Water Into Wine. Tom Harpur
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pin on all its followers for centuries to come—of our “total depravity,” our unworthiness even “to pick up the crumbs” under God’s table—the pronouncement comes loud and clear of God’s infinite pleasure in us.
This contrasts radically with the view of our humanity once elucidated by Reverend John Wesley, the great Methodist reformer. In Sermon 45 in the 1872 edition of The Sermons of John Wesley, he thunders: “This then is the foundation of the new birth—the entire corruption of our nature . . . everyone born into the world now bears the image of the devil in pride and self-will.” That is really a classic statement of the dogma of original sin, the notion that, because of Adam’s alleged “fall,” humanity is forever tainted by that act of disobedience. Humanity, according to St. Augustine, was a “massa damnata,” and only the death of the sinless Son of God could ever set that right. This theology gave the Church enormous power and control over people’s lives, and it still looms large in too much Christian preaching today.
Nearly two thousand years of controlling people by constantly harping on their ungodliness and sin has produced predictably poor results. One can only speculate about how differently millions upon millions would have felt and behaved in countless generations had they been told from the very beginning: “You are my much-loved offspring with whom I am pleased indeed.” To create loving people, you need to have children who are told of their true nature and potential—and then are truly loved. The implications of this more spiritual understanding of baptism for the churches are potentially transformative on a grand scale. There really is some very Good News to proclaim! But new baptismal liturgies or services have to be created to replace the negative formulae of the past.
Nazareth
When Mark says that Jesus came from Nazareth and was baptized by John, it’s the only time he explicitly mentions the place that has come to be universally regarded as Jesus’ hometown. A few verses later, an unclean spirit is said to have addressed him as “Jesus, the Nazarene” (and Jesus is referred to as a Nazarene three more times in this Gospel), but there the meaning is quite different. It probably has nothing to do with a place name. As Professor G.A. Wells, in a lengthy and detailed discussion, points out, the term “Nazarene” is used in some extant documents as “the title of a sect.” It is thus the equivalent of saying “George the Methodist” or “Tom the Anglican.”9 Notice that Mark does not tell us that Jesus actually came from or grew up in Nazareth. According to Luke, Mary and Joseph lived there—they went to Bethlehem for the birth—but Matthew’s birth narrative differs sharply at this point. In Matthew’s version, their “house” was in Bethlehem. To keep the Nazareth connection, however, Matthew has the whole family go there after the highly symbolic return from Egypt following the death of Herod. In his usual formula, Matthew says this was to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy that “He will be called a Nazorean” (the King James Version again translates the Greek here as “Nazarene”). But there is no such prophecy in the entire Old Testament!
I will not weary the reader with the incredibly detailed and complex discussion and debate over the possible significance of the fact that Mark and Luke call Jesus “the Nazarene” while Matthew, John and Acts always call him “Jesus the Nazorean.”10 In any case, early Jewish followers of the Christian way were called by both terms. In none of the Gospels, however, does Jesus apply either term to himself. He is depicted rather as an itinerant prophet who called no town or village his home. He is Everyman.
Today in modern Nazareth, the Roman Catholics, with their huge Basilica of the Annunciation, allegedly built over the site of the grotto that was Mary’s home, are still engaged in a long-running dispute with the Greek Orthodox Church. The latter claim to have the true site of the Annunciation at their Mary’s Well Church, about half a kilometre away. But in such matters, of course, since it’s all mythical, absolutely nothing is certain. There are rival places for most of the “holy” sites in Israel that are touted today as genuine places where “events” in Jesus’ life are held to have occurred. Fighting over which religious group has control over what “sacred spot” is a major and ongoing scandal.
There is a good reason for discussing the alleged Nazareth connection, but as is becoming clear, the issues are far more complex than a surface examination suggests. Study of the records reveals that it is even quite possible there was no village or settlement at a place called Nazareth in the first century CE. For example, there is no mention of a village or town called Nazareth in the Hebrew Bible, nor in the works of Josephus (who wrote during the first century CE), nor in the Talmud. Yet both of the latter sources give lengthy lists of Galilean settlements. Josephus lived for some time in the region. According to The Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nazareth “is not mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures (nor in any Hebrew literature prior to the seventh or eight century CE).”11 Among recent books raising doubts over this whole issue is The Fabrication of the Christ Myth by the Jewish author Harold Leidner.12
My own examination and summary of the voluminous scholarly discussion over whether or not Nazareth was a hamlet at the putative time of Jesus’ childhood suggests that the general archaeological picture would appear to indicate the existence of a very tiny village wholly devoted to agriculture that originally came into being in the course of the third century BCE.13 So, I believe there most likely was a village called Nazareth in the first century CE. But its connection with any historical Jesus is at best obscure.
The reason St. Paul, who mentions the term “Jesus Christ” about two hundred times, never once writes of or calls him “Jesus of Nazareth” was undoubtedly because he himself had never heard of such a place. Its use by Mark and the other Evangelists appears ultimately to me to have its roots in theology, not geography or history.
The Temptation—
Testing in the Wilderness
Mark’s Gospel
Mark, as we have seen, has no real chronology. His work is not a biographical “life” of a historical person. Consequently, he covers this up and regularly connects scenes that were unconnected in his sources (or his creative imagination) with the Greek word euthus, which means simply “immediately.” That’s what happens right after his description of the experience attributed to Jesus at the River Jordan at the hands of John the Baptist. Aware now of his true, essential nature as God’s child or “son”—“the Beloved” with whom God is well pleased—we are told, “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” Mark then continues: “He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
When we look at the parallel descriptions of this episode in Matthew and Luke in a moment, we will see just how abbreviated and condensed this pericope (the technical, scholarly term) or passage really is here. But for now I suggest that you try to put aside all previous conceptions and misconceptions gained from whatever source—early Sunday school lessons, old sermons, or even recent readings of the text—and see the narrative through fresh eyes if you can.
Consider, first of all, that there were no witnesses to this “event.” You know at once you are in the presence of the mythical when there is no precision whatever regarding time or place and no possibility of eyewitnesses. The Evangelist is simply recounting or creating the story or mythos. The wilderness here, as it is time and time again throughout the Scriptures, is also simply an allegorical manner of speaking. It is a metaphor for the soul’s life in the body on this plane of existence. We are spiritual beings in the “wilderness” of bodily existence. Incidentally, the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites in the Old Testament uses the very same metaphor. The mention of his being with “the wild beasts” is a unique feature of Mark and again is a pointed reminder that we have an animal nature that cannot be hidden or ignored even though, notice carefully, the text clearly emphasizes our spiritual nature by saying that it was not chance but the Spirit that “drove” him out for the wilderness testing. This clash of Spirit and our animal nature is not just inevitable, however; it is absolutely essential for any possibility of growing and evolving into the complete beings of light we are destined one day to become. This can be costly and painful. But, it should be added, we are not, somehow, wholly on our own; there is the