Faces of Jesus

by

Kelly Isola

Introduction to Christian Bible SCS 502 EJ Niles Spring 2007

Faces of Jesus 2

Introduction

I noticed in our course of study the varying portraits of Jesus that have been

presented by biblical scholars, and frankly I find it confusing at times. So I have decided

to investigate these different faces, and lay them out in such a way so that I won’t be

confused! As I look at the literature out there I know we may never know the real Jesus,

but we can get a general idea based on his teachings and historical and archaeological

data. The synoptic gospels, non-canonical writings and continued archaeological

evidence give us a unique look into the public life of Jesus as an adult. Unfortunately, we

may never know anything about him from his childhood years until the start of his

ministry at age 30.

For me to discover a face of Jesus it really comes down to what his identity,

message and mission were all about. When I have some measure of faith around these

three subjects, I believe I will have settled on a face of Jesus, which may continue to

change in the years to come (as one of my instructors has so delicately pointed out)!

While this report is not meant to be the only faces of Jesus, these are generally the ones I

see as most realistic, and the ones that need to be introduced to mainstream Christians if

we are to continue to progressively move forward in evolution of consciousness and

because they truly represent intentional Christianity, as opposed to conventional

Christianity.

When I look at this last semester and overlay this class onto two previous classes,

History of the Hebrew Bible and the Teachings of Jesus, I begin to get a glimpse into the

possibility of what Jesus was really like. So far, everything I read tells me that the

Christianity of today is not based on what Jesus really taught, or what he really believed,

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but rather on the myth of believing in him as a savior for the whole world, and to save us

from our sins. Christianity became a religion based on the death and resurrection of

Jesus; a religion of Jesus becomes the religion about Jesus (Ehrman, 2000/2004).

From my studies I see that generally we have three phases, so to speak, of how

Christians have viewed Jesus and his life. First is the popular one, which is the one I

believe Christianity is based on and is simply the most widespread. Second, the academic

one put forth by Albert Schweitzer, and finally the third picture that is the image that

emerges when we start to investigate the historical Jesus. This is the face of Jesus that has

started to emerge in the last several decades. Yet, even this image is not one single

portrait, but several, yet they all have common attributes (Shanks, 1993).

My goal with this paper is simply to make coherent the faces presented to me to

date. I know that my faith has been mightily challenged. My belief in who Jesus was has

been shaken. It is safe to say that I don’t know who Jesus was, but I am willing to find

out. I can no longer use the terms Jesus Christ or Jesus the Christ. He is not the head of

my ministry, nor my Lord or Savior. He is not the Jesus I was introduced as a child, and

yet I am discovering a “realness” that I always knew existed, even as a child. I always

believed he was a real person, although I was never comfortable praying “to” him, and

now the faith of a child becomes the questions of a grown woman as I move along in my

spiritual development.

The Commercial Image of Jesus

The first picture of Jesus most all of us know, many of us were raised with it. I

can see it clearly in any mainstream Christian church, this popular picture emerges when

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you address my three subjects: identity, mission and message. Popular image answer?

Essentially, he was wholly divine and the begotten Son of God, his mission was to die for

our sins and his message was about himself and how important it was to believe in him.

This is how most people, even non-Christians, think of Jesus, whether it is true or not.

Also, this image of Jesus is solidified every time you see someone hang a sign that says

“John 3:16.” We see it at every sporting event hung in the crowd somewhere, in the

throngs of people outside morning talk shows on TV in major cities, or at any news event

that draws a large enough crowd, you can rest assured will have a sign hanging

displaying John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that

everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (NRSV, 1997).

This popular image of Jesus is not seen by academia as the historical image. It is

this historical image that I will address later, but to know the historical Jesus we must

look at where the popular image comes from. It comes from centuries of reading the

Gospels at surface value, rather than delving into the context of the author. It also comes

from reading the Gospels already believing they are historical documents. In large part,

this popular image is a result of reading the canonical Gospels through a lens colored by

the Cosmic Christ image of John’s Gospel, and through the lens of the later Christian

church, including the creeds that came out of the Council of Nicea. (Borg, 2006)

In the heading for this section I used the word “commercial” image. I am calling it

commercial simply because it is this face of Jesus that has taken hold and essentially

polarized the Christian world. Not to mention the merchandise, movies and books over

the last century attributed to this image. This Jesus is supposedly the one who proclaimed

himself with the loftiest titles known in his day, Son of God, Son of Man, and King of the

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Jews. In the Gospel of John are all of the great “I am” statements: “I am the light of the

world” (John 8:12, 9:5, 12:46), “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35, 48–51, 58), “I am the

resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6)

and on. Tie these statements to the opening of this Gospel, “the word made flesh” (John

1:14), add to that the Christian creeds, and voile, you have a divine savior.

Yet we now know that the Gospel of John is not historical, and Jesus never talked

like this (The Five Gospels, 1996). This does not mean the Gospel of John is incorrect or

worthless, but instead it is something quite powerful when it is understood for what it is,

rather than as an accurate document. John’s picture of Jesus is what Marcus Borg (1995)

refers to as the post-Easter Jesus. Borg refers to this post-Easter Jesus as the living, risen

Christ Savior of our Christian tradition and experience, regardless if it is true or not. After

Jesus’ death and still today, Jesus is viewed as having the attributes of God, separating

him from the rest of us (Ehrman, 2000/2004). This is the post-Easter Jesus.

The most familiar Christian way of talking about Good Friday’s significance

uses sacrificial imagery: “Jesus died for our sins.” In its fully developed

form, which took over a thousand years to emerge, Jesus’ death is not only

seen as a sacrifice but as necessary: Without it, forgiveness by God would

be impossible. “Jesus died for our sins” is thus seen by many to be the

crystallization of Jesus’ role in God’s plan of salvation, the central meaning

of Good Friday, and the core of the Christian message. (Borg, 1995)

If we look closely at the Gospel of John, and a couple of these “I am” statements,

what we see is a view into the community in which John was writing, not a face of Jesus

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that is historical. “I am the light of the world,” is referencing John’s community and their

experience of the risen Jesus as the Cosmic Christ that brings them out of the darkness,

just as their Hebrew Scriptures had prophesied. Similarly, “I am the bread of life,” is

about the John’s world with the early Christians who viewed the Cosmic Christ as their

spiritual food (Ehrman, 2000/2004).

By contrast, Borg (1995) refers to the historical Jesus as the pre-Easter Jesus. This

is the living, breathing Jew from Galilee. This is the Jesus I will address further who

portrays various faces through various scholars. The commercial image of Jesus I have

been discussing is not a correct image of the pre-Easter Jesus. To return to my three

subjects, identity, mission and message, it is most likely that Jesus did not think of

himself as the Messiah or Savior, he didn’t see his job here on earth to die for our sins,

nor was his message about himself or even that we should believe in him (Crossan,

1991).

Eschatological Prophet

The other image that had been common among scholars, until recently, was made

famous by Albert Schweitzer at the beginning of the 20th century, in his book The Quest

of the Historical Jesus. He portrayed Jesus as an eschatological prophet. Within a Jewish

world at the time of Jesus, eschatology referred to the coming of the Messiah, as foretold

by the prophets.

A worldview held by many ancient Jews and Christians that maintained

that the present age is controlled by forces of evil, but that these will be

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destroyed at the end of time when God intervenes in history to bring in his

kingdom, an event thought to be imminent. (Ehrman, 2000/2004, p. 491)

This end-time would be seen as a dramatic act of God that involved the

resurrection of the dead, the last judgment and the dawn of the Kingdom of God, which

early Christians assumed was the kingdom Jesus had been referring to. If we are to see

Jesus as an eschatological prophet that would mean that he had the conviction that the

end-times were right here and now. This is what Jesus would have meant when he said,

“The kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15; Matthew 4:17). He would have been

referring to the imminent end of times, and that time was running out. When he spoke of

the coming of the Son of Man he would have been referring to the coming of a

supernatural figure who would rule over the eternal kingdom, see Mark 13:26 and

Matthew 24:30 (Crossan, 1991).

For this image of Jesus, as put forth by Albert Schweitzer, the message that the

end was near would have been the center of Jesus’ understanding, message and mission.

It is in this image where we get the idea again that because the end is near, we need to

repent, time is critical.

There is silence all around. The Baptist appears, and cries: "Repent, for the

Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Soon after that comes Jesus, and in the

knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the

world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary

history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself upon it. Then

it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological

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conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the

mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong

enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend

history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and His

reign. (Schweitzer, 1968, p. 370f)

This face of Jesus influenced mainstream academia for perhaps the first half of the 20th

century. However, “scholars soon decided that Schweitzer had been unsuccessful… and

that the task was impossible. We could not know the historical Jesus” (Shanks, 1993).

Contemporary Faces of Jesus

Apparently there are still scholars who hold to this eschatological face of Jesus, in

a different light though, but most biblical scholars today are not in consensus. There are

still scholars who affirm it, but as a consensus, it’s gone (Borg, 2006).

We are now in the floodtide of the third phase of historical Jesus studies.

One reason for the renaissance is that an enormous amount of new

material is now available - archaeological finds, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the

Nag Hammadi Codices, new perspectives on excavating literary texts and

new anthropological perspectives concerning the social world in which

Jesus lived. (Shanks, 1993)

It is this third phase that I would like to focus on in order to find the face of Jesus

that works for my own faith and spiritual walk. When I look at the literary work of

Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Bart Ehrman, Burton Mack and the texts we have

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used for the last three classes, five faces of Jesus emerge. Although this list is not

complete by any means, these are the ones I thought deserved attention, and I believe

need to be communicated to our progressive Christian community. According to Borg

(1994) they are:

1. Restoration Eschatology Prophet Sanders/Ehrman

2. Hellenistic-type Cynic Sage Mack

3. Egalitarian Wisdom Prophet Schüssler Fiorenza

4. Spirit Person Borg

5. Jewish Cynic Peasant Crossan

I added Bart Ehrman’s name next to E.P. Sanders after careful reflection on our

most recent class and our textbook The New Testament. Underneath these seemingly

different labels though, they do tend to agree on some main points. For instance, most all

agree that Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist, and around the time that John was

beheaded, Jesus came into his own ministry; Jesus’ core message was about the Kingdom

of God; he was very egalitarian for the world in which he lived and he made this part of

his core message too; Jesus was a healer and had a reputation for performing miracles; he

got into trouble a few times, particularly at Passover in Jerusalem, and ultimately was put

to death by the Romans. Perhaps this is as close as I may ever get to knowing what Jesus

might have been like.

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Restoration Eschatology Prophet

In our class last summer The Teachings of Jesus, I was introduced to the work of

E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus. He says:

Nothing survives that was written by Jesus himself. The more or less

contemporary documents, apart from those in the New Testament, shed

virtually no light on Jesus’ life or death, though they reveal a lot about the

social and political climate. (p. 3)

It is through this climate I believe that we get a picture of why Sanders portrays Jesus as

he does. He also seems to continue the picture of Jesus that Albert Schweitzer put forth

100 years ago. For the Jews of the first century, the Exodus was their symbolic backdrop,

the prophets had declared that Israel would be released from the bondage they had been

in for 600 years, beginning with the Babylonian Exile and continuing into Jesus’ day. It

seems unlikely that anyone at the time of Jesus would have denounced the visions of the

prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel, or claim they had already been fulfilled (Ehrman,

2000/2004). This is a small glimpse of the context in which Jesus lived, and Israel was

yet to be free; the end of times would mean Israel’s freedom, with the kingdom restored.

The prophets, moreover, interpreted the exile as punishment for Israel’s

sin, so that the end of exile would therefore be the “forgiveness of sins”; it

would mean Israel’s redemption, evil’s defeat and YHWH’s return. All of

this can be summed up in a single phrase: “the kingdom of God.” (Wright,

1996)

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In his writings Sanders develops a picture of Jesus as an agent of Jewish

“restoration eschatology” (Sanders, 1993). Restoration eschatology means that the

imminent end of times is the restoration of the kingdom of Israel, as promised in Hebrew

prophecy. Sanders believes this notion was central to Judaism during post Exile times.

Restoration eschatology refers to the Kingdom of God possibly including the coming of a

Messiah, but more likely this messianic age would be about the Jews being delivered,

once again. The 12 tribes of Israel would be gathered together again, in Jerusalem at a

renewed temple with a new social order, established by God through divine intervention.

Both Sanders and Ehrman believe this is what Jesus expected. He believed this imminent

end of times was not about space and time (the physical end of the world), but rather the

end of the present day social order and Roman oppression and the dawn of a new age.

Sanders (1993) and Ehrman (2004) both use the overturning of the tables in the

Temple as an example of Jesus’ apocalyptic message. Jesus believed that there really

would be a new or renewed Temple in Jerusalem, so Jesus’ action of destroying the tables

in the Temple symbolized the coming destruction of the Temple and its replacement by a

new Temple. Finally, they both think Jesus may even have thought of himself as the king

or soon-to-be king of the coming kingdom. The face of Jesus I see from Sanders and

Ehrman is a man who is a prophet and an agent of restoration eschatology. When we look

at Jesus’ sayings, for them, he clearly spoke in this manner and his ministry was to bring

about this new world.

Throughout the earliest accounts of Jesus' words are found predictions of a

kingdom of God that is soon to appear, in which God will rule. This will

be an actual kingdom here on earth. When it comes, the forces of evil will

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be overthrown, along with everyone who has sided with them; only those

who repent and follow Jesus' teachings will be allowed to enter the

Kingdom. Judgment on all others will be brought by the Son of Man, a

cosmic figure who is to arrive from heaven at any moment. Being a

member of Israel will not be enough to escape the coming judgment.

People need to heed Jesus' words, return to God, and follow his

commandments before it's too late. Jesus is said to have proclaimed such a

message in Q (see Luke 17:24, 26-27, 30; cf. Matt 24:27; 37-39), Mark

(8:38-9:1; 13:24-27, 30), M (Matt 13:40-43), and L (Luke 21:34-36).

(Ehrman, 2004, p. 251)

Hellenistic Cynic Sage

The second portrait is attributed to Burton Mack, a picture of Jesus as a

Hellenistic-type cynic sage. He draws this image in The Lost Gospel (1993). His claim is

that the earliest Q document is a wisdom text that portrays Jesus as a teacher of wisdom

and contains short sayings and a few parables. Mack believes there are three major layers

to the Q Gospel, with the earliest layer being about social criticism, which is the role of

Cynic philosophers of Jesus’ time.

The recent studies of Q suggested… that Jesus was first remembered as a

Cynic sage and only later imagined as a prophet who uttered apocalyptic

warnings. (Mack, 1993, p. 47)

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Mack’s picture of Jesus is very much determined by the social and political

context of Galilee in the first century. Galilee was very Greek, and becoming more

cosmopolitan, as evidenced by the growth and activity of Sepphoris. He believes there

were cynic sages present in Galilee. Cynics would have been seen as Greek analogy of

the Hebrew prophet (Mack, 1993).

Cynics played a very important social role as critics of conventional

values and oppressive forms of governance… Cynics were highly

regarded for their achievement in honing the virtue of self-sufficiency in

the midst of uncertain times… the Cynics purpose was to point out the

disparities sustained by the social system and refuse to let the system put

him in his place. (Mack, 1993, p. 115f)

Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels as an itinerant teacher, without a home, one who

has deliberately abandoned the world of his time. Mack demonstrates that Jesus taught a

kind of wisdom that scorned conventional beliefs and the status quo of first century

Hebrew world. “Jesus was a scoffer, a gadfly, a debunker who could playfully or

sarcastically or with considerable charm ridicule the conventions and preoccupations that

animated and imprisoned most people” (Borg, 1994). Mack’s face of Jesus is like a

Jewish Socrates in light of the political world he lived in, blaming the Pharisees, priests

and Romans for the sorry state of affairs.

He also draws an intriguing parallel with the Cynic sage and Jesus’ teachings of

the Kingdom of God. Mack maintains that at this point in time when Jesus is preaching

about this kingdom, he is not referring to an actual place or human being, a king, who

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will rule, but rather he uses it as a metaphor for personal self-control. The kingdom was

not about a political domain, but rather a metaphor for “the sovereignty manifest in the

independent bearing, freedom, confidence, and self-control of the superior person, the

person of ethical integrity…” (Mack, 1993, p. 126). As a Cynic sage, Jesus was teaching

about personal development and integrity, rather than a whole societal change, as Sanders

talks about.

The language of the kingdom of God in Q captures… the range of

connotation from ruling as behavior to rule as domain: from individual to

group, behavior to ethos, practice to conceptual order, human society to

divine order. ...the location of God's kingdom was to be found precisely in

the social formation of the movement... The God in question is not

identified in terms of any ethnic or cultural tradition. This fits nicely with

Galilean provenance, and since the metaphors of God's rule are largely

taken from the realm of nature, the conception of God in QI is also

compatible with the Cynic tone of the teachings. (Mack, 1993, p. 127)

Mack’s image of Jesus is radically different from Sanders. For Sanders, Jesus is

eschatological and very Jewish, relying on Hebrew prophecies. According to Burton

Mack though, Jesus is not eschatological and not very Jewish. He is more concerned with

social justice, regardless of the institution, Hebrew or Roman, he’s a Cynic sage of his

day.

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Feminist Egalitarian Wisdom Prophet

The third picture offered by Borg comes from Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, who

is a very influential feminist New Testament theologian. Her most famous book, In

Memory of Her (1984) offers a feminist perspective to the reading of canonical and non-

canonical texts. From her work and perspective, the picture of Jesus that emerges is as an

egalitarian, anti-patriarchal wisdom prophet. She sees Jesus as a wisdom figure that uses

forms of speech, including parables and aphorisms, which are considered wisdom in

nature, as a means to shift their society to an egalitarian world.

…she points out that the gospels sometimes portray Jesus as speaking on

behalf of wisdom or as a child of wisdom. In Luke 11:49, for example, the

Jesus of Luke says, “Therefore the wisdom of God said. … ” Then Jesus

speaks, and, for our purposes, what he says isn’t as important as the fact

that he is represented as speaking on behalf of the wisdom of God. (Borg,

1994)

In Jewish literature, wisdom is often portrayed as a woman. The Greek word for

holy wisdom is Hagia Sophia, therefore the divine, or holy, wisdom in Jewish wisdom

literature is referred to as Sophia, personified as a woman, since it is also a woman’s

name. Sophia is the name of Israel’s god personified in female form. In other wisdom

literature, wisdom is often spoken of as the equivalent of God and in other places wisdom

is understood as an attribute or servant of the sole Hebrew God (Fiorenza, 1984).

Proverbs 2:6 tells us, “For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and

understanding;” God is the source of Wisdom; Wisdom is one of God's characteristics

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and attributes. Ecclesiasticus 1:1 reads, “All wisdom is from the Lord, and with him it

remains for ever.” (Akenson, 2001). So for Fiorenza, she views Jesus as being the

spokesperson for wisdom, therefore he is a wisdom prophet, a prophet of Sophia. “…the

Palestinian Jesus movement understands the ministry and mission of Jesus as that of the

prophet and child of Sophia [wisdom] sent to announce that God is the God of the poor

and heavy laden, of the outcasts and those who suffer injustice” (Fiorenza, 1984, p. 135).

If Jesus were a prophet of Sophia, he necessarily would have spurned the

patriarchal system of his day. Much like Mack’s Cynic sage, he would have presented an

alternative societal view, without classes, and based more on equality for everyone. She

says this is embodied in Jesus’ teachings of the coming Kingdom of God. She believes

that his message about this kingdom was decisively about equals, an egalitarian kingdom.

“…this future is mediated and promised to all members of Israel. No one is exempted.

Everyone is invited. Women as well as men, prostitutes as well as Pharisees” (Fiorenza,

1984, p. 121). This notion of an egalitarian society would have subverted his social

world, much like Mack’s Cynic sage, and ignored the divisions in his Jewish culture

between pure and impure, healthy and sick, male and female.

Therefore, to reconstruct the Jesus movement as a Jewish movement

within its dominant patriarchal cultural and religious structures is to

delineate the feminist impulse within Judaism. The issue is not whether or

not Jesus overturned patriarchy but whether Judaism had elements of a

critical feminist impulse that came to the fore in the vision and ministry of

Jesus. The reconstruction of the Jesus movement as the discipleship of

equals is historically plausible only insofar as such critical elements are

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thinkable within the context of Jewish life and faith. The praxis and vision

of Jesus and his movement is best understood as an inner-Jewish renewal

movement that presented an alternative option to the dominant patriarchal

structures rather than an oppositional formation rejecting the values and

praxis of Judaism. (Fiorenza, 1984, p. 107)

She continues to make her case for an egalitarian wisdom prophet when referring

to some of Jesus sayings in Mark and Luke. Mark 3:35 reads "Whoever does the will of

God is my brother and sister and mother," which she says is similar to Luke 11:28,

meaning if you live the gracious goodness of God, then you are part of Jesus' true family,

brothers, sisters, and mothers, but, oddly, no fathers. She does believe that the exclusion

of fathers in Mark’s text is neither accidental nor biographical because in Mark 10:30,

fathers are also omitted. Interestingly though, "mothers and sisters," women, are clearly

included among the followers of Jesus (Fiorenza, 1984).

This new "family" of equal discipleship, however, has no room for

"fathers." Whereas "fathers are mentioned among those left behind, they

are not included in the new kinship which disciples acquire "already now

in this time." Insofar as the new "family" of Jesus has no room for

"fathers," it implicitly rejects their power and status and thus claims that in

the messianic community all patriarchal structures are abolished."

(Fiorenza, 1984, p. 147)

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This is probably the one face of Jesus that I agree with the least, simply because it

seems to mimic several other portrayals, just with a feminist slant. While I am not

disagreeing with her, I simply need more information, more research. I am not convinced

that she accurately portrays women in Jesus’ time. Although I have not delved into that

topic here, I do believe it warrants further scrutiny. Perhaps this is why this face of Jesus

is not more prevalent among biblical scholars and their teachings.

Jewish Mystic

Marcus Borg refers to Jesus as a Jewish Mystic, which contains five elements,

Jesus as a Spirit person, a healer, wisdom teacher, social prophet and movement initiator

(Borg, 2000). “The best way to crystallize my understanding of Jesus is to see it as a

sketch… each stroke corresponding to a type of religious personality known cross-

culturally as well as within the Jewish tradition” (Borg, 1994).

He contends that his first element listed above, is one of the most important

elements that differentiates his understanding of Jesus from others. Essentially he says

that we must understand Jesus as a Spirit person, which means Jesus would have had very

vivid and recurring experiences in the realm of the spirit (or God). These are defined

today as mystical experiences. Borg does not believe we have these very often, he seems

more apt to believe they are much more rare than I believe they are, but he believes the

word mystical is very much misunderstood in our culture. Part of this attribution includes

Borg’s belief that Jesus did not think of himself in messianic terms, nor did Jesus see his

death as central to his ministry or life purpose. We do, however, get a glimpse into the

spirit world in the Gospel of Mark when Mark tells us that the spirit world knew about

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Jesus’ exalted status during his ministry. Jesus hears the divine voice of God at his

baptism and transfiguration, and he heard voices of evil during the exorcisms he

performed.

For Borg, Jesus is one of these people who knew God, in his own powerful,

personal experience, he didn’t just believe in God. His picture of Jesus is a man who

knew God as others of antiquity in the Jewish tradition, as outlined in Jeremiah 31:34,

“No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they

shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive

their iniquity, and remember their sin no more,” and in Hosea 6:6, “For I desire steadfast

love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings” (Borg, 1994).

Another major attribute as a Jewish Mystic is defined within his first point, that

by virtue of these mystical experiences, “a spirit person becomes a mediator or a funnel

or a conduit for the power of the spirit to flow into this world” (Borg, 2006). As such,

spirit people are healers, but they are not the only conduits through which the power of

God flows.

The remaining elements wisdom teacher, social prophet and movement initiator,

are not unlike the other faces of Jesus I portrayed earlier. Borg sees Jesus as a subversive

sage. Jesus was a man who taught alternative wisdom, subverting the conventional

wisdom and dominant consciousness of his day, inviting his followers to live by his

alternative wisdom (Borg, 1995). He also holds Jesus as a social prophet, which to me

sounds very similar to Mack’s Cynic sage persona. Borg’s face of Jesus is one a being

highly critical of the Jewish purity system and of the entire Roman and Pharisaic

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domination system. Marcus Borg paints a wonderful image for me of Jesus as this

champion for social justice and most importantly of compassion.

Finally, Borg sees Jesus as the founder of a movement for the purpose of

transforming Judaism. He makes it very clear that he does not contend that Jesus’

intention was the foundation of a new religion, but rather Jesus’ intention was to change

his own archaic Jewish tradition. The movement that came into existence around him was

an inclusive movement that embodied the alternative social vision in his teaching as a

wisdom teacher and his message as a social prophet (Borg, 2006).

I believe it is important to illustrate that the picture Borg paints is of a Jewish

mystic, because he believes it vital that we understand that Jesus was not just born Jewish

or lived in Jewish culture, but that his Scripture and living frame of reference was

everything Jewish. He spoke to Jews as a Jew, and his first followers were Jewish. Again,

he did not want to establish a new religion, but he saw his mission to transform Judaism.

Borg feels it is imperative to make this clear because for centuries Jesus has been

separated from Judaism, and any “faithful image of Jesus must take with utmost

seriousness his rootedness in Judaism” (Borg, 1995, p. 22).

Jewish Cynic Peasant

John Dominic Crossan has painted the last face of Jesus I want to discuss. He has

written countless books on the life of Jesus, some even New York Times bestsellers. His

1991 book The Historical Jesus is extraordinarily comprehensive, and considered by

some to be the most significant book about Jesus since Albert Schweitzer’s The Quest of

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the Historical Jesus (Borg, 1994). Crossan’s method for unearthing the historical Jesus

has two major components:

First, he develops a quantifiable way of assessing what is earliest in the

Jesus tradition by using an archaeological model. He layers the tradition

into four strata, from earliest to latest. Then he counts up the number of

attestations of particular sayings or complexes in each layer. The second

element in his methodology is an interdisciplinary approach for

interpreting these traditions… Studies in cultural and social anthropology,

medical anthropology, the sociology of colonial protest movements, the

dynamics and structure of pre-industrial peasant societies, honor-shame

societies, patron-client societies and so forth, run throughout his pages.

(Borg, 1994)

Crossan’s method portrays Jesus as a Jewish cynic peasant with an alternative

social vision. He emphasizes Jesus’ role as a peasant because it helps us understand

Jesus’ message and his activities in spreading that message. He makes a compelling case

that Jesus’ message could not have been too intellectual or preachy, it would have to have

been more about his body, more simple, and not about speeches because of his peasant

audience (Crossan, 1991).

In some ways Crossan’s Jewish cynic is not unlike Mack’s description, insofar as

they both were cynic teachers who taught of destroying conventional wisdom and social

practices. Both Mack’s description and Crossan’s image are cynics who practiced what

they preached: a different way to live, not just a different way to think. The major

Faces of Jesus 22

difference however, is that Mack’s picture was an urban cynic who addressed urban

crowds and Hellenistic culture and the teachings were about the individual, as I discussed

earlier. Whereas Crossan’s Jesus was a rural peasant who talked to other rural peasants,

focusing on the community rather than the individual (Crossan, 1991).

Two very fascinating points that I thoroughly enjoyed reading about was

Crossan’s depiction of Jesus’ alternative social vision through what he calls “magic and

meals.” Through these two channels Jesus subverted the conventional wisdom of his

day.

Crossan refers provocatively to Jesus as a magician, which he says he

means in a neutral and nonpejorative sense. A magician is somebody

else’s healer, someone who heals outside of established religious

authority. To do so, of course, subverts religious institutions…

Unauthorized healing, Crossan suggests, is like religious banditry, outside

of the authority structure. (Borg, 1994)

As for meals, Crossan is referring to Jesus’ practice of open tables, not unlike

Fiorenza’s egalitarian perspective. Eating in open communities in Jesus’ day embodies

the alternative social justice Crossan believes Jesus is teaching. In first century Galilee,

eating together without regard for social boundaries broke the norms and religious

customs, blurring the boundaries between honor and shame, male and female, pure and

impure, slave and free, rich and poor. “Together, magic and meal embodied religious and

economic egalitarianism that negated the religious and political hierarchies of the day”

(Borg, 1994). Isn’t this what Gandhi did in India as well? What better way to subvert the

Faces of Jesus 23

local patriarchal establishment than with a meal? Crossan suggests Jesus may have been

an illiterate peasant, but also a man of great wisdom and courage who taught a message

of inclusiveness, tolerance, and liberation. Crossan’s face of Jesus as a Jewish peasant

cynic is one I like, but it too feels incomplete.

Conclusion

Almost two thousand years after his death, Jesus continues to be front-page news.

The majority of Americans still think "Jesus is the Son of God," whether they believe it

or not. From the two extremes of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ to Dan Brown's

The DaVinci Code to the mega-selling apocalyptic Left Behind series, Jesus continues to

be foremost in our lives. Christians however, still remain deeply divided about who they

believe Jesus was: identity, mission and message. We see creationism versus

evolutionism, some support the Iraqi war, others staunchly oppose it, while some

Christians believe Jesus would have positively denounced gay marriages, and yet there

are esteemed biblical scholars who say the exact opposite.

While I don’t subscribe wholeheartedly with any of these three media images of

Jesus, I do believe that most scholars today view Jesus as a wisdom teacher, among other

things. As do I. This however seems to be the one constant, based on his teachings

through parables and aphorisms. Both forms of speech help solidify teachings and beliefs,

as they are relevant to the world and culture in which you live. If nothing else, I think

Jesus was a great storyteller and chock full of witty one-liners.

Many prominent scholars also see Jesus as political, which I would agree with,

but not necessarily in the way we mean it in the 21st century. I believe he was political to

Faces of Jesus 24

the extent he desired to change and shape society for the good of all. I believe, like

Sanders and Ehrman, that his apocalyptic message revolved around this notion of a new

social order, much in the same way that Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi’s messages

could have been heard. They too called for an “end-of-times.” I believe that Jesus sought

a social revolution, not a political revolution. He started a grassroots revolution, from the

ground up, as opposed to a revolution to change the governing bodies, not seeking the

control of power, but rather to move us forward in a shift in consciousness,

compassionate social justice.

I do agree with Borg and Crossan regarding Jesus as a mystic healer, with a

“knowing” of God. When I look at history, all great mystics and social activists who have

indeed changed the world were deeply entrenched in a spiritual connection with the

divine, in their own way. Like Jesus, I believe they had mystical experiences that

sustained them in their “knowing” God and preaching their message, and this contributed

to the urgency they felt around their mission and message. Again, I turn to the examples

of people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. They knew the “time had come” for

the evolution of consciousness in our actions.

While I have not decided for myself on what the face of Jesus might have looked

like, I do believe it matters how we think of Jesus, because these images of Jesus

correspond with our images of the Christian life, and what we think being a Christian

means. I believe we all need to decide what the face of Jesus is, not so that we have a set

of beliefs to live by, but rather so that we question our previously held beliefs and

continue to investigate who and what the historical Jesus is.

Faces of Jesus 25

References

Mack, B. L. (1993). The lost gospel: the book of q & christian origins. New York: HarperCollins

Publishers.

Borg, M. (1995). How Did Jesus Die for Our Sins. Bible Review, 11(2). Retrieved April 1, 2006,

from Biblical Archaeology Review Web site: http://www.basarchive.org

Akenson, D. (2001). Surpassing wonder: The invention of the bible and the talmuds. Montreal,

Quebec: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Borg, M. (1994). Portraits of Jesus. Biblical Archaeology Review, 19 (Feb). Retrieved April 1,

2006, from Biblical Archaeology Society Web site: http://www.basarchive.org

Borg, M. (1995). Meeting Jesus again for the first time. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publisher.

Borg, M. (2006). Jesus: Uncovering the life, teachings, and relevance of a religious

revolutionary. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers.

Crossan, J. (1991). The historical Jesus: The life of a mediterranean jewish peasant. New York:

HarperCollins Publishers.

Crossan, J., & Reed, J. (2001). Excavating Jesus: Beneath the stones, behind the texts. New

York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Ehrman, B. (2004). The new testament: A historical introduction to the early christian writings

(2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 2000)

Fiorenza, E. (1984). In memory of her: A feminist theological reconstruction of christian origins.

New York: Crossroad Publishing Company.

Sanders, E. P. (1993). The historical figure of Jesus. London: Penguin Books.

Schweitzer, A. (1968). The quest of the historical Jesus: A critical study of its progress from

reimarus to wrede. New York: Macmillan. (Original work published 1906)

Faces of Jesus 26

Shanks, H. (1993). Introduction: Defining the problem. Biblical Archaeology Review, 19 (Feb).

Retrieved April 1, 2006, from Biblical Archaeology Society Web site: http://

www.basarchive.org

Wright, N. T. (1996). How Jesus Saw Himself. Bible Review, 12(3, June). Retrieved April 1,

2007, from Biblical Archaeology Review Web site: http://www.basarchive.org

Commentary by Funk, R., Hoover, R., & the Jesus Seminar. (1996). The five gospels: the search

for the authentic words of Jesus (R. Funk, R. Hoover, & the Jesus Seminar, Trans.). New

York: Scribner.

The New Revised Standard Version Holy Bible. (1997). Nashville, TN: World Publishing.