I grew up in southern West Virginia. The culture was steeped in fundamentalism. When I was young, West Virginia was still a fairly isolated place, and fundamentalism was pervasive. That isn’t to say everyone was religious or fundamentalist. It’s just that alternative beliefs were not widely understood or expressed openly, and even many of those who were not particularly religious believed that fundamentalism was the only religious option available.
Fundamentalism was common in my family. Those who were religious were fundamentalists, and even those who were not particularly religious had a kind of fundamentalist perspective. The Bible was understood to be “the word of God,” and the only way it was to be interpreted was literally. Some relatives became preachy and strident when the subject of religion came up. Some would use Bible verses like darts. They would try to stick other relatives with their pointy verse quoting. In retaliation, the relatives under attack would throw out other Bible verses. It seemed like a vicious game to me, and I hated it.
I have never been comfortable with this brand of Christianity, and I can remember wondering when I was no more than eleven or twelve if there was something else, some other way. I guess you could say I was a seeker, but I was also simply curious. I needed to find some way of coming to terms with all of these beliefs and ideas that I found oppressive rather than uplifting, at least in the way they were expressed around me.
I’m still curious and I’m still seeking to understand, but I have some ideas about what might have happened. I thought I’d share of few of them. I’m not a historian or a biblical scholar, and I don’t have a crystal ball that lets me see into the distant past, so these are just my ideas. You can take them or leave them.
I think it’s likely that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. As I understand it, apocalypticism was common among a subset of Jews in the first century, and at the time, it wasn’t the scary inspiration of horror stories it is today. There may have been horrific nightmares and expectations of violence associated with apocalypticism, but the basic message was one of hope because at the end of this expected violent clash a new era of peace and justice would be ushered in.
I think it’s likely that Jesus wanted to comfort others with this message and persuade them to prepare for this event. I think it’s likely that he believed that the apocalypse was coming very soon.
Jesus seems to have been a small town preacher, but he might have gone to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. As I understand it, this was common at the time. Jerusalem’s population would swell every year around Passover. And I have heard that riots broke out in the city from time to time when all of these strangers were in town. I have heard that Roman soldiers were not usually in the city in force but were there during Passover because of potential riots.
We have been told that Jesus instigated a disturbance inside the Temple. If this happened, it might have been his way of expressing dissatisfaction with prevailing Jewish attitudes and practices at the time. Maybe the Jewish authorities arrested him and turned him over to the Romans because they feared he would stir up a riot when the city was overflowing with out-of-towners celebrating Passover.
I think it’s possible that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. Maybe he simply predicted the coming of the Messiah as part of his apocalyptic teaching. And after he was crucified, maybe his followers began claiming he was the Messiah and that he rose from the dead as a way of keeping the interest in his message and teachings alive. Maybe they didn’t even mean it literally. Maybe these claims were symbolic from the start.
I think after a number of years, Gospel writing and perhaps oral storytelling about Jesus might have become a way of expressing the various ways in which Jesus’ followers viewed his life and teachings. Maybe they never meant for these accounts to be taken literal. Maybe they never considered them as historic records. Maybe they were meant to be a kind of spiritual poetry from the beginning.
I have heard that many Biblical scholars believe that the ending of the Gospel of Mark, which is assumed to be the oldest canonical gospel, was added in the Middle Ages and that originally, the gospel ended abruptly with several disciples fleeing from Jesus after he rose from the dead. If this is true, maybe Mark was trying to say that not even the original followers of Jesus understood him.
Matthew, or I should say the author of Matthew since no one seems to know who actually wrote the gospels, seemed to be most interested in convincing fellow Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. Maybe this is why he connected Jesus’ story with the story of Moses, and maybe this is why he harshly condemned Jews for not accepting Jesus’ teachings in his lifetime.
Luke seemed to have been speaking to Gentiles. He universalized the story of Jesus so that Jesus wasn’t merely the Jewish Messiah but the world’s Messiah. As I understand it, many Biblical writers believe that the author of Luke was Gentile and that his writings were the only gentile writings to make it into the canon.
John goes further by emphasizing that not only was Jesus the Messiah but also the son of God. And the Gospel of Thomas, one of the non-canonical gospels, claims that not only was Jesus the son of God but that we’re all the children of God and that we all have the divine in us, only we don’t know it.
I don’t think many of the claims about Jesus are literally true, especially the fantastical ones, and I don’t think we can ever know for sure what Jesus actually said or did, but that isn’t to say that these stories don’t have some significance. I think that if an individual finds worth in these stories, then that’s good. But I don’t think there’s any one particular interpretation of the Jesus stories that we’re obliged to accept. In fact, I think it’s quite all right to reject all of them or to come up with a completely new way of viewing Jesus. I reject the idea of cosmic war. I reject the idea that some people are evil and some are good based on what they believe.
Religious beliefs are obviously very important to many, but I wish there were some way of getting people to understand that it’s all highly speculative and that we need to allow others to come to terms with the questions of purpose and meaning in their own way. The fact that some use their religion to attack others who disagree with them or as a way of accruing political power and status is disturbing to me. I’m always uneasy around those who are certain about their beliefs and intolerant of dissent. Sadly, my guard often goes up when I find out a person is religious, and it usually stays up until I know they aren’t “that way.”
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