Bowdoin College Rel233: Portraits of Jesus Two Portraits: Jesus the Cynic Sage versus Jesus the Jew Lecture Outline Thought for the day: "'The true person of faith must be prepared to live in a state of holy insecurity. To be a person of faith in the 20th century is to be prepared to admit that there are no objective criteria to demonstrate that belief.' To be 100% sure of oneís life and oneís faith is fanaticism. Fanaticism provides security and moral simplicity; but in the end it is against discussion and tolerance." -Biblical scholar Alan Segal, quoting Martin Buber

1. Q
-what portrait of Jesus emerges from this document?
-what are the issues which remain ambiguous or undecided from this text?

2. Jesus the Cynic Sage
a) what is a Cynic sage?
-how has Jesus come to be identified as a cynic sage?
i) work on Sepphoris and tendency to identify Jesus with Greco-Roman culture; development of a new picture of Galilean scribal culture
ii) work on Q, particularly as a sapiental collection
iii) work on comparative Greco-Roman authors
-Cynic aphorisms or chreiai:

When someone reproached him for frequenting unclean places, Diogenes [the Cynic] replied that the sun also enters public lavatories without becoming defiled.

When one of his students asked him, 'Demonax, let us go the the Asclepium and pray for my son,' he replied, 'you must think Asclepius very deaf that he cannot hear our prayers from where we are.'

'A rather nice part of being a Cynic comes when you have to be beaten like an ass, and throughout the beating you have to love those who are beating you as though you were father or brother to them.'

-chreiai at the heart of pronouncement stories of Jesus:

When asked why they ate with unclean hands, Jesus replied, 'It is not what goes into a person, but what comes out that makes unclean.'

When a woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Jesus, 'Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked!' Jesus replied, 'Blessed rather are those who listen to what God says and do what he says.'

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other also.

b) parallels between Cynics and the Jesus Movement:
i) social liminality and disaffection
ii) expression of this liminality through a type of cunning intelligence (metis) crafted as a witty, pithy rejoinder.
iii) voluntary poverty
iv) passive resistance to violence
v) religious or ìfaithî perspective

3. Jesus the Gentile (some implications)

-non-critical approach to the NT: gives rise to the birth of a pernicious anti-Semitic myth, e.g.

Dear FRONTLINE,
I THINK YOU SHOULD USE PEOPLE THAT BELIEVE IN THE GOSPELS. I ALSO THINK THAT YOU SHOULD USE THE REAL TRANLSLATION NOTH THE CATHOLIC BIBLE OR THE JEWISH BIBLE , WHY YOU ASK BECAUSE BOTH ARE CORRUPT. THE JEWISH BIBLE DOES NOT BELIEVE THAT JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND DID OTHER MARICLES, THEY ARE JUST UNBELIEVING AS THEY WERE IN THE BIBLE AND THEY CRUCIFIED JESUS . A INTERESTING THIN IS THAT WHEN JESUS WAS BEING CRUCIFIED HE SAID FATHER FORGIVE THEN FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THE DO.

            Alvin Rockhey
            rocal692@aol.com
            Troy, MI

4. Jesus the Jew (redrawing the picture)

a) factors contributing to the re-evaluation of Jesus as Jew:
i) increased knowledge of Judaism
ii)DSS; archaeology
iii) the deconstruction of rabbinic Judaism as ìnormativeî and the recognition that Judaism assumed many variants
iv) Jewish scholars in the field. Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew (1973); Shaye Cohen (ìFrom Jesus to Christî)

b) Jesus as Jew
i) sectarian
   -healer
   -charismatic/ wonder-worker: like his near contemporaries Honi the Circle Drawer and Hanina ben Dosa
ii) apocalyptic prophet
iii) relationship to God
c) Jesus as Rabbi
i) teaches in synagogues (Capernaum in Mk 1:21; Luke 4:31; Nazareth in Luke 4:15) and temple forecourt Mark 11:15; 14:49)
ii) teaches traditional Jewish wisdom format: proverbs and sayings:
   -The Narrow Gate (Matt 7:13/ Lk 13:24)
   -speck and beam (Matt 7:3-5; Lk 6:41)
   - 'Physician, heal thyself' (Lk 4:23)
   - 'The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few' (Matt 9:37/Lk 10:2)
iii) knows and comments on the Torah (Law)
   -J. adheres to cultic law (Mark 1:44; Matt 8:64; Luke 5:14)
   -believes in the permanence of the Law: e.g Luke 16:17, the law isnot passing away; Matt 5:17, "I come not to abolish the Law but to fulfill"
   - "Golden rule"
   - "First Commandment "(Mark 12:29) "Hear O Israel, the lord our     God is one God...and you shall love your God...and you shall love    your neighbour" - the shema or synagogue prayer

Must the fact that Jesus operated within Judaism invalidate his message?