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The Ordering of Unorganized Parallels into Trajectories
This chapter started with a reference to the tomb of Rachel which is on the road from Bethel to Bethlehem. With regard to the role of tombs in the world of Jesus, the late Joachim Jeremias (the German scholar and student of Bultmann who had a significant impact on historical Jesus research during his short lifetime) wrote a remarkable book. In the Mediterranean culture, as can also be experienced in Africa and elsewhere, tombs of special patriarchs, matriarchs, martyrs, or prophets are of crucial cultic and political importance. The tombs of Rachel and Joseph, we have seen, has been a special place of veneration up to this day. However, one of the Jesus sayings, which can probably be regarded as authentic, urges potential followers of his cause to “leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Sayings Gospel Q 9:59). The context of this saying in both the gospels of Matthew (8:21) and Luke (9:59) is the veneration of the dead, which is used as an excuse not to follow Jesus on his journey of subverting conventional wisdom. More or less the same sort of saying can be found in the Gospel of Thomas (GThom 42): “keep on walking.”
Luke interpreted this Jesus saying (which he found in Q) within an apocalyptic frame of reference and against the breach between Jerusalem and Samaria (cf. Lk 9:51- 53). Luke (9:54) referred to the hostile attitude of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem (transparent in the reaction of the two disciple brothers James and John) towards the Samaritans. Samaria is compared with Sodom and Gemorrah (cf. Gen 19:24). The two brothers, as spokesmen of the Twelve, requested fire down from heaven to destroy Samaria. Jesus reportedly reprimanded them. In Genesis, it is reported that the family of Lot was advised not to look back but to keep on walking (Gen 19:17). Lot’s wife did not and became petrified (Gen 19:26). According to Luke’s apocalyptic message, nothing can warrant such behavior. “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is qualified for God’s kingdom” (Lk 9:62). Therefore, those who would like to participate in Jesus’ itinerary should take note of what the Samaritan woman in John’s gospel did. She responded positively to a similar Jesus saying by which Jesus showed his indifference to the cult, whether “sinners” venerated their forefathers on the Gerizim Mountain or in Jerusalem (Jn 4:19-24). Participating in Jesus’ cause is to become a passerby, to keep on walking, to stay on track, to leave the “fathers” behind! Yet in order to join Jesus’ journey, one has to know the direction of the trajectory.
All of these “parallels” and “analogies” between biblical characters, events, and even religions could easily create an impression of an environment where a monolithic unity seems to prevail. But that is certainly not the case. One should therefore act with caution to not be caught in the net of “parallelomania”64 that amounts to thinking in terms of a disorganized mass of material. One needs to think along the lines of a particular development of the data. The result of not following a trajectory is to walk in circles.
Rather, one needs to keep on moving in a linear way, starting at a point, passing another on the way, always heading towards the next. It is to think about biblical material in specific contexts that relate to developing stages.
A Chain of Seven Links
It is clear that parallels exist between Matthew’s understanding of Jesus as “son of Joseph,” “son of Abraham,” and “child of God,” and conceptions in the Greco-Israelite and rabbinical world, including texts like Wisdom of Solomon and Joseph and Asenath.
These parallels do not necessarily imply a direct source dependence; rather, they indicate common thinking.91 However, the background material of the notion of Mary’s virginity does not constitute a “mass of disorganized” parallels. A clear trajectory can be discerned.
In Matthew’s gospel, the Joseph trajectory begins with a quotation from the prophet Isaiah. The book Isaiah appears within the Hebrew Scriptures, but the quotation comes from the Greek translation that originated in a Hellenistic environment. Matthew’s quotation focuses on the expectation of an ideal king as well as on the motive of a Moses-like deliverance. This focus should be understood in the light of the Bethlehem-Jerusalem controversy. We have seen the extent to which this controversy relates to the Joseph-Judah conflict.
Luke has something different to say concerning the notion of Mary’s virginity. The Lukan birth story is told within the context of Greek myths about deities and the emperor cult of the Romans. John does not elaborate at all on the aspect of virginity. However, the Joseph figure plays a remarkable role in John’s gospel. His understanding of Joseph within the context of the Jerusalem-Bethlehem controversy is in some sense similar to Matthew’s. Both of these gospels originated against the background of the antagonism of the Pharisaic Academy in Jamnia towards the Jesus movement during the period after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Paul and Mark wrote a good few years earlier than Matthew, Luke, and, John.
Both Paul and Mark do not know anything about either Joseph or Mary’s virginity. Even Mary, according to Mark, does not regard Jesus as someone of high esteem. Likewise, a complete silence falls, with regard to both Joseph and Mary, in the rest of the New Testament.
During the second century, a steady development in a totally new direction is discernable. It starts with Ignatius’ emphasis on Jesus’ divinity over Gnostic belief that God’s becoming event in “flesh” was unthinkable. In Proto-James, the Joseph figure serves to support the new upcoming belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Other documents and theologians took up this line. During the Middle Ages, exactly the same Joseph motive, which occurred in the previous stage, was used to support the dogma of the Trinity. The Reformers obviously disliked Mariology. Nevertheless, from the sixteenth century onwards, they implemented the role of Joseph to defend the tenets of Jesus’ “two natures” (true God and true human) and the dogma of the Triune God (see the Belgic Confession, Articles 18 and 19).
1 ~ PRESUPPOSITIONS AND METHODOLOGY
-The Jesus Enigma
-Research Outline
-The Dialectic between the Jesus of History and the Jesus of Faith
-Methodological Concerns
-End Notes
2 ~ IDENTIFYING A RESEARCH GAP
From Doubt To Inquiry
-Putting on a Different Thinking Cap
-A Profile of the Historical Jesus
-End Notes
3 ~ HISTORICIZATION OF MYTH
-Myths as Emptied Realities
-Jesus’ Baptism as Condensed History
-Beyond the Lack of Textual Evidence
-Beyond the Lack of Social-Historical Evidence
-Beyond the Age Thirty Transition
-End Notes
4 ~ THE JOSEPH TRAJECTORY
-The Joseph Theme in Biblical and Extrabiblical Material
-The Ordering of Unorganized Parallels into Trajectories
-A Chain of Seven Links
-End Notes
5 ~ A CROSS-CULTURAL AND SOCIAL-PSHYCOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
-Status Envy and Social Identity
-The Jerusalem Cult and Marriage Arrangements
-End Notes
6 ~ GOSPEL ECHOES
-Jesus-Kingdom of God-Children
-A Tale of Two Kings
-End Notes
7 ~ THE JESUS OF HISTORY AND THE JESUS OF FAITH
-The Metaphor “Son-of-God” and its Hellenistic-Semitic and Greco-Roman Background
-Ovid’s Perseus
-Paul’s Son-of-God and Seneca’s Hercules
-Children Calling God Abba
-End Notes
8 ~ THE CRADLE OF THE CHURCH
-Continuity~Discontinuity~Resurrection
-From Jesus to the Church
-From Faction to Sect to Church
-End Notes
9 ~ THE CONTINUED IMPORTANCE OF JESUS
-Deconstructing Dogma
-Jesus for Today
-End Note
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SUMMARY
OPSOMMING
