The divinity of Jesus from Nazareth

For this Christian, the facts are in. Jesus was born into a peasant family in Northern Palestine. His family was devoutly Jewish and poor. He grew up surrounded by poverty. The people of his area were tightly controlled by the repressive rule of Roman emperors and their retainers. Jewish priests and other Jewish leaders taught and attempted to enforce a rigid form of Judaism. Jewish leaders maintained their control by being cooperative with their Roman masters. Jesus became a social, political and religious reformer. He became very popular with the rural poor of Northern Palestine. When he took his protest/reform movement to Jerusalem and Southern Palestine, he came to the attention of both Roman and Jewish leaders. He was arrested, went through a sham trial and was crucified.

This short version of the life of Jesus is considered historically accurate by most historians. To the satisfaction of most historians, Jesus never claimed divine status for himself.

To many scholars, Jesus should have disappeared from public notice and his followers should have disbanded and faded into the fate of their poverty. However, something very radical happened. Within a very short time, the followers of Jesus came to believe that he had been raised from the dead, was taken into the heavens, and was elevated to a divine status at the right hand of Israel’s God.

Very quickly stories were created by unknown authors about Jesus’ resurrection. The stories that were told were not necessarily coherent and did not agree with one another. Additional stories were written about the life of Jesus that gave him divine status while he was a popular or reputational prophet in Northern Palestine. A third body of stories was later created to establish Jesus’ divinity from the time of his birth.

All three of these types of stories first emerged in oral tradition, not in written records. The common language of Jesus and all his followers was Aramaic. Few if any of the first followers of Jesus were literate. Paul was the first Christian writer. While his writings show that he believed in the resurrection, Paul, who wrote in Greek, makes no use of these earliest stories of the resurrection, of his miracle-working life, nor of the virgin birth of Jesus. The earliest written records of these special stories are in Greek and were written by literate men some two to three generations after the death of Jesus. The exact trail of these special stories about the divinity of Jesus from oral tradition in Aramaic to written records in Greek remains unknown.

There is no question that the first three gospels in our New Testament are our best sources to study the life and times of Jesus. While they carry the names of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, many scholars now say that they are in fact collections of material by unknown authors. The authors used several sources of material and created narratives that were later accepted by church leaders as authoritative. The stories that sought to verify the divinity of Jesus were woven into the narrative. History and story were blended together.

The stories of the resurrection, the stories of Jesus’ miracle working, and the pageantry of the virgin birth are very special. They are special stories. They properly are called myths. Myths by definition are stories in which God (or the gods) is the primary actor.

Most seminary students are introduced to the discipline of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics are the rules of literary interpretation. Some of the rules are very straight-forward. Mythology cannot be read and interpreted as history. Mythology need not have internal consistency. Mythologies that appear to contradict history are not necessarily invalid. Myths carry values and truths, not facts.

When in seminary, I concluded that when I read the birth narratives about Jesus, I was not reading history. When I read of Jesus walking on water and feeding thousands with a few fish and loaves, I was not reading history. When I read the stories of the resurrection of Jesus, I was not reading history. When I read of the assumption of Jesus into heaven, I was not reading history. When I read the book of Revelation, I was not reading predictions of future historical events. When I read the creation story of Genesis 1, I was not reading history. In each instance, I was reading mythology.

The myths of the Bible are very important to me. I embrace the messages and the values of Bible mythology. What do I believe? I believe the world and the universe are not cosmic accidents but rather are purposeful witnesses to beauty and goodness. I believe Jesus Christ was and is a special gift from God to bring wholeness, reconciliation and love to a damaged world. I believe that life does not point selfishly to itself, but beyond life to growing possibilities. I believe good is more powerful than evil, no matter how one defines the two. I believe I am my brother’s keeper. I believe we are all neighbors in life’s journey.

Jesus is still alive in all who dare to follow. He is my Lord and Christ.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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