Appointment In Jerusalem
Christianity, like Judaism, did not begin with a god or a king. Both religions were founded by humble figures born in insignificant corners of the world with an ancestry buried in obscurity. Judaism began about four thousand years ago, with a seventy-five-year-old pagan named Abraham, born in Babylonia, whose father was, according to legend, a merchant of idols. Christianity had its start two thousand years later, in 1 A.D., with a Jewish infant named Jesus, born in Nazareth, whose putative father was a carpenter.
Jesus lived thirty years—twenty-nine of them in obscurity. He entered history with a baptism at the beginning of 30 A.D.; a crucifixion ended his life before the year was spent.
Though this crucifixion took place nearly two millennia ago, the drama is not yet over. Though his accusers are dead, witnesses vanished, and the judges dust, the trial of Jesus nevertheless continues. Though crucified, dead, and buried, he still lives in the faith of his followers. The death of Jesus, not his life, is so central to Christianity that without this crucifixion there would be no Christianity.
How should a historian view the phenomenon of this Jew Jesus to whom serfs, priests, and nobles have knelt in homage for nineteen centuries; in whose name people suspected of heresy were consigned alive to the flames of autos-da-fé; in whose image crusades were launched to convert by force people of other faiths to a creed abhorrent to them; yet in whose spirit was created Western Civilization, to me the greatest and most magnificent civilization in the history of mankind?
Who is this Jesus who, though there are over one billion Christians today, failed to make an impression on history until a century after his death; about whom there is not enough validated historical material to write a decent obituary; yet about whom more volumes have been written than about anyone else—over sixty thousand books just in the last hundred years.
From the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century to the Reformation in the sixteenth, everything written about Jesus was mostly a variation on the same theme—Jesus as the son of God. During those centuries, scholars prudently shied away from cross-examining the authors of the Gospel. One could be excommunicated or burned alive by a vigilant Church for examining too closely the validity of their assertions.
Thus, for the first 1700 years of the Christian era, ideology triumphed over evidence. Then, with the eighteenth century and the Age of Rationalism, evidence triumphed over ideology as scholars began to defy the Church and contradict the theologians. Views other than that of Jesus as the son of God dawned on the scholarly horizon. From the eighteenth century to the present, this new breed of scholars speculated not only on the theological but also on the historical Jesus. The problem was, in the words of the Catholic historian Ernest Renan, "how to preserve the religious spirit whilst getting rid of the superstitions and absurdities that form it."
In this three-century search for the historical Jesus, scholars uncovered six additional views—or faces—of him, all at odds with the official Church version and with one another.
But, the reader might object, if there hardly exist enough facts about Jesus to write a decent obituary, whence all the material from which scholars draw their information for these other divergent views of him? Interestingly enough, most of it is derived from the same source—the testimony given in the Four Gospels. How can this be so?
To draw its portrait of Jesus as the son of God, the Church selected those passages in the Gospels that supported its beliefs. Secular scholars, on the other hand, selected those passages not stressed by the Church, fashioning them into other concepts of Jesus consonant with their beliefs. But since all seven views originate from the same source, all represent, in a sense, the Gospel truth.
The seven portraits of Jesus etched by the Church and this new scholarship are varied and fascinating, giving rise to vexing questions. Is Jesus the Christian messiah, the literal son of God as averred by the devout? Or was he a Jewish messiah, the son of man, stripped of his Jewish garments and robed posthumously in Christian vestments? Was he a Zealot who tried to wrest the throne of David from the Roman oppressors by force? Was he a "plotter" who masterminded his own crucifixion and resurrection in the sincere belief that he was the messiah? Was he an Essene, a member of an obscure Jewish religious sect that practiced a primitive form of Christianity a century before his birth? Or is Christianity the creation of another Jew, Paul, who shaped the historical Jesus in his vision of a theological Christ? Or was he a "Gnostic Christian," a libertine practicing occult pagan rites as claimed in the recently discovered Gnostic gospels? Finally, was Jesus perhaps a combination of all of them, some of them, or none of them? But no matter who avers what, no one disputes Jesus was a Jew.
The Four Gospels, however, are not only a great literary work but also a great mystery story. In the center of that mystery, which contains all seven interpretations of Jesus within one leitmotif, are the four enigmatic predictions he made to his disciples.
All four evangelists concur that, after stating that he must go to Jerusalem, there to fulfill his destiny, Jesus three times made the following four predictions: that he would be arrested by the Jewish priests; that he would be tried by the Romans; that he would be crucified by the Romans; and that he would be resurrected ("rise again," as he expressed it) in three days.
Several puzzling questions arise. At the time Jesus made these predictions he had done nothing to warrant either an arrest by the priests, or a trial by the Romans. Was he planning to provoke them to take such actions?
Another puzzle. The Romans crucified only seditious slaves and rebels against Rome. But, as Jesus was neither a slave nor at this point a rebel, did he plan to foment a revolt to merit such a predicted fate?
And the final puzzle. Why did Jesus predict a resurrection after three days? Why not after two days? Or four? Or one?
The Four Gospels affirm that all his predictions were fulfilled. This confronts us with a host of new questions. How were they fulfilled? Were they accidental or did God arrange for their fulfillment? Or did the evangelists write their own scenario and then retroactively attribute these predictions and fulfillments to Jesus?
Or did Jesus himself engineer events in such a way as to bring about the fulfillment of his own predictions? If so, how did he achieve it? And for what purpose? Like skilled mystery writers, the evangelists subtly reveal the clues to the fulfillment of each prediction as the story progresses.
This book not only will explore all seven faces of Jesus and his four predictions, but will also tell the incredible story of Jesus and his impact on Jews, Romans, and the future Western Civilization in the century from his baptism to the publication of the Gospel of John, and how, in that one century, five faithmakers—Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John—transformed an inglorious crucifixion into a glorious resurrection and laid the foundation for the future Christian conquest of the Roman Empire.
- Max Dimont, from Appointment In Jerusalem
Labels: Appointment in Jerusalem, Max Dimont
