“Jesus is Going to Be Stoned”

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-92
Author(s):  
David Lloyd Dusenbury
Keyword(s):  
Passion Narrative ◽  
Babylonian Talmud ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
Christian History

Anti-Semitic interpretations of the gospels and Christian hostility towards Jews are both rooted, in terribly complex ways, in the first centuries of the Christian era. The death of Jesus is certainly the “most resentment-laden” theme in Christian history. But this chapter argues that it is not a sign of primitive Christian resentment that the gospels depict a Judaean moment in Jesus’ legal ordeal in Jerusalem—an ordeal which culminates in a Roman verdict, and a Roman punishment. In fact, the Judaeans’ condemnation of Jesus is less decisive in the gospels than in many revered Judaic texts. This chapter thus seeks to reconstruct a Judaic ‘passion’ narrative in which Jesus dies, and Pilate is innocent, from the ‘Judaean’ testimonies of a pagan philosopher (Celsus), from the pages of an illustrious rabbinic collection (Babylonian Talmud), and from a tradition of parodic ‘gospels’ (Toledot Yeshu).

Oral and Written Gospel: A Critique of Werner Kelber

1994 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Halverson
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Passion Narrative ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Dead

In The Oral and Written Gospel, Werner Kelber argues that the first written gospel was an attempt to supersede oral tradition by the creation of a literary ‘counterform’. It aimed to discredit ‘oral authorities’ (identified as the disciples and family of Jesus and Christian prophets). Similarly, the paucity of sayings in Mark indicates a suspicion of the sayings genre, which is taken to be the oral genre par excellence. The sayings represent the living voice of the living Lord. The substitution of a written gospel would silence that voice as an ongoing phenomenon by relegating it to the dead past. The passion narrative is essentially the creation of Mark, and with its emphasis on the death and post-resurrectional silence of Jesus, creates a new Christology in opposition to the ‘oral Christology’ of the sayings, which never refer to the death of Jesus. The net effect of the written gospel was to inaugurate a theology (or ‘hermeneutic’) of death and absence in contradiction to the principle of presence that informed the oral tradition.

scholarly journals Language, meaning, sense and reference: Matthew's passion narrative and Psalm 22

1988 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Van Tilborg
Keyword(s):  
Poetic Language ◽  
Passion Narrative ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
Sense And Reference ◽  
Psalm 22 ◽  
Language Meaning

The passion narrative of Jesus as told by Matthew is a verbal enunciation which finds its place next to other passion narratives in which the narrator lets the protagonist use the words of the '1' person of Psalm 22 and in which the narrator describes internal and external conflicts with the words of the Psalm. Against the background of the Greek Septuagint and the Aramaic text in the Targum, parallel to what the hymnist of Qumran tries to do and the narrator of the story about Aseneth, based on the narrative as we find it in Mark, Matthew took Psalm 22 as anchor for his story. What is described in the Psalm, happens in the life and death of Jesus. To approach Jesus' passion more closely, Matthew used poetic language: words on words on words. The passion and death of Jesus has thus become literature, an ambiguous attempt to express the impossible. The question, 'how can one maintain today compassion against the forces of violence?', is the concern of the article.

The Babylonian Talmud on the Execution of Jesus

1997 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond E. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Babylonian Talmud ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
Jewish Involvement

In my The Death of the Messiah, preparatory to examining the Gospel accounts of the trial/interrogation of Jesus by the chief priest(s) and San-hedrin, I surveyed the extra-Gospel evidence for authoritative Jewish involvement in the death of Jesus, derived from Jewish, Christian, and pagan sources. From the Jewish evidence I discussed two items: the witness of Josephus (Ant. 18.3.3; #63–t) and a baraita from TalBab Sanhedrin 43a which I quoted from the London Soncino translation (Nezikin volume 3.281):On the eve of Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, ‘He is going forth to be stoned because he has practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Anyone who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.’ But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of Passover.

How the Bible Feels

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorina Miller Parmenter
Keyword(s):  
Affect Theory ◽  
Material Object ◽  
Bodily Harm ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Christian Leaders ◽  
Christian History

Despite Christian leaders’ insistence that what is important about the Bible are the messages of the text, throughout Christian history the Bible as a material object, engaged by the senses, frequently has been perceived to be an effective object able to protect its users from bodily harm. This paper explores several examples where Christians view their Bibles as protective shields, and will situate those interpretations within the history of the material uses of the Bible. It will also explore how recent studies in affect theory might add to the understanding of what is communicated through sensory engagement with the Bible.

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