Book Review: Wonders and Miracles

It was not a good time to be a prophet in Judea. The tiny nation-state had been occupied for the past 300 years, and the latest occupiers -- The Roman Empire--were particularly brutal and overbearing.  As a result, the common people were in a constant state of fear and unrest  In their midst were a number of agitators and revolutionaries, to challenge Roman authority, many of whom were put to death by the most vial and gruesome of Roman executions: crucifixion.

Into this world Christ Jesus was born.  To the Roman hierarchy, Jesus was yet another of the Jewish rabble to be contended with.  On top of that, Jewish religious leaders (Scribes and Pharisees), were expecting a mighty king and potentate to appear and restore their nation's former glory and power.  Indeed, Jesus didn't arrive with a mighty army as was hoped.  What they were not expecting was a carpenter's son, who would recruit mere fishermen (as disciples).  Indeed, this Jesus did not talk of war and revenge, rather, he spoke of peace, and of forgiveness, and of loving one's enemies.   No, this gentle man of Nazareth, was not what they were expecting at all.  Yes, he healed the sick and raised the dead;  but they attributed this not to divine miracles but to magic tricks and witchcraft. Jesus was a fraud who was poking the Roman bear, and threatening an end to Mosaic law and Jewish beliefs and traditions.  Jesus' father was said to be God, but, according to most people, Jesus father was more likely a Roman soldier.   Yes, they wanted Jesus crucified, and rumors of his resurrection were just that, rumors.  No way could this Jesus have survived crucifixion.  He was dead.  Period.

Still, there persisted a small body of believers who had seen Jesus 30 days after the crucifixion, when he ascended up into heaven.

As a result, an oral tradition of Jesus' life and teachings continued to live on among believers.  Also, within about a year after Jesus' crucifixion, one of the Jewish leaders who had been persecuting Jesus' followers, was miraculously converted to Christianity, to become one of Jesus' most devoted followers. This was Saul, an educated Jew and Roman Citizen, who changed his name to Paul.  After meeting with several of Jesus' followers in Jerusalem, Paul undertook a journey throughout Asia Minor and Southern Europe, preaching, healing, and converting Greeks, Romans, and Jews to Christianity.  At the same time he opened a series of churches throughout the Roman Empire.  It was in the city of Antioch that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians.  Long before the four Gospels appeared, the first Christian writings were composed and circulated among the faithful. These were mostly Paul's letters to the newly created Christian Churches.

The other early Christians were writing about Jesus' ministry and miracles, by the likes of Thomas, Philip, Mary Magdalen, and several others. These, too, were widely circulated among the faithful.

Unfortunately, some of these early writings would be deemed as "unorthodox" by the Council of Nicaea in AD312, and disappear from history, until discovered in a cave in 1945.  These would become known as the Gnostic Gospels (gnostic is a Greek word meaning knowledge), which is the subject of "Wonders and Miracles," a fascinating and informative book, by Professor of Religion at Princeton University, Elaine Pagels.  While scholarly, Pagels' book reads well, and at 248 pages can be read in about five days, which is how long it took me to read it.  It's also well annotated with notes and various citations from the Bible.

What I found fascinating about this book, is the author's research that reveals so much about the state of belief of early Christian history.  Pagels writes about how Jesus' followers were ridiculed, and questioned about Jesus's birth, life and crucifixion, as if it were nothing more than a hoax. Many were forced to flee Judah for their safety. What they didn't stop doing was writing about how their relation with Jesus continued to comfort and support them in their grief.  Many of their stories would be revealed in the Gnostic Gospels, which are comprised of fifty ancient texts discovered in 1945, including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth.  Amazingly, these Gospels claimed to offer "the secret words of the Living Jesus" -- that have startled and intrigued Bible scholars throughout the world.

These ancient texts, sealed in a six-foot-high-jar, were hidden in a cave in Egypt for two-thousand years.  Writes the author:  "The hidden texts remind us of the tumultuous path Jesus's teaching have taken to reach us."

Professor Pagels spends much of her book focused on the Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John; but particularly on the Gospel of Mark, which was the first to appear, around 64-65.  She makes the point, that Mark was not an eye-witness of Jesus' ministry and crucifixion, but rather was writing down what Peter had told him. It was Mark's Gospel that Mathew and Luke later used as the basis for their Gospels.  Unlike Mark, they were benefited by the mysterious "Q" document ("Q" is thought to have been an educated follower of Jesus, who recorded all of his Master's parables, stories, as well as many of his healings.  "Q" stands for the German "Quelle", meaning "source").

Thanks to the Q document, we have Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. While Matthew presents The Sermon on the Mount in its entirety, Luke spreads out the Sermon on the Mount throughout his Gospel.  What we don't have are the words Jesus spoke on the cross, or his exchange with Pontius Pilate.

The author points out that Mathew and Luke drew on the Psalms and other sources to recreate what might Jesus may have said.  Also, they fabricated the story of the three wise men who came bearing gifts (in Mathew), and story of the shepherds who followed the star to find Jesus in a manger (in Luke).

John's Gospel, on the other hand, does not mention Jesus' birth story at all.  John's Gospel, written nearly thirty years after the Gospels of Mathew and Luke, contains stories found nowhere else in the three earlier Gospels. Also, Jesus is recognized as the Messiah in the very first chapter.  Well documented is Christ Jesus' close relationship with God, whom he ofter refers to as "Father". The theme of life as the light of men, is woven through John's Gospel. While not known for certain, it would appear John's Gospel was written as corrective to the other three Gospels.

CHRISTIANITY AS A STATE RELIGION

Around AD312, the  Roman emperor Constantine astounded the ancient world by making Christ his divine patron, and making Christianity a state religion.

At the same time, a former soldier of the Roman army named Pachomius declared himself a Christian, and sought to establish a community on earth that might become an "outpost of heaven."  Pachomius invited several thousand Christian men to build what would become one of the earliest monasteries in Egypt, in the town of Nag Hammadi.   Writes the author: "Many sacred writings were circulating widely among Christians at that time--Paul's letters and the gospels attributed to Thomas, Philip, Mary Magdalene, and other disciples--and monks in Pachomius' monastery collected and treasured many of them, and read them aloud during evening devotions."

THE  NICENE CREED

To put an end to textual disputes among the faithful, Constantine invited more than three hundred bishops to codify "orthodox" Christian belief into a standard statement that would forever be known as the "Nicene Creed".  These "orthodox" documents would comprise the New Testament.  The Gospels were pared down to four--Mathew, Mark, Luke and John.  Why four?  Because the number four coincided with the four winds.  The various letters of Paul and other early Christians, were examined and those that did not meet the recognized standard of the day were excluded. At some point, the Bishops of Constantine's new Christian order, declared Jesus to be God.  Around this time, the Church's 300-year practice of healing the sick declined and eventually stopped altogether.

Nonetheless, many of these "unorthodox" documents continued to be studied by the monks at the  Pachomonius's  monastery, in Nag Hammadi, Egypt.

When the Bishop of Alexandria learned that there were a number of monks in the Pachomonius' monastery who continued to read them publicly in church, he denounced them as heretics and ordered them to cease reading them.  As a result, nearly all copies were burned or dumped into the Nile River.  Some of the monks from the monastery did not agree, however, and spirited more than fifty texts out of the library, and carefully hid them in a nearby burial cave where they would remain, until discovered, two thousand years later.

The surviving texts are few and often damaged, but, according to the author, they are opening up new worlds of insight.

The Secret Revelation of John, for example, tells how John, after Jesus' death, being mocked for having followed what many considered to be a false messiah. John, fearful for his life, and devastated with grief, turned away from the Temple to journey far into the desert.  Tormented with questions, John writes that he suddenly saw the heavens open, the whole of creation turned luminously bright, and felt the earth shake.

John writes: "I was afraid , and . . .  I saw in the lights . . . multiple forms . . . (and) he said to me, 'John, John, why do you doubt, or why are you afraid? I am (the) one who is with you always; I am the Father, I am the Mother, I am the Son.'"

Here, Jesus reveals himself as a luminous divine presence: a family trinity, as Father, Mother, and Son.  Writes the author:  "Whom else but the Mother would we expect to see with the Father and Son?  The Gospel of Truth, for example, when picturing Jesus from the divine Source, speaks of how Jesus descends into the world to bring back all who are lost 'into the Father, into the Mother, Jesus of the infinite sweetness.'  But when Christians in later centuries translated Aramaic and Hebrew sources into Greek and Latin, the gendered connotation of the word 'spirit' was lost.  Those translating various forms of ruah -- the feminine term for 'spirit' in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac -- into Latin translated it as spiritus, a word gendered masculine.  Greek speakers translated it as pneuma, a word gender neuter -- effectively, however, erasing the vision of divine Mother"

THE RESURRECTION EXPERIENCE

Writes the author: "Even rationally inclined historians find one fact on which all agree, that Jesus' followers had resurrection experiences . . .  For Paul, if was the conviction that Jesus who had died had been resurrected. In other words, the Christian movement became powerful because Christians could claim to offer 'eternal life' -- not only to an emperor like Augustus, but to everyone, even to women, slaves, children dying young, former criminals.  Stories of Jesus, whose followers called him 'Son of God,' pictured someone, not as a mighty Greek or Roman God, (as was depicted in statues throughout the Roman Empire), but as a humble and ordinary person, with whom the vast majority of people could identify."

The author continues: "In the Gospel of Truth, the writer offers to reveal the secret teaching of the apostle Paul.  Its author notes that Paul, like Jesus, taught in two different ways: publicly proclaiming 'Christ crucified,' a simplified message condensed into a slogan ('Christ died for your sins'), while privately revealing 'divine mysteries' to a chosen few.  Written to believers in Greece, Paul explains that he first came to them, he offered them only the simple message (see I Cor 2: 1-5).  Although he wanted to teach them much more, he says that he was disappointed to see that they were only 'babies in Christ,' so immature that they could only digest 'milk,' not 'meat,' the solid food of adults .  Paul hastens to add, though, that whenever he finds people who are spiritually mature, 'among [them], we do speak wisdom . . . God's spirit taught him directly . . . Having been taught by the spirit . . . he offers to reveal those hidden secrets in the Gospel of Truth--'the true gospel' which, he says 'is joy.'"

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