Tag Archive - son of man

Blasphemy!

October 13, 2011 in Bible Thoughts with 11 Comments

Why is Jesus condemned to death by the Sanhedrin in Mark 14? The exchange goes like this:

Then the high priest stood up in the middle of the gathering and examined Jesus. “Aren’t you going to respond to the testimony these people have brought against you?” But Jesus was silent and didn’t answer. Again, the high priest asked, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the blessed one?”

Jesus said, “I am. And you will see the Human One sitting on the right side of the Almighty and coming on the heavenly clouds.”

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “Why do we need any more witnesses? 64 You’ve heard his insult against God. What do you think?”

They all condemned him. “He deserves to die!” (CEB)

What constitutes the “blasphemy” or “insult against God” that leads to Jesus’ condemnation?

First, although Jewish backgrounds are always important, I’m not sure that examining ancient standards for blasphemy is going to be entirely helpful. What I mean is this: the trial is set up in Mark 14 as a kangaroo court–false witnesses sought, conflicting testimony given. Thus, we won’t necessarily find a category of “blasphemy” into which Jesus’ confession fits. They may very well be condemning him without him being technically guilty of anything.

On the other hand, it is interesting that one way someone might incur a blasphemy charge is to speak the name of, or even say, “God.” It is therefore interesting that both Jesus and the High Priest are depicted as avoiding the word “God,” using circumlocutions instead. Maybe the point, in part, is that there is no reason for a blasphemy condemnation?

In the narrative itself, we have met accusations of blasphemy before.

In Jesus’ first conflict with the scribes, he is accused of blasphemy for forgiving the paralytic’s sins. “The fellow blasphemes! Who can forgive sins but God alone?!”

The charge of blasphemy is tied to arrogating to oneself the prerogatives that belong only to God.

But Jesus says that, as the Human One, he has authority on earth to forgive sins. If God has bestowed this authority upon Jesus, it is not blasphemy to perform the actions otherwise suitable to God alone.

I note with interest that both the first conflict and this final trial swirl around issues of blasphemy and Jesus’ identity as the Human One.

The other place where blasphemy comes up is when Jesus is accused of casting out demons by the prince of demons. In that case, he accuses the scribes of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In this case, it is not arrogating the authority to himself, but wrongly ascribing the work of the Spirit to an evil spirit that provokes the charge.

But the commonality is important: blasphemy charges derive from the question of the authority of God being wrongly ascribed (whether that be Jesus ascribing it to himself or the scribes ascribing it to an evil spirit).

Returning to the trial.

Jesus is claiming the position of the one whom God enthrones in the heavens to rule the entire cosmos. The same claim he had made in ch. 2 returns here: the Human One has authority given to him by God to act, to rule, in the name of God. And the same response of unbelief is leveled by the religious leaders: no, such a claim to be installed as the one who acts for God is blasphemy.

The blasphemy charge stands or falls with whether or not Jesus is correct about his identity.

The question is, what is Jesus claiming for himself that the religious leaders do not believe to be true?

It is something more than simply being a messiah as traditionally expected–a geopolitical, militaristic leader who would come to liberate Israel from its bondage. There were plenty of those going around, and such claims did not lead to blasphemy charges.

And yet, the way that Mark, and Jesus, have cultivated Jesus’ messianic identity, he has a power from heaven, an authority to command the entire cosmos, that must be ascribed to some ultimate, spiritual power.

Is the human one enacting the very reign of God Himself over the cosmos? Or is he casting out demons by the prince of demons? That’s the choice.

Suffering Servant?

September 29, 2011 in Bible Thoughts with 7 Comments

The idea of a suffering servant may very well have come from Isa 53. But the idea that the Messiah had to suffer doesn’t come from there.

Well, it doesn’t come from there in Mark’s gospel, anyway.

For Mark, the invitation to discover that Jesus must suffer is tied to his self-designation as the son of man.

Now, I know that there are hundreds of theories and myriad details about what this term meant in Aramaic, how the historical Jesus is likely to have used the phrase, and the like. But that is, for the most part, irrelevant for interpreting Mark.

In Mark’s gospel, the phrase “son of Man” is clearly linked to the vision of Daniel 7 (Mark 13:26; 14:62). At least in these latter parts of Mark, the connotations of “the Human One” entail Jesus playing the role of Daniel’s enthroned Son of Man.

Earlier uses of the phrase also find explanation here: the Son of Man has unique authority–authority on earth to forgive sins; authority even over the sabbath.

The son of man in Daniel is enthroned and given an eternal kingdom. The power of that rule is at work, already, in Jesus’ earthly ministry, even though he has not yet come on the clouds to the right hand of God.

But can Daniel 7 also open up the door to understanding the third type of “son of man” saying, the passion predictions?

  • The human one must suffer many things and be rejected… (Mark 8:31)
  • Why was it written that the Human One must suffer many things and be rejected…(Mark 9:12)
  • The Human One goes to his death just as it is written about him…(Mark 14:21)

Perhaps it is not coincidental that the first time we hear a passion prediction, “The human one must suffer many things and be rejected” (Mark 8:31), the passage goes on to echo Daniel 7 in its promise that anyone ashamed of this suffering Human One will find that the Human One is ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of the father with the angels.

In other words, in the story of Mark’s gospel, Jesus as the enthroned and returning Human One is inseparable from Jesus as the suffering Human One.

So what does Daniel 7, the coming of the great and glorious Human One to be enthroned at God’s right hand, have to do with suffering?

In the final interpreting of Daniel’s dream, we discover that the last beast, and the last horn of the beast, that is finally put down and destroyed at the advent of the Son of Man, had oppressed the holy ones whom the Human One represents.

As I watched, this same horn waged war against the holy ones and defeated them, until the Ancient One came… The set time arrived, and the holy ones held the kingship securely. (Daniel 7:22, CEB)

25 He will say things against the Most High
and will exhaust the holy ones
of the Most High.
He will try to change times set by law.
And for a period of time,
periods of time,
and half a period of time,
they will be delivered into his power.
26 Then the court will sit in session.
His rule will be taken away—
ruined and wiped out for all time.
27 The kingship, authority, and power
of all kingdoms under heaven
will be given to the people,
the holy ones of the Most High. (Daniel 7:25-27, CEB)

The Son of Man who is enthroned is none other than the holy ones who suffered under the oppressive hand of the final king who would be destroyed. They were, first, delivered to suffering and death, and then afterward ushered into eternal kingship and power.

Interestingly, Daniel 12 contains the only widely recognized reference to resurrection in the OT. And that passage tells the same story as Daniel 7, only using different imagery. And there, with the defeat of the great enemy comes not only the exaltation of God’s people to rule, but even the resurrection of the righteous who have been put to death.

How is it written that the Human One must suffer at the hands of people and then rise again? It is written in the visions of the Human One beheld by the prophet Daniel. To be the Human One enthroned at the right hand of God means that one has, first, suffered and died at the hands of the unjust rulers who war against the people of God.

What Only God Can Do?

June 20, 2011 in Bible Thoughts with 13 Comments

“If Jesus isn’t God, then we are worshiping God and a human being.”

“If Jesus isn’t God, then Christians are infringing on God’s right to sovereignty over everything in order to assign Lordship to Jesus.”

These are the sorts of claims that lie behind some attempts to prove that the NT presupposes the divinity of Jesus throughout. For example, Richard Bauckham argues that the way a Jewish person would express a high Christology would not be through the language of “being,” but instead through an identity of function with the God of Israel. If Jesus does what only YHWH can do, he is being so identified with him as to say that this is God directly at work. Jesus is written into the divine identity–therefore, Jesus is (as later theologians using different categories would say) God.

In response to these sorts of claims, I have a very simple litmus test that I am in the process of applying, and would invite you to do the same:

Do other Jews say these sorts of things about other people?

As theological outworkings, such claims are fine. You can say that our worship of Jesus is an expression of what we all (myself included) confess as traditional Christians about Jesus as preexistent God-the-Son.

But as historical claims these claims should be measured, as best as we possibly can, by the criteria of early Jewish ways of speaking about God and God’s agents.

If other Jews, who did not think of themselves, their hoped-for Messiahs, their teachers as God in any sense used this same sort of language to describe other humans, then we cannot claim that use of such language by first century Jews, in their descriptions of Jesus, intends to depict him as “divine.”

The Similitudes of Enoch are a great example.

In these, a figure known variously as the Elect One, the Son of Man, and the Messiah looms large.

This figure sits on God’s own throne, executes the final judgment on God’s behalf, receives worship, and is the agent of humanity’s salvation.

Sovereignty. Worship. Glory.

All things that belong to God, that God does not share–are shared with the Elect One in order that, in praising this Messiah, God Himself might receive glory and honor and praise.

The criterion of “participation in the divine identity” by playing the role of God in worship and rule, is insufficient to demarcate a figure in early Jewish literature as God Himself.

Instead, it demarcates the Human One who is restoring the world through judgment and salvation and thereby bringing all glory and praise to God.

Jesus, God, and Theologial Meandering

April 15, 2011 in Barth Dogmatics Reading, Bible Thoughts with 7 Comments

I love Jesus.

I even love singing Holy, Holy, Holy on Trinity Sunday.

And sometimes you’ll even catch me reflecting seriously on Colossians, and the Son’s involvement in creation–the preexistent One, through whom all things were made. And I’ll think it’s really, really cool.

But the more I listen to theologians work out issues of Christology, the more convinced I am that the profit to be had in studying Jesus is to be found in figuring out what it means that he was human, not trying to explain how it is that he is God.

I’ve had a couple of encounters with theological Christology this week. One was in listening to the most recent Homebrewed Christianity Podcast. This was a phenomenal overview of recent guests, many of whom are working on Christology as progressive theologians. The worst thing about that podcast was that it added about 8 books to my reading list! I recommend listening to it for an orientation in contemporary Christological study, if nothing else.

But like so many studies of Christology, I was struck, perhaps a bit surprised, by the way that Jesus as God somehow sits front and center in all of their work–even as progressive theologians. Perhaps the reason it made such an impression was in part due to the vast number of things we can then say about Jesus, God, and Christianity. In a sense, the game is much more open when Jesus is God than when Jesus was a first century Jewish Galilean.

And in reading Barth on the eternal Son (§1.11), I again found myself slogging through material where the most compelling thing he seemed able to say was, “Well, the church said this, so even though it’s not really right, we all have to say it.”

The reason why I found the section so disheartening was that the obsession about how to articulate the son’s deity not only relegated Jesus’ humanness to the background, it also caused Barth to say some things about Jesus as redeemer that were wrong, and to misread any number of biblical passages.

When we’re convinced that the most basic thing there is to say about Jesus is that Jesus Christ is God, we render ourselves incapable of reading much of the New Testament (not to mention OT!), where this divine identity is neither argued for, nor indicated, nor assumed.

The history of Christological debate has framed the question like this: why does Jesus have to be God in order to redeem us? Or, what is the significance of Jesus’ deity for our salvation? The alternatives have been positions where Jesus’ heavenly status is not truly divine or the like.

Missing in all this is the absolutely crucial biblical notion that in order for God’s intentions for humanity, the earth, and the cosmos to be realized, all had to be done by a human entrusted by God to rule the world on God’s behalf.

The redeemer has to be Adam.

The redeemer has to be Israel.

The redeemer has to be David.

The redeemer has to be the son of man, the Human One.

Ignoring this prior necessity, we find ourselves saying foolish things such as, “To be lord, one must be none other than The Lord–the God worshiped by God’s people.” No, to be lord is to be entrusted by God to rule the world on behalf of The Lord: The Lord YHWH speaks to my lord the king saying, You are my son.”

Or, we find ourselves thinking someone is being profound, rather than abusing the text, when they say, “‘Today I have begotten you’ means an eternal generation where every day is today.” No, Psalm 2 means that the king becomes, at coronation, what he was not before–just like the human Jesus becomes at the resurrection ‘son of God’ in a sense that he was not before; i.e., as king of Israel.

In the podcast I listened to last night, one of the theologians they described was working on rearticulating what we need to say about Jesus if we want to say in the 21st century that Jesus is God. That route, it seems to me, is a better way to participate in the Nicene-Chalcedonian tradition than to say as Barth does, “Well, they used this word, nobody liked it then, we don’t know what it means now, but surely they were right in saying this!”

Barth is at his best when he is allowing the biblical narrative to infuse his theology with new life. That wasn’t what I read in his outworking of Jesus Christ (not only Christ, but Jesus!) as eternal son.

But then again, that’s my axe. How did you guys find this section?

SBL Precursor: Wright & Bird at IBR

November 20, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, SBL with 18 Comments

SBL = Society of Biblical Literature. I’m at the annual meeting in Atlanta. (If blogging gets scarce, you may want to check out my Twitter feed or Facebook status.)

Each hear a number of other societies use the opportunity of having this group gathered to put on their own meetings. Institute for Biblical Research is one of those. And last night its meeting featured N. T. Wright and Michael Bird. Wright lectured on the cross and the kingdom, and Bird responded.

Wright’s talk was nothing you haven’t heard before if you’re a Wright fan, but it was nicely put together.

He discussed opposite errors.

There is the conservative error of a cross without a kingdom. Mike Bird, in responding, told of how he picked up an N. T. Wright book once upon a time and it hammered home to him that he knew why Jesus died, but had no idea why he lived! That was my experience as well.

On the liberal side, there is a kingdom without a cross: a theology of the reign of God in which Jesus the social revolutionary meets an unfortunate end that cut his program short just as it was getting off the ground.

Wright explored some texts in John in a gesture toward holding these together.

As usual, Wright took a couple of shots at the Creedal tradition of the church, which jumps straight from the virgin birth to the suffering under Pontius Pilate. I think his complaint is apt–we do not confess anything about the life of Jesus when we confess our faith together as a church. Others were less amused.

The call to keep cross and kingdom both in view is apt–and not just for holding together Mark 1-13 with the passion narrative in Mark 14-15. When teaching Mark last year, the larger question presented itself: how does Mark 1-8, the depiction of Jesus the wonder-working Son of Man, fit with Mark 9-16, the depiction of Jesus as the cruciform Son of Man?

To ask the question of how cross and kingdom fit together is to set ourselves on a journey of reimagining our atonement theology, our Kingdom of God theology, and our understanding of the Gospels themselves.

The Son of Man & Stephen’s Trial

November 11, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 4 Comments

Last week I prattled on too long about Mark 13 and the destruction of Jerusalem.

One of the most challenging parts of Mark 13 (and parallels) for those who want to see it as a prophecy of AD 70 is the cosmic imagery of the coming Son of Man, with the clouds, in great power and glory.

I suggested that the trial of Jesus is a place to look for some indication that this might not be the physical return of Jesus from heaven, but instead a final consummation of his enthronement with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The trial that takes its crucial turn with an accusation that Jesus said he would destroy the temple comes to its conclusion when Jesus says that he is the son of the blessed, and that the Jewish leaders will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and “coming with the clouds of heaven.”

The connection between the enthroned Son of Man and the destruction of the temple is paralleled in the trial that leads to the first Christian martyrdom: Stephen’s trial in Acts 7. (Sorry, I know I should use Luke’s trial, etc., rather than Mark’s for the lead-in, but Mark was last week’s focus. So sue me.)

The charges at Stephen’s trial are that he speaks against “this holy place and the law;” specifically, they accuse him of saying that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy the holy place and change the customs Moses handed down.

The speech of Stephen is a complex retelling of Israel’s story–right up through the building of the temple. After culminating with the words of the prophet that human hands cannot build a house that will contain God, Stephen turns to direct accusation.

The first is that those who are heirs to Israel’s story are heirs to, and perpetrators of, Israel’s disobedience. They have received the law as ordained through angles, but they have not kept it.

Note that this corresponds to the second part of the accusation against Stephen. He and Jesus are not the ones who are guilty of setting aside the law, it is the religious leaders who show themselves guilty of setting aside the law by killing God’s righteous one.

Then, as they grow in their fury, Stephen looks to heaven and sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He says, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

They then drive him out and stone him, and as he dies Stephen plays the part of Jesus: he entrusts his spirit to God and prays for forgiveness for his persecutors.

I argued last week that the destruction of the Temple is tied to the rejection of Jesus as a prophet sent from God. And I wonder if this doesn’t help make that case, with its tie-in of the enthroned son of God.

Here Stephen is charged with the same thing Jesus is: prophesying that Jesus will destroy the temple; and, what Jesus says the leaders will see in the future, Stephen sees in the present–the Son of Man is at the right hand of God.

Could this, too, be a way of imputing to the Jewish leadership what they would accuse the Christian movement of? They accused Stephen of changing the law, and his speech turns the tables on them. They accuse Stephen of saying Jesus is going to destroy the holy place, and he says, in essence, that they are responsible for destroying the holy place because they have rejected the Righteous One sent by God.

Where God really dwells is in heaven, and the one who is in God’s presence and acting in the world on God’s behalf is not the Jerusalem leadership, but the resurrected Son of Man.

The age has turned.

And the destruction of the Temple will prove it.

Narrative & Theological Ramifications of Mark 13 as AD 70

November 5, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 8 Comments

Tuesday I started making the argument that Mark 13 should be read as a reference to the looming destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem rather than some still-future time of distress before Jesus comes back.

Tuesday I dealt with the objections pertaining to “cosmic imagery.” Yesterday we hit the “Son of Man” issue. Today we get to some of the “So what?” I want to explore what some of the broader ramifications might be for adopting this reading. What might it tell us about how Mark wants us to understand his story of Jesus?

The first thing I want to say is of broad importance. Whatever you end up thinking is going on in Mark 13, I do not think that Christians have, in general, paid sufficient attention to Jesus’ prophecies of the destruction of the Temple as an integral piece of his prophetic ministry. Even if the only glimpse of it is in Mark 13:1-2, Jesus anticipated that the temple would be destroyed. And it happened. Likely, we should see the temple clearing as a prophecy of destruction as well, though that’s debatable.

I should be quick to point out that recognizing such a thing does not make us anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, or anything along those lines. This simply makes Jesus a Jewish prophet who, like a number of other Jewish prophets before him, spoke to the Jewish people about their failure to recognize what would be pleasing to the Jewish God.

Another important thing to be aware of is that Mark 13 uses language about the coming tribulation that is echoed throughout the passion narrative in Mark 14-15. We mentioned briefly that the darkened sun is something that happens on the cross. Also, we mentioned that the prophesy about the Jewish leaders seeing the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven is repeated in each.

Other important carry-overs include Jesus’ command to stay alert, Jesus’ own betrayal by someone whom he had previously identified as “brother,” bearing witness before both the nations and the Jewish leadership, and, of course, being handed over to death.

It seems that what Jesus anticipates for the community of his followers with respect to the temple and Jerusalem, he endures first with respect to himself. In fact, I think that these are both related to the larger question of how Jesus’ enthronement is related to “the end of the age.” It seems that there is a cosmic turning here, the sort of thing that made Christians denote our years “AD”, “Year of our Lord.” The “end” is not the end of the space-time continuum as we’ve experienced it, but an end to the world being ruled by someone other than the king of Israel enthroned to God’s right hand.

Recognizing the connections between Mark 13 and Jesus’ death helps us to underscore how this-worldly the scenario is. While being this-worldly, though, it also highlights that the events of this age are indications of the hand of God at work to enthrone, and vindicate, the Son.

When I started ruminating on this passage on Sunday, someone responded to a Twitter post by saying that, in his opinion, the resurrection and the destruction of Jerusalem are both, for the early church, proofs of Jesus’ authority. I think this is exactly correct.

The connections between the passion and the scenario laid out in Mark 13 help draw this together. Jesus’ death is prefigurement of the community’s suffering–that community that bears Jesus’ name into the world, and on whose behalf God will draw the time of tribulation to a close. This draws Jesus himself into closest possible connection to the destruction which happens 40 years after his own life and death: by persecuting his followers, the persecution of Jesus himself becomes part and parcel of the Temple’s own destruction.

Also, if the resurrection is God’s direct overturning of the judgment of Rome, confirming Jesus to be, in fact, King of the Jews and therefore the ruler of the kings of the earth, then the destruction of Jerusalem serves as God’s intervention to rule against the judgment of the religious establishment. They judged Jesus worthy of death, and for this they are judged by the God in whose name they acted. Once again, the parable of the vineyard comes into play. Killing the son arouses the ire of the Father, and the vineyard is given to others. No longer is the people of God under the rule of those entrusted with stewarding the Temple.

The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is more important for the story of Jesus than we often realize. As the Gospels tell the story of Jesus, this was the way in which Israel’s God vindicated Jesus’ claim to be the son of man who would be seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. Though this claim brought Jesus a death sentence from the high priest, it was vindicated when that high priest’s seat was destroyed.

Mark 11-15 seems couched to draw us toward seeing Jesus as a Jewish prophet who spoke against the temple. He and his message were rejected but both were vindicated by the Jewish God who raised him from the dead, enthroned him at God’s right hand, and fulfilled the prophetic warning.

Objections to Mark 13 as AD70: Son of Man

November 4, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 8 Comments

On Tuesday I began looking at Mark 13 as a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem. Yesterday we considered the objection about the cosmic imagery. Today we’ll look at the son of man imagery that comes immediately after it.

Throughout Mark’s Gospel, we have been told that Jesus is the Human One, the Son of Man. As Son of Man, Jesus has the authority to act in the name of God, and to free others to do the same. As the Human One, Jesus has a vocation to die–this is what it means for him to be the Messiah. The Son of Man / Human One title holds together Jesus as suffering king. That’s what we have seen so far in Mark: as Human One Jesus is the one given authority to speak and reign for God, though his path to coronation runs the paradoxical road of the cross.

In Mark 13 and 14 we see why “son of man” is the appropriate title for someone so entrusted with divine authority. To be “son of man” is to fill the role of the “son of man” in Daniel 7. These passages both clearly allude to this OT predecessor. Jesus is going to play the role of Israel in coming into the presence of the Most High and being given authority over the nations of the earth.

“Are you the messiah, the son of the Blessed?” asks the high priest at Jesus’ trial. “I am,” affirms Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the Power and coming on the heavenly clouds” (Mark 14:60-61). The allusion to Daniel makes the same argument as the original story: the son of man is enthroned by God at God’s right hand. Jesus is the Messiah, the King, the one who rules at God’s right hand.

Interestingly, both Mark 13 and Mark 14 say that Jesus’ coming on the clouds will be seen. In Mark 13, “they” will see the son of man in splendor and glory; i.e., enthroned as king, as son of God. In Mark 14, this is turned into the second person plural, “You (leaders of Jerusalem) will see the son of man seated at God’s right hand, and coming on the heavenly clouds.”

When will they see this? They didn’t live to see Jesus coming back down from heaven to earth. Mark knew that already, and if such was the point of the saying Mark probably would have changed it so that he wouldn’t be putting something patently falsifiable into Jesus’ mouth.

Maybe what they see is one piece of the evidence that Jesus has been carried on the clouds into the presence of the Father and enthroned at God’s right hand.

Perhaps N.T. Wright is correct, then. Perhaps the destruction of Jerusalem is proof positive of the enthronement of the Messiah–a Messiah who prophesied the temple’s destruction, the son who would be killed only to have the Father destroy the vineyard workers, a king whose death was attended by the sun being darkened.

But in case you’re wondering: No. N. T. Wright isn’t the first person to suggest that Mark 13 is about the destruction of Jerusalem. The first-century interpreter of Mark whom we refer to as “Luke” was way ahead of him.

Remember that “abomination of desolation” thing that Mark draws his readers’ attention to (let the reader understand)? Here’s how Luke renders that verse: “When you see Jerusalem encircled by armies, then know that its desolation has drawn near. Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains…” Perhaps that’s a good bit of perspective as we step into tomorrow’s post.

If we run with Mark 13 as an extended prophetic description of the destruction of the Temple and/or Jerusalem, what does that get us?

Objections to Mark 13 as AD 70: Cosmic Imagery

November 3, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 10 Comments

Yesterday I laid out a few observations about Mark 13, suggesting that the chapter should be read as an extended prophecy of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and Temple, as occurred in AD 70.

One paragraph in Mark 13 (often referred to as “The Olivette Discourse”) appears to undermine the AD 70 interpretation. It comes in verses 24-27. From my shiny new Common English Bible:

    In those days, after the suffering of that time, the sun will become dark, and the moon won’t give its light. The stars will fall from the sky, and the planets and other heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then they will see the Human One coming in the clouds with great power and splendor. Then he will send the angels and gather together his chosen people from the four corners of the earth, from the end of the earth to the end of heaven.

The first thing that is important to recognize is that this language, which is stock language of apocalyptic writing, should not be taken literally. It is the kind of imagery we see elsewhere in the Bible to describe not falling stars but falling empires or other such geo-political earth-shattering events. (Earth shattering?! Does that mean I think the earth is literally going to be cracking beneath my feet?)

One important example of this is found in Isaiah 13: “The oracle concerning Babylon… See, the day of YHWH comes… For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil… Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of YHWH…Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be punished, and their wives ravished. See, I am stirring up the Medes against them…”

The imagery of a disintegrated cosmos is used to describe the fall of the Babylonian empire. Some of the correlations are direct (darkened sun), but the more important thing to recognize is that this is the same kind of language.

Perhaps as importantly is the speech of Peter in Acts 2. This obviously is not Jewish “background” material, but it is an important indicator of how one early Christian understood the Old Testament imagery of cosmic disintegration. In the case of that sermon, the cosmic imagery signals not the fall of an empire, but the enthronement of a new king.

On the day of Pentecost, after the Spirit has been poured out and Jesus’ followers speak in various languages, Peter says, “This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel, ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on al people… I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke. The sun will be changed into darkness and the moon will be changed into blood…”

Um, Peter? Where’s the dark sun? Where’s the bloody moon? The point is, that this is all imagery for an earth-shattering event: the end has arrived, but what “the end” means is the ascension and enthronement of God’s chosen king, Jesus. The signs and wonders begin with Jesus’ ministry, they continue through the acts of the apostles.

The point: there is significant biblical context and precedent for seeing the cosmic imagery as indicative of the sort of earthly transition that might be marked by the falling of a city, the enthronement of Jesus as king, the victory of Titus’ army over the Jerusalem armies in AD 70.

But what about the coming of the son of man? The Human One, as the CEB calls him? We’ll hit that tomorrow.

Mark 13 & the Fall of Jerusalem

November 2, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 11 Comments

Mark 13 is rife with material that forms part of the popular Christian imagination about “the end times.” By “the end times,” of course, I mean, the vision of the future era that will precede the coming of Jesus from heaven to earth.

But the passage is set up so that readers will view it as a prophetic warning about being a follower of Jesus in the face of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as occurred in AD 70.

Mark 13:1 reads, “As Jesus left the temple one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher look! What awesome stones and buildings.” Jesus replies to this awe-struck observation of the temple by saying that not one stone will be left on another.

This is not the first time Jesus has had something to say (or do) about the temple. The temple-clearing incident in ch. 11 is sandwiched within the story of Jesus’ cursing the fig tree. The point? Jesus is enacting judgment. The fruitless temple will go the way of the fruitless temple: it will be destroyed.

When the religious leaders subsequently approach Jesus and ask by what authority he does such things, he shrugs off their question–but then tells the parable of the vineyard, which speaks of God visiting destruction on those left in charge of the vineyard and then handing it over to others.

Moving into a series of debates, Mark 12 culminates with Jesus speaking words of judgment on the religious leadership of Israel–including the fact that they devour widows houses. This devouring is made manifest in the final story of ch. 12, in which a widow puts her whole life in the temple coffers.

So when Jesus speaks a word of judgment on the temple in ch. 13, it is not out of the blue, but part of the prophetic ministry he enacts throughout his time in Jerusalem. The leadership of Israel is lacking; they are about to reject the son of God who was sent to bring near the reign of God, and the result will be judgment on the leadership and concomitant destruction of the temple and city.

The disciples point to the great Temple, Jesus says not one stone will be left on another. This is how ch. 13 begins. Then, from the Mount of Olives, the disciples ask, “When will these things happen, and what what sign will show that all things are at an end?”

The question Jesus is answering throughout ch. 13 has to do with when the temple building will be thrown down, not one stone left on another.

The details of this speech can get convoluted, to be sure, but verses 14-20 are a good place to go in order to see the relevance of this prophecy to a people who would be faced with the Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem.

Verse 14 includes a parenthetical comment to the reader of Mark’s Gospel, “Let the reader understand.” The point is that what Jesus speaks of as future, Mark’s readers should be able to recognize as either occurring or just about to occur.

What is it that they are to be attuned to? “The desolating sacrilege” standing where it shouldn’t. This is an allusion to Daniel, who writes about the pagan king Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrating the altar by erecting an altar to Zeus on top of Israel’s altar to Yhwh. A pagan king defiling the temple courts is the sign of warning. Perhaps Titus’ invasion counts?

Note, also, that when this happens the people who have to take immediate action are the people in Judea. This is the region in which Jerusalem is located.

What are they supposed to do? Flee to the mountains. People on the roof shouldn’t grab anything, nor people in the fields return home (Mark 13:14-17).

All of these are indications that what we’re dealing with in this chapter is an earthly catastrophe that people are being warned to escape. Don’t be deceived by anyone saying, “I am the Christ”–as though such a person might lead you into victory against Rome. No, this destruction is going to happen.

This is a time of great suffering and tribulation, before a cataclysmic shift in the world’s narrative. But is it the end of the world?

The last verse in the paragraph I’ve been walking through, 13:20, tells us that these days are shortened because had they not been, no one would be saved. Here it might be tempting to hear the language of “saved” as some equivalent to entering eternal life.

But really, a significant component to the Christian story is that even people who suffer and die are able to enter eternal life. This cutting short is not to effect eternal salvation, but to rescue people from the hour of earthly distress. For the sake of God’s own people, God shortens the time. The war comes to an end.

There are some challenges to this interpretation. We will take those up tomorrow. Mostly they are located in verses 26-27. Can the cosmic language of darkened skies and the splendor of the coming Son of Man be fit into this grid?

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