Read Online Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus (Hinges of History) by Thomas Cahill - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Thomas Cahill
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the wrong bed.
Nor does he condemn us.
VII
Yesterday, Today,
and
Forever
The World after Jesus
Tomorrow
There is an old French saying, “Hell is paved with the skulls of priests.” I wouldn’t know, nor does anyone. But I am pretty sure, harking back to Jesus’s description of theLast Judgment, which is preceded by his excoriation of the religious establishment of his day, that many people, both high and low, are in for a surprise. When dealing with hallowed religious material, we must always be on our guard against a knee-jerk piety that obscures rather than assists insight and that prefers to judge, punish, and exclude rather than welcome. Christians, therefore, reading their own sacred texts and revering their own sacred objects, should welcome especially the insights of outsiders—likeChaim Potok’s Asher Lev, Yale’sDonald Kagan, and China’sYuan Zhiming—who can bring new depth to their experience.
Modern scripture scholarship, rising in nonsectarian, agnostic circles, has brought believers new riches, allowing us to see anew the life of Jesus and the story of the early Church—to view these ancient treasures from venues never available before. Now we can appreciate the personalities, the strengths and limitations, of each evangelist, even finding useful scripture scholarship’s “criterion of embarrassment”—the idea that certain elements of the text were so embarrassing to the sponsoring community that the writer could have included these things only because he did not feel free to leave them out. Such a criterion gives us confidence that Peter (later a great figure) was indeed the bumbler he is portrayed to be, that women (later told to keep their mouths shut) like Magdalene were leaders of the early church, that Jesus casually forgave sexual transgressions, and that his crucifixion rattled his followers to their bones. Modern scholarship has also given us a better sense of the continuities (and discontinuities) between the teaching of Jesus and his first followers and among the various factions of the developing Jesus Movement, as it grew into the Church of later centuries. All these are new insights that give new strength.
If we take from the most modern, we also borrow from the most ancient, for the worldview of the Jews is the rock-solid promontory that supports Christian faith. Without the Jewish sense of destiny, both corporate and individual, without the Jewish sense of history and the meaning given to suffering, no part of the story that Christians tell themselves would make any sense whatever. It is from the Jews that we received the idea of chosenness by God—“You have not chosen me; I have chosen you”—and from the Jews that we learned that chosenness implies both suffering and redemption. Indeed, to approachthe idea of chosenness with humility and imagination is to find oneself on the point of retching—because it brings one in fresh proximity with one’s own suffering (past, present, and to come) and with the pain of others, of all others—the great moaning and shuddering that runs through the whole of human history.
But because it still requires a great artist or a great saint to “look on” Jesus in his suffering, all our approaches—scientific, Jewish, orthodox, pious—to authentic Christianity are likely to prove inadequate; and I wonder how far we have come—as a civilization—from his own mother’s peasant judgment that what this guy is saying doesn’t really add up. Jesus insists on forgiveness, turning the other cheek, peace, andcompassion,
always
compassion—and which of us wants to hear
that?
The leaders of the Jewish religious establishment rejected Jesus in his own lifetime, not principally because he rejected theTorah ofMoses or because he claimed to be God, but because of hismidrash, his interpretation of God’s word. He insisted that all of Jewish sacred scripture—the Torah and the Prophets—was asking them to live in a way that they considered
Nor does he condemn us.
VII
Yesterday, Today,
and
Forever
The World after Jesus
Tomorrow
There is an old French saying, “Hell is paved with the skulls of priests.” I wouldn’t know, nor does anyone. But I am pretty sure, harking back to Jesus’s description of theLast Judgment, which is preceded by his excoriation of the religious establishment of his day, that many people, both high and low, are in for a surprise. When dealing with hallowed religious material, we must always be on our guard against a knee-jerk piety that obscures rather than assists insight and that prefers to judge, punish, and exclude rather than welcome. Christians, therefore, reading their own sacred texts and revering their own sacred objects, should welcome especially the insights of outsiders—likeChaim Potok’s Asher Lev, Yale’sDonald Kagan, and China’sYuan Zhiming—who can bring new depth to their experience.
Modern scripture scholarship, rising in nonsectarian, agnostic circles, has brought believers new riches, allowing us to see anew the life of Jesus and the story of the early Church—to view these ancient treasures from venues never available before. Now we can appreciate the personalities, the strengths and limitations, of each evangelist, even finding useful scripture scholarship’s “criterion of embarrassment”—the idea that certain elements of the text were so embarrassing to the sponsoring community that the writer could have included these things only because he did not feel free to leave them out. Such a criterion gives us confidence that Peter (later a great figure) was indeed the bumbler he is portrayed to be, that women (later told to keep their mouths shut) like Magdalene were leaders of the early church, that Jesus casually forgave sexual transgressions, and that his crucifixion rattled his followers to their bones. Modern scholarship has also given us a better sense of the continuities (and discontinuities) between the teaching of Jesus and his first followers and among the various factions of the developing Jesus Movement, as it grew into the Church of later centuries. All these are new insights that give new strength.
If we take from the most modern, we also borrow from the most ancient, for the worldview of the Jews is the rock-solid promontory that supports Christian faith. Without the Jewish sense of destiny, both corporate and individual, without the Jewish sense of history and the meaning given to suffering, no part of the story that Christians tell themselves would make any sense whatever. It is from the Jews that we received the idea of chosenness by God—“You have not chosen me; I have chosen you”—and from the Jews that we learned that chosenness implies both suffering and redemption. Indeed, to approachthe idea of chosenness with humility and imagination is to find oneself on the point of retching—because it brings one in fresh proximity with one’s own suffering (past, present, and to come) and with the pain of others, of all others—the great moaning and shuddering that runs through the whole of human history.
But because it still requires a great artist or a great saint to “look on” Jesus in his suffering, all our approaches—scientific, Jewish, orthodox, pious—to authentic Christianity are likely to prove inadequate; and I wonder how far we have come—as a civilization—from his own mother’s peasant judgment that what this guy is saying doesn’t really add up. Jesus insists on forgiveness, turning the other cheek, peace, andcompassion,
always
compassion—and which of us wants to hear
that?
The leaders of the Jewish religious establishment rejected Jesus in his own lifetime, not principally because he rejected theTorah ofMoses or because he claimed to be God, but because of hismidrash, his interpretation of God’s word. He insisted that all of Jewish sacred scripture—the Torah and the Prophets—was asking them to live in a way that they considered
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