[Dialogue] {Disarmed} Spong on th roots of Xkian anti semitism

[KroegerD at aol.com]

July 25 2007 
Flavius Josephus, Judas  Iscariot and Anti-Semitism  

During this summer I have read Flavius Josephus' history of the first century 
 war fought between the Romans and the Jews. That war began in Galilee in 66 
C.E.  and ended in 73 with the suicide of the last Jewish defenders in a 
fortress  southeast of Jerusalem called Masada. The crucial moment in that war was 
the  battle for Jerusalem, which fell to the Roman forces in the year 70. Far 
more  than most people imagine that war shaped both Christianity and Christian 
history  dramatically. It was, I believe, the major background event against 
which the  first three gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke (70-90) were written. 
Echoes of  this war are also present in the Fourth Gospel (95-100) which 
reflects the deep,  visceral and lingering Christian hostility towards the Jews 
that was a direct  result of this war. Reading Josephus reconfirmed my long-held 
conviction that  the anti-Semitism that has plagued Christian history was in 
fact not an original  part of Christianity; it was rather born in response to 
this Jewish War.  
Josephus was a Jew whose opposition to this war was so intense that he  
actually defected to the Roman side. He thus understood just how deeply divisive  
the war was among the Jewish people. Many Jews regarded it as a hopeless,  
ill-planned and foolish adventure. It clearly lacked the necessary political  
support to be pursued effectively. It began in the hills of Galilee. The Romans  
called its instigators "terrorists" but the militant Jews, called them, 
"freedom  fighters." Utilizing the sanctuary of the hills, plus hit and run guerilla  
tactics, these Jewish fighters inflicted steady losses on the Roman occupying 
 legions. When these attacks became more than just an irritant, the Romans  
decided not to continue to bleed in the territory where the guerillas had the  
advantage, but to strike a mortal blow against the entire Jewish nation. So  
deploying massive force, they began an attack on Jerusalem itself. Under the  
command of a general named Vespasian, these Roman forces moved into siege  
positions around the Holy City.  
When that army had isolated Jerusalem from the rest of the world, the debate  
about both the tactics and the morality of this war reached a fever pitch 
among  its trapped citizens. The primary support for the war had come from those 
Jewish  Temple leaders, who were called the "Orthodox Party," and it tended to 
claim the  allegiance of the most religiously zealous Jews. Those opposing 
the war were the  less doctrinaire, more eclectic Jews who were regarded by the 
Orthodox party as  "the revisionists." That term included not just the less 
observant Jews, but  also a group of synagogue worshippers who were called the 
"Followers of the  Way," but who would later become known as "Christians." 
Bitterness was obvious  as the members of the Orthodox Party labeled all 
revisionists as both "heretics"  and "traitors," making them the regular victims of 
their persecution, which,  under Orthodox leaders John Hycanus and Simon, reached 
the level of regular  assassinations. As the Roman Army's battering rams were 
colliding with the  ancient protective walls of the city, these feelings 
inside Jerusalem reached  the intensity that is inevitable when everyone's 
survival is at stake.  
A political crisis in Rome also played a role in this great battle. When  
Nero, the Roman Emperor, died, Vespasian, with the full support of the Roman  
army, was summoned back to Rome to be installed as the new emperor, or Caesar.  
The command of the army besieging Jerusalem was turned over to his son, Titus.  
It was thus under Titus that Jerusalem's walls were finally breached and the  
Roman forces poured in, smashing and devastating the Temple and the entire 
Holy  City. The Romans were highly motivated to punish those Jews they held  
responsible for starting the war, so the persecution of the Jews became official  
Roman policy. There was also in the aftermath of this war an intense Jewish  
anger toward those same Orthodox leaders who had provoked this war. The Jewish 
 "revisionists," including the synagogue-worshipping disciples of the Jewish  
Jesus desired that the Romans know that they too had opposed this war. By 
this  means they sought to separate themselves from those Orthodox Jews who were 
now  the special objects of Roman wrath. As they did this it was almost 
inevitable  that what was meant to be anti-Orthodox rhetoric would be heard as 
anti-Semitic  prejudice.  
Mark, the earliest gospel, was written shortly after the fall of Jerusalem  
and reflects these tensions. One of that gospel's major motifs was to blame the 
 Temple authorities for the death of Jesus. In the crucifixion scenes in 
Mark,  expressed also in both Matthew and Luke, each of whom borrowed 
significantly  from Mark, this theme becomes obvious in the way two characters in that 
drama  are portrayed. One is Pontius Pilate, the official representative of the 
Roman  Empire, who is presented as seeking to escape the responsibility of 
ordering  Jesus to be crucified, but constantly being forced against his will to 
do so by  the Temple priesthood. The other character is Judas Iscariot, the 
anti-hero of  the Jesus story, who is portrayed as the ultimate traitor not just 
of Jesus, but  of Judaism itself. Using the old argument that "the enemy of my 
enemy is my  friend," the revisionist Jews sought to escape the hostility of 
the Romans by  joining them in the attack on the Jerusalem Jewish leaders.  
Up until this time the Christian movement had been part of the synagogue.  
Anti-Semitism was unknown. Jesus, after all, was a Jew. So were his twelve  
disciples, his parents, Joseph and Mary, and other Christian leaders like Paul  
and Mary Magdalene. Now, however, overt hostility expressed toward the Orthodox  
Party was heard as anti-Semitism. The Christians saw the Temple authorities, 
not  the Romans, as their ultimate enemies and they began to tell the Jesus 
story  from that bias. They thus wrote into their gospels, which in time would 
be  called the "Word of God," incredible hostility toward those they identified 
 simply as "The Jews." The anti-Semitism that has rocked the Christian world 
for  2000 years was born in that moment.  
For years now I have also been suspicious of the historicity of the person  
known as Judas Iscariot. Reading Josephus reconfirmed these feelings. My  
suspicions were first aroused by the fact that Paul, who wrote between 50 and 64  
C.E., appears not to be aware of the tradition that Jesus was betrayed by one 
of  the Twelve. Paul's only reference that might have given rise later to the 
story  of a traitor is found in I Corinthians 11 where he dates the 
inauguration of the  last supper with these words: On the night in which Jesus was handed 
over, he  took bread. The word "handed over" was later translated "betrayed." 
Paul does  not connect the last supper with the Passover meal, nor does he 
give any  indication of who might have been involved in the "handing over," 
though it is  clear that he did not ascribe this behavior to one of the Jesus' 
disciples. How  do we know? Just four chapters later in the same Epistle, Paul 
says that the  risen Christ appeared "after three days" to "the Twelve." Judas 
was presumably  still a member of that group.  
The story of Judas is introduced for the first time into Christian writing by 
 Mark in the early 70's. There is no mention of one of the Twelve being a 
traitor  earlier than this. My suspicions were further aroused by the fact that 
Mark  names this anti-hero of his story the same name as that of the entire 
Jewish  nation. Judas is simply the Greek spelling of Judah. Next I noticed that 
every  detail we have in the gospel tradition about Judas appears to be lifted 
out of  other traitor stories in the Hebrew Scriptures. The verb "handed 
over" was used  only one other time in the Hebrew Bible, and that was when the 
brothers of  Joseph handed him over to a band of slave traders. In that narrative 
the brother  who sought to receive money for this deed was Judah. In the 
story of  Ahithophel's betrayal of King David we find many echoes of the Judas 
story.  Ahithophel, like Judas, was said to have broken bread with "the Lord's 
anointed"  before the traitorous act. After the betrayal Ahithophel, like Judas, 
went out  and hanged himself. The kiss of the traitor is part of the 
Joab-Amasa narrative  in the David cycle of stories. The shepherd king of Israel is 
betrayed for  thirty pieces of silver in the writings of Zechariah. This blood 
money is then  hurled back into the treasury, just as Matthew suggested that 
Judas also did  with his thirty pieces of silver. The Judas story increasingly 
seems to me to be  a contrived story, not a story of a person of history.  
Flavius Josephus also tells us in his history of Jerusalem's fall that the  
militant Jews who led the fight against Rome were called the "Sicarii." Most  
scholars today believe that the name "Iscariot" derives from that word. After  
the fall of Jerusalem, the last holdout for the Sicarii was at the fortress  
called Masada. Their resistance ended, Josephus states, in a massive act of  
suicide by the remaining members of the Jewish army. It was their choice, said  
Josephus, lest they fall into the hands of the Romans and face sure death by  
crucifixion.  
So in Mark's story we have introduced for the first time in Christian writing 
 the account of Judas' betrayal, the use of the name "Iscariot" to associate 
him  with the militant Jews, the role of the Temple leaders in the crucifixion 
and  the attempt to exonerate the Roman official, Pontius Pilate. All of 
these themes  served well the survival needs of the Christians in that bitter 
moment of Jewish  history. Through these means these "Followers of the Way" sought 
the blessing of  Rome, distanced themselves from those who caused Jerusalem's 
destruction and  asserted that those responsible for the war also caused the 
death of Jesus.  
That attitude toward the Jewish leaders, born in this war, thus entered  
Christianity and in time was transformed into a general anti-Semitism that was  
destined to mark Christian history, erupting finally into the Holocaust. Judas  
became the quintessential Jew shaping the Christian stenotype of Jews for the  
ages. All of that was the result of the Jewish war. History is strange. Some 
of  its irrational consequences are even stranger.  
John Shelby Spong  
_Note  from the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at 
bookstores  everywhere and by clicking here!_ 
(http://astore.amazon.com/bishopspong-20/detail/0060762071/104-6221748-5882304)   
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Richard P. Hawkes, via the Internet, writes:  
Your credentials are outstanding and I thoroughly enjoyed your recent recap  
of events on your lecture tour of Norway and Sweden. The poem by Tor Littmark  
that you included in one column was deep and moving. I wish I could share it  
with ALL my friends and relatives. You must, however, have encountered more 
than  a little backlash from the complaining conservative evangelical elements 
in both  countries or did they just roll over and play dead?  
Dear Richard,  
The fact is that while I was in both countries I experienced nothing but the  
warmth of a gracious welcome. I suspect that if there was additional backlash 
to  my visit from conservative, evangelical groups in Norway and Sweden, it 
occurred  after I left. That is frequently the pattern. They can use the 
"letters to the  editor" columns to get their point across without fear of being 
challenged.  
Please do not misunderstand, however, that while I do not enjoy it, I welcome 
 negative responses and have received many of them. That is finally the only 
way  I can cause people, who have long since left the kind of religion these 
negative  people are espousing, to wake up and entertain the possibility that 
there may be  something more to the Christianity than that by which they are 
repelled.  
I grew up in an evangelical fundamentalist world and it gave me a tremendous  
sense of security as I struggled with the realities of losing my father at 
the  age of 12. I reveled in my heavenly father who would not disappoint me as 
my  earthly father had done. Without that firm anchor, I do not know what would 
have  happened to the fragile lad that I was. It is one thing, however, to 
need a  literal anchor in a particular storm of life but quite another to cling 
to  yesterday's anchor because you can not grow up. Life changes, boundaries 
expound  and spirits soar. That is when one discovers that security is not the 
end goal  of life and that sometimes one has to risk, to let go, to venture 
and to journey  and when you do, you discover that God is more than just a 
security anchor. God  is a future hope, a dream, and a reality beckoning you to 
live, to love and to  be. That is when the religion of evangelical fundamentalism 
can and will be laid  down and abandoned. It comes at different times in 
people's lives but it always  comes. If one rejects or represses that moment of 
freedom, one becomes an angry  fundamentalist whose life is dedicated to 
protecting one's religious security  system. The name of those who act this way today 
is legion, but that response  will not last. It never does.  
So I welcome what you call the backlash. I rejoice in what religious  
fundamentalism did in my life and I celebrate the fact I have no need to cling  to 
that part of my past. Indeed my life requires that I let the quest for  security 
go and I rejoice in that.  
John Shelby Spong 



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