During the final journey to Jerusalem Jesus tells the disciples that when they get to their destination, everything written in the prophets about the Son of man will be accomplished: he will be handed over to the pagan occupying force, Israel’s enemy, by Jews who have effectively abandoned the covenant with YHWH; he will be mistreated, humiliated, brutalized, and in the end killed; and on the third day he will rise (Luke 18:31-33).
He is not simply telling his own story. Daniel’s figure in human form is not an individual but a group of people - the saints of the Most High against whom the presumptuous little horn on the head of the fourth beast makes war. It is in anticipation of their faithfulness to YHWH that Jesus will challenge the powers that reign over Jerusalem. It is for the sake of their worship and life together that he will act out impending judgment on the temple, and gather a new community around the offering of his own body. It is on their behalf that he will be punished - he takes upon himself the suffering of God’s people.
The expected resurrection on the third day continues the story about Israel. Hosea expresses as acutely as any of the Old Testament prophets the anger and ache of God’s heart towards his people – the fierce repudiation of Israel and Judah because of their unfaithfulness and wickedness, and the irrepressible assurance of forgiveness. At one point he hears God say, ‘I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me’ (Hosea 5:15). His response is to call the nation to repentance:
‘Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.’ (6:1-2)
This is a metaphorical resurrection on the third day of a people who have suffered - literally, physically, nationally - at the hand of God because of their sins. Jesus must have understood this. He must have known that you cannot speak of the suffering of the Son of man and a raising to life on the third day without making people think of the punishment and suffering and forgiveness and restoration of Israel. The consummate story-teller, Jesus makes himself a metaphor, a parable, an embodied prophetic narrative, of what God is about to do in Israel.
We talk a lot about the resurrection being ‘new creation’. Wes White from Mosaic in Glasgow sent me a quote from Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man:
On the third day the friends of Christ coming at day-break to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.
I agree with this: it means that the resurrection of Jesus is not a victory over death only but a victory over the corruption and futility and decay that runs right through our world. But if even in his death and resurrection Jesus was in some sense telling the story of the judgment and renewal of God’s people, we who profess to be that people cannot celebrate Easter and excuse ourselves. We are the story. Anyone who is in Christ is new creation. Let us put off the old humanity and put on the new.
Re: He was raised on the third day in accordance with the script
I found the funniest article on religion at www.subversiveminds.com this week.
Perfect for easter! For a moral nation
resurrection sunday
Happy Resurrection Sunday everyone! It is a beautiful thing to celebrate our Lord’s resurrection, and a joy to participate in that resurrection by his Spirit.
Andrew, I have a question, and I’m not sure it’s perfectly relevant to this thread, so if you need to move it, I understand… but if Jesus’ death and resurrection embody the story of Israel according to Jesus… then in what sense were they necessary? This is something I keep getting hung up on with a heavier emphasis on narrative in our theologizing. I fully agree that we cannot understand either Jesus or Paul unless we understand the story they saw themselves as living in… but my wife asked me this morning what my views on the atonement were, and I wasn’t quite able to articulate why I thought Jesus had to die, or in what sense he died ‘for’ us (or for Israel). I cannot accept that Jesus literally ‘satisfied God’s wrath’ or anything like that (as if God had some sort of blood-thirst)… but I also have trouble believing in an atonement that has no ‘ontological’ value, that ONLY makes sense as the climax of a story of providential rescue. Maybe this is the modernist in me resisting his sleeping pills, but am I really unable to answer my more traditional friends when they ask me what I think Jesus DID in on the cross (and by rising from the grave a day and half later!)???
I guess the reason this is a frustration for me is because I believe a historical resurrection was necessary for the reconciliation of the world to God (and I’m pretty sure Jesus thought so too!). But if the Messiah’s death and resurrection are ‘only’ narratively necessary, I feel like all we’re left with is a watered down Marcus Borg-style theology (no offense to the man—I hear he’s pretty cool).
Any thoughts?
Re: resurrection sunday
There is no reason why narrative has to be at odds with ontology - it is just that we look for ontology (by which I guess you mean something like a universal, dare I say absolute, reality, acount of things) within a narrative framework and we allow that narrative framework a much larger say in defining it.
So we could ask: What reasons does the narrative give for Jesus’ death and resurrection? How does the narrative explain its effects. We would have to talk about the various elements that went to make up Jesus sense of identity and calling, for example:
Do we still need a theory of the atonement to explain all this? Isn’t this the problem - that we don’t really trust the narrative, we don’t really trust the experience of those who followed him? We need an abstract theory - a quasi-scientific, pseudo-philosophical theory - to reassure us in a rationalist age that it all makes sense, that it’s all believable. But what is inferior about the narrative argument? Why “’only’ narratively necessary”? The logic of biblical narrative includes covenant and all its commitments, the struggle of the prophets with the failings of Israel and the purposes of God for his people, the experience of invasion and exile. These are all powerfully compelling driving forces that, to my mind, are more than adequate to ‘account for’ Jesus’ death and resurrection as a culmination of ‘narrative’ developments.
We can also begin to think quite concretely and historically about how Jesus opened up a new option for Israel, a narrow path leading to life. Whatever the hidden metaphysics of his death as an act of atonement, it created a community that sought to locate itself in that narrative of dying and coming to life. They were convinced that through this embodied ‘parable’ God had done something on behalf of Israel that required their participation. Only the whole narrative explains that.
If this all sounds too complicated, then we need to find new ways of simplifying the story - without falling back on heavily reductive appeals to a doctrine of substitutionary atonement, or some such, as though that made everything perfectly clear. Jesus retold Israel’s complex story through parables and drama, and I would suggest that we could also find more creative ways of communicating the ‘truth’ that lies at the heart of the narrative as we come to understand it better. Maybe we don’t really have the right sort of answers yet to your wife’s questions - maybe we need to find them.
Re: resurrection sunday - Immanuel returns at pentecost
The last few days I’ve been thinking about how Jesus identified himself with Israel. There is of course the primary identification as seen in the baptism, and testing in the desert (I’m a little fuzzy with other aspects of this identification). If I understand N.T. Wright’s view, this was to take on himself Israel’s punishment for rebelling against the Romans, and show Israel a way to avoid 70 AD?
I have been looking to see if there are any existing discussions about a second identification. This could start at Passion week - welcomed into Jerusalem as a saviour (Joseph bringing his family into Egypt). Denied and betrayed (by the subsequent Pharaoh) beaten and forced into labour (carrying the cross) leading to inevitable death. By miraculous intervention, God provided a way through the sea/death, leading to a time of realignment. The focus of this identification is the entering into a promised land. With the Hebrews there was another baptism with water before they enter the promised land as the transformed nation of Israel, while Immanuel returns with a baptism of fire into his eschatological kingdom in a transformed, spiritual body.
Immanuel as a meta-narrative
If someone is looking for an ontological meaning behind Jesus’ death beyond the narrative, could John’s understanding suffice? (John 12:24)
Jesus’ incarnation and death was necessary for the Holy Spirit to enter the world in a new way.
Immanuel, God with us, intimacy with and indwelling of the world by God becomes the focus of the whole narrative. Atonement at the cross or victory at the resurrection are still elements, but pentecost is the most important event up till now, and we are looking forward to a fuller indwelling in the future. This is in line with the climax of Revelation with the coming of the new heaven and new earth (Rev 21:3)
Maybe this also provides an interpretive spin to an “ongoing Creation” metanarrative, which I think could also focus on pentecost rather than the death or resurrection. Can each unfolding of creation and God’s relationship with his people be interpreted as a fuller indwelling of God in creation.
Finishing Jesus’ resurrection and beginning second ministry
The single pillar of fire and cloud was a limited Immanuel for the Hebrews in the desert, but now the Holy Spirit is Immanuel for each of us, in a more intimate way than even Jesus was to the disciples. In fact, as the resurrection did not restore God’s presence with the disciples, the resurrection was not really complete until Immanuel returned at pentecost.
Just an aside, after Jesus’ water baptism he spent a short time in the desert (opposite of water?), while after his baptism down into the earth/sheol, he spent a short time up in the sky/heaven? Is he preparing (himself, the disciples) for his second ministry after he takes on his spiritual body?
Given that the Holy Spirit is Immanuel, he is the light and shows the way (like the original pillar of fire), leads us into truth and life, he fulfills Isaiah’s prophesy better than Jesus in his earthly ministry (Isaiah 9:6),
…
How far can we identify Immanuel/Holy Spirit with the Christ in his new body?
What are the theological implications of taking the return of Immanuel at pentecost to fulfill some aspects of the prophesied return of the Christ? At least the prophesies in which the Christ promised he would return before his followers died! I know that it is incompatible with traditional statements of the trinity (while, I think, maintaining the spirit of trinitarianism), and traditional eschatology (I’m not worried about that), but are there any fatal flaws that would rule it out in a post-evangelical theology? Or does it have some resonances with other aspects of emerging theology?
Please keep in mind that I have only a cursory knowledge of systematic theology, and that this is a fairly unprocessed idea. I’m guessing that it is an old argument, but I’m having trouble finding any theological discussion about it, so I’m just looking to see if anyone here has any thoughts or pointers. Given the eschatological implications, I thought this would be a good place to float the idea!
Re: Immanuel returns at pentecost
Richard, before asking about the theological implications, I would want to know what the positive exegetical reasons would be for finding anything like an intentional interpretive connection between Pentecost and the supposed idea of a ‘return’ of Christ. Is there, for example, anything in Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:14-36 that suggests that he saw this event as a fulfilment of Jesus’ statements about a future ‘coming’?
It seems to me that in the drama that Peter describes Christ is raised from the dead, exalted to the right hand of God, and will wait there until all his enemies are made a stool for his feet. From that position he pours out the promised Spirit - he does not return as the Spirit (Acts 2:33-35). It is the Spirit of Jesus because it will empower his followers collectively to walk the same path of witness and suffering that he walked: if anything, therefore, it suggests an identification of the church with Christ rather than of the Spirit with Christ.
In Acts 3:20 he still talks of God sending ‘the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago’. Here the ‘coming’ of Christ (whatever it means exactly - there is some discussion here) is associated with the restoration of all things, something which is clearly not fulfilled in the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost.
This is only one of the texts that would need to be considered, and the overall picture will certainly be more complex. But it illustrates, if only in nuce, the sort of interpretive connections that you would need to establish in order to defend your suggestion.
Re: resurrection sunday
Daniel you woke up the Borg fans…
What would make you think his logic is watered down? I would say that the beefed up not watered down. Beefed up with logic and historical context rather than the conservative views of atonement that are "watered-down" with weak mythological views.
What and whom did he save us from? Did satan promise to punish us for our sins with eternal damnation? Are you sure that the theories of atonement by substitution are not just something that was made up to try and make a silver lining for the cloud of Jesus’ execution by the authorities?
I tend to think if something is so hard to explain then maybe there is a more simple answer. For example: he was killed because that is what they do to people trying to revolt against the empire. Also, the stories of execution and resurrection are written just as the are so that they fit neatly into the narrative of Isreal and the OT prophecies. If you are writing a story "gospel" of Jesus you will certainly be sure to make it fit the prophecies. The Gospel writers did their best to make the connection and keep the narrative going.
A very important element of all these narratives is that we have to remember when they are written. When a later narrative (NT) fullfills the earlier narrative (OT) it is not because the early narrative was supernaturally foretelling the future. It was because the later narrative used some real historic events and built on it with their knowledge of the OT narrative to make a matching continuation of the narrative. The writings follow the events by some time so the stories are not history books they are narratives loosley based on historical events woven together to form a narrative. The problems that you have with your wives question is that she is attempting to turn the stories into a history book and you are trying to find some kind of explaination for something that has no physical explaination.
Re: resurrection sunday
Danutz, I think I asked this question before and didn’t get an answer - but apologies if I’m wrong: What is the reason for attributing this theological creativity to the writers of the Gospels and not to Jesus himself? Why couldn’t Jesus have interpreted his own vocation in light of the Old Testament texts? Why shouldn’t he have come to believe that God would vindicate one who was faithful to his calling? You may baulk at the idea that God did actually and supernaturally raise Jesus from the dead, but my point is only that we do not need to attibute the fulfilment of prophecy to hindsight on the part of later tradition. The interpretation of scripture is so integral to who Jesus was that I find it historically nonsensical not to give him the credit for it. This must have been one of the primary reasons for the impact that his life had on others - that he made sense of the eschatological moment by refocusing Israel’s stories through the lens of his own vocation.
I agree that it is a simpler answer to say that he was killed because that’s what empires do to subversives. But that is hardly an explanation that Jesus would have been happy with. It ignores the interpretive narrative framework just as much as traditional atonement mythology does. This particular confrontation with empire must be read against the background of Israel’s covenant relation with God. More or less everything that Jesus said or did presupposes the particularity of that narrative. If you leave it out, you no longer have a biblical Jesus. You have a bearded mannikin dressed in modern liberal clothing.
Re: resurrection sunday
Many reasons that I attribute this story to the writers of the Gospels (and Paul)…
1. I attribute it to the writers of the Gospel because they are the ones that wrote it. I wouldn’t attribute it to William Shakespear. If Jesus had written it, then I would have attributed it to Jesus. This is the most obvious answer.
2. You can follow the progression from the earliest Gospel (mark) to the latest Gospel (John). The "myth" grows and becomes more and more theological and more and more set in the narrative of Israel. If you layout the stories side by side and follow the changes in the stories from earliest to latest you can see what texts or "extra details" were added. The support of the major doctrines falls heavily in what was added. Even within Mark you can see how later versions of Mark added things like the bulk of the last chapter (v. 9-20). It is here that they have added some appearances of the risen Jesus to help add weight to the idea of a physical resurrection.
3. This logic that I have accepted, which is not original to Marcus Borg but is probably most clearly presented by him in our time, is the only one I’ve seen that has no holes. This puzzle fits together better than any other puzzle I’ve seen yet. It fits with all the best puzzle pieces of our day (science). Also, this logic is the only logic that seems willing to do a full analysis rather than just taking a set of beliefs or documents and then attempting to bend those square beliefs into our round universe.
4. Actually, I don’t have a problem with giving Jesus credit for some of this. I think he likely did do things to intentionally fulfill prophecies. For instance, riding a donkey in the march on Palm Sunday was an intentional reference to OT scripture. We may never know if that was a historically accurate detail of the physical Jesus or an added detail to provide narrative cohesion to the character of Jesus in the Gospels, but I am fine with giving the historical Jesus credit for those things.
I am fine with saying "believe what you want about the historical accuracy of the details like physical resurrection or virgin birth, etc". Wouldn’t you agree that the metaphorical/narrative meanings still means the same thing regardless of if the details are literal or non-literal?
What is great about the narrative theological view of scripture that you seem to support is that it unites those of use that have a non-literal view of these supernatural events and those that have a literal view of the events. In the case of Jesus death and resurrection, what you will find is that the liberal v. conservative debate has flipped. You will find that conservatives will now turn to the metaphorical (substitutionary atonement) view of death/resurrection and liberals look toward the literal history of the events (real execution by the empire).
In the end, we should emerge from this debate and understand that the importance is not in the details but in the meaning. We begin to treasure the narrative and its place in our lives. Narrative theology is the bridge that leads us all out of the age old debate of literal/non-literal interpretation.
The reason I continue to point back to the history is that what tends to get lost in the process is the political nature of Jesus message. By political I don’t mean selecting a political party (there were no parties or even elections for Jesus). Politics for Jesus meant economic and social justice. If by focusing on the narrative and/or metaphor we loose Jesus’ dramatic call for justice and compassion then we have lost the real Jesus. This has clearly happened with western Christianity. Most Christians have given up on fixing this world because they see the only hope as a system of justice in the next world. Jesus (either historcally factual person or narrative fictional character) was definately convinced that this world could and would be fixed (The kingdom of God is at hand). I’m more than happy moving beyond history to narrative but only if we can bring all the contextual points of Jesus’ message along with us. It is too convienient to say that now Christians run the empire so we no longer need an anti-imperial strain of thought in narrative. That line of thought has killed too many people already.
One last note…
The strongest argument against your purely divine narrative approach is that Jesus was clearly NOT the messiah of the OT. Any reading of OT references of the messiah and any historical understanding of what "messiah" would have meant in the 1st century would tell us that the Jesus of the Gospels was something completely different. He wasn’t what the prophets were looking for. That is why to this day they don’t accept him as the messiah. For me Jesus is my Messiah, but for the authors of the OT and the established Temple of the 1st century, Jesus was not THEIR Messiah. He was something much better.
Re: resurrection sunday
“The strongest argument against your purely divine narrative approach is that Jesus was clearly NOT the messiah of the OT.”
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this comment is that from a historical standpoint it seems to carry with it the charge of alternative views being oversimplistic all the while being overlysimplistic in its own right. I would be interested to see what the OT or Second Temple forms of Judaism have in specific that would make such a statement believable. Because if, in the end, we can say that the texts are neither flawed nor unexpectant of a messiah that would establish the kingdom of god then one can see how historically plausible Jesus’ own identification with these texts could also lead to his rejection and execution.
Let me approach this from a couple of points. First, without a clear understanding of his vocation in light of the OT and ST Jewish perspectives of messiah it would be near impossible to explain why it became imperative for his execution. If someone came with the message of messiahship that simply did not ‘look like’ the accepted messiahship, it would be quite easy to dismiss him and move on. Yet that is not what happened. The redefinition of messiahship is the heartbeat of the conflict. For Jesus did not ignite a messianic battle which was intended to remove the common threat and enemy of Rome, but rather fought the messianic battle which remained consistent with his own interpretation of the problem: a sinful and corrupt self. The point here is that Jesus must have resembled the messiahship enough for the leadership to make religious speech into a militaristic/revolutionary charge. Otherwise, the standard execution of a traitor does not make sense.
Second, it is a matter of interpretation regarding these passages. Certainly, that is what a thorough study of Paul will reveal - how Israel had missed their messiah because they were expecting something else but that in the light of Jesus’ message and ministry those texts stand reinterpreted and better understood. You are correct in saying that a latter document can easily ‘testify’ to the prophetic accuracy of a former document, but such a see-I-told-you-so phenomenon is simply not present in the NT. There is certainly a motif of fulfillment very present in the telling of the gospel narratives and in the writings of Paul, etc. But not in any way that could have come from Judaism alone. That is to say, that without a resurrection there simply would be no point in any of Jesus’ message or ministry prior. In fact, most of it would be nonsensical just as the rather embarrasing portrait of the disciples portrays. My point here is that OT or ST Judaism simply would not have arrived at a fulfillment of this nature on its own - a point which your thoughts would seem to concede - unless something incredibly dramatic shook it forward and reinterpreted its nuances.
Of final note…your above comments seem to be predicated on the premise of removing the theological layering of the gospel accounts in order to arrive at a pure and historical Jesus (if I am wrong here, then I might suggest rewording some of your ideas to move away from that perception…but I do think this is where you are beginning). Let me offer some thought to this enterprise: I believe that Dunn is correct in his most recent assesment of the historical Jesus ‘questing’ in that such a conclusion may never be arrived. For these documents have been written and preserved by a community which certainly believed he was who he claimed to be. And thus the lenses of discipleship do not begin when the gospel has been written but when his earliest followers begin to see enough of a messiah within him that they should regard him as the chosen one of god. So you cannot remove the ‘theological layering’ as so many historians claim but must seek to understand it as a coloring of the story itself. And this story would not have made it - at least in coherent form - without that dramatic and incredible shake.
:mic http://www.hereticsanonymous.com
Re: resurrection sunday
Nobody wanted to Kill Jesus because he was the messiah. They wanted to kill him because he wasn’t (in thier view). The Roman’s however did see his potential to lead a revolution which probably led to thier agreement to kill him.
In your statement you seem to agree with me that Isreal was looking for something else (i.e. Jesus wasn’t the messiah they were looking for).
Re: resurrection sunday
Yes, we can certainly agree that he was the messiah which they were not expecting! But that is quite different from claiming that he was not the messiah (or the OT messiah) at all…
:mic http://www.hereticsanonymous.com
Re: resurrection sunday
mic, you say, "without a resurrection there simply would be no point in any of Jesus’ message or ministry prior." Isn’t this the same as saying that his life had no value, and his teachings were meaningless? Only in death did he have any value.
I’m sorry, but I really don’t agree. I think that one of the big mistakes of Christianity of today is that it thinks this way, i.e. the only value of Jesus was his sacrificing his life to die for our sins. But Jesus never spoke of such things, except according to John and Paul, who were clearly developing their own theology about Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ life and and teachings were fairly straight forward and simple. Take care of the poor and needy, treat others the way you want to be treated, and do what you have to do to stand up against injustice, even when you know it won’t be popular and may cost you. I think this is the cross that Jesus wanted us to take up. Sitting in church on Sunday staring up in wide-eyed wonder at a crucifix or cross and dreaming about the heaven that is guaranteed to us if we simply "accept Christ as our savior" is easy. It doesn’t require anything of us. Daring to stand up and be counted against societal evil, however, is another matter entirely.
Even assuming for the sake of argument that there was a resurrection and this whole process atones for our sins (whatever that means), isn’t it possible that Christians are still missing part of Jesus’ message? Even accepting the traditional theology, might we still not have an obligation to do our best while here on this earth to follow his example and work for justice?
My pastor’s Easter message included the comments that we as Christians are often afraid that we won’t recognize Jesus when he returns. I think it’s just the opposite: many are afraid that they will recognize him, and that he’ll be asking them to do some of the things that he did. And those are the kinds of things that make other people suspect you of being some kind of nut - because you would be in fact a political activist (using Mike’s definition of politics, of course).
I’m just saying…
Vicki50
Re: He was raised on the third day in accordance with the script
Andrew - I liked your description of the atonement and resurrection of Jesus very much. As a way of understanding the account through the "story of the judgment and renewal of God’s people" it is making an explanation - moving from a simple story, to a story which fulfilled OT prophecy, and a story which involves us today - "not a victory over death only but a victory over the corruption and futility and decay that runs right through our world." So it is providing in its own way an "atonement theory". Narrative accounts don’t entirely avoid theory - though I agree they do away with a certain amount of ‘over-theorising’.
The question in my mind is, which story is the Easter story telling?
In your second paragraph, you relate the story to the ‘little horn’ in Daniel 7. We are given very little detail about the identity of ‘the little horn’ - but in the context of Daniel, leading to Daniel 11:21-45, the immediate prime candidate is Antiochius IV. The emphasis on his boastfulness in Daniel 7:8,11 is echoed in the boasting of the king described in Daniel 11:36. But his characteristics could be taken as a type of future kings, just as the fourth beast (which here would be Greece) could be a type of future kingdoms. In fact Rome could be regarded as simply an extension of the Greek empire.
The suffering of the saints is not mentioned in Daniel 7, but if we take Daniel 7 to be related to Daniel 11, then we are probably talking, in the first place, about the same period of time and the same ruler: Antiochus IV. The gap between Daniel 7:8-12 and Daniel 7:13-14 illustrates a theological point - the next event in Daniel’s visionary perspective was the coming of the kingdom in Daniel 7:14. The NT presents that kingdom as coming with Jesus 150 years later - Matthew 4:17. The exaltation of the son of man was realised in Jesus in a representative role, either as single event, or a series of events, after Jesus’s resurrection.
I would suggest that the frame of the Easter story as gradually understood by the disciples is wider than the Daniel story, and as wide as the echoes of stories it picks up from the rest of the OT. It did not take the original disciples long to realise that what God had done in Jesus’s death and resurrection was significant for gentiles as well as Jews; the falling of the Spirit on the Samaritans and Cornelius would have made them realise that. The quotation from G.K.Chesterton in your post picks up the overtones of the original Eden story in John’s resurrection account. Reflection within the biblical narrative itself by its participants was perhaps already seeing that something wider than Israel’s personal story alone was taking place in Jesus’s death and resurrection. It would not take long before the significance of Isaiah’s prophecies about witnesses to the ends of the earth would be woven into the understanding of the story.
It’s in this wider reading that developing atonement theories begin to take shape. But they are not extraneous to the story, which in itself always requires an element of ‘substitution’ to make sense, and even ‘penal substitution’ - which is Jesus bearing the wrath which was to come on Israel, so that believing Israel, by trusting in him, would not have to go through wrath.
It’s then that we have to ask again the ontological question: Who was Jesus? In looking at the completed story (beyond the death/resurrection accounts of the gospels), Paul seems to see Jesus each time he looks at JHWH. This may not be saying explicitly that the Jesus on the cross was therefore JHWH himself, but it becomes almost impossible (except for Socinians) to say that he was not. Reflection on the story almost demands it.
Can we manage without a developed idea of Jesus as God on the cross, if we just keep to the narrative approach and understanding? I think the narrative approach requires a developed understanding of Jesus as well, unless we are to put artificially narrow borders around the story.
My further question would be: Why would we want to avoid the idea of Jesus as God on the cross? It might be difficult to fathom (did God really die? etc), but it provides the theological underpinning which makes sense of Israel’s role (through failure) as the covenant people in God’s purposes for the world. It provides an explanation which gives the neccesary depth of understanding to humanity’s plight in the face of universal sin, and the grace which God extended in providing his solution - reflecting his determination through the covenant to deal with sin, yet remain faithful to his purposes for creation. Or to put it rather more simply: "There was no other good enough to take away my sin; He only could unlock the door of heaven and let me in" - heaven now being wherever God’s people bring heaven to bear on "the corruption and futility and decay that runs right through our world."
Re: He was raised on the third day in accordance with the script
"…reflecting his determination through the covenant to deal with sin"
What makes us think that that "dealing" with sin would mean getting the punishment resolved? The concept of repentance that was preached by John the Baptist and Jesus was not about paying a price or having the price removed it was about stopping the sin (selfishness leading to injustice). Repent means to stop living for ourselves and start living for others. What Jesus did for us by living and dying was to show us how to live when we stop living the way of the world (selfishly). He showed us what repentance looks like on a personal and social level.
I’m not 100% sure I understand the details of a "narrative approach" to theology. I’ve read N.T. Wright but I still don’t see all the logic fleshed out in clear language. I feel that what happens is that the term "narrative" is used to eliminate some of the guilt that you guys feel about dropping a literal translation of the bible. Using that terminology doesn’t feel as rebellious as saying non-literal or metaphorical so you can somehow accept it. Does that make sense? Help me understand how this narrative theory is so acceptable in your minds but metaphorical is not.
Re: He was raised on the third day in accordance with the script
danutz - someone has edited your original reply!
You are right - Jesus was showing us how to live, and what that would mean for his followers, in his life and death. If that was all the story was about, it would be a great story, possibly the best. But that was only one of the things Jesus came to do, and show us through his life and death. By focusing on this aspect of the story, you are omitting what all the accounts agree happened next - that Jesus appeared three days later (or on the third day), in a resurrected (not resuscitated) form.
The response of the disciples prior to this resurrected appearance was disillusionment, despondency, and a return to what they were doing before Jesus came into their lives. So clearly, the moral example argument doesn’t work. It was only when they became convinced that he had risen from the dead that things changed, and even then only after they had received the supernatural Spirit.
Now you want to change the story; you want a genuine Jesus for the moral example idea, but metaphor for everything else. The problem is that the ‘everything else’ makes all the difference, both because it was an experience in the lives of the disciples which corresponds with experiences people still have today (apart from yourself), and also because the experiences corresponded with what Israel had been brought to believe through her own understanding of her scriptures would bring in the ‘end of the age’ and the beginning of the new age.
The particular experiences in question were: resurrection from the dead (fulfilled in Jesus, promised to his followers); outpouring of the Spirit (cited as proof of the fulfilment of Joel 2:28-32, and representing numerous other OT passages) which also proved the ascension of Jesus, according to Peter’s proclamation at the Day of Pentecost.
The irony is that the Jesus you want, stripped of the supernatural and fulfilment of biblical Israel’s hope and prophecy, and that of the entire creation, is actually the self-same Jesus reflected in those elements of the story which you want to be metaphor. This is the very Jesus who would be protesting outside the golf club AGM, and more importantly, challenging the agendas of state and society on just about every issue you could care to think of. He is a radical lion whom we have tamed and put in a cage at the zoo called church.
You are trying to fly with one wing cut off; your automobile is firing on only half its cylinders. Shouting more and more loudly won’t change things - you need to stop and look inside the engine to get it fixed. You need to sew back on the missing wing. Let’s have a real debate about the real Jesus - and get onto his actual radical agenda, which goes a long way further than yours.
Re: He was raised on the third day in accordance with the script
I edited it myself. I am trying to be more "generous" and my first response was a little too controversial.
As for your suggestion that I "want to change the story"… I don’t want to do that at all. I want to get back to the real Jesus before the NT scriptures were written (the story was created). That is what I want to uncover. But we have to do that by discussing the metaphorical lenses we have been handed (scriptures). They are the only lenses we have. If we had a history book without poetry, narrative and metaphor we wouldn’t need to do that. Maybe we are better off this way because we have to think harder. I am not suggesting that we choose between pre-easter Jesus and post-easter Jesus. I am just suggesting that we recognize which one we are talking about and not get them mixed up. I’m happy having discussions about the post-easter Jesus and enjoying the beauty of the story, I only object when the debate mixes its history with metaphor.