Another Voice

While Mark focused on the mostly Gentile Christian community in Rome and Matthew was more focused on the Hebrew-Christian community in Antioch, Luke stresses that Christianity is a way of life for Gentile as well as Hebrew-Christian believers; and that it warrants legal recognition in the Roman Empire. Luke is about healing and reconciliation: actions greatly needed in our own contemporary society.

Luke’s author was a highly educated Gentile Christian who came from a thoroughly Greco-Roman environment. Unlike Matthew’s author he is not well-grounded in the Hebrew tradition. Scholars speculate on whether his “ordered account” was written for a Christian community in Antioch or some other location in Asia Minor, like Ephesus or Smyrna. Luke and Acts of Apostles make up a two-volume work often called simply Luke–Acts; and they are addressed to the “most excellent” Theophilus.

Theophilus’ identity is unknown, but there are conjectures. Some interpreters suggest he was a wealthy man who paid to have Luke-Acts written. Other biblical interpreters have concluded that he was a Roman official who had been initiated into the church’s teachings, for whom Luke now provided a full narrative Another tradition maintains that Theophilus was not a person. But since the name in Greek means “Friend of God,” both Luke and Acts were addressed to anyone who fits that description. In this tradition the author’s targeted audience was the learned but unnamed men and women of the era. Theophilus was also quite a common name in the Greco-Roman world of the 1st century.

For documentation, Luke’s author drew from the Gospel of Mark, the sayings collection called the “Q” source, and a collection of material called the “L” (for Luke) source. Most contemporary scholars maintain that the author of Luke is anonymous. A tradition dating from the 2nd century did suggest that the author was the Luke who was a companion of Paul. While this view is still occasionally put forward, most biblical scholars today question that supposition. Textual analysis suggests that Luke-Acts was written not earlier than 80–90 CE; and most likely as late as 90–110 CE, because the text was still being revised well into the 2nd century.

Last week I stressed that Matthew saw Jesus as the fulfillment of Hebrew history. He began his infancy narrative with a genealogy of Jesus from Abraham down to Joseph and Mary. Luke, on the other hand, understands Jesus as the high point in all human history. His genealogy is presented at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and runs backwards from Joseph to Adam.

Luke is also more Mary-oriented than Joseph-oriented. In Matthew’s infancy narrative the light is on Joseph. In Luke’s account, it is Mary who shines. She is the one who hears and keeps God’s word. In Luke 1:46-55, we find Mary’s Song of Praise: “The Magnificat.”

What strikes you, as you re-read this Gospel? Three themes caught my attention: women, building bridges, and religious hypocrisy.

WOMEN: In Luke Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-39), a 12-year-old girl (Luke 8:41-42, 49-56); a woman with a 12-year infirmity (verses 43-48); and a woman who had been crippled 18 years (Luke 13:10-17). In Luke we see Mary the Magdalen, an early disciple of Jesus. She sits before Jesus and listens to him. Her sister Martha complains to Jesus that Mary should be helping her with serving. Jesus replies: “Martha, Martha…it is Mary who has chosen the better part.” (Luke 10:38-42). In the Resurrection accounts, women not men are most important: Women were among those who observed the crucifixion (Luke 23:27, 49). Women prepared spices to anoint Jesus’ body (Luke 23: 55-56). Women were the first to find Jesus’ tomb empty (Luke 24:1-3) and angels told them Jesus had been raised from the dead (Luke 24: 4-8). Women were the first to proclaim the Resurrection to Jesus’ other disciples (Luke 24: 9-11). [Catholic upper-level ecclesiastics who still oppose women’s ordination should reflect on these passages. ]

BUILDING BRIDGES NOT WALLS: Luke’s stress on peace-making implied a new relationship with the Roman Empire. Dialogue had to start, and destructive polarization had to end. In Luke’s Infancy Narrative, angelic messengers proclaim: “Good news of great joy for all people. To you is born this day . . . a Savior! . . . Peace on earth among those whom God favors!” (Luke 2:10-11,14] These words echo and go far beyond the Roman monument inscriptions that had praised Augustus Caesar (63 BCE – 14 CE) as “god” and “savior.” Luke hereby stresses that Jesus had completed more fully and uniquely the work of Augustus. Later in this Gospel, Luke offsets the fact that Jesus was executed by the Romans, by having the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate (who died after 36 CE) declare Jesus innocent three times (Luke 23:4,14,22). Only Luke, unlike Mark and Matthew, has the Roman centurion at the foot of the cross exclaim: “Surely, this man was innocent.” (Luke 23:47) Building bridges. In Luke’s narration, Herod Antipas (c. 20 BCE – c. 39 CE), who publicly identified himself as a Hebrew and was the 1^st century ruler of Galilee, and Pontius Pilate become unlikely friends, after being in Jesus’ presence (Luke 23:12). And finally, only in Luke’s Gospel does Jesus pray for forgiveness for his crucifiers (Luke 23:34).

RELIGIOUS HYPOCRISY: Some observers accuse Luke of antisemitism, because he regularly shows Jesus criticizing Hebrew religious leaders (Pharisees, scribes, and Levites). I think these critics miss the point. Jesus was strongly critical of the arrogant religious hypocrisy of the religiously elite in his day.

During Jesus’ time, the Pharisees were a prominent Hebrew religious group known for their strict adherence to the Law and were often viewed as overly legalistic.

When invited to dine in the home of a Pharisee, for example, the religious leader accused Jesus of not washing ahead of time. Jesus replied: “Now then, you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people!…give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you…you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God….Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.” (Luke 11:37-44)

Luke speaks strongly to our own contemporary society, in which many praise God but ignore the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.

Next week we take a look at the Infancy Narratives in Luke and Matthew.

Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

 

 

Last week I stressed that the Gospel According to Mark was designed for Gentile Christians in Rome, and composed by an anonymous author, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Mark’s Gentile Christians in Rome faced and feared persecution and death at the hands of Roman authorities. But they also had to live with discrimination from superior-acting Hebrew-Christians living in Rome.

 

Matthew written for Hebrew Christians in Antioch:

This week, we look at Matthew. The final version of the Gospel According to Matthew, was most likely written by an anonymous Hebrew-Christian scribe between 80 and 90 CE. He was not an eyewitness to the Jesus events but collected various traditions and sayings by and about Jesus and put them in one long essay. Some scholars say the final edition could even have been written as late as 110. The most probable location for the Matthew community was Antioch, whose ruins today lie close to Antakya, Turkey. The community was strongly Hebrew-Christian.

There were Gentile Christian members in the community, but they were expected to obey Hebrew norms. Some scholars say even circumcision.

The Gospel of Matthew, with its strong Hebrew-Christian orientation, contains five sermons of Jesus (Matthew 5:1-7:29; 10:1-42; 13:1-52; 18:1-35; and 23:1 through 25:46) which, for the authors’ audience symbolized the first five books – Pentateuch — of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These five books, known as the Hebrew Torah, were also called the “Five books of Moses.”

Why Moses?

For centuries, it was widely accepted, both within Hebrew/Jewish and Christian communities, that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. The European Enlightenment saw a rise in critical biblical studies, leading to the emergence of theories questioning Mosaic authorship.

The majority of scholars today see the biblical Moses as a legendary figure, while retaining the possibility that Moses or a Moses-like figure existed in the 13^th century BCE. The Pentateuch, however, was composed and compiled during the 6^th-5^th century BCE, thus a good 500 years after “Moses.”

Jesus the Great Teacher

In Matthew 5:17-28, Jesus explains his understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures as related to his ministry. He says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17) Jesus is the great teacher. Notice how he so often says “you have heard it said of old . . . but I say to you . . .” Like a rabbi, Jesus takes a teaching found in the Scriptures and then intensifies and expands on it.

Genealogy:

For Matthew, Jesus is the great embodiment of all preceding Hebrew history. In two weeks, we will take a careful look at the creative Infancy Narratives in Matthew as well as in Luke. Today, I want to point out that Matthew constructed an infancy narrative that begins with “A genealogy of Jesus Christ, Son of David, son of Abraham.” (Matthew 1:1-17) Matthew’s genealogy features four notable Hebrew women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and “the wife of Uriah” Bathsheba. It includes a number of “fulfillment” passages that relate Jesus to prophetic texts. And it makes allusions to famous Hebrew men of the past.

Note for instance that Jesus, like the Moses figure, was rescued as an infant from a murderous king (Matthew 2:16-18). In Matthew’s creative narration, Jesus’ ministry begins with three temptations in the desert. They correspond to the experiences of Israel in the desert, after the Exodus. Jesus is God’s great liberator.

A question about Peter and the Rock in Matthew 16:16-19:

This brief text – Matthew 16:16 to 19 — has often been cited by Roman Catholic authorities as the scriptural basis for the papacy. Nevertheless, the significance of this uniquely Matthew material has been widely discussed by Catholic and Protestant scholars and challenged on the basis that verses 16–19 are found only in Matthew. Nowhere in the New Testament is Peter described as being supreme over the other apostles. Historians stress that Peter did not establish the Christian community in Rome and that Peter was never a bishop of Rome and certainly not “the first pope.” The Roman Catholic theologians Raymond Brown (1928 – 1998) and John P. Meier (1942 – 2022) were quite emphatic about this in their book Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Christianity, (Paulist Press 1983).

What draws my attention in Matthew:

As I have been re-reading the Gospel According to Matthew, what stands out for me is Jesus the great teacher, like a great Hebrew rabbi.

I conclude this week’s post with my contemporary reflections on Matthew 5:1-10, where Jesus goes up a hill with his disciples and begins to teach what we have come to know as the “Sermon on the Mount.” It is truly a charter for Christian life today.

 

The Charter for Christian Life based on the Sermon on the Mount:

1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

How fortunate are those people, who are humble in spirit.

The humble in spirit realize that greatness is achieved through service not domination. Power and control over people have no place in the community of faith. The humble in spirit realize they are not masters of the universe. They understand they cannot survive on their own.

2. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Many people grieve in sorrow today.

There are people in frightening times: war situations, people suffering abuse, job loss, or deportations. Jesus assures all, even if they cannot see it at the moment, that they are not abandoned. The historical Jesus knew abandonment, suffering, and a painful death. He overcame them. He travels with all overwhelmed with sorrow, assuring them that their lives are not meaningless.

3. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

How fortunate are the meek.

Meekness is not weakness. The meek have compassion. They can feel the pain of another. They put an arm around the fearful and the oppressed. They lift oppressive burdens from the shoulders of the abused, the old, the sick, and the impoverished.

4. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

How fortunate are those whose greatest desire is to do what genuine Christianity requires.

We are fortunate if we have high ideals, strong values, noble goals, and the motivation to build up what is best in others and in ourselves. But the temptations are strong: to conform, to do what everyone else does, to simply read the news and then not rock the boat.

5. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Merciful love is assistance without conditions.

Genuine Christians are not fear mongers who scapegoat Hispanics, feminists, blacks, gays, transgendered, or immigrants.

6. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

How fortunate are the pure of heart.

The pure of heart are honest-hearted. They are not two-faced, with hidden agendas or secret desires to advance themselves by using and abusing other people. The pure of heart honor and search for truth. They do not lie, creating dishonest “facts.”

7. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children^, of God.”

How fortunate are those who work for peace.

Those who work for peace do not erect walls. They are bridge builders. They cooperate rather than compete. They struggle to resolve political, social, and religious polarization through tolerance, dialogue, and mutual respect.

8. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

How fortunate are those who suffer persecution because they truly live the Gospel.

There are a lot of phony “Christians” in high places these days, who denigrate and oppress their critics. Matthew’s Jesus speaks of leaders who talk about God’s values but never live God’s values. “Do not do what they say,” Jesus says “for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for people to see.” (Matthew 23:3-5)

******

Next week we take a look at Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s author was a highly educated Gentile Christian who came from a thoroughly Greco-Roman environment. Luke’s Gospel, like Matthew’s, focuses on the life and teachings of Jesus, but Luke emphasizes Jesus’s role as a universal savior for all peoples.

Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

 

 

 

 

 

All four Gospels evolved from oral traditions, passed on from person to person and from place to place. More than one single person composed the final versions of the four Gospels, as we have them today. Mark is the oldest. Matthew and Luke both drew upon Mark as a major source for their works.

Originally, the Gospels were circulated without titles. That changed around185 CE, when the theologian, Irenaeus of Lyon (c.139 – c.202), labeled the four Gospels as “Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.” Irenaeus was the second bishop of Lyon, France from 177 until his death.

Although Mark is older, Matthew was listed first in the official “canonical” list of the four Gospels by the Council of Rome in 382 and the Synod of Hippo in 393, because the bishops mistakenly considered it the first Gospel to be written. They accepted the “Augustinian hypothesis” proposed by the well-known theologian and philosopher, Augustine (354 – 430), the Bishop of Hippo Regius, the ancient name of today’s Annaba, Algeria.

What we call Mark’s Gospel was composed around 70 CE, probably after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in the year 70. Mark was written for Gentile Christians in Rome. They suffered Roman persecution but also discrimination from Hebrew-Christians, who felt superior to Gentile converts.

The Gospel of Matthew, which we will examine next week, was most likely written by an anonymous Hebrew-Christian scribe between 80 and 90 CE.

In Mark’s Gospel we see, very early, a Jesus confronted with difficulties and rejection. It is a Gospel for those who are suffering and need to find consolation: people who resonate with the fearful cry of those disciples in the sinking boat (Mark 4:35-40). They were frightened by the storm. They woke-up the sleeping Jesus and asked him if he is just going to let them all drown. Jesus calms the storm, and then says to his disciples “Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?”

Having faith in difficult times is key to Mark.

Up until the nineteenth century, and in some circles even later, the general understanding was that the author of Mark’s Gospel was “John Mark” mentioned in Acts of Apostles. (Acts 12:12 and 12:25) Contemporary scholars, however, generally agree that the final author of Mark remains anonymous. Although it is the oldest of the four, Mark’s Gospel is also much shorter than the other gospels, with just 16 chapters compared to Matthew’s 28, Luke’s 24, and John’s 21.

It is interesting to note that of the Synoptic Gospels, only Mark’s starts with the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον (transliteration: euaggelion) the Greek word for “good news”: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1) As part of the vocabulary of early Christians, this word did not refer to a specific type of literature nor to a book. The term (“gospel” in English) had a more dynamic meaning. It was a proclamation of an event of major importance. The “Gospel of Jesus” for early Christians designated God’s saving actions in and through the person of Jesus.

Mark’s Gospel narration begins with John the Baptizer, who died c. 30 CE. John was an itinerant preacher, “a voice crying in the wilderness,” (Mark 1:3) preparing the way for the Messiah. He had many followers, and it appears, from Mark’s Gospel, that Jesus from Nazareth was one of them. But John says that Jesus is far greater than he: “I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals.” (Mark 1:8) When John baptizes Jesus in the Jordan, a voice from the heavens speaks to Jesus: “You are my son, the Beloved. My favor rests on you.” (Mark 1:11) Note, the Spirit is speaking directly to Jesus. It is his call to public ministry moving far beyond that of John the Baptizer.

Throughout his life, Jesus comes to a gradual realization of who he is as Human One (“Son of Man”) and Son of God. His disciples as well come to a gradual realization of who he is, just like us today.  We are called to grow in faith, wisdom, and understanding.

Mark’s Gospel has no account of Jesus’ virgin birth or his infancy. The focus is on the adult Jesus as Messiah. The Gospel does mention that Jesus had brothers and sisters in Mark 6:3.

At the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 CE, when church authorities – strongly believing in the superiority of celibacy over marriage — proclaimed the perpetual virginity of Jesus’ mother, the text in Mark 6:3 became problematic. “Brothers and sisters” came to be interpreted as meaning Jesus’s “cousins.” (I have no desire to get into this discussion right now but do find it interesting that the Pauline epistles, the four Gospels, and Acts of Apostles all mention the brothers of Jesus, with both Mark and Matthew mentioning the brothers’ names and unnamed sisters.)

Mark’s Gospel also has a rather abrupt ending. Like the other three Gospels, Mark does report the visit of Mary the Magdalene, and her companions to the tomb of Jesus early Sunday morning. When they arrive at the tomb, however, they find the entrance stone removed and a young man (not an angel) tells them: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And the Gospel concludes with “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing, because they were afraid.” (Mark 16:8)

Most scholars today really believe that the Gospel of Mark originally ended with Mark 16:8. Yet some scholars contend there was in fact a lost ending.

Already in antiquity there were editors and copyists, uncomfortable with such an abrupt ending. They provided three different endings for Mark to “correct” the abruptness of 16:8. Although now understood as a later addition to the text, the most favored of these added endings is Mark 16:9-20, called the Markan Appendix, or the Longer Ending. It records three appearances of Jesus raised from the dead: to Mary the Magdalene; to two disciples; and to the eleven. It mentions Jesus’ ascension into heaven and his sitting at God’s right hand.

There do remain critical questions concerning the authenticity of the verses in Mark 16:9–20 which center on stylistic and linguistic issues. When was the Markan Appendix added is a good question. Later than many think. Eusebius of Caesarea, historian and bishop, in what was then Roman Palestine and who died in 339, as well as Jerome, theologian and well-known biblical translator, who died in Bethlehem in 432, indicated the absence of the verses from Greek manuscripts known to them. 

 

Re-reading Mark’s Gospel, two thoughts struck me: (1) Jesus in Mark’s Gospel is a rejected and suffering Son of God, and (2) following Jesus is a discipleship of the cross. Life is not always easy. Many people today still live, as did Mark’s congregation, in fearful and threatening times. 

Mark is clearly a Gospel of the suffering Messiah and of suffering and fearful discipleship.

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus goes to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. A sudden fear comes over him and he is in great distress. Like a loving child he speaks to his father: “Abba everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me….” (Mark 14:35-36). Judas betrayed him. Other disciples abandoned him. People spit on Jesus. He is blindfolded and beaten. Even Peter rejects him three times. (Mark 14:53-65)

The Gospel of Mark’s message for us today is that fear and uncertainty, if one allows them to take control, can disable, blind, and paralyze people. But Christianity is not a religion of fear. Jesus’ words to his disciples in Mark 8:18-21 speak to us today as well: “Do you not yet understand? Have you no perception? Are your minds closed? Have you eyes that do not see, and ears that do not hear?”

Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

The historical-critical method, also known as higher criticism, investigates the origins and nature of ancient texts. Historical criticism began in the 17th century and gained popular recognition in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The primary goal of the historical-critical method is to discover the text’s historical meaning in its original social and cultural context. Then, to explore the text’s contemporary meaning. Here correct translations are critically important. For example: What the early Christians called “ekklesia” in Greek is very different from “church.” The modern word “church” carries overtones of an official and legalized institution. The New Testament “ekklesia” was neither. The word “ekklesia” means “the called out ones.” Thus, the better New Testament translation in English should be “assembly” or “congregation.”

While often discussed in terms of Hebrew and Christian writings from ancient times, historical criticism applies as well to Islamic and other religious writings.

Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. (1940 – 2014), who served as professor of New Testament and chair of the Biblical Studies department at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, formerly known as Weston Jesuit School of Theology, defined biblical historical criticism as “the effort at using scientific criteria, historical and literary, and human reason to understand and explain, as objectively as possible, the meaning intended by the biblical writers.”

As I mentioned last week, biblical texts contain a variety of literary forms such as history, symbol, folklore, and presumed or imagined historical scenarios. The Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, which we will look at more closely in April, are good examples.

One legacy of biblical criticism in U.S. American culture was the fundamentalist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. Fundamentalism in the USA began, at least partly, as a Protestant response to the biblical criticism of the nineteenth century. Some fundamentalists believed that historical-critical believers had invented an entirely new religion completely at odds with the Christian faith.

In terms of my own Roman Catholic tradition, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Roman Catholic theology avoided biblical criticism because of its reliance on rationalism, preferring instead to engage in “traditional” biblical understandings based on the narrow-focused works of the “Church Fathers.” The Catholic Church showed strong opposition to biblical criticism during that period.

The Roman Catholic dogmatic constitution Dei Filius (“Son of God”), approved by the First Vatican Council in 1871, rejected biblical criticism, reaffirming that the Bible was “written by God” and that it was “inerrant.” But that began to change in the final decades of the nineteenth century when, for example, the French Dominican Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855–1938) established a school in Jerusalem called the École prátique d’études biblique, which became the École Biblique, to encourage study of the Bible using the historical-critical method.

At the same time, my alma mater the Catholic University of Leuven was exploring the historical-critical methodology that would become its hallmark. A major step was taken in 1889 with the creation of a course entitled “Critical History of the Old Testament” by Albin Van Hoonacker (1857 – 1933). This course was an early attempt to apply the historical-critical method to biblical texts. At a time when the historical-critical exploration of the Bible among Catholics was still highly controversial, Van Hoonacker became the first professor to teach an historical-critical understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.

On 18 November 1893, Pope Leo XIII, pope from 1878 to 1903, promulgated the encyclical  Providentissimus Deus (“The most provident God”). That letter gave the first formal authorization for the use of critical methods in biblical scholarship.

The Catholic situation changed greatly, however, after Leo’s death and the election of Pope Pius X in 1903. A very staunch traditionalist, Pius X, who was pope from 1903 to 1914, saw biblical criticism as part of a growing and destructive “modernist” tendency in the Church. The École Biblique was shut down and Lagrange was called back to France.

Finally, in 1943, the lights came back on. Pope Pius XII, pope from 1939 to 1958, issued the papal encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu (“Inspired by the Holy Spirit”) sanctioning historical criticism and opening a new epoch in Catholic critical scholarship.

Divino Afflante Spiritu encouraged scholars to investigate biblical texts utilizing recent discoveries in archeology, ancient history, and linguistics.

Then, in 1965, the dogmatic constitution Dei verbum (“Word of God”), approved by the Second Vatican Council, and promulgated by Pope Paul VI, further promoted biblical criticism.

The Second Vatican Council (“Vatican II”) was the twenty-first ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. It was convened by Pope John XXIII and had four sessions from October 1962 to December 1965. John XXIII, born in 1881, died in June 1963.

Pope Paul VI, born in 1897, was pope from 21 June 1963 to 6 August 1968. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council, implementing its numerous reforms. The resulting reforms were among the widest and deepest in the Church’s history.

Raymond E. Brown (1928 – 1998), Joseph A. Fitzmyer (1920 -2016), and Roland E. Murphy (1917 – 2002) were the most famous U.S. Catholic scholars to apply biblical criticism and the historical-critical method in analyzing the Bible: together, they authored The Jerome Biblical Commentary in 1968 and The New Jerome Biblical Commentary in 1990.The latest version, The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century was published in 2022, edited by John J. Collins, Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid OP, and Donald Senior CP (1940 – 2022).

And so, we move forward in faith as critical-historical observers.

Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

 

 

My understanding of Jesus has grown and developed over the years. The question asked by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945), pastor and theologian, in 1939 “Who is Jesus Christ, for us, today?” has been with me since I was a college student. I have always been a questioner, but I remain a committed Christian. For me Jesus is still the great revelation of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (John 14:6)

As a high school religion teacher in Battle Creek, Michigan in the 1970s, I wanted to help my students reflect on who Jesus was for them. We listened to and discussed the musicals Godspell, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (born 1948); and Jesus Christ Superstar with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (born 1948) and lyrics by Tim Rice (born 1944). I still have warm memories of those days. Great students who taught me a lot about being a teacher.

Most recently, this past December, I gave a three week course about Jesus and the Gospels to a continuing ed group of retired men and women in Leuven, Belgium.

The well thought-out questions of my Leuven group as well as a number of questions from Another Voice readers, prompt me to return once again, with some new observations, to a series of Lenten reflections about the meaning of Jesus yesterday and for us today. I encourage you to think and reflect along with me, reading the four Gospels.

Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus – known as “Yeshua” — was an historical figure and attempts to deny his historicity have be consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus. Jesus was a Galilean Hebrew who was born between 7 and 2 BCE and died around 30 CE.

A brief comment about dates: Our current dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus (c. 470 – c. 544), a monk in the Eastern Roman Empire, who thought Jesus was born in the year 1. Dates after that were labeled AD for the Latin words Anno Domini meaning “the Year of the Lord. Today, there is a movement to use terminology that is more neutral and inclusive of non-Christian people. In place of AD, historians speak of CE, for the Common Era. Preceding years are referred to as BCE, Before the Common Era.

The historic Jesus lived only in Galilee and Judea. Galilee, a significant region in the biblical narrative, is located in the northern part of ancient Israel. It is notably separated from Judea by the region of Samaria, whose residents were the Samaritans, who did not accept all elements of Hebrew belief. Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, was in Galilee; and Galilee was the venue for most of Jesus’ public ministry. 

Judea was the ancient name of the mountainous terrain surrounding Jerusalem. Pontius Pilate, who presided at the final trial of Jesus and gave the order for his crucifixion, was the Roman governor of Judea from 26 to 36 CE

Like most people from Galilee back then, Jesus most likely had brown eyes, dark brown to black hair and olive-brown skin. Jesus spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and Greek. The languages spoken in Galilee and Judea during the 1^st century included the Semitic Aramaic and Hebrew languages as well as Greek, with Aramaic being the predominant language.

Most contemporary biblical scholars agree that Jesus began his public ministry when he was about thirty years old, as indicated in Luke 3:23. The New Testament does not specifically give the ages of any of the men and women who were Jesus’ disciples. Biblical historians suggest, however, that some of them may have joined Jesus as early as age 15 and would have still been teenagers at the time of his death and resurrection. Education for young Hebrews, in Jesus’ time, concluded at the age of 15.

What did Jesus do before his public ministry? We don’t know. We can can only speculate. Perhaps Jesus was like his father a first century worker in construction work outside Nazareth. Most scholars suggest that for a while Jesus belonged to the religious movement of John the Baptizer, a Hebrew preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century. John’s baptism was a purification ceremony meant to ready peoples’ hearts to receive the messiah. Jesus’ baptism opened his mind and heart to his own identity and messianic ministry.

Several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus’s disciples had also been early followers of John the Baptizer. Some scholars think that John belonged to the Essenes, a semi-ascetic Hebrew sect who expected a messiah and practiced ritual baptism.

Concerning Christian scriptures, it was not until at least twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus that the first Christian scriptures were composed. Written in the decade of the 50s, they are the letters of the early Christian apostle Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus (c. 5 – c. 64/65).

Today we know as well that not all letters attributed to Paul were authored by him. There is general scholarly agreement that Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon are genuinely Pauline. Other letters bearing Paul’s name are disputed among scholars, namely Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus. Most contemporary biblical scholars agree that Hebrews was certainly not written by Paul. In fact, the emphasis on Melchizedek and priesthood in Hebrews seems out of sync with Pauline theology.

Biblical perspectives on the historical Jesus are based on the Pauline epistles and the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Those four gospels, however, do not represent all the early gospels available. This becomes clear in studying other gospels either discerned as sources inside the official four or else discovered as documents outside them. An example of a source hidden within the four canonical gospels is the reconstructed document known as Q, from the German word Quelle, meaning “source,” which is now imbedded within both Luke and Matthew.

An example of an other ancient Jesus document discovered outside the four canonical gospels is the Gospel of Thomas, which was found at Nag Hammadi, in Upper Egypt, in the winter of 1945 and is, in the view of many scholars, completely independent of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. It is also most strikingly different from them, especially in its format. It identifies itself as a gospel, but it is in fact a collection of the sayings of Jesus given without any descriptions of deeds or miracles, crucifixion or resurrection stories.

The official “canonical” list of the four Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John was affirmed by the Council of Rome in 382 and the Synod of Hippo in 393.

All four Gospels evolved from oral traditions, passed on from person to person and from place to place. More than one single person (i.e. Mark, Matthew, Luke, John) composed the final versions of the four Gospels as we have them today. Each time the narrators adapted their accounts to the needs, understanding, and cultural / religious backgrounds of their listeners. The Gospels were not written therefore to give us strict “history.” The Gospels contain bits of history, parables, metaphor, symbol, re-interpreted passages from the Greek (Septuagint) Hebrew Scriptures, and imagined scenarios for key events in the life of Jesus.

Next week some thoughts about the importance of the historical critical method for biblical interpretation; and the week after that, the focus will be on Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.

• Jack

 

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

 

 

 

 

For many years, my academic focus in teaching and research has been religion and values in the United States. This week I would like to share some thoughts about maintaining the common good in the contemporary USA.

For more than two thousand years, the notion of the common good has been a consistent theme in Western political philosophy, most notably in the work of Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE), Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225 – 1274), Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778.

Foundational common good documents in U.S. history are the Federalist papers, a series of 85 essays on the, at that time, proposed new Constitution of the United States. They were published between 1787 and 1788 by Alexander Hamilton (1755 – 1804), James Madison (1751 – 1836), and John Jay (1745 – 1829).

The Federalist papers stress that the common good can only be achieved and maintained through constructive political means and the collective action of citizens participating in their own self-government. James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, is known as the “Father of the Constitution” for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States. Madison argued that political constitutions should seek out “wise and discerning leaders in search of the common good.”

The U.S. Constitution, which became effective on March 4, 1789,  established three branches of government, designed to balance power — and serve as checks on one another.

John Adams (1735 – 1826), the second U.S. president, wrote: “Government is instituted for the common good…and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.” Historical wisdom for today.

Securing and maintaining the common good today, I would argue that we need to affirm what I see as ten common good core values:

(1) Patriotism that sees the United States as one collaborating country in a world of many interdependent countries.

(2) National self-confidence rooted in the belief that everyone has self worth.

(3) A firm belief that hard work and productivity enhance human life for all, not just those “up above” in charge.

(4) A strong conviction that religious leaders should critique a country but not control it.

(5) An active belief that charitable actions and community building are essential exercises in civil life and responsibility.

(6) A realization that pragmatism and compromise are also needed as people walk together down the same road.

(7) An acceptance of the national diversity of ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, and a commitment to respect and live with each other.

(8) Acknowledgement, by way of example, that about 3% of the total U.S. population have Native American roots and 97% are from immigrants.

(9) A commitment that collaboration with and not domination of  other countries is the authentic way to “make America great.”

(10) A commitment to check the flow of information in national news, political reports, and social media, like Facebook, for ignorance, falsehood, and distortions.

 ***

And let us not forget the words of the sonnet by the U.S. American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887). She wrote the poem in 1883. In 1903, the poem was cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

• Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

 

 

There are a great many legends about “Saint Valentine” who was a priest in third century Rome and ministered to persecuted Christians. One legend is that Valentine cut hearts from parchment, giving them to persecuted Christians, to remind them of God’s love for them.

According to Butlers Lives of the Saints, first published in four volumes in London between 1756–1759, Saint Valentine was martyred by beheading in Rome on February 14 in 269 CE and his feast day, “Saint Valentine’s Day,” was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496.

Nevertheless, enough uncertainty surrounded the true historical  identity of St. Valentine that in 1969 the Catholic Church discontinued liturgical veneration of him in 1969. But his name still remains on the official Catholic list of saints; but the Catholic liturgical calendar now states that February 14 is the feast day for Saints Cyril and Methodius, two brothers, called the “Apostles of the Slavs,” who spread the Gospel throughout Eastern Europe in the ninth century.

Oddly enough, the document that authorized the dropping of St. Valentine from the Catholic liturgical calendar was dated February 14, 1969.

Many of today’s legends about Saint Valentine, were in fact invented in the 14^th century in England by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400). Thanks to Chaucer’s stories, the date February 14^th became associated with romantic love.

Love is at the core of the life and message of the historic Jesus. But I doubt that Jesus was simply focused on romantic love. In John 13:34-35 we read that Jesus said: “I give you a new commandment. Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another everybody will know that you’re my true followers.”

Looking at the life of Jesus in the Gospels, it is quite clear that love is an action word. It builds relationships. It promotes values and principles that are lived realities. Love means acceptance, belonging, trust, forgiveness, honesty, openness, generosity, and faithfulness. This is the way of Jesus. The person, who puts her or his faith in Jesus, trusts that Jesus taught the right way to live and accepts Jesus as one’s life guide. Jesus is our “Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (John 14:6)

Over time, however, faith in Jesus, for many Christians and institutional Christian leaders, became less a way of life and much more a doctrinal statement to be accepted. Accepting the word became more important than living the word. It became paramount to believe, for instance, that Jesus was divine, regardless how one lived one’s life. We know, of course, that throughout Christian history many crooked people, liars, and murderers publicly accepted the divinity of Christ but then went about and continued their evil ways. Some were even popes and political leaders.

And today?

The historical Jesus did not focus on himself. He was not ego-centered but other-centered. Through his lived spiritual values of courage, cooperation, fairness, forgiveness, and faithfulness, Jesus revealed divinity as well as authentic humanity.

People who are ego-centered become slaves to habitual behaviors that become addictions: selfishness, deceitfulness, callousness, and arrogance. Those addictive habits can provide momentary satisfaction. They can help self-centered people generate lots of money and even get applauded as people sent by God. But the self-centered diminish life and destroy it, because they ignore and reject actually living the word of Jesus. Many people can be powerful and  clever but Christians are loving.

– Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

 

In the Gospel reading John 18:37-38, when Jesus is confronted by Pontius Pilate, Jesus says: “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Pilate then retorted: “What is truth?”

Pontius Pilate, the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea from 26 to 36 CE, was not the first, or the last, to ask this question. It is an important and necessary question today

Hannah Arendt (1906 – 1975), the German historian and philosopher became interested in how the most outrageous lies get a political hold over people, ever since Nazi lies about the Jews and intellectuals drove her from Berlin in 1933 after her arrest by the Gestapo. (See her book The Origins of Totalitarianism.)

Arendt wrote: “This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such people, deprived of the power to think and judge, are, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such people, you can do whatever you want.”

Well, our contemporary world is experiencing a crisis in facts and truth, which also contributes to distrust in various political and religious institutions. Theologian John Dominic Crossan said it very well in his recent book Paul as Pharisee: A Vision of Post-civilization:  “We now live—verbally and visually, nationally and internationally—in a world of smiling lies, alternative facts, fake news, aspirations masquerading as interpretations, and conspiracy theories where truth is at best a personal opinion or at worst an obsolete artifact.”

The key question is how do we know what is true and what is not true when watching the news, listening to elected officials, listening to religious leaders, or using social media? Conflicting messages bombard us every day.

TRUTH IS MORE THAN FEELINGS. Rather than making decisions on what is true or not true in reality (the classic model), many people today make decisions on what they FEEL is true or most probable. Narrow feeling perspectives replace thoughtful examination of the actual reality. In an email, for example, I asked a friend why he still strongly supports the incumbent U.S. president. His reply was polite and brief: “I just feel that God has blessed him. I feel he has been chosen by God to be president again. I trust my feelings.”

TRUTH AND REALITY: The traditional answer about truth-seeking is that we know something is true if it is in accordance with measurable reality. In medieval times, however, people knew something was true because the authorities and powerful institutions, like the Catholic Church, said it was true. No discussion. Case closed. This created problems of course. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) is a good example.

When Galileo looked through his homemade telescope and saw mountains on the moon, objects orbiting around Jupiter, and the variations of lighting on Venus — all sights not in line with authoritative teaching — he decided to speak out. He was condemned by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, narrowly escaped being executed as a heretic, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Galileo courageously argued for a new way of knowing, insisting that what mattered was not what the authorities said was true but what anyone with the right tools could discover and show was true, based on reality. He made the case for modern science.

ACTUALLY, WE ARE ALL ON A TRUTH JOURNEY: Our destination is Ultimate Truth. In the meantime, we pursue smaller truths. We observe, we make educated judgments, and then we act and speak out, always open to new discoveries and insights.

Here, below, are my suggestions for truth-seeking and truth-speaking:

(1)  A helpful tool today, when checking the accuracy of what one finds on social media and news websites is “Snopes.com.” Founded in 1994, Snopes is a reliable resource to research and debunk urban legends, fake pictures, etc. I use it to check Facebook observations. Another helpful website is “FactCheck.org.” It is very helpful checking news reports about the positions and statements of current political leaders. I use both to check the veracity of Facebook reports.

(2) We are not expected to have all the answers on our own. As we look for truth, we can turn to trusted sources for guidance. That may mean a trusted mentor, a well-informed friend, an insightful public figure respected for her or his integrity, or a respected book using primary source material. We need trustworthy speakers. They need our support and collaboration.

(3) When truth becomes simply a personal or a group fabrication, the understanding of reality is turned upside down. Discrimination and cruelty become the norm and compassion disappears. Extremist websites and groups gather more supporters. Self-advancement at any cost becomes the new virtue, and self-advancement today is politically very “in.”

(4) When truth becomes simply a personal or group fabrication, God can become part of that fabrication, becoming a religious figure who condones and blesses liars and tyrants. Far removed from Jesus of Nazareth who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)

(5) We have a responsibility to be not just truth-seekers but courageous truth-speakers.

•  Jack

Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian

This week an historical reflection about Christianity and power.

In the fourth century, Christianity emerged as an accepted and welcomed part of the Roman Empire. But, as the Christian religion, with strong Roman Empire support, developed a more defined institutional structure, a major paradigm shift was underway.

As happened back then, and still happens today, people and institutional leaders sometimes neither see nor understand the long-term implications of what they are getting into.

Before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge north of Rome in 312 CE, according to the early Christian historian Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260/265 – 339 CE), Constantine had a vision of a cross-shaped symbol formed from light above the sun at midday. Attached to it there was a text “By this conquer.”

Constantine’s vision, about which there are numerous historical questions, was interpreted as a promise of victory if the Chi Rho, the first two letters of Christ’s name in Greek, was painted on the soldiers’ shields. Eusebius reported that, fighting under the insignia of Christ, Constantine’s troops defeated Constantine’s fellow emperor Maxentius (c. 283 – 312) who drowned in the river Tiber.

Following the battle and the defeat and death of Maxentius, Constantine became the undisputed emperor in the West. Maxentius’ head was cut off and then triumphantly carried through the streets of Rome. Constantine’s victory over his rival, set the precedence for Christianity to resort to violence whenever necessary to achieve its goals.

Constantine converted to Christianity but was not baptized until shortly before his death in 337. Historians wonder if he really became a Christian or very pragmatically used the growing Christian religion to tie together his unsteady empire.

Constantine was certainly pragmatic and hoped to unify his Roman Empire by promoting just one religion for all. In 313 he issued the Edict of Milan, making Christianity one of the legally recognized religions in the Roman Empire. Then in 325 Constantine convened a council of all Christian bishops in Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey). The bishops formulated the Nicene Creed – still used today — and demanded that all Christians accept it. For Constantine it was another step in unifying his empire.

Although Constantine died in 337, it was forty-three years after his death that his dream was realized with the 380 Edict of Thessalonica, which declared Nicene Christianity to be the ONLY legitimate religion for the Roman Empire. The result was that Church and State were becoming one. — Church leaders became imperial leaders in power, influence, courtly attire, and imperial protocol. Constantine had already made bishops administrators and civil judges in the Roman legal system.

Curiously, the Nicene Creed of 325 said nothing about what Jesus had taught, beyond the idea that God is Father. It said nothing about loving one another, nothing about compassion, or forgiveness, nothing about helping the poor and needy, and nothing about renouncing violence.

Post-Constantine church leaders forgot or simply ignored the ethical focus of the historic Jesus. Jesus did not overpower people, and Jesus taught by example not dogmatic decree.

Look at Luke 10:25-37: “Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, the lawyer then asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’”

A contemporary thought: If fidelity to Christian doctrine is the sign of an authentic Christian, rather than correct Christian conduct, some very strangely behaving people today carry the label “Christian.” They can say “God sent me” but continue oppressing the poor, denigrating women, mishandling immigrant children, and destroying the environment. When “Christian” leaders ignore the ethic of Jesus, they become strange proclaimers of his Gospel.

Writing about the clash of Christianities, more than a hundred tears ago, Frederick Douglass (1818 – 1895), the U.S. American social reformer, abolitionist, and writer, said it very well: “Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked.”

We need genuine Christian leaders but not self-protective and self-promoting power bosses. The Christian community is a community of men and women living and acting in the Spirit of Christ. They are a life-giving community of acceptance, concern, and care.

Throughout the coming months, I hope we can better appreciate the full picture of what it means to be a Christian. I hope we can become better informed, more collaborative in our decision-making, and more courageous in our critical words and constructive actions.

• Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Current Research Focus: Religion and Values in U.S. Society

 

This week, on Saturday, we will have the 80th anniversary of the WWII Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945). There, 8,407 U.S. soldiers lost their lives, 46,170 were wounded and 20,905 declared missing. There were also an estimated 103,900 German casualties.

Next week, on Monday, we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Auschwitz concentration camp liberation.

On 27 January 1945, Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp in occupied Poland was liberated by the Soviet Red Army. Historians estimate that more than a million people were “exterminated” in Auschwitz during the less than 5 years of its existence. The majority, around 1 million people, were Jewish. Although most of the prisoners had been killed, about 7,000 had been left behind. The date is now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

But another commemoration, about which one does not hear much these days, is the 80th anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church, which arose in opposition to German government-sponsored efforts to unify all the Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German Evangelical Church

When I was a seminary student in Detroit, Michigan, one of my professors introduced me to Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, first published in 1951. It was a mind-opening experience, for a very pious seminarian. The book was compiled by Bonhoeffer’s good friend, the German theologian and pastor, Eberhard Bethge (1909 – 2000). It is based on letters and papers that Bonhoeffer had written and received during his imprisonment at Tegel Prison, north of Berlin.

Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for 1½ years. Later, he was moved to Flossenbürg concentration camp, near the German border with what was then Czechoslovakia. At Flossenbürg, on April 9, 1945, Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging.

One year before the Nazis executed him, Bonhoeffer had written to Bethge: “What is bothering me incessantly is the question about what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today.”

Bonhoeffer felt that the time had come for a “religionless Christianity,” because so much institutional religion seemed so alien to the Gospel. Today, I would say he was writing about the problem “churchianity.”

“During the last year or so,” Bonhoeffer continued, “I have come to know and understand more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity. The Christian is not a homo religiosus, but simply a human person as Jesus was a human person…I am still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith….By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes, failures, and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God. That, I think, is faith. And that is how one becomes a human and a Christian.”

We do not know how Bonhoeffer would have developed these ideas. I wish he could have lived longer. Ironically, he was executed just two weeks before soldiers from the United States 90th and 97th Infantry Divisions liberated the Flossenbürg camp. And a month before the unconditional surrender of the remaining German armed forces on May 8, 1945, ending World War II in Europe.

History does not repeat itself, but some historic mistakes are often ignored and repeated.

We can indeed learn a few lessons from the Bonhoeffer era as we see abuses of power and the betrayals of leadership in our own days — inside and outside of the church.

Bonhoeffer was alarmed that so many Christian church leaders (Protestant and Catholic) openly supported Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945). He was even more alarmed that so many Christian men and women tacitly supported the inhumane Nazi regime through their own silence and inaction.

Adolf Hitler was baptized as a Catholic but was not at all a Christian believer. He and his Nazi party promoted “Positive Christianity,” a movement which rejected most traditional Christian doctrines. His involvement in “Positive Christianity” was driven by opportunism and a pragmatic recognition of the political importance of the Christian churches. It was promoted as well by Nazi Party condemnation of criticism from a “lying press” during Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

In Hitler’s “Positive Christianity” and his exaggerated self-pride, Hitler and his Nazi zealots saw the Führer as the herald of a new revelation. He proclaimed Jesus as an “Aryan fighter” who struggled against “the power and pretensions of the corrupt Pharisees.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897 – 1945), Reich Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, wrote in April 1941, in his diary, that although Hitler was a powerful opponent of the Vatican and Christianity, “…he forbids me to leave the church, for tactical reasons.” In his memoirs, Hitler’s Minister of Armaments Albert Speer (1905 – 1981) wrote that Hitler “…conceived of the church as an instrument that could be useful to him.”

For further reading and reflection, I recommend a book by Doris L. Bergen: Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Bergen’s work contributes to current scholarly inquiry into the behavior of Christian clergy during the Nazi era. How did Christian clergy respond to the persecution of Jews and individuals with disabilities? Bergen shows that the military chaplains were indifferent to their suffering. The desire to avoid opposing Nazi policy prevailed among military chaplains just as it did among most civilian clergy.  

History does not repeat itself, but some historic mistakes are often ignored and repeated….

Jack

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Current Research Focus: Religion and Values in U.S. Society