Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism

Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism

Århus, Denmark 2007

Jesus from the earth up

Darrell L. Bock, Research Professor of NT Studies,
Dallas Theological Seminary, Texas, USA

One of the hardest elements of Jewish evangelism is to help Jews see how Jesus is related to God uniquely as Son and shares in divine authority and glory. This is perceived to be an affront to the unique Glory of God. Traditionally believers have made the argument in one of two ways: (1) by appealing to texts from the Jewish Scripture that point in this direction or (2) to cite the revelation of the New Testament where Jesus is identified with God. John 1:1, 14 are probably the clearest examples of this second category.

What I would like to do in this short paper is to suggest that a third route exists that moves more gradually to this kind of a conclusion. It is to pay attention to how the Synoptic gospels are written as narrative. It also brings the listener along one step at a time.

It is my firm belief that for the most part the first three gospels tell the story of Jesus from earth up. They start with categories those in the first century (as well as us) could and can relate to and then pushes the envelope to have us see eventually who Jesus really is. Along the way, there are hints that more is to come, but the narrative of Jesus’ ministry gradually unfolds the fullness of his person.

Consider how each gospel starts. Mark starts simply with John the Baptist. Matthew and Luke do have an exceptional Virgin Birth, but exactly what that means about Jesus is not emphasized, even in the rest of the New Testament. Virgin Birth is the type of act that can only be fully appreciated once the other elements of Jesus’ ministry are in place. In other words, it assumes a great deal of other things are also in place before all the points made from it can be made. In our evangelism we often leap through all of these theological points in a single bound, leaving the listener in its wake.

What I wish to do in the rest of this paper, which serves only as an introduction because of time constraints for me, is to present two snippets of material to introduce this idea for discussion. The two snippets I am including with this brief introduction are pieces from two of my books. One is from Jesus according to Scripture. The other is from Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Examination of the Christ. The first explains the idea. The second portion illustrates it while showing how serious Jewish background study can help us conceptualize what is taking place, putting us in a place to explain these theological moves one step at a time. As I already noted the paper here is simply to introduce an idea that I think gives a fresh way into discussion with Jews about Jesus.

The first set of material comes from Jesus according to Scripture. It simply sets up the contrast between John and the Synoptics and how each tells the story from heaven down (for John) and the earth up (for the Synoptics). It introduces the concept. This material simply points to reading each gospel with the perspective it brings to the description. It suggests not mixing in the other gospel stories too greatly into that portrait. It is the second paragraph that is most important here.

The second set of material from Blasphemy shows the value of using Jewish background material carefully to understand key claim in Jesus’ life. It illustrates the idea. So we turn to the basic concept.

1. Reading Jesus from the earth up versus heaven down: the Synoptics and John

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those without the law. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it. (Acts 2:22-24)

This apostolic summary of Jesus' life presents all the key elements about Jesus. He was a man attested by God as the consummate representative of what God is all about. That attestation came through a ministry rich with demonstrations that God stood behind him and his teaching. That teaching brought Jesus to his death under the Romans at the instigation of some in Israel. But death was a weak opponent, because God stood behind him. Exaltation followed in a resurrection. What followed the empty tomb revealed the importance and authority of this one who is unique in history.

The story of this ministry is told not once, but four times in Scripture. Three of those stories – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – share the same basic narrative line, portraying Jesus from his start on earth, even though each one begins with a different emphasis. They are rightly described as "synoptics," accounts that look at things together. The fourth story, John, stands alone at the start by highlighting that Jesus, the Word become flesh, was sent from above. So we examine the story first from the earth up, before turning our attention to how John supplements that account.

We seek to read the story with its basic narrative lines intact. This way, its contribution can be noted both internally to that Gospel and in terms of what it shares with its parallels. This combination of reading vertically through a Gospel while paying attention to reading horizontally across the Gospels helps us gain fresh insight into the canonical portrayal of Jesus' life and ministry, truly leaving in place the four angles the Scripture gives to us about Jesus. Thus, this approach is not like a harmony, which seeks to reconstruct a chronological flow to Jesus' ministry or to merely tell one story from one perspective. Nor is it like a typical "life of Christ," which often builds off of a harmony. Rather, we seek to stay within the various narrative lines that each Gospel sets for us without claiming that we necessarily are proceeding chronologically or from one perspective alone. What such a reading does permit is a telling of the story of Jesus in an unfolding kind of way, not giving the full story until the full story is told. This kind of approach can work well in Bible study settings or in discussions about how the gospels make their argument for Jesus’ person and work.

In Jewish evangelism we often make connections that are hard for Jews to accept. Arguing through the Jewish background material with these kinds of backgrounds in mind and reading the gospels from the earth up disciplines and teaches us how to make the argument for Jesus a step at a time. In my Jesus according to Scripture I actually walk through all the gospel materials this way. In the future I will be presenting the synthetic steps that are a part of such an “earth up” reading. The goal here is not to replace John’s gospel and its “heaven down” reading, but to complement it and give us another angle from which to present Jesus. With this introduction to the concept in place, let us consider one key example and place it in its larger historical context.

2. Blasphemy in Judaism and the examination of Jesus by the Jewish leadership: Mark 14:61-62

There are three potential elements in the report of Mk 14:61-62 that could have led to the Jewish leadership’s view that Jesus had blasphemed. We examine these first to determine the likely cultural background to the narrative’s presentation of Jesus’ examination. As will be made clear, the second and third views serve as the more likely sources of the evaluation against Jesus. The combination of these elements is important to note, as often the charge is seen to stem from a single factor alone. Yet one must consider the possibility that the reply challenges an array of Jewish cultural assumptions, making the remarks particularly offensive for the leadership. Might it be possible that Jesus' reply was offensive at multiple levels, making the offense even greater in the leadership's view?

The first option is the position of Robert Gundry.1 It is that Jesus pronounced the divine Name in direct violation of m Sanh

7:5 when he alluded to Ps 110:1. However this citation was suppressed in the public reports of the scene, including that of Mark, so as not to repeat the blasphemy and compound the offense. This procedure would reflect practice noted in the Mishnah, also in m Sank 7.5, where report of the exact wording of the blasphemy is repeated only in the privacy of a hearing and not in a public report, so as to avoid repeating the sin. So Jesus said, "I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Yahweh ..." but it was reported publicly as "seated at the right hand of power" as Mk 14 has it.

This explanation is possibly an element of the background, but only with certain additional assumptions that are not at all a given. It must be noted that it was common for biblical texts to be pronounced with a substitute for the divine Name, as also was the case for benedictions with the exception of a few specified cases. One of the situations with benedictions is noted in m Sot 7.6. This text describes how the common priestly benediction of Num 6:2426 was given to the people. So here we have a scriptural text and a benediction. In the provinces, each verse was read by itself and the crowd would respond with an amen in each case, while at the Temple it was read as a whole and treated as a single verse. But the more important consideration for us comes next when the issue of the pronunciation of the Name is treated. The text reads, "in the temple they pronounced the Name as written, but in the provinces by a substituted word." So it is no guarantee that the presence of the divine Name in Scripture meant that it would be read.

Another text is m Yom 6.2. This text records the confession of the High Priest as atonement is made over the lamb for the nation's sins on the Day of Atonement. Included in the saying is the citation of Lev

16:30. This verse includes a reference to the divine Name, which the High Priest did read, as the crowd would bow and fall on their faces when "the people which stood in the Temple court heard the expressed Name come forth from the mouth of the High Priest." In addition, they responded to the confession and the use of the Name with a euphemism, "Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever and ever."2

Still a third example appears at Qumran, though it is not consistent. In the Isaiah scroll the divine Name is occasionally altered into adonai or reduced in the dual phrase Lord God (ADONAI DIVINE NAME) to only the Divine name (lQIsa glosses the name in 28:16; 30:15; 65:13, by writing above it-ADONAI; and reduces it in 49:22; 52:4; 61:1).3 In lQIsa 50:5, it is replaced with ELOHIM. The Name is omitted from lQIsa 45:8, while in lQIsa 52:5 and 59:21, it is omitted once when it appears twice in the MT. In lQIsa 3:17, WAWADONAI appears for the Name, while 3:15 writes ADONAI over the Name. In lQIsa 40:7 and 42:6 a row of dots appears where the Name would be expected, while in 42:5 the Aramaic phrase DELOHIM appears instead of the Name. The same occurs in other texts from Qumran as well. Such changes show that some Jews were careful to avoid writing the divine Name in Scripture, which in turn would prevent it being pronounced as well.

What these examples mean is that it is not certain that even if Jesus cited Ps

110:1 that he would have read the divine Name as written, given the possible variations permitted within oral delivery. Regardless, it also is not certain that the reading of the Name itself from Scripture would have been considered uttering the name "unseasonably," which is a type of blasphemy noted by Philo as worthy of death (Life of Moses 2.206, 208). As Evans notes, "Uttering the Divine Name, especially in the context of quoting Scripture and if with all proper reverence, is not blasphemous."4 Thus, this suggestion by itself is not likely, unless one can argue that what created the charge was a lack of "proper reverence" in the way it was cited. This explanation would require that other, more fundamental and conceptual grounds be raised that formed the essence of the blasphemy, which is possible for this scene as the following options will show.

Nonetheless, this option is important, because it raises the possibility that the indirect way of referring to God’s name in the reply, "the power of the blessed One," is sensitive to Jewish practice. Does the reference to "the power of the blessed One" reflect a Marcan rendering, pre-Marcan Christian tradition, a Jewish report of the trial where the allusion to the Divine name is reported in an indirect way, or is it a report of Jesus' words? Someone was aware of potential Jewish sensitivities here.

The second option argues that the major feature of what was seen as blasphemous in the view of the leadership came within Jesus' reply about the Son of Man. After Jesus responds positively to the question whether he is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, he goes on to speak of the council seeing the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds. The key reply reads, “I am and you shall see the Son of Man seated at the right hand coming on the clouds of heaven.” Now it is contextually plain that within the account the reference to the Son of Man is a self reference to Jesus. The reply combines an allusion to the enthroned authority of a regal figure from Ps 110:1 with the authoritative figure of one like a Son of Man from Dan 7:13.

There has been some debate on what it is Jesus promises the council will see. Some argue that the entire remark is a description only of Jesus' exaltation, an allusion to resurrection to the right hand, a going to God.5 Jesus promises that the council will see his vindication by God and the effects of his installment into authority. The case for this is grounded in three points. (1) There is the original meaning of Dan 7:13, which portrays one like a Son of Man "going to God" and thus serves as the interpretation of the remark. (2) In addition, Matthew and Luke highlight an instantaneous seeing with Matthew's “hereafter” (26:64) and Luke's “from now on” (22:69). Only a resurrection can fit this near setting. (3) There is the grammatical tightness of a verb controlling two participles, which one would normally expect to refer to simultaneous events.