-25) and claims of exclusivity (Acts 10:41) to push his agenda.

The revival session * in Acts 2:14-36 puts into his mouth, what Luke considered to be his believes:

"... these are not drunken, as ye suppose, but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and signs, which God did by him and ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, my flesh shall rest in hope: because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn to him, that of the fruit of his loins, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."

* Does anybody actually care that the surrounding crowd sees absolutely nothing - no visions, no voices, no Jesus? Guess not.

XVII. John the Evangelist
Matthew and Luke quote extensively from Mark as their primary source, which puts them chronologically after Mark while John completely ignores the synoptic gospels. However the synoptic gospels sometimes assume the solemn "Johannine" mode of speech; see for instance Mt. 11:27 and Lk. 10:22. Due to the dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark it is indisputable that where John and the synoptic gospels appear to be in agreement, it is an agreement just between two gospels: Mark and John.

If the epistles are the work of the same writer as the gospel, we read an author who in the beginning of the second and third epistles styles himself simply as "the presbyter." Eusebius (Ecclesiastic History III, 29:8-16) introduces to his readers a gentleman who used to frequent the public baths in Ephesus till late in the nineties of the first century AD. Apparently he was a well established character whose student was known to be Polycarp (Ý156 AD). A still extant letter of Polycarp betrays no knowledge of John.

In Jn. 21:23-24 the gospel's author refers to himself. He seems to prefer anonymity, if we don't take the passage as a veiled hint that the anonymous author likes to introduce himself metaphorically as Lazarus. John's account is the only gospel that presents a comparably accurate topography of places utterly destroyed in the events of 70 AD. For instance the "Gabbatha" or pavement in Jn. 19:13, where Pilate was said to have sentenced Jesus, is confirmed by Josephus and has been excavated, as well as the location in Jn 5:2.

The five porticos of the Pool of Siloam are part of a structure which had been in operation over a period of six hundred years, from the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD. Most of the time, the place was a pagan sanctuary, dedicated to the pagan healer-gods Asclepius and Serapis. John's plot is well motivated, the order of events is highly plausible, the legally crucial incident in the temple is put at the beginning (Jn. 2:14). The protagonist lives the life of a refugee, but is bold enough to mingle with the crowds on the holidays.

Jn. 12:13 14-15, 38, 40; 13:18; 15:25; 19:24, 28, 36-37 "presuppose a "Jewish" mentality for which scripture is authoritative" (Robinson). The "Manual of Discipline" and other documents from Qumran are reputed to show "remarkable parallels in terminology and concept with John the evangelist." Both, John's gospel and the "Manual of Discipline" are replete with such stock phrases as "the spirit of truth," "the light of life," "walking in the darkness," "children of light," and "eternal life."

Compare for instance Jn. 1:2 with the Manual of Discipline 11:11: "All things come to pass by his knowledge, he establishes all things by his design, and without him nothing is done." John's account lacks many of the fundamental elements of the full-blown cult - most notably the Eucharist, which could have been a subsequent development that had its origin in the metaphor of Jn. 6:49. Circumcision is mentioned only in relation to its precedence within Judaism over the sabbath law (Jn. 7:22, etc.).

"Sin" is unequivocally equated with lawlessness (1 Jn. 3:4) in a thoroughly Jewish manner. John has even less of what could be interpreted as referring to the fall of Jerusalem after the event, than the synoptic gospels. In Jn. 9:22 the author seems to have forgotten that Jesus is a Jew himself. Yet even Josephus, the Jewish historian and Roman collaborator, in his history of the rebellion against Rome often refers the same way to his own countrymen as "the Jews" without further qualification.

On reflection, John's theology, which declares the parousia as an event of the present (Jn. 5:25-26, 21:23) and the lack of sacramental theology (Jn. 3:8) looks more like a beginning of something new, than anything else. But the initial momentum eventually had to come to terms with the fact that in the actual world nothing really had changed (2. Peter 3:4.) One way to do so, was to claim that only the initiate would be able to perceive the change (Jn. 6:35; Acts 10:41). This too eventually would falter under the strains of reality.

The rest of the New Testament therefore testifies to a move toward the doctrine of a "second coming." John seemed to have had a special attraction for "heretics" of the second century. Basilides (c.120-140 AD) appeals to John 1:8, and 2:4. Valentine (c.122-177 AD) seeks support for his theories of the sons in expressions taken from John; Heracleon (c.160 AD) composed, a commentary on the fourth gospel, Ptolemy (c.180 AD) gives an explanation of the prologue of the Evangelist. The Montanists (172-669 AD) derived their doctrine of the Paraclete mainly from Jn. 15-16.

Even the pagan philosopher and critic of Christianity, Celsus (c.178 AD), in his "True Discourse" bases some of his statements on passages from the fourth gospel. From the very beginning texts from the John's gospel are used in all parts of the Church, and not infrequently with special predilection. The raising of Lazarus is a frequent mural motif in the Catacombs. To judge from the language, the author was a Palestinian Jew, who was well acquainted with the Hellenic Greek of the educated.

XVIII. Paul
"Galatians" is often considered the earliest authentic Christian document on record, however that is not very early: Gal. 4:25 clearly marks a date after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. A Christian community was already in existence at Ephesus before Paul's first appearance there (the "brethren" in Acts, 18:27, and 1 Cor. 1:1-2). Keeping in mind that the Didache's ruling on the conduct of mendicant missionaries must have affected Paul's activities as well, it looks as if a certain Sosthenes functioned as Paul's superior, controler, or bishop.

The polemical thrust of Paul's letters is directed against the teachings of his opposition in Palestine and in the gentile congregations which

"... considered Jesus a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a corresponding life.

There were others, who did not deny that the Lord was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit. But also refused to acknowledge that he pre-existed, being God, Word, and Wisdom. These men, moreover, thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the apostle [Paul], whom they called an apostate from the law" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastic History III, 27:3). Eusebius refers to a response to Paul's statement in Gal. 1:11-19: "I certify that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how I persecuted the church of God, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; I conferred not in Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but returned unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.

But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother" and: "when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Wherefore thou art no more a servant of the law, but a son, an heir of God through Christ (Gal. 4:3-12). But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8).

XIX. second coming
The author of John presents a Jesus who announced the arrival of the new millennium as a fact born out by his own presence (Jn. 14:11, 20-21, 17:22; Lk. 4:16 21). The story in Jn. 2:7-10 like all the other "miracles" in John, creates an apt metaphor for a carefully thought out doctrine of an already fulfilled parousia (Jn. 1:45, 3:36, 5:14, 25-26, 39, 46, 6:47, 8:51, 11:25, 12:47, 14:6, 30, 16:33, 17:22; especially 21:23). But historically nothing really had changed (2 Peter 3:4) So Paul in his letters gradually shifts to a "second coming."

Mark 9:1, 13:30 picked up on this, though even for Paul it is still expected to be imminent (1 Cor. 15:51, 52; 1 Thes. 4:13-17). The emphasis shifts from something like "it is happening because I am here" to "I came to warn you, the end of times is at hand, and I am the gatekeeper to salvation." Later, Matthew and Luke addressed different issues, but historically it seems clear that from the very beginning Christianity had focused more on Jesus as a person than on his teaching, which in its present form might not be his teaching at all.

XX. "Q"
When it became more and more apparent that hopes for a sudden apocalypse remained unanswered (2. Peter 3:4), it was obviously not enough to establish the legitimacy of some obscure Jewish or half-Jewish Messiah based on shaky genealogies alone. Luke and Matthew therefore incorporated the elusive "Q" document, to make Jesus, the apocalyptic prophet of doom more presentable as a teacher of cut and dry wisdom. Whether "Q" ever had been an independent document, similar to the "Gospel of Thomas," is still a matter for conjecture, first hypothesized by C. H. Weisse in 1838.

The Q material consists mainly of sayings, beginning with sayings of John the Baptist. No mention is made of the Passion. Apparently it rose from a popular substratum that found expression all over the Mediterranean. Epictetus and the Stoics sometimes read like a manual for mendicant preachers in Galilee. (Epictetus, Discourses 1:9 cf. Acts 17:28, Mt. 6:25-34; Discourses 1:19 cf. Mt. 6:21; Discourses 2:8 cf. 1 Cor. 6:19 (an almost verbatim reference), 2 Cor. 6:16; Discourses 2:9 cf. Rom. 2:17-29; Discourses 2:22 cf. Mt. 6:21; for Mt.5:39-44, Discourses 3:22 might explain the true meaning of the famous apophtegm; Discourses 4:10 cf. Jn. 17:6, Mt. 6:24).

XXI. Cerinthus (c. 80-90 AD)

"Some before us have set aside and rejected "Revelations" altogether, criticising it chapter by chapter. They pronounce it without sense or argument, and maintaining that the title is fraudulent. For they say that it is not the work of John, and none of the apostles, none of the saints, nor any one in the Church is its author, but that Cerinthus, who founded his own sect, desiring reputable authority for his fiction, prefixed the name. So I too cannot readily admit that the author was the apostle, by whom the Gospel and the Catholic Epistle were written.

For I judge from the character of both, and the forms of expression, and the entire execution of the book, that it is not his. John never speaks as if referring to himself, or as if referring to another person. But the author of the Apocalypse introduces himself at the very beginning: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which he sent and signified by his angel unto his servant John." And not considering it sufficient to give his name once and to proceed, he takes it up again: "I, John, in the isle of Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus."

John [the evangelist] discusses everything under the same heads and names. Who examines carefully will find frequently occurring the phrases, "the life," "the light," "turning from darkness," "truth," "grace," "joy," "the flesh and blood of the Lord," "the judgment," "the forgiveness of sins," "the love of God toward us." In fact, it is plain to see by everyone who observes their character that the Gospel and the Epistles have one and the same complexion. But the Apocalypse is utterly different and foreign from these writings.

Neither Epistle, nor Gospel, contain any intimation of the Apocalypse, nor does the Apocalypse of the Epistle. It also can be shown by their style, how Gospel and Epistles differ from that of the Apocalypse. For they are not only written in faultless Greek, but also show the greatest literary skill in their diction, their reasoning, and in their entire structure. There is a complete absence of any barbarous word, or solecism, or any vulgarism whatever. The other writer's Greek is faulty, he uses barbarous idioms, and solecisms.

He speaks not unlike Cerinthus, by means of revelations, which he pretends were written by a great apostle, and brings before us marvelous things which he falsely claims were shown him by angels. It is Cerinthus way to say that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth, and that the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to desires and pleasures, and that there is to be a period of a thousand years." (Dionysius (257 AD) quoted by Eusebius Ecclesiastic History VII, 25:5-27).

Case shut.

© - 3/25/2002 - by Michael Sympson - all rights reserved

Bibliography

          I.
Akademie der Wissenschaften Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, XIII (Berlin, Brandenburg)
Apostholic Fathers, The I Clement, II Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Didache, Barnabas (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
- Shepherd of Hermas, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Epistle to Diogentus (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Buxtorf, Johannes Lexicon Talmudicum  (Basel, 1640)
Dio, Cassius Roman History VIII, Books lxi-lxx  (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Epictetus Discourses, Books 1 and 2 (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
- Discourses, Books 3 and 4 (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Epstein, I. Soncino Hebrew-English Talmud. (London, Soncino, 1967)
Eusebius Ecclesiastical History I (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
- Ecclesiastical History II (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Josephus, Flavius Jewish War I-II (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
- The Jewish War III-IV (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
- The Jewish War V-VII (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
- Jewish Antiquities XVIII-XIX (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Krüger, P., Mommsen, Theodor eds. Codex Justinianus (Berlin 1989)
- Digesta (Berlin 1988);
Lattimore, Richmond Alexander The New Testament (translated by Lattimore, North Point Press, 1996)
Lucian Alexander the false Prophet, Peregrinus Protheus  (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Mommsen, Theodor Theodosiani libri XVI cum Constitutionibus Sirmondianis et Leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes (Academy of Prussia, 1905)
Origin Contra Celsum  (translated by Chadwick, Cambridge 1953; 1973)
Philo The Embassy to Gaius  (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Sueton Volume II: Nero  (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Tacitus Annals (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)
Tertullian Adversus Marcionem Libri V (Oehler, Leipzig, 1854)
Warmington, E. H. Scriptores Historiae Augustae, 2 vols (Loeb Classical Library, Havard)

         II.
David Dungan and David Cartlidge, Sourcebook of Texts for the Comparative Study of the Gospels, (p. 157)
Harris, William V. "Ancient Literacy" (Harvard UP, 1989)
Lightfoot, John Commentary On the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica (Oxford University Press, 1859; with a second printing from Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1995)
Metzger, Bruce The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Clarendon, 1987)
Mommsen, Theodor Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin, 1906)
Peabody, Berkeley The Winged Word: A Study in the Technique of Ancient Greek Oral Composition
Scott, E. F. The Literature of the New Testament (New York 1932)
Smith, Sir G. A. Historical Geography of the Holy Land (London 1894, 25th ed. 1931)
Strong J. The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (London, 1894)

         III.
Bornkamm, Günther Jesus of Nazareth (1960)
Bultmann: "Theology of the New Testament" (1985)
- The History of the Synoptic Tradition  (1963)
- Jesus and the Word  (1934)
- Das Urchristentum im Rahmen der antiken Religionen  (Zürich, 1963)
Case, S.J. Jesus, a New Biography  (1927)
Grant, R. M. The Earliest lives of Jesus  (1961)
Hoskyns, Edwin, Bart & Noel Davey The Riddle of the New Testament (Faber& Faber, London 1936)
Delf, Hugo Das Vierte Evangelium  Husum (1890)
Dibelius, Martin  From Tradition to Gospel  (1934)
Hartin, Patrick J. James and the "Q" Sayings of Jesus  (1989) [the most insincere paper I have seen so far - even by the standards of academic theology]
Kee, Alistair Constantine versus Christ  London, (1982)
Kelly, J. M. Roman Litigation (Oxford UP, 1966)
Klausner, Joseph Jesus of Nazareth  (1925)
Macrae, George, SJ. Messiah & Gospel  (1967)
Robertson, J. M. Jesus & Judas
Robinson, James M. A New Quest for the Historical Jesus  (1959)
Robinson, John A. T. The Priority of John  (SCM Press Ltd.)
Rostovtzeff, M. An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, 6 vols.  (Baltimore, 1959)
Schneider, C. Geistesgeschichte des antiken Christentums, 2 vols. (Munich, 1954)
Schweitzer, Albert The Quest for the Historical Jesus (1910)
Soden, Hans v. Die Entstehung der Christlichen Kirche  (1904)
Stauffer, Ethelbert Jesus and His Story  (1960)

* appendix I: biblical homophobia

This attitude toward sex, the male genitals, and nudity is directly linked to the laws against homosexuals. Homosexual rites were included in the religions of the Assyrians, and other ancient peoples of the area, that the Hebrews felt compelled to renounce. It was common practice for the Assyrian priests to cross-dress; for the higher priests to castrate themselves and for the lower acolytes to ritually prostitute themselves to all men who came to the temple. They were called qadesh, which means "holy ones" - that is, those blessed or consecrated for this divine service.

This term was used by the Hebrews as an exact equivalent for "sodomite," and the term for the female temple prostitutes, qedheshah, was used as an equivalent for "whore" (1 Kings 14.22-24, 15.12, 22.46; Deut. 23.17-18; Levit. 18.3, 24-30, 20.23 relate specifically to Egyptian and Canaanite religious homosexuality). Before King Josiah's reforms (640-609 BC), identical religious rites were commonly practised in the Temple of Jerusalem itself, and were an integral part of early Jewish worship on Yahweh's own real estate (2 Kings 23.7).

In a flare of ill advised anti-Assyrian nationalism Josiah's reformers burned out the room of the qadesh in the Temple, scattered and perhaps killed them, and began a campaign against homosexuality that has never ceased since and quickly became a prohibition of male homosexuality in general. We are left with Josiah's anti-gay laws such as "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination"; "If a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Levit. 18.22, 20.13).

The actual Hebrew not very correctly translated as "abomination" is to'ebhah, which the Hebrews understood to mean "unholy" in the sense of being related to a "sacred" practice of a non-Hebrew religion. To'ebhah occurs 116 times in the Old Testament, virtually always in the context of idolatry." I Cor. 6.9-10 and I Tim. 1.9-10, specifically condemn malakoi - men who are the receiving party during anal intercourse - and arsenokoitai - men who penetrate the partner during anal intercourse.

"Koitai" means "to lie with"; "arseno" may come from the Ionic arsen, meaning "man, to be made wet with semen" or from the Doric orson, meaning "arse, buttocks". Rom. 1.27 condemns mean who "leave the natural use of the woman, and burn in their lust one toward one another," which may relate primarily to heterosexual men who go gay in a deliberate rebellious attempt to be perverse and lecherous, etc. Rom. 1.26 condemns "women who change the natural use into that which is against nature," which probably merely refers to non-conventional heterosexual practices or positions.

The translations of the influential Revised Standard Version of the Bible in the 20th Century use the word "homosexual" in the passages mentioned above. This is a grossly unjust distortion of the text, for it extends the prohibition to all male and female homosexual practices and personalities rather than what is really prohibited: anal intercourse between men. Likewise, at this early date the story of Sodom and Gomorrah had not yet acquired a homosexual interpretation. This developed around AD 100.

Gen. 19.4-11, and Jud. 19.22 tell of Lot settling in Sodom, a city reputed to be as wicked as its neighbour, Gomorrah. In order to determine the truth of this reputation, God sent two angels to investigate. These two foreign travellers were met at the gate of the city by Lot, and they accepted his hospitable invitation to sojourn at his home. That night the inhabitants of Sodom clamoured round Lot's house, pounding on his door and demanding: "Bring the visitors out unto us, that we may know them." Lot refused to comply with this "evil" request, and instead offered them his two daughters.

The next morning Lot fled the city with the angels and his family, and God let loose fire and brimstone to consume these wicked cities of the plain. The difficulty of interpretation is that the "sins" of Sodom and Gomorrah simply are not specified in the Bible. Christians with no linguistic expertise assume that "know" means "engage in coitus." But the term for "know" - yadha - is used in the sexual sense only 10 times in the Old Testament and all of these cases are heterosexual. Yadha is used in the sense of "get acquainted with" 924 times.

Thus the odds against the homosexual usage of this term are nearly 1000 to 1. The interpretation now accepted by many Biblical scholars (excluding the most evangelical sects) sees Lot as a ger, a sojourner, an alien resident in Sodom. He had certain civic obligations in return for the protection which the city offered him. He did not have a right to open his house to foreigners, and the citizens of Sodom were merely demanding to see the credentials of these two foreigners, that is, to "know" whence they came and their intentions.

However Lot had to refuse, because he himself was under the obligations of the Jewish code of hospitality to his guests. He offered the Sodomites his daughters as the first appeasement that came to his mind, not as a heterosexual substitute for a homosexual demand. The cities then were destroyed for not recognizing the obligations of hospitality, and the whole story is a moral allegory on the dire effects of inhospitality. The sins of the Sodomites may have been great and grievous in the eyes of a wrathful god, but the Bible does not cite homosexuality as one of them (Gen. 13.13, 18.20, Jerem. 23.14, Ezek. 16.49-50).

So, how became the "sins of Sodom" the prototype for "sodomy"? Basically it is the result of nationalistic and fundamentalist fervour. Reacting against "the ways of the Gentiles" during the period of the Maccabees and the Roman occupation, the rabbis deliberately foisted a homosexual misinterpretation upon the story, just as they had earlier interpreted "the ways of Canaan" and "the ways of Egypt." It was a gradual process of ever increasing misrepresentation in the Palestinian Pseudepigrapha.

After some development in the Book of Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (109-106 BC) and The Secrets of Enoch the full-blown story eventually culminated in the familiar account by Philo (20 BC-50 AD): "Not only in their mad lust for women did the Sodomites violate the marriages of their neighbors, but also men mounted males, without respect for the sexual nature which the active partner shares with the passive ... and accustomed those who were by nature men to submit to play the part of women" (De Abrahamo, 26).

Biblical scholars tend to agree that lesbianism is nowhere mentioned in the Bible. The Talmud, however, mentions lesbianism, considering it as a mere obscenity that disqualifies a lesbian from later marrying a priest. The Hebrew degradation of women, however, began simultaneously with their religiously based homophobia, for the male temple prostitutes worshipped Astaroth, Ishtar, Isis, Cybele, and other of the Mother Goddesses in the matriarchal cultures, and Hebrew patriarchalism busied itself with burying Cybele in order to elevate Jahweh.

Men such as the qadesh who freely subordinated themselves to Cybele became anathema to the new dogma of male supremacy, and here begins the castration anxiety. Male cross-dressing was condemned because it represented the qadesh's worship of the Mother Goddess. Homophobia originally had nothing to do with a prejudice against people who refused to procreate. In fact Jesus' own Gnostic bias, as Origin (185-254 AD) understood it to be, was in their favor (Mt. 19:12). Modern interpretation of the Biblical attitude, and this particular homophobia does not occur until much later.

Even "the sin of Onan," which came to be a condemnation of masturbation, derived originally from a prohibition against ritual masturbation before the idol, not because it violates a "law" of procreation. The phrase "against nature" meant "as an apostate," one who goes "against true nature" in the sense of betraying and renouncing the true religion. In fact the trend of the Hebrew, and later the Christian, priesthood toward celibacy is a reaction against the fertility cults of which homosexual rites were an integral part.

It would be misleading to suggest that the homophobia of the Christian-Roman Empire was exclusively the result of adopting the Jewish perspective by the Christian churches, for there is plenty of anti-gay satire in works by Juvenal, Suetonius, Martial and others, particularly criticism of the cult of Cybele which first entered Rome in 204 BC. But early Roman anti-gay attitudes came from a different motivation. Not until 226 BC we come across the first anti-gay law, the Lex Scantia. It was the senates way to get even with a recalcitrant tribune of the plebs named C. Scantinius Capitolinus.

He was charged with homosexuality before the Senate and heavily fined. The law was several times invoked against political enemies, particularly during the reign of the Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96), but seems to have been obsolete by the late fourth century. Heliogabalus, the last truly pagan Emperor, was an initiate into a Syrian sun-cult, and, like the followers of Cybele, he frequently engaged in homosexual temple prostitution. After his murder, his cousin Emperor Alexander Severus (reigned AD 222-35), son of a Christian mother, resolved to put a stop to such decadent pleasures.

He deported homosexuals who were active in public life, and heavily taxed the exsoleti - homosexual prostitutes and camp-followers who had a thriving trade in Rome - as well as heterosexual prostitutes and procurers. During the first four centuries AD the anti-gay sentiments of the Church Fathers reflect the developments of the new legislation. St John Chrysostum denounced male homosexuals for having "devised a barren coitus, not having for its end the procreation of children," and lesbians, "for women ought to have more shame than men."

Emperor Philip (reigned AD 244-49), the son of a Bedouin chief and a Christian mother, attempted to stem the tide by altogether outlawing the exsoleti, the most visible practitioners of un-Roman practices and "exploiters" of the immigrant population. In 305-6 the Church Council of Elvira forbade the giving of last rites to pederasts. In 314 the Council of Ancyra in Asia Minor excluded all homosexuals from receiving the sacrament, and their decision became the authority for all later ecclesiastical laws.

The Emperors Constans and Constantius, who ruled respectively the Eastern and Western Empires, in 342 jointly decreed that "the law must be armed with an avenging sword" to rid the land of "passive" homosexuals, "those men who marry men as if they were women." Church regulations became equally severe. St Basil in 375 and Gregory of Nyssa in 390 demanded of homosexuals a 15-year penitential of self-mortification while going without the sacrament - along with those who committed adultery, pederasty, incest, bestiality, idolatry, witchcraft and murder.

In 390 the Emperor Valentinian decreed burning at the stake as a fit punishment for homosexuals - in memory of the purifying flames which devoured the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Five years later the Emperor Theodosius outlawed all religions other than Christianity, and codified the laws against heresy, treason, and homosexuality. But the Roman Empire was collapsing. But the conquering Barbarians adopted the laws of the conquered, and in 506 the Visigoth Alaric II decreed burning at the stake for homosexuals.

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian believed firmly that the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah was an example of how God destroyed cities with homosexual citizens, and feared it would happen again in his realm. So he decided to salvage the Empire by the methodical suppression of homosexuality. The Codex Justinianus says: "Because of such crimes there are famines, earthquakes, and pestilences" (Novellae 77, AD 538). In 543 a plague swept through the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, and probably as a terrified reaction to this, Justinian in the following year issued another "new law:"

"There will be no relaxation of enquiry and correction so far as this matter is concerned" (Novellae 144). Justinian ordered to arrest any homosexual who refused to repent, and to subject him "to the extreme punishments:" first the convicted homosexual's testicles would be cut off. Then sharp reeds would be thrust into his penis. Then he would be led, or dragged, naked through the streets for public humiliation. Finally he would be burned at the stake. Even Bishops - Isaiah of Rhodes and Alexander of Diospolis - were mutilated and dragged in agony through the streets before the frenzied mob.

Procopius in his Anecdota says that slaves were forced to falsely accuse Justinian's political enemies, and that the streets were filled with mutilated, castrated, and humiliated victims of his fanaticism. The Empress Theodora indulged in a variety of extraordinary pleasures including masturbating while watching men being castrated and tortured. (Some of Theodora's own relationships were lesbian as well as incestuous.) In Gothic Spain, King Kindasvinth edict from 650 against the "execrable moral depravity" put homophobia on a new legal level.

Not only were both partners in a homosexual act ordered either to repent or be excommunicated and castrated. The law also treated the convicted homosexual as legally dead, and allowed his wife, if any, to remarry, and sons, if any, to immediately inherit his property. King Egica at the 16th Council of Toledo in 693 added flogging and shaving of the criminal's hair to castration and exile. Homosexuality became a civil crime throughout Christianized Europe. The Penitential System in the monasteries graded every act according to its measure of sinfulness.

The basic penance consisted of exclusion from the sacraments, self-mortification (though younger boys were beaten with rods at the hands of older clerics), fasting on bread and water on holy days (which included most days), and general discomfort. The major difference between the penances was the amount of time they were required. The Penitential of Theodore the Archbishop of Canterbury in 670 required 1 year for inter-femoral contact (penis between thighs); 3 years for all lesbian activity, 7 to 15 years for anal intercourse; 7 to 22 years for fellatio.

If caught kissing, boys under the age of 20 were subject to 6 special fasts; 8 fasts if it was "licentious kissing"; 10 fasts if it was "kissing with emission"; more if it involved mutual masturbation; and much longer if the partners were over the age of 20. When Theodore says that fellatio is "the worst of all evils," he quite literally means just that - that it is worse than murder (maximum 15 years' penance) and deserves up to 22 years of penance and even a lifetime for the habitual offender. In the eleventh century Bishop Burchard of Worms gives more detailed penances for lesbians:

Women who use an artificial penis are given a penance of 1 year if use alone; 5 years if used with another woman; 7 years if used by a nun, who, as a Bride of Christ, would be deemed to have commited adultery by using a dildo. In 960 St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, began a moral reform of Church and society, and under his influence Church Law became the core of civil law, and "penances" were enforced as punitive sentences through the law courts. In 1051 Peter Damiani published his Liber Gomorrhianus (derived from the city of Gomorrah).

The entire book is devoted to condemning homosexuality, urging the maximum penance for every homosexual activity (except fellatio, which he unaccountably forgot). His exposure of "rampant vice" among the clergy raised a storm of protest, and his intemperate zeal was rebuked by Pope Leo IX. Leo who urged the clergy to apply the penances carefully, with attention to the age of the sinner, whether or not the vice was habitual, and similar extenuating circumstances. Leo questioned only the severity of the penances, not the attitude itself.

"Sodomy" is usually condemned in the same breath as bestiality. And the Jewish/Christian/Roman view that male homosexuals resemble women is related to the view that women are mere animals. St John Chrysostum said: "among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman." Even as late as AD 585 the Council of Macon debated the question "Are women human?" - an affirmative answer won by a majority of only one vote. One of the roots of sexism is not so much a separation between men and women as a separation between men and animals.

my extract is based on Rictor Norton, "A History of Homophobia," a delightful and comprehensive exposition at Gay History & Literature.

** appendix II: table of triads in Matthew

I. early history (1:18-4:22)

1) conception and infancy (1:18-2:23)
    a) conception (1:18-25)
    b) visit of the magi (2:1-12)
    c) murder of the infants (2:13-23)

2) John the Baptist (3:1-17)
    a) John (3:1-6)
    b) his words (3:7-12)
    c) Baptism of Jesus (3:13-17)

3) beginning of Jesus' activities (4:1-22)
   a) temptation (4:1-11)
    b) return to Galilee (4:12-17)
    c) the calling of 4 disciples [why not just 3?] (4:18-22)

II. Sermon on the Mount (4:23-7:29)

1) Introduction (4:23-5:2)

2) Sermon (5:3-7:27)

     9 (3+3+3) Blessings (5:3-12)

     Main Body (5:13-7:12)

         Torah (5:17-48)

               Anger (5:21-6)
               Adultery (5:27-30)
               Divorce (5:31-2)

               Oaths (5:33-7)
               Turning the other Cheek (5:38-42)
               Love of the Enemy (5:43-8)

          Cult (6:1-18)

               Almsgiving (6:2-4)
               Prayer (6:5-15)
               Fasting (6:16-18)

                      Not as the Gentiles (6:7-8)
                      The Lord's Prayer (6:9-13)
                      On Forgiveness (6:14-15)

                               Address (6:9b)
                               3 "thou" petitions (6:9c-10)
                               3 "we" petitions (6:11-13)

         Social Issues (6:19-7:12)

               General Principle (6:19-21)
               Eye Parable (6:22-3)
               Second Parable (6:24)

               General Principle  
               Eye Parable (7:3-5)
               Second Parable (7:6)

    Three Warnings (7:13-27)

3) Conclusion (7:28-8:1)

III. cycle of nine miracle stories ((8:1-9:34)

1) three miracles (8.1-15)
  a) healing of the leper (8:1-4)
   b) centurion's son (8:5-13)
   c) Peter's mother in law (8:16-22)

2) three miracles on and around the lake
   a) stills the storm (8:23-27)
   b) curses two demons (8:28-34)
   c) heals paralytic (9:1-8)

3) three more miracles
    a) healing of two people (9:18-26)
    b) healing of the blind (9:27-31)
    c) healing of a dumb possessed (9:32-4)

IV. summary and teachings (9:35-8)

V. instructions to the twelve (10:1-42)

VI. confrontation with "this generation" (11:2-12:5)

1) John, Jesus and "this generation"
    a) the meaning of John and Jesus (11:2-19)
    b) the woes against 3 cities (11:20-4)
    c) the great invitation (11:25-30)

2) ministry of mercy (12:1-21)
    a) sabbath controversy (12:1-8)
    b) another sabbath controversy (12:9-14)
    c) cult formula

3) discernment (12:22-50)
    a) Beelzebub controversy (12:22-37)
    b) sign of Jonah (12:38-45)
    c) family of Jesus (12:46-50)

(after chapter 13 there are no more triads.)

* * * appendix III: Rabbi Hillel (70 BC-10 AD)

Our only source of information concerning him is the Talmud, from which the following account of Hillel's career can be gathered. He was born in Babylonia, and was a descendent of the family of David. He lived in poor circumstances, but devoted himself to the study of God's law while yet in Babylon. At the age of forty he went to Jerusalem, where Shemaiah and Abtalion were at the time the leading teachers. In the Holy City he hired himself out as a day-labourer to earn a living for himself and his family, and also to meet the expenses of receiving instruction.

Some time after the death of Shemaiah and Abtalion, Hillel was recognized as the best jurist of the day, and was so regarded during the rest of his life. He is also represented as the head of the Sanhedrin with the title of Nasi (prince), as the founder of a lenient school, in usual opposition to the stricter school of Shammai, as the author of seven hermeneutic rules, as the framer of certain decrees which happily accommodated some points of the Law to the changed circumstances of his period.

Hillel was surnamed "the Great", and also "the Elder", and over his tomb were uttered the words "Oh the gentle! Oh the pious! Oh the disciple of Esdras!" Several anecdotes illustrating his zeal for the Law and his wonderful patience are embodied in the Talmud. Among the sayings ascribed to him, the following are particularly worthy of notice: "Whatever is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow man: this is the whole Law; the rest is mere commentary"; "Be of the disciples of Aaron; loving peace and pursuing peace; loving mankind and bringing them near to the Torah."

*** appendix IV: The "authentic" utterances from the earliest layer of proclamations, according to Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976):

I. Parousia
So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. (Mt 13:49-50) Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? (Lk 12:56) The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. (Mk 1:15) And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. (Lk 10:18) Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mk 8:38) For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. (Mt 24:27/37/44)

Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err. (Mk 12:18-27) The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. (Lk 11:31-32)

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. (Mk 9:43-48) And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Mt 10:28)

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is [already] among you. (Lk 17:21) And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. (Lk 17:23f) Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. (Mk 13:28f)

II. Promises:
And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 8:11) For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. (Mk 12: 25) Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. (Lk 10:23f) Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. (Mk 2:18f)

III. His "credentials:"
Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. (Mk 8:11) But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. (Lk 11:20) No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. (Mk 3:27)

IV. Call to arms:
No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God (Lk 9:62). Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead. (Mt 8:22) If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Lk 14:27)

page up | next page