Hello, and welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ. If this is your first time to this gospel study, you may want to check out the Introduction, which can be found here.
I should apologize for not publishing anything last week. I am sorry to have left my audience waiting two weeks for this posting. I have a reasonable excuse in that I was out of my home state visiting family in Texas. Making it more reasonable is the fact that, during the trip, I proposed marriage to the love of my life. Thankfully, despite my many, many glaring flaws, she accepted my proposal.
Seriously, though, thank you for your patience in this and every regard. Let me not delay today's writing any further.
Last time we met, we discussed some of the basic mechanics of Greco-Roman paganism. That discussion was prompted by our need to further understand the religious world that Jesus Christ grew up in, which was influenced from all sides by pagan cultures. It's time, now, to wrap up our mini-study on the pagan context of the first century. Today, we're going to look at some of the specific similarities between the pagan world-view and the Biblical Jewish worldview. After that, of course, we'll have our regularly scheduled gospel selection.
Happy reading.
Similarities Between Ancient Judaism and Paganism
For a little over two-thousand years, Christians and Jews alike have portrayed Judaism as being a thing totally separate from the old pagan religions. The difference between Jew and Gentile, to hear some tell it, was like the difference between black and white.
Like so much of what is portrayed as truth about these faiths, the idea that Judaism and paganism were totally different is totally wrong. An objective look at early Judaism shows a faith that is remarkably similar in its mechanics to all of the paganisms that surrounded the ancient Israelites. In fact, I venture to say that an extraterrestrial intelligence, looking objectively at ancient Judaism side by side with any one of the paganisms, would assume that the two were just localized variations of the exact same religion.
We'll wind down this study now with four critical points of similarity between ancient Judaism and paganism.
1. Both Jews and pagans had a priestly class.
When I was growing up, I wasn't aware that there were "priests" outside of the Catholic faith. For whatever reason, I never learned, in my early years, that priesthood had pre-dated Christianity. I guess I remember being taught, or somehow inferring, that all clerical works had originated with Jesus. It seemed as if Jesus Christ himself had presented to his apostles the org-chart of the Catholic Church.
Of course, I know now that Jesus didn't do anything of the sort. He offered no organizational chart, and he condoned no human authority. I know now that the concept of "priesthood" predated Jesus, as the Jews had had a hereditary line of priests since Aaron, the first High Priest of the people Israel. I am further aware that Jewish priesthood predated even Aaron, and that pagan priesthood predated the earliest Jewish priests.
The Egyptians had established priesthoods in the sixth millennium BC. We know this from archaeological evidence of organized animal sacrifice dated as early as 5500 BC in Egypt. Priests existed in extreme antiquity in Mesopotamia, too. In ancient Sumeria, around 2300 BC, there lived a priestess called Enheduana whose writings have survived until now. Enheduana is known as the world's first poet, and predated the Israelites by centuries at least. She wrote the "Sumerian Temple Hymns" and various devotions to her patron Goddess Inanna. The priestly administration of the cult of Inanna may have dated back another thousand years or so from Enheduana. Pagans had priests millenia before the story of the Israelites began.
Interestingly, priests even existed among the Israelites before the Torah was handed down to Moses on Sinai. That is to say that there were priests among the Israelites before they had received the basic tenets of their faith. In Exodus, immediately before establishing the Aaronic priesthood, God mentions other Israelite priests to Moses. He tells Moses "Go down and come up along with Aaron. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord."
When we consider that the office of "priest" existed in the pagan religions of the Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and that priesthood in general predated Jewish cosmology by a long-shot, we come to understand that Jewish priesthood was borrowed from, or was an evolution of, older pagan traditions.
The office of "priest" is not a Christian, nor even Jewish, invention.
2. Both Jews and pagans had methods of divination.
As we learned last time, the Greeks and the Romans both had ancient methods of divination. The Romans would read bird livers or the patterns of bird flight, and the Greeks would visit an Oracle who spoke in tongues. We can find other kinds of divination in almost any ancient pagan tradition. Most ancient people, it would seem, had some form of divine "Magic 8-Ball" to which they could turn for godly answers.
The ancient Jews were no different from the pagans here, either.
The Old Testament describes what are known as the Urim and Thummim, or two engraved, sacred stones. The Urim and Thummim were to be kept with the High Priest, on his breastplate, and could be consulted for divination. This system, like the Sacred Chickens that we learned about last time, was binary. The priest would ask a question, and then blindly reach into a pouch which contained both stones. The answer to the question would be understood based on which stone was blindly grabbed. It's like flipping a coin, asking God to determine the outcome, and then believing that God did determine the outcome.
Any modern Christian who scoffs at practices like augury or auspicy would do well to remember the Urim and Thummim that existed in their own ancient mother-faith. The mother-faith, as we are beginning to see, was not that different from that of the pagans.
3. Both Jews and pagans worshipped at temples which housed gods.
The Temple of Jerusalem (including both Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple) was, to the ancient Jews, the literal earthly housing for God. God was understood to reside in the most sacred part of the Temple, the Holy of Holies. The concept of a grand edifice being used to contain a god was not originated with the Temple of Solomon, however. Pagan cultures the world over had, by the time of Solomon, been building temples to house divine beings for upwards of 10,000 years.
Egyptians, Sumerians, Minoans and others had all developed varying types of temple architecture for worship prior to the advent of the Jewish faith. Most pagan temples, just like the Jewish Temple, contained a particularly sacred area within that could only be entered by a member of the priesthood. Most pagan temples were constructed for the benefit of a single local god as opposed to multiple gods, even though the people that worshipped at said temples would have believed in a whole pantheon. Most pagan temples also had at least one altar on which to perform ritual blood sacrifices, just like the Jewish Temple did.
I find it suspicious that Yahweh, the "One True God," would arrive on the scene and basically request the same treatment that the "false" pagan gods had been receiving for millennia. "Build me a Temple like those other gods have," Yahweh seems to have told the Israelites.
Suspicious.
Suspicious.
4. Both Jews and pagans appealed to the divine by the mechanism of blood sacrifice.
The Old Testament is full of blood sacrifices to God. In scripture, Abraham, before he was even named "Abraham," can be seen slaughtering a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove and a pigeon for his new-found God. The Bible gives us the sense that sacrifice was something that Abraham's people were already very familiar with by the time of God's revelation to Abraham.
From the time of Abraham, blood sacrifices continued to be offered by the Jewish people until 70 AD. In year 70, as we've mentioned again and again, Rome knocked the Second Temple down. Since the Torah says that blood sacrifices may only be performed at the Temple, blood sacrifice stopped with the temple's destruction, and, according to tradition, cannot resume until a Third Temple is built in Jerusalem.
From the time of Abraham, blood sacrifices continued to be offered by the Jewish people until 70 AD. In year 70, as we've mentioned again and again, Rome knocked the Second Temple down. Since the Torah says that blood sacrifices may only be performed at the Temple, blood sacrifice stopped with the temple's destruction, and, according to tradition, cannot resume until a Third Temple is built in Jerusalem.
The sacrifice of blood to a god was, like the temple itself, not an idea that originated with the Jews.
Again, Yahweh seems to arrive on the scene covetous of what the pagan Gods have been receiving for millennia before him. He seems to say "I want you to spill blood on an altar in or near a gigantic beautiful building for me, just the way your ancestors used to spill blood for their various gods in Mesopotamia, and just the way the Egyptians spill blood for their gods in their temples. Truly, those pagans treat their gods well."
Why does the "One True God" demand what the masses of false gods had always received, rather than some alternative?
If Judaism was totally new and totally different from the paganisms that predated it, why did it so closely follow the pattern of those paganisms?
How were the pagans, without having the benefit of Yahweh's instruction, able to develop systems that were so close to the one the Jews ended up with by Yahweh's command?
Sorry about the rhetorical questions. I just want to make sure you're with me on this as we wrap this up.
The similarities between the cosmology of the pagans and the cosmology of the ancient Israelites were numerous and not at all superficial. The way history reads, it is almost as if blood sacrifice by a priestly class at a temple is some kind of natural law, and that Jewish cosmology was nothing more than a refinement of that law.
I conclude that the religion Jesus Christ practiced all his life can, in a way, be seen less as Judaism 1.0 and more as Paganism 2.0. It is critical to the rest of our studies to understand just how closely related these ancient thought systems were. With that, we'll retire this line of questioning.
Now, back to the Gospel.
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Matthew 5:11 through Matthew 5:12
11 Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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The list of what are traditionally called "The Beatitudes" ended last time in Matthew 5:10. Today, we have what is known unofficially as the "Ninth Beatitude." Recall that these Beatitudes mark the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the first specific teaching that Jesus offers his disciples aside from "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
As far a moral data, these Beatitudes have been a boon to us already. We've learned in the other Beatitudes that Jesus prefers the poor, the meek, the merciful, the peaceful, and the persecuted. In the Ninth Beatitude, Jesus doubles down on his aforementioned preference for the persecuted.
Let's notice a couple of things about this reading. First of all, Jesus doesn't say "if," he says "when."
"...When they insult you and persecute you..." he says.
So, Jesus expects his disciples to be persecuted, insulted, and to have "every kind of evil" spoken of them. We can infer, then, that he expects his followers to publicly buck some cultural mores, and to no small extent. Otherwise, how would they ever find themselves persecuted?
"...When they insult you and persecute you..." he says.
So, Jesus expects his disciples to be persecuted, insulted, and to have "every kind of evil" spoken of them. We can infer, then, that he expects his followers to publicly buck some cultural mores, and to no small extent. Otherwise, how would they ever find themselves persecuted?
Let's also take note of who Jesus is talking about when he says "they" in 5:10. Does he mean the Jews? Does he mean the Jewish authorities - the priests and aristocrats? Does he mean the Roman occupying force? We get a clue in 5:12. He says that his followers will be persecuted in the same manner as were the prophets before them. Looking back at the Old Testament, we can see that the prophets were mostly persecuted by those with great power. Elijah, Amos, Micaiah, Hanani, Uriah and other prophets all faced retribution or persecution at the hands of some powerful human authority, either a High Priest or a monarch.
So, 5:11 and 5:12 show us that Jesus expects his followers to be persecuted by High Priests, monarchs, aristocrats, or other powerful humans. There is no reason to think that Jesus is speaking in metaphor or parable here. He truly seems to have expected this.
Now let's follow Jesus' expectation one step further with a question: why would High Priests, monarchs, or aristocrats want to persecute a person?
For our answer, we need only look at all of human history. All of human history teaches us that the wealthy and powerful, as a rule, persecute anything that threatens their wealth and power.
So...
For our answer, we need only look at all of human history. All of human history teaches us that the wealthy and powerful, as a rule, persecute anything that threatens their wealth and power.
So...
Jesus Christ, at the very beginning of his Galilean Ministry, is telling his followers that he expects them to threaten the power of the powerful. He expects his followers to loudly undermine the status quo by default. We've made no logical leap of faith here, and we've missed no secret meaning. Today's reading shows unequivocally that Jesus intended for his followers to be revolutionaries.
This week, let's meditate on the many ways we can, in accordance with the teaching of Jesus Christ, threaten the power of human power.
Thank you for reading. Please share this writing.
Love.
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For the index of Christ's words, click here.
