Session 8 How Jesus Became Christian - by Barrie Wilson
Ch 17 - The Cover-Up Revealed
The Epilogue - The Way Forward
"What Christianity achieved in the post-Constantine fourth-century era represented the marketing victory of all times. It is especially ironic that a movement that started off as a radical challenge to the Pax Romana succeeded in becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire. ... But the victory came at a tremendous price. Simply put, the teachings of Jesus himself were smothered by the religion of Paul." ... p255

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Index Commentary-Jock Commentary-Wayne Closing - Deb References
Commentary - Jock
Wilson doesn't introduce any new ideas now, but like any good professor, he wraps up the themes he has introduced.
In looking at ancient history he sees something different than tradition tells us. Hie comes to an understanding that this new Christianity was not only distinct from, but contrary to what Jesus actually intended. Worse, he accuses and calls the process a "cover-up".

I'd like to cover each of his last points and discuss them at large with you. In review/discussion let's see what the group might consider worth focus in small groups. Here are his points:
  1. Paul vs Jesus. Rather than see first Jesus then Paul as stages of leadership in the progress of Christianity, he sees two churches - one of James, the other of Paul - he sees schism and battle. Paul is seen as the true author of Christianity, not Jesus. Paul's Christianity was a synthesis embedding Jewish Jesus into a Hellenistic world. How then has it settled with you - this notion that Paul more than Jesus gave us Christianity?

  2. Christification. Christ is just greek for messiah. The meaning is various in both cultures. Christ isn't Jesus' last name. His followers then and now, ascribe divinity and messiahship to him. Being that the surviving church was gentile, the Christ is a dying-rising spiritual saviour and not a political leader. This process culminated in the Nicene Creed, a focus of most Christianity that followed. The Creed helped exclude other groups - and other belief became heresy. (see next question)

  3. What Must a Messiah Do? The essence of "messiah" that Wilson reviews is Jewish. Makes sense. Jesus came from that culture. But what that meant in that context wasn't met in Jesus. It's noteworthy that the early church developed a shifted timetable for Jesus as Messiah to permit the continued use of the title - a second coming. That is why a new Zionist movement has arisen within evangelical christian circles that wants to accelerate the second coming by helping Israelis. Does Messiah-Christ have any relevance to you in this time?

  4. Doing in the Witnesses. The witnesses says Wilson were the Jews, and they were dispersed. They became irrelevant. Lost in the middle. The new Gentile church had highjacked their Jesus and were unfamiliar with Jewish practice. The new Rabbinic Jewish community excluded these heretics. This dissent is shown to be the origin of christian anti-semitism. Does this dissappeared early church have any thing to say to us today?

  5. Amazing Victory. The sum of these things made the new gentile christianity so successful, it became in time the principle religion of the Roman empire. Understanding now, that the foundation of our religion is not quite as advertised, what shall we do? Wilson advocates a re-claiming of the historical Jesus. Is this "religious" evolution from Jesus to Paul meaningful or false?

  6. Recovering the Human Jesus. The reformation of the 16th century focused on the scriptures as the authentic root, rather than the authority of Rome. This led of course to an emphasis on the Pauline Christianity. There was little understanding then about the original context. In the succeeding 400 years we have come to untangle how those scriptures came to exist. As new scriptures and other archeological knowledge came into consideration, scholars have found the more human Jesus, not so much the divine Jesus. The Jesus Seminar is another such endeavor. Wilson favours Tabor's idea that originally christianity was the "family business" of Jesus and his brothers. Does understanding the Historical Jesus better change your understanding of his "divinity"?

  7. Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Since we now know that Paul changed the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus, Wilson completes the logical progression - Jesus was a Jew. If we are to value Jesus in history, we need finally to understand him as a Jew - "the most influential" Jew in history says Wilson. This helps us see Jesus in the context of Roman rule, and of Torah practice. How great an affront he was. It helps us see Jesus in the context of Jewish Torah practice. How he advocated inclusion not exclusion, and justice over purity. He concludes by showing the "Lord's Prayer" to be a centerpiece of this new knowing. Can Jesus be understood to be Christian as well as Jew?

"A valiant Jewish challenger to Rome's imperial power. A potential Jewish Messiah. A teacher with great insight. That was how Jesus' earliest followers in Jerusalem viewed him - Jewish, as they were. This is not a modern invention. It was the original view of Jesus."
Commentary - Wayne
Summary of the Author's Arguments Chapter 17.

Composite Point:

Jesus became Christian, but at a huge price for Christians and Jews alike. Members of the Jesus community led by Paul ended up becoming Christ-believers and anti-Semites (p. 253)

Key Points:

1. Jesus came proclaiming the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God which he coupled with a challenge to a stricter observance of Torah (237)

2. His followers began to think of him as the potential Messiah. For many of the original Jesus community led by his brother James, this meant a hope that the occupying Romans would be swept from power and a new world order, created by God, would result (238)

3. Then, a massive power shift occurred. The religion of Jesus and his earliest followers was upstaged by a new religion - Paul's Christ movement (238)

4. This religion of Paul became unnaturally identified with the religion of Jesus. A non-Jewish movement became grafted to Judaism (238)

5. Paul's followers needed a "noble ancestry" for their faith, and the author of Luke and the book of Acts provided it by offering a new, synthesized movement and a religion ripe for Roman believers. Luke offered "antiquity" (the heritage, but not the substance, of Judaism) and the powerful divine image of "virgin birth" (commonly accepted in many mythic traditions of the time) to Gentile believers (239)

6. James represented the "Jesus Movement" while Paul represented the "Christ Movement." (239)

6. Acts presents Paul and James (whose understanding of Jesus differed considerably) as moving on a converging - not a diverging - course.) serving Paul's, not James', purposes. (239)

7. Over time, the Jesus Movement (represented by James) withered away while the Christ Movement flourished (240)

8. "Christification" - the blend of these two movements, dominated the writings of the New Testament. But "Messiah" and "Saviour" themes never coalesced properly (241) For his part, Paul emphasized Saviour - not Messiah - thus moving beyond the Jewish concept.(245, 248)

9. This, in essence, is what Wilson calls the "Jesus cover-up theory." It reflects the internal views of the increasingly dominant Christ Movement, initiated by Paul, which came to occupy a powerful position as a popular Greco-Roman mystery religion combined with an impressive Jewish religious heritage (241)

10. The result of this "Christification" process was to change the character of the religion from one focused on the teachings of Jesus to one about the Christ (242)

11. The New Testament, the Ecumenical Creeds (Apostles, Nicene Athenasian) and the resulting liturgical tradition of the church combined to support Pauline Christianity (243)

12. But Christification was a substitute, not the authentic religion of Jesus the founder (244)

13. In the latter part of the first century, the Jewish community recognized the dangers stemming from the Christ Movement and distanced itself from it. Judaism confronted Christ Movement "sectarians" and removed them from Jewish synagogues (249, 250)

15. This led to a final break between what eventually emerged as Rabbinic Judaism and the Christian Church. Christians who had once been "Torah-observers" became "Torah-rejecters." (251) Jews who might have accepted Jesus as a prophetic teacher of Torah rejected him as Messiah and Saviour. Each group ended up demonizing the other. Because of the Christian ascendency, however, anti-Semitism and its resulting tragedies (such as the Inquisition and the Holocaust) became possible (253) Here is my revised summary of chapter 17 which I collated for the class as a supplement to your presentation tonight.
Closing - Deb Charnusky
Any piece of knowledge I acquire today has a value at this moment exactly proportioned to my skill to deal with it. Tomorrow, when I know more, I recall that piece of knowledge and use it better. ...Mark Van Doren
According to Wilson, we need to understand the history of early Christianity as a conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. Gradually the religion of Jesus, centering on his distinctive interpretation of Torah, became a religion about Jesus, the dying-and-rising Savior God of a new pagan mystery religion devised by Paul. This shift, Wilson, claims is the "cover-up" perpetuated by the Pauline church in which modern Christianity builds its foundations upon.

Wilson also leads us to understand the context in which this shift occurred. The first century A.D. was an exceptionally confusing time. Jewish people found themselves to be a small, colonized minority within a vast empire controlled first by Greece and then by Rome. The challenge every Jew faced then was how to retain Jewish identity in the face of constant and overwhelming pressures to assimilate into the larger, more cosmopolitan culture (often referred to as "Hellenization"). It was what I term "conqueror of the day" syndrome.

Wilson goes onto argue that Paul's version of Christianity was better able grow and survive because of its similarities it shared with the mystery religions which were then popular in the Hellenized ancient world. Simply put, Jesus got upstaged by Paul and that Paul's religion was not the religion of Jesus. There was a cover-up. The human Jewish Jesus was switched for the divine Gentile Christ. A religion about the Christ was substituted for the teachings of Jesus. Moreover, the religion of Paul displaced that of Jesus and as a result Anti-Semitism flourished and is rooted within New Testament writings.

Okay, I reply. All of this sounds plausible. So what does this mean at the end? What is the author's bottom line?

One of the key things Wilson wants to do is to make a difference in how people see Jesus. On page 255 he states "Going forward, we need to recover the humanity and Jewishness of Jesus at the popular level, not just in academia. This means returning to the original Jewish teacher and Messiah claimant, stripped of all the Christifying elements that have camouflaged this towering figure of history." I have two difficulties with this statement. What, in his view, are the views of Jesus that we need to emphasize that are not in the present version of Christianity? That we need to circumcise our male infants, or keep kosher, or not work on Saturday instead of Sunday? The author never really takes this much further. To quote the Dalai Lama "All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness ... the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives." So I ask myself this question - is the message of love, compassion and forgiveness still front and centre in the "hijacked" version of the Jesus movement we call Christianity? I would strongly argue that it still is and I am privileged to belong to a community called St. David's where I see such messages being put into action. I would also challenge Wilson's "we must throw out the baby with the bathwater" philosophy. We are at the point where we are and we must acknowledge that, while understanding and respecting how we got there. I fully agree with Wilson's firm belief that Christianity must refocus on the human and Jewish Jesus, however, to go back and "dechristify" Jesus is not a direction I agree with but rather would prefer to see a more "go forward" direction of educating and raising awareness.

As in all books, the author has a bias, and we as readers have an obligation to step outside of the author's way of looking at things, and start to formulate our own thoughts, and evaluate what we are being told. Revisionists works often try to get away with "this sounds plausible = this is true". Anyone with a good writing style can make things sound logical and plausible. But we must not lose sight of the fact that we do not know for certain the truth and Wilson, like many writers before him, is incorporating a great deal of speculation, especially with regards to his interpretation of Acts. Wilson is putting forth his theories, and as such, we must take them with the proverbial grain of salt. As Henry David Thoreau quotes "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."

I personally, have enjoyed this book study, and like all the books we have discussed, will use Wilson's theories and thoughts to enrich my own understanding of the history of the faith tradition I believe in. My personal view of Jesus and what he stood for is not diminished, as I have always related more to Jesus as a human and a prophet than as a divine being. Instead it is strengthened. He was definitely a visionary being and teacher and I do believe that regardless of the "cover-up" Wilson claims occurred, there are still the elements embedded in today's Christianity that I believe Jesus stood for. Those keystones of faith, love, hope and compassion we so desperately need in the world we live in today.

Or as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesos aptly summed up:
Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.
Knowledge is not intelligence.
In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected.
Change alone is unchanging.
The same road goes both up and down.
The beginning of a circle is also its end.
Not I, but the world says it: all is one.
And yet everything comes in season.
Amen.
References Related
earlychurch.
org.uk
Marcion: Portrait of a Heretic. Robert I Bradshaw. "There is little doubt that the teachings of Marcion and his followers represented a greater threat to Orthodox Christianity than any other heresy in the second century." Here's a good little essay on this early church leader.
progressive
christianity.ca
Potholes on the Road to Damascus: A speculative psychological explanation for the sudden conversion experience of Paul the Apostle as the root of present-day Christian anti-Semitism.
By: Janice Meigan, MA, The Department and Centre for the Study of Religion. The University of Toronto. June 2008. This dissertation is posted on Gretta Vosper's Progressive Christianity site.
spiritus-temporis
.com
Other historically significant Jewish Messiah claimants. A useful list that helps one understand the meanings of "messiah" in the time of Jesus.
livius.org Apollonius of Tyana - The charismatic teacher and miracle worker Apollonius lived in the first century AD. ... He was and is frequently compared to the Jewish sage and miracle worker Jesus of Nazareth.
Clicking the icon left will activate the e-mail on your machine and direct your comments to us. Comments are welcome and will be posted with usual editorial courtesies. St. David's United Church.Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Jan 2008