John’s gospel

Modern Art and the Bible (II)

Shaking out the bed (cropped)

Dana Schultz, Shaking Out the Bed

July 19, 2016

Another report on modern art and its lessons for biblical interpretation.

This painting is named, “Shaking Out the Bed.”  It shows household items being flung up toward the viewer as a bed-sheet is shaken; there are also items lying on tables and the floor around the edges.  The painting is thus a combination of dynamic and static elements.  It’s a bit difficult to see the static elements at first, because the dynamic elements–the things flying upward–occupy the center of the painting and are visually more arresting.

This combination of movement and rest reminded me of John’s gospel.  There is, of course plenty of dynamism and movement in this gospel.  More than in the other gospels, in John’s gospel Jesus moves back and forth between Jerusalem and Galilee.  There is also more change of scene: In chapter 7, for instance, secondary characters repeatedly appear with questions and comments that both drive the narrative and guide the reader’s understanding of the narrative.

At the same time, John’s gospel is extraordinarily static in some respects.  It’s filled with discourse but little action.  Whole chapters go by with little but words.  Jesus is reported to be in a new location without indication of how he got there or why he moved.  This gospel is far more stage-like than cinematic.  There are static, minimalistic stagings–we often don’t know where Jesus is and it often doesn’t matter.  There are people talking, but in often in elaborately symbolic conversation.

To read John’s gospel well, we thus need to attend to both its dynamic and also its static elements.

Modern Art and the Bible (I)

July 15, 2016

I’m in Phoenix and visited the Phoenix Art Museum.  I was struck by the points of contact between modern/contemporary art and biblical interpretation.  So, here is the first in a series of very short comments on some pieces of art and some thoughts about interpretation.

Flowing forms

George Condo, Tumbling Forms

Here’s a piece, Tumbling Forms.  What struck me was the way in which the artist piled gobs of paint in layers.

Here’s an example:IMG_20160714_144026357

 

 

 

Another example:IMG_20160714_143953980

Whatever else this painting is doing, it is calling attention to itself as a painting.  Its caption tells the observer that it depicts something–tumbling forms–but its technique reminds the reader that it is a painting.  It enforces, in other words, a careful distinction between its being a depiction and its being a thing that self-consciously depicts.  By having the gobs of paint turn the painting into a three dimensional object that rises from the surface of the canvas, the artist ensures that the observer is not too deeply immersed in the object depicted, but instead attends to the painting as a painting, as something graphic.

This reminded me of the way in which the Bible sometimes calls attention to itself as writing, even as it directs the reader’s attention to the subject matter that is narrated or discussed.

For instance:

  • “Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain” (Deuteronomy 5:3-4, NRSV).  Deuteronomy knows that the people who met with the Lord at Mount Horeb were all dead and that none of those being addressed in these verses were alive when the covenant was first made.  But it deliberately ignores that historical reality to make the point that the covenant is renewed in each generation.  It thus calls attention to itself as something other than narrative, even as it engages in narration.
  • Consider the preface to the gospel according to Luke.  Here the (implied) author steps out of the text to address the implied reader.
  • Finally, there is this passage in John’s gospel: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah” (John 20:30-31, NRSV).  Here the author drops the pretense of simple narration and tells the reader why the narration exists.

In each of these instances, the Bible directs the reader’s attention away from what seems like a straightforward historical narrative and toward the text as something written–as the creation of a writer.

Like the painting above, the Bible wants the reader to be mindful of the way in which the Bible is a written work, even as it seeks to engross the reader in its subject matter.  In other words, it wants the reader to carefully attend to the scribal, graphic features of the Bible.

Practicing discernment and discrimination

Last week I discussed Ps 137, with its celebration of those who would smash the heads of Babylonian infants.  I stated that such a sentiment is unworthy of God.  I think that in previous journal entries I implied that the book of Joshua’s depiction of God commanding the slaughter of men, women, children, and animals is not the sort of thing that we should attribute to God.

This assertion raises the question of human judgment in the reading of scripture.  If we listen to radio and television preachers, we hear loud declarations that we must take the Bible simply as the word of God and that we humans are not allowed to pass judgment on the Bible.  In their view, the words of the Bible are God’s words and we must submit to them.

It doesn’t take long to discover that even television and radio preacher exercise plenty of human judgment in determining the meaning of scripture and that, like the rest of us, they are prepared to ignore or explain away numerous passages that are difficult.

But the question remains: Are we permitted to use human judgment in our reading and interpreting the Bible?  If so, how do we exercise that judgment responsibly and reverently?

Texts such as Ps. 137 force this issue upon us.  Does anyone seriously believe that God approves the killing of Babylonian babies?  Or, take the New Testament’s solemn prohibition of braided hair for women (in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Peter 3).  Do we really think that God has a moral objection to braided hair?  Admittedly, some Christians have believed so, but it is increasingly difficult to find Christians who believe braided hair to be a problem.

When I present these matters to university freshman in Bible courses, inevitably the question arises, How are we to discern the authoritative word of God in these passages?  What is God telling us in Ps. 137?  How are we to determine the enduring purpose of 1 Timothy 2?

For Christians who take the Bible seriously, the best response to these questions is to read each text in light of God’s total revelation.  This means, for example, judging the Old Testament by the New Testament.  The New Testament writings themselves do this, as when Paul declares that the purity laws of the Old Testament are not binding on Gentile Christians.

But we don’t even have to set the NT over against the OT.  Leviticus 19:18 commands Israelites to love their neighbors and 19:33-34 commands Israelites to love foreigners.  When we read Ps. 137, no matter how much we empathize with the desire for revenge expressed there, we have to judge that this desire falls short of the command to love.

In other words, if we are to read the Bible responsibly, we must discriminate between passages.  Biblical passages, taken individually, do not all possess the same degree of authority.  The prohibition of braided hair simply does not have the sort of authority that the command to love the neighbor possesses.

More carefully stated, responsible interpretation steps away from a focus on individual texts in the Bible and instead asks about the direction of God’s revelation in the Bible.  As my colleague Michael Lodahl has stated, even in the NT’s teaching about love there is development: In John’s gospel and letters, Christians are commanded to love one another; in Luke’s gospel, we must love the neighbor; in Matthew’s gospel, we are to love the enemy.  To grasp God’s revelation, we must see how John’s gospel and letters do not express the full will of God and that Matthew’s gospel represents a more profound revelation of God’s will.

What we have here is a dialog among early Christians about the proper object of love.  John’s community, feeling itself threatened by various enemies, lays the emphasis on loving other members of the community.  Luke’s gospel, without denying the importance of loving each other, wants us to love the neighbor, even if he or she is a Samaritan.  Matthew’s gospel furthers the dialog by telling us to love indiscriminately, as God love (Matthew 5:48).

It is similar to the OT’s dialog about blessing.  Proverbs tells us that the righteous will be live a blessed life.  There is something commonsensical about this–those who abide by God’s commands will often live well and prosper.  But the book of Job insists that Proverbs’ theology is not the whole story.  Sometimes, perhaps often, the righteous do not prosper but instead suffer.  Proverbs and Job, then, constitute a dialog, or part of a dialog that persists throughout the Bible and into the Christian era.  It would be a mistake to take either Proverbs or Job or any other part of scripture to be the full revelation of God.  Instead, it becomes necessary to interpret each part as part of an ongoing dialog that extends to today.  We today are invited to listen in on this dialog and, having learned from it, to live responsibly for God and to contribute to the ongoing dialog among God’s people.

Psalm 137 and Infanticide

In my last two or three journal posts, I wrote about biblical narratives that seem to be about one thing but are in fact about something else–narratives in which the meaning that lies on the surface of the texts differs from the original purpose of the text.

The genocide passages in Joshua, for instance, seem to describe historical events in 1200s or 1300s B.C. But the purpose of these passages is not to transmit knowledge of historical events. It is instead to urge post-exilic Israel (in the 300s and 400s B.C.) to maintain separation from its pagan neighbors. So, we have to distinguish the literal meaning of the text (what the words of the text say–in this case, the story that they narrate) from the purpose of the text.

Likewise, the Gospel of John’s sweeping declarations that the Jews sought to kill Jesus seems, on the surface, to portray historical facts in the ministry of Jesus (in the 30s A.D.) , but in fact its purpose is to encourage Jewish followers of Jesus in the final decades of the first century A.D. to be public in their faith, even if it meant having to leave the synagogue. Once again, there is a difference between the text’s literal, seemingly historical meaning (its statements about “the Jews”) and its purpose, which is not to narrate historical events but to encourage Jewish Christians several centuries after the death of Jesus.

In passages such as these, the Christian community is interested in the purpose of texts, not in the events that they seem to describe. Our focus has to be on the purpose, because the narrated events did not happen, at least as narrated. While the leaders of the temple in Jerusalem were hostile to Jesus, many Jews supported Jesus. And there is no evidence whatsoever that Israel ever destroyed the Canaanite population prior to occupying the land. The book of Judges is adamant that such destruction did not take place.

In today’s journal post I want to talk about a different sort of biblical text whose literal-historical meaning is not the meaning that God intends for us. Take, for example, Psalm 137.

This psalm is written in the Babylonian exile (500s B.C.) and expresses the feelings of anger and pain that Jews in the exile felt. You will not hear many sermons preached from this psalm, for it ends on a shocking note:

O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock! (verses 8-9 [NRSV])

Like John’s characterization of “the Jews,” Ps. 137 is problematic, but for a different reason. Unlike Joshua or John’s gospel, there is in Ps. 137 no distinction between literal meaning and purpose. The purpose is to express feelings of anger and pain and the words of the psalm do just that. The problem of this psalm lies in its blessing upon those who would smash the heads of Babylonian infants.

In what sense is Ps. 137 the word of God? Most Christians will be uncomfortable thinking that these words express God’s sentiments–that God was using the psalmist as a mouthpiece to utter God’s own wishes. But it is just a difficult to call these words God’s word because God inspired them and caused them to be written. Jews in exile in Babylon did not need divine inspiration in order to feel and express pain and anger.

What, then, does it mean to say that Ps. 137 is God’s word? How can these human, all too human words of anger and hatred be the word of God?

We can get some perspective on this matter if we focus, not on this psalm, but on the themes of this psalm in the context of the entire Bible. The desire for revenge and expressions of malice are common in the Bible, as are hopes, fears, and joy. In passages such as Ps. 137, we do not hear God in any direct way. Instead, we are hearing a Jew of the exile cry out to God from a situation of pain and injustice. In this psalm God is silent; humans speak.

But in fact God is speaking in silence, for the Bible is a dialog between God and God’s people. Sometimes people express thanks for God; at other times, they express anger and frustration. Sometimes God responds; sometimes God does not respond. Sometimes God speaks directly; at other times God is silent.

In Ps. 137 God does not speak. God listens to the exiled Jews pouring out their pain and anger. Their feelings fall short of the love of enemy of which Matthew’s gospel speaks. But God does not interrupt or correct. God listens.

Ps. 137 is the word of God because it is an integral part of the Bible, in which God speaks, but also listens. God’s word, in other words, is dialogical. God’s word is not pure address. It is God speaking and God listening, for in listening, God draws human speech into God’s own word. The human words become a part of God’s word.

We don’t have to pretend, then, that Ps. 137 expresses God’s sentiments or wishes–that God blesses those who smash the heads of Babylonian infants against the rocks. We only have to acknowledge that the word of God is God’s address that also includes humankind’s response to the divine address.

Just as in the incarnation of the eternal word, so in the Bible the divine embraces the human.

The “Jews” in John’s Gospel

We are entering election season; hyperbolic rhetoric is already fills the political air like humidity in the South.

We all know that often political rhetoric often seems to be about one thing but is really about something else–it has a subtext that is known but not talked about. Discussions about immigration are, for some people, about the United State’s loss of sovereignty and status.  For others they are about the loss of American identity as hordes of people not like us storm our borders. Talk about the Common Core is about more than just educational theory. It is also about state and local rights, about apocalyptic fears of big governments, and about the place of the United States in the world. Debates about the Confederate flag encode beliefs about heroism and racism.

This phenomenon, of discourse seeming to be about one thing but actually being about something else, is quite common. Think of the film, “Wizard of Oz.” It seems to be about a dream, but it is also about, or perhaps mainly about, the struggles of 1930s America to come to terms with a society moving from a predominantly rural culture to an urban culture. It expresses a nostalgic preference for farm (Kansas) over city (the Emerald City)–Dorothy finds her home only when she leaves the city and returns to the farm.

Or think of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. At one level they are escapist entertainment with no literary pretensions. But they are also expressions of the 1950s feeling that United Kingdom had lost its pre-eminent status as a world power and was subservient to the United States. James Bond represents the literary reversal of all that: He single-handedly and repeatedly saves western civilization with only token help from Britain’s allies. The novels are thus commentaries the British establishment’s desire for status and meaning in a world of super-powers.

Or, consider the Gary Cooper film, High Noon, in which the sheriff has to face a group of criminals alone, his fellow-townspeople finding excuses to avoid helping him. It is generally recognized that this film is an indictment of the political atmosphere surrounding the hearings, in the 1950s, of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, in which many people were unjustly accused of being communists and had careers and lives ruined while their friends and colleagues did little or nothing to stop the lunacy.

This phenomenon helps us understand the subject of my previous journal entry. That entry described the Old Testament’s affirmation that God had commanded Israel to destroy the native inhabitants of the land of Canaan and (in the book of Joshua) its description of that destruction. I pointed out that in fact nothing of the sort actually happened, as the book of Judges acknowledges, and that the narrative in Joshua is a projection backwards into history of what Israel wished had happened. After the Babylonian exile, with Israel small and threatened by its members marrying outside the Jewish community, a narrative about destruction symbolized the need for separation and identity.

This phenomenon is found in the New Testament as well. In John’s gospel, there is a feature of the narrative that is odd, disturbing, and historically impossible. It is John’s way of referring to “the Jews.” Here are some examples:

• John 5:10 So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
• John 5:16 Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.
• John 7:13 Yet no one would speak openly about him for fear of the Jews.
• John 9:22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.
• John 18:14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people.
• John 5:18 the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.
• John 7:1 the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him.
• John 10:31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him.

What is odd is that the gospel makes it seem that the entire Jewish nation rose up in opposition to Jesus. “The Jews took up stones again to stone him.” This is historically absurd. Jesus and his followers were Jews. In fact, virtually every character in this gospel is a Jew. John’s monolithic portrait of “the Jews” as a group acting in unison against Jesus is not historically accurate.

John’s gospel even acknowledges that “many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus” (John 12:11), telling the reader that “the Jews” were not a homogeneous group uniformly opposed to Jesus. Why then does it insist on saying that “the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him”?

What we have here is a projection into the narrative of a reality at work when the gospel was written. John’s gospel is usually dated to the late first century. We know that this was the period when, in Judea and Galilee, there was growing tension between the Jewish Christian community and the synagogue. Prior to this time in that part of the world, Christians were Jews and seem to have maintained a relationship with the larger Jewish community and its synagogues. But in the late first century tension and alienation emerged, so that increasingly Jewish Christians did not feel welcome in the synagogue.

John’s gospel is written in this context. In chapter 9, the blind man’s parents are fearful of being cast out of the synagogue if they seem favorable to Jesus.  What we are reading is an expression of the fears of Jewish Christians in the last decades of the first century, not a description of historical fact during the ministry of Jesus. “The Jews,” in John’s gospel, represent, not the historical people whom Jesus encountered, but the leadership of the synagogues decades later, a leadership that, from John’s perspective, was hostile to Jesus’ followers.

John’s gospel has thus projected the fears and anxieties of the 80s and 90s A.D. backward into the narrative about Jesus, just as the book of Joshua projects the fears and anxieties of Israel in the 400s and 300s B.C. backward in time.

Recognizing that John’s gospel is engaging in deliberate anachronism is important, because otherwise we might be tempted to agree with the many generations of Christians who blamed “the Jews” for killing Jesus and thus justified their persecution of Jews. Without intending to do so, John’s gospel laid the foundation for Christian hatred of Jews, just as the book of Joshua justified the launching of crusades against unbelievers.

By recognizing these books’ use of deliberate anachronism, we can perhaps avoid unchristian feelings and actions.