Jesus: An Historical Approximation

What a lively, exciting and intelligent book, equally inspirational and insightful. Jose Pagola gives us a flesh and blood Jesus, situated in a complex, rural and very Jewish Palestine, which was enduring a harsh Roman occupation - Governor Varus crucified 2,000 Jews only 6 km from Nazareth when Jesus was aged 3-5 (page 505) - and where there was scabrous social inequality and human suffering. Within that historical reality, Jesus brought a dramatic and radical message, which was intensely pragmatic and compassionate.As Pagola asserts, Jesus did not seek death as an atonement to restore the honour of God, but was killed simply because his radical commitment to God’s way inevitably led to his fateful clash with the Roman and Jewish powers.Pagola’s scholarly and up-to-date rigour is impressive, and all the more so for being low key though his assertions are always backed up with clear references and footnotes.Major points as I see them:- Jesus’s key message: ‘The kingdom of God is already among you!’ (p105)- What mattered most to Jesus was how people lived their lives, not their religion (p109)- Jesus’s underlying goals were to heal, to dispel suffering, to restore life (109)- He sought individual conversion in order to bring about a new model of compassionate social behaviour (116), the reign [of compassion] is God’s response to human suffering (175)- He was not transmitting new ideas, but putting people back in touch with their own experience, which could open them up to the reality of God (126). He used everyday, peasant language, images and stories.- ‘The parables cannot be translated into conceptual language without losing their original, transforming power’ (R Ricoeur) as they are rooted in real, rural experience (127). They are earthy and historically particular stories which resonated with the people to whom Jesus was talking.- The reign of God is like mustard seed because it is already happening, quietly and secretly, we need only recognise it (129).- If Jesus is right in the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector praying, then nobody can be sure of anything – and we need to rely on mercy not religion and the law (143).- The parable of the Good Samaritan is not a morality tale but about looking at life from the point of view of the victim (145) and the primacy of mercy, ie compassion above all else- Jesus did not cure or do miracles in order to produce faith, but he called for faith in order to cure the afflicted – as acts of personal compassion (168).- Jesus was especially concerned with the poor, those at the margins of society [which was very polarised in his time], the dispossessed, victims of abuse and mistreatment (18)- Jesus was itinerant, scandalously outside the family and community. He was literally homeless, with no income, and was not concerned with social or political power except to challenge it (182). His authority came from how he acted and spoke.- He accepted sinners, without first requiring them to repent as traditionally understood, offering them his friendship just as they are, unrepentant sinners, trusting totally in God’s mercy and giving them a chance - as he brings them face to face with God’s love and tenderness without waiting for people to change but starts the process by offering them forgiveness. Everyone is offered the reign of God [P says only those who do not accept God’s mercy are excluded – but I would say that they exclude themselves, Jesus still does not exclude them but always is ready to forgive]. (204-205)- J particularly loved the company of women – this is partly obscured by fact that gospels were written by men from the traditional male perspective, using generic/sexist language – and most commentators for last two millennia have been men. (209)- On divorce, J does not talk specifically about divorce as it exists today, but about men’s exclusive privilege of repudiating their wives (221).- The community or family which Jesus created with his followers was characterised by equality and loving service to the each other (279).- For J God is not a theory but an experience (291). J’s experience of God compels him to liberate people from their fears and the enslavements which kept them from experiencing God. (292). J’s power and security come not from the Scriptures and traditions of Israel/religion, but from his experience of the Father (298). J’s trust in God produces and unconditional submission to God’s will – that is what he is always guided by. (299), and that is why prayer is so vital for him (eg at Gethsemane), and hence also the Lord’s Prayer, which is practical and renouncing, calling for God’s reign/will to become a ‘present reality’ (315)- I think that there is sometimes an insufficient understanding in Pagola, eg when he writes about ‘forgive us our debts as we forgive others’ (p 316). I think that this is not just J saying (as Pagola asserts) that we are in debt to God and need his mercy and that we should not breed resentment in others by not forgiving them - but that in entering a fully compassionate mind/kingdom [of God] we lose our sense of self and so there are no debts either way, they are naturally ‘forgiven’ (as between people deeply in love) and there is no separation between us and others/God, we are taken up into wholeness where debts and sin are healed.- Pagola’s work says little about the Trinity and Jesus as the Son (or incarnation) of God. This is a weakness, though understandably these central tenets of Christianity are outside Pagola’s historical research. (291)- God is goodness and mercy, which gives us a religion based on trust (310).- J was sentenced to death by the Romans, albeit at the instigation of the local temple aristocracy, who saw J as threatening their power (367)’, because:(1) J was in conflict with the Pharisees over laws & traditions (Sabbath, purity, treating sinners as friends without demanding sacrifice etc) while J insisted on prioritising his direct experience of God (322); [P says reports in Mark and John that Pharisees sought J death are not historically plausible, 323];(2) the main enmity towards Jesus was from the Sadducees, the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, because J's message and activity was a challenge to the temple as exclusive source of salvation (325); and more particularly because he chucked merchants etc out of Temple on his own authority, in direct challenge to their rules (355 & 360), which event precipitated his arrest;and finally (3) because the Roman powers were nervous (especially at Passover, 361) and defensive and could see that the implications of what J was saying is that Empire’s rule must be secondary to that of God (329 and also 365), especially the political question, ‘Are you King of the Jews?’). J's popularity, unusual healing powers and the virulent opposition of the Jewish authorities to him were a threat to public order. Only the Roman governor, not the Sanhedrin or other local Jewish powers, had the authority to pronounce a death sentence. Thus there could not have been a legal trial by the Jews (as in 2 gospels), rather it was an informal enquiry to establish the terms on which the matter would be put to Pilate (359). Note that the cruelty of crucifixion was typically Roman and was designed to terrorise the population (370).- J did not seek martyrdom, was not resigned or submissive to the worldly authorities and did not want to die (333). However, he was committed to being faithful to his trusted and loving Father, even if that did lead to death. He did not theologise about his death [unlike Paul] but saw it as the logical consequence of his unconditional commitment to God’s plan. Pagola is clear that Jesus did not understand his death as a sacrificial atonement offered to the Father (334).- J’s commitment to God is shown in his lack of man-made plans, no writings and no clear instructions to his followers (who had anyway fled when he was arrested) - except the broad message to love one another. J died without seeing his plans fulfilled, even worse, he was abandoned by all and killed as a common criminal. His mission seems to have been a total failure, even to accepting death (380).- Pagola is weak on the resurrection as being an intimate part of creation and the incarnation. Pagola simply sees it from point of view of the witnesses, who fled in fear at J’s crucifixion, who saw ‘the crucified [and risen] Jesus as the most realistic and extreme expression of God’s unconditional love for humanity’ (412).[I think Pagola fails to see the resurrection as part of the singular and eternal gift of God to the universe, of itself, in which the creation, the incarnation and the resurrection are all one action.]- The disciples return from safety of Galilee, and gather together in Jerusalem: why? They give one answer in Gospels: ‘Jesus is alive. God has raised him.’ They also use words such as ‘awakening’ and ‘raising’, knowing that they are talking about something beyond human existence. Witnesses emphasise God’s action, at first, and then speak of Jesus himself rising from the dead. They speak of J being raised in sense of exalted, which is, introduced to God’s own life, which is to be pulled away from the power of death, suggesting the action of God on the dead Jesus. The post-death stories repeatedly stress that is Jesus who takes the initiative, not the disciples. (388-89 and 400-401). The point, for Pagola, of Jesus’s resurrection is that it is the proof that what Jesus proclaimed about God’s tenderness and mercy is true (407). In the ‘crucified-risen Jesus God is with us, thinking only about us, suffering like us, dying for us’ (409).- What does risen J tell the disciples? At end of Mark it is succinctly expressed (16.15): ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation’.- The most meaningful confession of faith in risen J is from Paul of Tarsus. Paul speaks from his own experience, in having been ‘reached’ by Jesus Christ, not in psychological terms but as a ‘gift’ of ‘grace’, an amazing reality, ‘God has revealed his Son to me’. This causes a total reorientation in his life, he becomes a ‘new person’, and proclaims ‘it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’. (399)- Pagola does not hesitate - quite frequently - to doubt the historical truth of parts of the Gospels, due usually to the writer’s historical or subjective bias. For example, he dismisses the story of Jesus’s ascension into heaven, which is only told in Luke’s gospel. In Matthew and John (Mark’s story stops early, abruptly) Jesus says that he is ‘always with’ his disciples, and there is no ascension. Pagola says that ‘the ascension is a literary device imagined by Luke with a clear theological purpose’: as ‘a solemn culmination of Jesus’s time on earth; and ‘as the point of departure for the time of the Church and its evangelising mission’.This seems credible to me. The problem, of course, is that an ‘a la carte’ approach to the gospels risks robbing them of their authority. But it cannot be avoided. For Christians, the New Testament is not the word of God: Jesus himself is the word of God, the living Jesus, whom we must seek and be open to encounter in our lives. Therefore contradiction, obscurity, error and writer bias in the Gospels and in Paul’s letters is inevitable. Though it is inspired by the life and gift of Jesus and his heavenly Father, the New Testament is a human work - not the direct, verbal revelation of God, which, for example, Muslims take the Koran to be.Though Pagola does not spell out this implication, it is the refreshing backdrop to everything he writes. The ‘truth’ is provisional, always needing to be rediscovered in the light of present reality, which is the living grace of Christ Jesus.- A weakness of Pagola’s resolutely ‘Jesus as prophet for the poor’ approach is that this socially-committed point of view risks putting Jesus on one side of a political argument. Yes, J is with outcastes and the poor, and is against the power of the powerful. But Jesus surely does not refuse heaven to the powerful, if they are open to it. He does not scapegoat the scapegoaters. Jesus sees the true person in each human being - with no discrimination as to rich or poor, bad or good, sinner or law-abider. He is full of compassion for each person as they are, even the rich and powerful, even the evil and cruel. He accepts each person unconditionally - whether a leper, an arrogant scribe, a loving woman, a young rich man, an adulterous woman, a curious Samaritan woman, a collaborating tax collector, a street urchin or a Centurion of the occupying army. Jesus certainly challenges the politically and socially powerful, but he does not ignore them, he does not disdain them. He answers the tricky questions from various Pharisees, he answers those who are scandalised by his association with tax collectors and prostitutes. In answering them, he is caring for them, giving them what they most need at that point.- In my view, J is not on anyone's 'side' (in the sense of being closed to other people), except inasmuch as he is on everyone’s side, in that every living thing is made in the image of God, in their true inner being. That is his point. He is one with God, and it is up to us to accept his offer to recognise this and join him. This is his sense of urgency: 'the Kingdom of God is near'. This is not ultimate judgement and death, but a literal sense that the absolutely loving and merciful presence of God is right in front of us, is inside us, here and now, in everywhere, and is the centre of everything - if only we will have eyes to see. If only we can forget our 'self' and be in the Spirit. There will be judgement, there already is judgement, because we judge ourselves in how we live, and this comes from how we are out of tune with the reality of the loving God: to be unloving is to be out of kilter with God, with things as they really are, to be estranged from ourselves, to be separate from the one God.- There is an excellent brief section on the different perspectives of the 4 gospel writers (418-429): Mark’s focus is the actions of Jesus, the Son of God who is crucified but raised by God, bringing salvation in contrast to the false power of the Roman emperor; Matthew’s ‘purpose is to describe the messianic identity of Jesus in terms that his Jewish readers can understand’, though he also makes clear that Jesus is for all nations and emphasises Jesus’s commandment to love one another; Luke sees Jesus as the Saviour who spreads joy, he is mercy enfleshed, compassionate particularly to women; while for John Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the Father speaking to us in Jesus’s words, the Revealer but also the Saviour ‘who at once fulfils and surpasses the human hope of salvation, the cosmic ‘way, truth, and life’.- Pagola adds a number of short and useful appendices: what he regards as historical facts about Jesus; the general criteria of interpretation; he gives wise words on the different literary sources and their importance to current research on Jesus (including the apocryphal, gnostic gospels and the Qumran manuscripts); and he explains his the criteria of historicity as he sees them (difficulty; discontinuity; multiple witnesses; consistency; and compatibility with the crucifixion).- A final quibble on this magnificent and inspiring book is that it is too long and can be repetitive. For example, the section (281-284) ‘In service of God’s plan’ repeats things already said earlier.

Excellent book meets the need of scholars, academics and those coming to New Testament studies for the first time. Highly recommended to my students. A break through in bringing together the spirit of the second Vatican council and New Testament studies.

This book is so good that I keep giving this book away to friends, so this is the third time I have bought it! It is superb - lucid, erudite, griping and thoroughly absorbing. I came away feeling I know and understand Jesus much better than I ever did before - and I now see the true radicality of his life and mission in four dimensions. It is at once comforting and deeply unsettling. Probably the most life-changing book about Jesus - other than the gospels themselves - you are ever likely to read.

Putting the Jesus ministry into the context of his day's conditions is a surprise for very many members of the ordinary Anglican congregation who typically ask very few questions about the eighteen years of Jesus' adult life before his ministry began. Neither do they link St John the Baptist's ministry as the kick start to his so that the contrast in both style and message is not really thought about. Pagola's book is hugely valuable for preachers and, in that way, to the congregations. If you accept questions as well as comments I'd like to know how to follow up the Roman Catholic reaction - their initial response was quite inevitable but in an odd way it seems to have contributed to the book's value to the everyday Christian.

This is an absorbing read. It lends itself to meditative refelction on each few pages as the author takes the reader through the various phases of the life and work of Jesus. There is a wealth of historical detail presented in a reader friendly manner. The author does not intrude, but allows the reader to deduce her/his own conclusions. For example, he points out that Jesus did not quote the Torah, but rather encouraged his listeners to be like the father, compassionate. He does not try to draw a lesson from this, but leaves us to respond accroding to our understanding. There are footnotes aplenty for the scholar to peruse, but the ordinary reader doens not need to try to absorb the information imparted there. It is a most enjoyable read, ideal for the Lenten and Holy Week season which has just passed.

This is a book which brings Jesus to light and gives many insights into his life as a carpenter / builder in Galilee at the beginning of the 1st century. For instance the prevailing attitudes towards women, the poor, the Romans and the relationship between Galilee and Jerusalem. The description of the crucifixion is historical and harrowing. The author is a Spanish scholar and Catholic priest who backs up his statements with references - the footnotes are essential. The translation (? by an American) does not grate to English ears.

For the first time I felt I understoood the actual historical context in which Jesus was born, lived and died. But more than a biography, the spirit of the times and what moved him and in that context how radical he actually was, especially in his mystical comprehension of the world, stood out like a blazing bonfire. After studying, praying and encountering Jesus all my life, this writing gave me new and blazing experience of knowing him differently.

This is a labour of love..powerfully written...compelling insights.. an aid to contemplation..