Dr. Barrie Wilson is a scholar with an interesting background, raised Anglican, converted to Judaism, professor of humanities and religious studies at York University, Toronto, and a specialist in early Christian origins. Dr. James Tabor drew attention to Wilson's (then) forthcoming book in a comment on the AW blog in 2006:There is another professor at York University in Toronto, Barrie Wilson, who has a book coming out with St. Martin's Press called How Jesus Became Christian, that will absolutely blow things out of the water in terms of the Jesus Movement and Paul.
On the strength of that I ordered a copy, finally released this year, through Amazon.
How Jesus Became Christian
is a remarkable book, though I doubt it'll blow anything out of the water. Which isn't to say that it shouldn't. Wilson's perspective is well worth listening to. All too often Christians are far too busy listening to echoes of their own cleverness to "hear" the important testimonies of those beyond the gates. Some of the most perceptive scholars commenting on Christianity are Jews: Geza Vermes and Amy-Jill Levine to name just two. Jewish academics are not blinded by an apologetic imperative when it comes to recognizing the obvious.How Jesus Became Christian, however, is a popular account aimed at the non-specialist reader. Wilson argues for something he dubs "the Jesus Cover-Up Thesis." This didn't do much to endear the book to me. Nor did the contents of his bibliography which includes some real garbage-can stuffers: Baigent & Leigh's Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Brown's Da Vinci Code (!), and even the highly readable but flawed Jesus Mysteries (Freke & Gandy).
But what do I know, just another undergraduate student with pretensions of competence? So I set myself, adamant as flint, to read the whole thing through. I'm glad I did.
Trudging through the first few chapters was a chore as Wilson sets the backdrop of Hellenism's interplay with Judaism. I did raise an eyebrow at his sidelining of Enochic writings (1 Enoch and other apocalyptic material) as marginal. There's no sign in the bibliography that he's read Margaret Barker or even Gabriele Boccaccini, and I think he'd buy an argument with William Dever when he writes: "For Judaism, God did not have a wife or consort and wasn't conceived of in those terms at all." (p.8)
Then Wilson hits his stride. Put simply, what we call Christianity is a quite distinct religion from that taught by Jesus. The followers of Jesus became the Ebionites. The villain of the piece is Paul who crafted a new substitute faith by appropriating bits of the Jesus movement and welding them onto a Hellenistic mystery religion framework. In the process he kick-started the tragedy of anti-Semitism, beginning with his viciously anti-Judaic letter to the Galatians. "Simply put," writes Wilson, "the teachings of Jesus himself were smothered by the religion of Paul." (p.255)
If this sounds far fetched, Wilson brings out the book of Acts as exhibit A. Luke cooked the books (or more properly, the book) to create the impression that the church under James and Paul's Gentile mission were variations on a single theme. Not so. Acts is a creative fiction with an agenda to appropriate the history of Jewish Christianity in the cause of Paul's quite separate religion. The "Jerusalem Conference"? Never happened.
Given Wilson's thesis, I was on tenterhooks to see how he dealt with one of my favorite characters from the second century, the brilliant "heretic" and proto-Lutheran Marcion. In fact Wilson is appreciative, in the same sense that Snoopy admires the Red Baron.
I'm a fan of anyone who's prepared to deliver a swift kick in the teeth to the smug apologists who saturate Christian bookshops with banal, self-congratulatory drivel. And there's a lot here that can be defended. Historical reconstructions depend on the view afforded to the person doing the reconstruction, and this one has all the force of a bucket of ice-cold water thrown in the face of comfortably arrogant Christian supercessionism.
Reservations? Plenty. But it's a great read, and it's always worth applauding both a fine performance and some straight talking.
3 comments:
This is indeed perplexing. Dr. Wilson appears to arrive at the same doctrinal position once occupied by Herbert W. Armstrong, a position in which Mosaic or Jewish law is still largely in effect, even for Christians.
Armstrong's methodology was somewhat different, in that he believed in the inerrancy of scripture, that is with the exception of an occasionally convenient mistranslation or two. HWA was, therefore, unable to discount Paul. So, he tried to do the impossible. Based on the idea that Jesus taught careful observance of Mosaic Law, HWA attempted to harmonize the teachings of Paul with the teachings of Jesus. That left Paul in the clear, so that the alleged hijacking of Christianity could be attributed to one Simon Magus, an early gnostic heretic.
Dr. Wilson's work will most likely be seen by most Christians as being based on something unthinkable: scriptural errancy. The thinking will be that if Paul's teachings were error, how could God have allowed them to creep into His word? There is also the Jewish perspective, which would be that the entire New Testament IS error.
As Mick Jagger once threw up his hands and sang, "What can a poor boy do, 'cept to play in a rock n roll band?"
BB
I've had more of an opportunity to give this topic some thought over the weekend.
Basically, if we are not permitted to mitigate the Old Testament by seeing it as pointing to Jesus Christ, and if the writings of Paul are not allowed to be perceived as elucidating the teachings which Jesus intended for after the resurrection, then we are left with discarding the entire New Testament.
Unfortunately, this leaves us with what one might call the Jewish Koran.
BB
"The Jewish Koran"
I dunno Bob, there are some pretty fundamental differences between the Torah and the Old Testament, which even a cursory read of an English translation of the former will reveal.
Don't get me wrong, the Septuagint version of the OT is still just as OT as ever it was, pillar-of-fire and bashes-babies-against-walls included.
Since you obviously can't discard the NT, as you are now an evangelical christian, how are you reconciling this dichotomy in your mind? Or are you of the "let go and let god" mindset as far as this is concerned?
No offense intended, I am genuinely curious.
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