Religion Today: A Reader

Susan Mumm

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351904964
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

- Organized by themes which are central to understanding religion today - Suitable for advanced undergraduates: emphasis on controversy and debates in the field - International range of sources and religions - Includes popular as well as scholarly sources

Part I:
From Sacred Text to Internet

All the readings in this section examine aspects of the representation of religion: representation in sacred texts, through images and pictures, across different cultures, and through new forms of media and communication. The first two readings deal with the relationship between scholarly reconstruction of the life of Jesus and the contemporary debate about the appropriate representation of this figure. Marsh and Moyise (1.1) describe the changing regard in which Mark’s account of the life of Jesus has been held by Christians in the past and today; Borg (1.2) tackles the wider question of how Jesus himself has been understood. Moving from text to visual representation, the second set of readings (1.3–1.7) examine ideas about the sacred image in recent Hindu thinking and practice. The following readings (1.8–1.14) provide evidence for how a religion is variously represented while in the process of dissemination: charting the development of Buddhism from the Buddha’s last instructions to the proliferation of Buddhist sects in the west, as well as reviewing the media through which the Buddha is represented in the west and the nature of different representations. 1.15 points up the issue of the interpretation and representation of Islam in a modernizing Egypt. The final reading in this section (1.16) moves to the electronic pulpit, and how the Internet is used by religions, and questions the future shape of religion as it increasingly relies upon electronic alternatives to the printed text and the real object.

1.1 ‘MARK’S GOSPEL’

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Clive Marsh and Steve Moyise

From Jesus and the Gospels, Marsh, C. and Moyise, S., London, Cassell, 1999, pp. 14–25, 115–19.

Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels, beginning at Jesus’ baptism (nothing about his birth) and ending at the empty tomb (no resurrection appearances). For much of church history, it was thought to be an abbreviation of Matthew and hence less important. Over 600 of its 661 verses find a parallel in Matthew, and although early tradition suggests that Mark drew on the memories of Peter, the fact remains that it was not written by an apostle. This probably explains why so few commentaries were written on Mark in the early church and the book fell into neglect (Lightfoot, 1950, p.2).

However, during the nineteenth century, scholars such as Lachmann (1835) and Holtzmann (1863) showed that the ‘abbreviation’ theory is untenable. For example, the story of the demoniac and the pigs (Matt 8:28–34) occupies seven verses in Matthew but Mark’s account runs to twenty verses (Mark 5:1–20). The similarities between the Gospels, particularly their use of unusual Greek phrases, shows that the church was correct in seeing a relationship between them. But most scholars today believe that Matthew and Luke used Mark as one of their sources (Luke acknowledges that many have written before him). This would make Mark our earliest ‘life of Jesus’ and therefore of great importance.

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Mark presents Jesus’ ministry in two parts. The first ten chapters describe an itinerant ministry in and around Galilee. The last six chapters concern the last week of his life (’the passion’) in and around Jerusalem. Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not tell us anything about a miraculous birth or a child prodigy. Mark begins with Jesus’ baptism and moves rapidly to his death. Over a third of Mark’s Gospel is devoted to the final week of his life, earning it the description of ‘a passion narrative with an extended introduction’.

Many scholars have also noted a thematic division in the Gospel. The first eight chapters present Jesus as a man ‘mighty in word and deed’. But the incident at Caesarea Philippi (8:27–30) seems to be a turning point. Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’ They reply with a variety of answers: John the Baptist; Elijah; a prophet. He then asks, ‘But who do you say that I am?’, to which Peter replies, ‘You are the Messiah’. Then

he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’ (8:31–35)

Though chapters 9–16 are not devoid of miracles (there are three), the emphasis is on Jesus’ suffering. It is the focus of his teaching (9:30–2; 10:32–4; 12:1–12; 14:8; 14:18–25). And it is the climax of Mark’s story (14:34; 14:65; 15:15–20; 15:34). As Gundry puts it: ‘The basic problem of Marcan studies is how to fit together these apparently contradictory kinds of material in a way that makes sense of the book as a literary whole’ (1993, p. 2).

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NO CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT THE CROSS

The majority view is that Mark intended to show that there can be no glory without the cross. As Paul discovered, God’s glory is not revealed in strength but weakness. The burden of Mark’s Gospel is to show that even with his mighty power and superior wisdom, Jesus could only accomplish his work through suffering. The same will be true for his followers. To an earlier generation of scholars (Taylor, 1953; Cranfield, 1959), this was seen as Jesus fusing together the glorious ‘Son of Man’ figure from Daniel 7 with the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. This is a rather neat solution, but it is probably too neat. There is little evidence that Jews of Jesus’ day were expecting a messianic ‘Son of Man’ or a ‘suffering servant’. And there are no actual quotations of Isaiah 53 in Mark’s Gospel. The three quotations that do appear in connection with Jesus’ death are Psalm 118:22–3 (’The stone that the builders rejected’), Zechariah 13:7 (’I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’) and Psalm 22:1 (’My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’). As Joel Marcus has shown, Mark seems to have drawn on a number of Old Testament figures in order to paint his picture of Jesus’ passion (1992, pp. 153–98).

Many have suggested that Mark is writing at a time of extreme tension, either the Neronian persecution in Rome (c. 64 CE) or, more probably (in the light of 13:14), the Jewish war (c. 66–70 CE). It is often thought of as the ‘suffering’ Gospel. Thus Denis Nineham (1963, p. 33) thinks that the author of Mark’s Gospel had three aims:

• to show how much Jesus suffered

• to show how he taught his followers that they would suffer

• to show how he promised great rewards to those who endure to the end.

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A NON-MESSIANIC JESUS

In 1901, William Wrede published his famous book on the ‘messianic secret’. Prior to this, it was assumed that Jesus wanted people to know who he was and why he had come. Why else would God become incarnate if not to try and communicate with lost humanity? But Mark portrays Jesus as frequently commanding silence from those who are healed and refusing to work miracles to aid belief:

1:34The demons are forbidden to say who Jesus is (see also 3:12).

1:44The leprosy sufferer is told to tell no one about his cure.

5:43Jairus is told to tell no one about the raising of his daughter.

7:36The crowd must not tell of the healing of the deaf mute.

9:9Peter, James and John are not to tell anyone about the transfiguration.

9:30Jesus wants to keep his presence a secret.

Wrede believed that these are unrealistic and artificial. How could Jairus say nothing about the raising of his daughter when there is a crowd of mourners outside? And if Jesus is seeking to avoid attention, why does he insist on healing the man with the withered hand in the middle of a synagogue service? Why not wait until the next day? Why does he feed a crowd of 5000 if he wants to remain anonymous? Wrede concluded that this is really a literary device to cover up the fact that while the church proclaimed Jesus as Messiah, Jesus himself had no such pretensions. In order to get around this, the church introduced the ‘messianic secret’, the idea that Jesus knew himself to be the Messiah but wished to keep it quiet. But actually, Jesus was not conscious of being the Messiah and never made any such claims.

A NON-POLITICAL MESSIAH

Conservative scholars interpret this evidence differently. Jesus knew that he was the Messiah and Son of God (e.g. 13:32) but did not openly proclaim it, either for fear of creating sedition or of encouraging the wrong sort of faith (Cranfield, 1959, p.270). He knew that groups like the Zealots would pounce on such claims and try to lead a revolt against Rome (as in fact they did c. 66–70 CE). So he veiled his teaching in parables. He spoke about the kingdom rather than proclaiming himself as king. He preferred to use the obscure ‘Son of Man’ (the Aramaic simply means ‘human’) rather than openly declaring himself to be the ‘Messiah’ or ‘Son of God’. But when asked at his trial, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?’, he answered, ‘I am’ (14:61–2). At this stage, there was no longer any need to keep his true status quiet. Thus Wrede was correct in drawing attention to a key characteristic of Mark but had misinterpreted it. Peter is not rebuked for calling Jesus ‘Messiah’ but for his inability to see that the Messiah must suffer (8:32).

SON OF MAN AND SON OF GOD

Any interpretation of Mark must do justice both to the ‘glory’ passages and the ‘suffering’ passages. In terms of Mark’s Christology, this has often been discussed with respect to his use of the titles ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’. The distribution of these titles is curious, for ‘Son of Man’ appears to be Jesus’ preferred title (fourteen times), while Mark clearly wishes his readers to think of Jesus as ‘Son of God’ (1:1, 11; 9:7; 12:6; 13:32; 15:39). This could be seen as a point in favour of Mark’s reliability. Mark sees Jesus as Son of God but he does not make Jesus a mouthpiece for his own theology. Rather, he presents Jesus as preferring ‘Son of Man’, even though the early church (according to Acts) seems to have ignored it.

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Conclusion

The early church believed that Mark was an abbreviation of Matthew and so the book fell into neglect. But most scholars today (Farmer is an exception) believe that Mark is the earliest Gospel and therefore of great importance. In particular, its candid portrayal of a suffering, forsaken Jesus (and the many failures of the disciples) has resonated powerfully with post-war readers (Moltmann, 1974). More recently, the paradoxical nature of the Gospel (on some readings) has appealed to what many have called our postmodern world. Far from providing answers, Aichele deduces from the Gospel’s abrupt ending that Mark

is not a story which ends happily or comfortably for readers who want the reinforcing of Christian faith. It does not end with a meeting between the disciples and the resurrected Jesus, nor with Jesus seated on the right hand of God. It does not end with an imperishable message of everlasting salvation spreading out from east to west, nor with the end of the reign of Satan, nor with a promise of heavenly glory; nor with Jesus transformed, nor with transformed disciples. (1996, p. 51)

For such things, we have to look to the other Gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

1.2 ‘DOES THE HISTORICAL JESUS MATTER?’

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Marcus J. Borg

From Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, Borg, M.J., Valley Forge, Pa, Trinity Press International, 1994, pp. 182–200.

The historical study of Jesus produces results very different from what Christians are accustomed to hearing and affirming about Jesus. Within Christian devotion, worship, and belief, Jesus is regularly spoken of as divine, indeed as the second person of the Trinity. The Nicene Creed, the great creed of the church formulated in the fourth century, speaks of him in the most exalted language:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Part I: From Sacred Text to Internet
• Part II: Religion and Social Transformations
• Part III: Perspectives on Civil Religion
• Part IV: Global Religious Movements in Regional Context
• Part V: Belief Beyond Boundaries
• Acknowledgements
• Index