The Puzzle of Christianity

Initially the people of Israel were wanderers. Abraham and his descendants would have been like modern Bedouin and, even when they came with their extended families into Palestine after leaving Egypt, they were essentially a tribal and pastoral people. Settling into cities came later. There was suspicion not only of a king but of any central capital and even of a temple. Their God was an invisible God, the Lord of the whole earth, and no human-made building could contain God. What was more, the Ten Commandments had specifically forbidden any representation to be made of God so no statues or other idols were made. The people of Israel could not even utter the name of God and one of the Ten Commandments specifically condemned taking the name of God in vain. The result was that the nearest thing to a temple was a travelling ‘ark’ or tent which was seen as the symbol of holiness and the dwelling place of God on earth.

In these years it was felt that only God could be the Lord and Master of Israel. Religiously, therefore, the idea of having a king was treated with scepticism. However, political and military expediency made the choosing of a king necessary. Three great kings unified and, in the case of two of them, extended the national borders: first Saul, then David (the greatest king of all, who was also a musician and a poet and who ruled over the kingdom of Israel at the time of its broadest extent) and finally Solomon. It was during David’s reign, many modern biblical scholars argue, that the story of Abraham was written down. The boundaries of David’s kingdom coincide closely with the land promised by God to Abraham, but it was only for a very short period that Israel actually controlled these territories.

David was at one time held to be the author of many of the psalms which have been recited or sung in Christian churches down the centuries. One of the most significant directly attributed to David was Psalm 23:

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk

through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD

for ever.

(Psalm 23:1–6)

This psalm, with its message of trust in God no matter what the outward circumstances might be, represents a wonderful statement about Jewish and Christian faith in the righteousness, power, goodness and mercy of God in spite of all difficulties. However, what God required in return was obedience to God’s laws and, above all, acting justly. The prophet Amos was later to express this well when, speaking on behalf of God, he said:

I hate, I despise your religious festivals;

your assemblies are a stench to me.

Even though you bring me burnt offerings

and grain offerings,

I will not accept them.

Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,

I will have no regard for them.

Away with the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

(Amos 5:21–24)

Failure to act justly or to obey God’s commands were seen as breaches of the covenant relationship with God and, when these happened, the people of Israel saw disasters, oppression and persecution as a direct result.

The choice of a king was not considered a matter of expediency nor did the most powerful necessarily come to power. The decision was God’s and the choice often unlikely and improbable beginning with the first king, Saul, chosen by Samuel, one of God’s prophets, to whom the Word of God had come. Saul was in many ways a good king but he grew increasingly self-centred and no longer placed God and God’s commands at the centre of the life of the nation. He became increasingly jealous of a young boy, David, who slew in individual combat one of the most powerful champions of a neighbouring tribe with whom the people of Israel were at war – Goliath. David developed into a brave and fearless soldier and was the closest friend Saul’s son, Jonathan. He was good looking, young, a fine musician and ordinary people looked to him in admiration. Saul’s anger grew and eventually open enmity broke out between King Saul and David, by now one of his strongest generals. David had to flee for his life. Eventually Saul died by the intervention of God and David took over. This whole saga is recounted in the Hebrew Scriptures in very human terms, but God’s hand lies behind the whole of history and King David was to become the greatest of all the kings of Israel.

When he was young, David was a mere shepherd boy with no lineage or power base, and yet it was he who was chosen by God to succeed Saul. It is important to understand that Israel did not see themselves as simply another state who happened to worship God. God was at the centre of their whole life and self-understanding. The debate over whether or not to have a king, and even which king to choose, was always couched in theological terms. David did not feel that he was worthy to build a temple for God and this task fell to Solomon, David’s son. Solomon was revered for his wisdom and wealth but lost some of his father David’s kingdom, and from then on the State of Israel began to contract, splitting into two to form a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. All the time, the Scriptures see God’s hand behind these developments and God, through the prophets who spoke in God’s name, directing the people and maintaining unity in the face of constant outside threats.

King Solomon had many wives and many of these were not Israelites; the problem was not multiple wives but that these wives brought with them worship of foreign gods. This practice continued and increased after Solomon’s death and, under King Ahab, the worship of the God of Israel almost disappeared or, at the least, was under grave threat. There were few genuine prophets left, but there was Elijah, one of the greatest of all the prophets. King Ahab had married a foreign wife, Jezebel, who had extended the worship of foreign gods into Israel. There were over 400 priests of this new god, Baal, and the God of Israel was increasingly ignored.

Elijah had to flee for his life because the priests of the other gods wanted to destroy him. God eventually came to Elijah and told him to stand on the mountainside. First a great wind came that tore at the mountains – but the Lord was not in the wind. Then came an enormous earthquake – but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then came a great fire – but the Lord was not in the fire. Finally, there was a still small voice asking Elijah, ‘What are you doing here?’ Alone, hungry, and isolated, Elijah felt that everything was hopeless. He replied:

I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.

(1 Kings 19:14)

Effectively the people of Israel had abandoned their God and Elijah was hiding in fear of being murdered. All hope seemed to have vanished, as is often the case in the long history of the people of Israel. God told Elijah to anoint two new kings, whom God names, and a new era begins. This is a pattern that runs throughout Israel’s history. Israel ignores God and seems to abandon worship and obedience entirely, but a small remnant remains faithful and rekindles once more worship and praise of the one true God.

Elijah issued a challenge to the priests of Jezebel’s god: Elijah and they would each take a bull and make an altar. Then the priests of Jezebel’s god were to call down fire from heaven by calling on their god. This they did, dancing round the sacrifice all day and cutting themselves whilst praying – but nothing happened. Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Shout louder! … Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or travelling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened’ (1 Kings 18:27), but still there was no response. Finally, Elijah came forward to the altar he had built. He had water poured over his sacrifice and then called to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Fire descended from heaven and the sacrifice was consumed. Elijah had all the priests of the foreign god put to death. Jezebel was furious and vowed to kill Elijah. However, it was Jezebel who died and her body was fed to the dogs. The worship of one God was reintroduced across Israel.

After the death of Solomon there were a series of ineffective kings and Israel, now divided into two kingdoms, gradually became weaker and weaker. Warfare with neighbouring tribes or countries, as well as warfare between different leaders, was almost constant and the people of Israel saw themselves depending on their God for their protection. The weakness of Israel compared to the increasingly powerful neighbours that surrounded them was to culminate in possibly the most catastrophic event in Israel’s history – the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Jeremiah was another one of the greatest prophets in Israel’s history. He called the people of Israel back to loyalty to God and to placing God at the centre of their lives, but the people did not listen. Like many of the prophets, he was ignored and scorned and felt his own life under threat. God’s Word, however, was commanding. He had to prophesy in front of the king, and the prophecy was uncomfortable, speaking truth to power is always likely to lead to opposition! He foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, the enslavement of the people of Israel and the death of the king. Not surprisingly, hardly anyone believed him. Jeremiah had no doubt that the prophecy would come true but he also had hope for the future. He bought a field to show his confidence that, one day, the people of Israel would be able to return after the destruction that he had foretold as imminent.

The Hebrew Scriptures see the Babylonians as agents of God punishing the people of Israel for their wickedness. The Israelites lost everything. Their identity was founded on three things: Temple, King and Land. All these were destroyed: the King was killed, the Temple was pulled down and the leading figures among the people of Israel were taken off into captivity. It should have been the end of the Israelites: one more little nation vanquished by a regional power and disappearing from the pages of history. That they did not do so was due to their faith in God and also the memory of their previous exile in Egypt. They maintained their identity in Babylon by seeing themselves as being in exile from their homeland. They showed loyalty and service to the Babylonian state but insisted on maintaining their religious identity, not intermarrying and above all maintaining their faith that God would deliver them and bring them back to their homeland. What was even more important was that they came to a startling new understanding of their relationship with God; being faithful to God did not depend on having a temple, or a king, or occupying a particular piece of land. It depended, rather, on inner loyalty to the covenant established between God and the people of Israel. They would not eat pork or work on the Sabbath (the seventh day of the week in the Jewish calendar, which God had commanded as a rest day); they would circumcise their male children; and they would obey the Torah (the first five books of what Christians regard as the Hebrew Scriptures). Above all they would not worship other gods, and the Hebrew Scriptures tell stories of the incredible bravery of people going to hideous deaths rather than break God’s commands. The startling and new idea that it was loyalty to the covenant with God, and to God’s commands, that was of central importance rather than worship in a particular building eventually made it possible for Jewish communities to flourish in any society, maintaining their identity and religious practices and yet otherwise being loyal to the state.

Eventually, after many years in Babylon, the Israelites were allowed to return and immediately started building the walls around Jerusalem and also rebuilding the Temple. In spite of their realisation whilst in Babylon that land and Temple were not essential, these ideas were, and are, deeply rooted in the Jewish psyche and returning to their homeland was a powerful symbol. In the centuries that followed, the armies of a number of empires swept over the small land of Palestine, and Israel did not regain full independence although still the dream remained. The conquering armies tried many ways to stamp out and destroy Jewish practices, identity and worship but none of them succeeded. Jewish armies were raised and destroyed and the inexorable forces of the mightiest armies of the world crushed whatever military power Israel managed to assemble. In the process tens of thousands of young men from Israel died convinced that they were fighting for their God and that God would deliver them. All these empires had conquered, destroyed and absorbed many local peoples but the identity of the people of Israel remained intact. The latest empire to control Palestine was that of Rome and it was, therefore, under the control of the Roman imperial power when Jesus was growing up.

In the time of Jesus there were Zealots who dreamed of freedom from Rome and establishing a new, independent kingdom of Israel. They looked back to the great glory days of King David and believed that God would be on their side in an attempt to drive out the Roman occupying power. It was a foolish dream but similar foolish dreams had come to fruition before and many Jews, either secretly or not, thought back to the old days. They resented the presence of the Romans as a heathen occupying power and thought that a great leader might emerge, a new Messiah, a ‘son of David’ (their greatest king and military leader) or saviour of the people who would be a mighty warrior and would lead the people of Israel to independence in their own country.

Jesus, then, grew up with all these folk memories, with knowledge of the history of Israel, within a society confident in its superiority as a people chosen by God but also oppressed and powerless on the periphery of a great empire. It may seem strange to start a book on understanding Christianity with so much attention to the history of the Jewish people, but Jesus was a Jew and all Jesus’ initial followers were Jews. The Hebrew Scriptures and the story of ‘salvation history’ – God working God’s purposes out throughout the history of the Jewish people, culminating in the incarnation of Jesus – are central to any real understanding of the nature of Christianity. Jesus is held to be the hinge of history, the fulcrum point on which world history turns, since Christians believe that it is in Jesus that God fully reveals God’s self to human beings, it is in Jesus that all people are opened to the love and forgiveness of God, and it is in Jesus that God becomes incarnate and comes to earth in human form.

THREE
The Life of Jesus

Recounting the ‘Life of Jesus’ is far from straightforward and takes us to the heart of the difficulty in trying to give an account of ‘What is Christianity?’ today. There are four Gospels in the Christian New Testament (the word ‘gospel’ means good news). They are named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and for more than 1,500 years Christians believed that these were the names of the authors of the different Gospels. Today, as we shall discover, this is seen to be highly problematic.

The Gospels include various accounts; there are accounts of Jesus’ birth; a few stories of events immediately following His birth; records of His ministry and death; and one description of an event when He would have been about twelve years old. However, Christians are divided as to the status to give to these narratives. Some would insist that they are literally true (even though there are differences between them) and others would see them as conveying central truths about Jesus but also making significant theological points, whilst still others maintain that there is very little that we can know for certain about Jesus’ life. There is a wide diversity of views.

Whilst there may be disagreement among Christians about the details of Jesus’ life, there is almost no doubt at all among historians that He existed. The evidence in favour of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is actually much stronger than for most historical figures. The evidence of His message is also very strong – but the details of His life are subject to more disagreement.

Christians used to see the four Gospel books as written by four separate figures but, as will become clear later (see Chapter 10), the Gospels of Matthew and Luke contain all of Mark’s Gospel and also have other material in common. Matthew, Mark and Luke are referred to as the ‘Synoptic Gospels’. The Gospel of John is rather different and is generally considered to have been written later (see here). The Synoptic Gospels were written as historical accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Events are described, sayings are recorded and Jesus’ teachings are shared with the world. The authors of the Synoptic Gospels wanted to show that Jesus was the Messiah of Jewish expectation and to show how He lived among people on earth. They wanted to show that Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures. The nature of these prophecies is disputed among scholars but there is no doubt that the people of Israel expected a deliverer to be sent. The general expectation was of a great warrior who would drive out the occupying power and restore the independence of Israel as well as the Davidic kingdom. The Messiah that the Gospels portray was very different indeed from this and they show that Jesus challenged Jewish expectations. The Messiah was not to be a great warrior but God Himself who came from heaven to show human beings how to live, to deliver them from sin and to establish a new ‘kingdom of God’ in the world that was not based on military might or an independent Jewish state but was instead a kingdom of love and commitment to God founded in the hearts and minds of Jesus’ followers.

The Gospel of John is in a different category. It shows the divinity of Jesus and, in particular, that Jesus represented the coming of God as a human being into the world (God becoming incarnate). Jesus is shown as the culmination of a divine plan for the whole of creation. The Gospel of John is regarded by most scholars as much more theological and possibly, therefore, less historical. Almost all scholars agree that it was written much later than the other three Gospels, perhaps around AD 90–120 (Jesus died about AD 33). However, there are dissenting voices to this view and some, such as the late J. A. T. Robinson, argued for a much earlier dating. The general assumption is that a more theological gospel would be dated later, but this is not necessarily the case. Some of the earliest Christian documents are letters or epistles written by the apostle Paul, and these are also highly theological. However, the general academic consensus is for a later dating.

Because of disagreements about the historicity of the accounts of Jesus’ life, giving a summary of it is not at all easy. There is no single view in Christianity about Jesus’ life. All we have are the accounts in the Gospels and the stories passed down and accepted by Christians over the centuries. How historically accurate they are is almost impossible to determine. This might seem to imply that nothing can be known with any degree of confidence about Jesus, but this is not the case. In the next chapter, when Jesus’ message is outlined, this will become clear. For the moment, however, some account needs to be given of Jesus’ life and this will be done by reference to the stories in the Gospels.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, Isaiah 9:6–7 records that God will send someone who would reign on the throne of David and would be a ‘Mighty God’ and ‘Everlasting Father’. Christians see this as pointing to the life of Jesus.

Figure 1: This picture by Henry Tanner (1898) is of the Annunciation. Mary is shown sitting on a bed and the angel appears not as a human form but as a pillar of light.

The Gospels record Jesus as being born of a young girl called Mary who was engaged to a man named Joseph. Joseph was of the tribe of Benjamin and could trace his descent back to King David (something that Matthew’s Gospel spells out in detail). However, Joseph is not recorded in the Gospels as the natural father of Jesus. Luke’s Gospel records an angel telling Mary that God had chosen her to bear a son even though she had not slept with a man (this event is called the Annunciation). This was before she and Joseph had got married, while Mary was still a virgin. The father of Jesus is seen not to be a human being but God. Jesus, Christians believe, is the Son of God. (Although this phrase was also used of the great kings of Israel such as David, for Christians it means much more than this: that God became human in Jesus.) Christians tend to praise Mary because of her faithful obedience to the command of God and see her as the crucial female example of obedience and loving service to God as well as the ideal mother. It is significant that in Islam Mary is also revered as the mother of Jesus and that Mary was also a virgin. God, in Islam, is held to have conceived Jesus in Mary’s womb rather like God created Adam at the beginning of the creation story. There is much in common between Christians and Muslims in the reverence they accord to Mary, but Muslims would claim that Jesus is one of the leading prophets and not, as Christians claim, the incarnation of God’s Word.

The engaged couple, Mary and Joseph, were travelling to Bethlehem in response to a requirement by the Roman governor that everyone should return to their ancestral town to complete a census, when Mary went into labour. The inns were all full and, according to Luke, the birth took place in a stable (although in the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition the birth is held to have taken place in a cave). This is portrayed as an extraordinary and pivotal event, with shepherds in the hills being visited by an angel to tell them of the birth, while Matthew’s Gospel has wise philosophers or astrologers from the East following an extraordinary star which led them to the house where the infant Jesus lay. Even King Herod, the vassal king who governed Israel under the Romans, was recorded as having a dream that ‘the king of the Jews’ had been born. Fearing for his crown, Herod sent out an order that all babies under two years old should be killed to ensure that no future king survived. Matthew’s Gospel records Jesus’ parents, having been warned in a dream about the danger, fleeing to Egypt and then coming back out of Egypt. This enabled Christians to argue that Jesus should be seen as the new Moses who had been prophesied to come out of Egypt to deliver his people from slavery (Deuteronomy 18:15–18).

There is no record of Jesus’ childhood except for one short scene (Luke 2:41–51) when His parents took Him to the Temple in Jerusalem. Surrounded by the huge crowds, He became lost and Mary and Joseph searched for Him. They eventually found Him talking to the wisest rabbis and impressing them with His depth of understanding. The young boy Jesus, when confronted by His concerned parents, expressed surprise and asked them why they did not expect Him to be about His Father’s business (clearly indicating that His father was not Joseph but God).

A tradition grew up among the early Christian Church that Mary remained a virgin and never slept with Joseph even after the birth of Jesus. There is no textual evidence for this and it was a belief intended to show Mary’s purity. The Gospels record Jesus having brothers but mainstream Christians who support the perpetual virginity of Mary say that this refers to spiritual brothers, or else they were children of Joseph from a former marriage, and that Mary had no children apart from Jesus.

Jesus’ actual ministry lasted either one or three years (the Gospels differ). What is clear is that He gathered a disparate group of close friends, followers or disciples around Him. They were outsiders to the world of power and influence – a tax collector, fishermen – ordinary people whom He called to give up everything and to follow Him, which they did willingly. He was clearly a charismatic person and His message of God’s love and forgiveness had huge appeal. Jesus’ ministry started with His baptism in the River Jordan (which meant immersion in the waters of the river as a symbol of being cleansed from sin and a new beginning) by an extraordinary man who was about the same age as Jesus. John the Baptist had spent years in the desert wilderness fasting and living very simply and calling for a renewal of commitment to God, demanding that people give up their complacent lives and live in a different way. He also prophesied the coming of the Messiah or Saviour. Jesus went to John for baptism and, in one of the most significant moments recorded in the Gospels, John recognises Jesus and declines to baptise Him because he considers that it is Jesus who should baptise him, not the other way round. John understands that this is the person about whom he has been prophesying and does not consider himself worthy to carry out the baptism. Jesus insists and, in a key moment, the heavens are recorded as opening; a dove descends on Jesus whilst God’s voice proclaims, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3:17). The dove would have reminded readers of the Gospels of the dove sent out from the Ark by Noah to find dry land when the whole of the known world was engulfed in flood water. In Christian theology, the dove has come to symbolise both peace and the Holy Spirit which God sent down on Jesus at His baptism, just as believers are later meant to receive the same Spirit at their baptism. The role of the Holy Spirit and its significance will be made clear later.

Baptism was not just a crucial event in Jesus’ life; it was also a central command by Jesus recorded in the Gospels. He sent His disciples out to live simply among people, to preach the good news that He came to bring (the word ‘gospel’, as we have seen, means good news) and also to baptise people. Matthew’s Gospel records Jesus as saying: ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:19). The practice of baptism therefore became central for all Christians; this is the moment when the Spirit of God is believed to fall on the baptised person and make the individual fully part of the Christian community. The Christian practice of baptism varies. Many churches have infant baptism when the child is baptised as a baby and welcomed into the Church. Vows to renounce evil and to commit to God are taken on behalf of the baby by the parents and ‘godparents’ (these are two or three people who promise to help take care of the spiritual upbringing of the child, although in many parts of the world this spiritual side of the godparents’ role has become peripheral). Some Christians, however, hold that baptism should be delayed until a person can make the promises to renounce evil and to hold fast to Christ for themselves, whilst others practise ‘full immersion’ baptism; instead of a few drops of water being sprinkled on the person to be baptised, they are immersed completely in water in the way that Jesus would probably have been baptised in the River Jordan. For most Christians, baptism is the mark of the formal entry of a person into the Christian community.

Figure 2: This picture is full of symbolism. Jesus stands where the river Jordan ends, symbolising the end of the old covenant and the beginning of the new. He is baptised by John. On the left three figures represent the Trinity, the middle of which (God the Son) looks apprehensively at the scene; He knows it will end in His death (a sepulchre is in the distance). Behind, this a man strips off, ready to be baptised. His colouring is the same as Jesus’, indicating all Christians share in Jesus’ baptism. The overhanging tree represents the love of the Father, the dove represents the Holy Spirit and Jesus Himself represents the Son. The prickly trees in the background represent the Pharisees who pass disapprovingly in the middle distance.

The Gospels record Jesus going into the desert wilderness to be alone and to pray. For instance: ‘Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed’ (Mark 1:35).

During one of these times of solitary prayer and contemplation He faced severe temptations and tests. The possibility of taking alternative paths in life was very real and these temptations came to Him with great force and attractiveness. He is shown as being tempted by the devil and, again, Christians differ as to how this is to be understood, some believing the story should be taken literally and others holding that it is a metaphor for Jesus wrestling with real internal temptations. The existence of the devil, an angel who disobeyed God and rose in rebellion against God, is taken for granted in the New Testament and by many Christians who see the world as a battleground between God and the devil. However, all agree that the devil is subject to God and will eventually be defeated by God. Indeed Jesus Himself, in resisting temptation and dying for all human beings, is seen to have defeated the power of the devil even though his influence still continues and needs to be resisted. What is clear is that Jesus’ commitment to God from the youngest age was overwhelming and He was able to resist temptation and, Christians have traditionally held, was able to remain free from sin.