Imagining the Origins of the New Testament
AM Psalm 45 • PM Psalm 47, 48
Isa. 48:12-21 • Gal. 1:18-2:10 • Mark 6:1-13
Imagine yourself living in Palestine in the 40’s of the Christian Era, a decade or so after the end of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry. For you, “Scripture” refers to the Hebrew Bible. As of yet, there is no “New Testament,” only oral traditions (plural) about Jesus and his sayings, hymns and quotations from Hebrew scripture, and letters written mainly to members of house churches in a few middle eastern cities. Exegesis of those sources is still in its infancy, but Paul is already giving it shape. This is probably the decade in which the first Gospel (Mark) and first Epistle (Galatians) were written down.
I’ve been trying to imagine what all this might have meant to someone living in Palestine almost 2,000 years ago, someone who had decided to follow Jesus. What do you make of it?
When the gospel of Mark and the Epistle to the Galatians were written there were people still living who could have known Jesus and his disciples and many more who had heard Paul telling them in no uncertain terms what all this meant. They would have had a better idea than we can possibly have about why anyone in their right mind would drop what they were doing to follow Jesus. They would have subsequently witnessed (or even participated in) arguments about how to interpret the Jesus stories. The rest, as they say, is history.
In today’s reading from Mark (6:1-13) we get a good dose of local suspicion, well-summarized by skeptics in Jesus’ own synagogue: “Where did he get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him?” Mark’s gospel then tells us that the townspeople’s suspicions rendered Jesus almost powerless to act in his home town. Later Jesus sends “the twelve” out on a prototypical missionary journey, two by two, proclaiming a message of repentance. Unlike Jesus in Nazareth, his disciples “cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”
The author of Galatians—Paul at his polemical finest—had founded one or more churches in Galatia and had entrusted to its members the gospel as he understood it. Paul’s letter begins with a customary greeting and then quickly comes to the point: his converts “are turning to another gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” This perversion, Paul writes, is a requirement that male converts undergo circumcision and adhere to other tenets of Jewish law. Paul, always a little touchy about his standing as an apostle, claims the endorsement of Cephas (Peter) for a division of authority between the two of them as apostles, respectively, to the gentiles and to the circumcised Jews. Paul then makes the even bolder claim that his authority comes directly from “Jesus Christ and God the Father.”
Using a bit of imagination with these texts, we can see the New Testament beginning to take shape.
Written by Bob McMath
This lovely picture of the church was taken on Christmas Eve by my friend and fellow parishioner, Haley Hixson. She wrote: “It was so intimate to enter alone. Only me, Jack playing the organ, Kathy administering the sacrament, and Lora watching over. The scene will be in my memory for a long, long time.”