#68: “Q and A”

#68: “Q and A” by Brendon Wahlberg This is the story of a document that no one has seen for two millennia. No one is completely sure it ever existed. But Bible scholars are pretty sure it must have existed. It was a collection of the sayings of Jesus, known as the Q-sayings source, or “Q” for short. Q contained the sayings of Jesus, and only the sayings of Jesus. Q did not have any detailed stories about Jesus’ travels, healings, and miracles. Q did not have any stories about Jesus’ birth or his death and resurrection. No one today has a copy of Q, and ancient sources do not mention it. It is really just an educated guess that Q existed. So, why do scholars think that there was once a collection of Jesus’ sayings? Q is the solution to a puzzle. The puzzle begins with the question of how the gospels were written. Scholars call the puzzle the “synoptic problem”. Three of the gospels are called the synoptic gospels because they are so similar in their content. These are Mark, Luke, and Matthew. These three gospels share stories of Jesus, and sometimes the shared stories are so similar, they match word for word in places. Obviously, some of these gospel writers had copies of each other’s gospels in front of them. They used and reworked the material from the other gospels as they wrote. Sometimes they made large changes, sometimes almost none, as they made the stories their own. But who borrowed from who? That is the synoptic problem in a nutshell. The majority opinion is that Mark was written first. Then, working independently, Luke used Mark, and also Matthew used Mark. So, Luke and Matthew both have some Mark material in them. So far, so good. But what about when you look more closely at Luke and Matthew? Then you can see that there is more to those gospels than a reworking of Mark. For example, Luke has some material that is not found in Mark, or anywhere else. This is easy enough to understand. This material is Luke’s own inspired research and writing. Likewise, Matthew has some of his own unique material. Again, so far, so good. Next, however, you will find that Matthew and Luke have some material in common. There are sayings of Jesus found in both Matthew and Luke which are not found in Mark. Some scholars will say that Matthew had a copy of Luke, or vice versa. But most scholars will say that both Matthew and Luke had a copy of another, totally different document in front of them. This was probably Q, the collection of Jesus’ sayings. What were the contents of Q? Scholars can generally reconstruct what Q must have had in it. Any of Jesus’ sayings material that was (a) not in Mark, and (b) shared by both Matthew and Luke, was in Q, or so the theory goes. If you look online, you can easily find a reconstruction of Q. Here are some of the highlights of what was in Q. 1. Jesus is tested by Satan in the desert (Luke 4, Matthew 4). 2. The beatitudes (Luke 6, Matthew 5). 3. Love your enemies (Luke 6, Matthew 5). 4. Don’t judge others; A tree is known by its fruit; A house built on sand (Luke 6, Matthew 7). 5. The faith of the Centurion (Luke 7, Matthew 7). 6. The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head (Luke 9, Matthew 8). 7. Instructions to Jesus’ followers on their mission trips (Luke 10, Matthew 8). 8. No one knows the Father except the Son (Luke 10, Matthew 11). 9. The Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11, Matthew 6). 10. Ask and it will be given (Luke 11, Matthew 7). 11. Jesus replies to being accused of driving out demons in the name of the head demon; The sign of Jonah (Luke 11, Matthew 12). 12. God sees the fall of a sparrow (Luke 12, Matthew 10). 13. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Luke 12, Matthew 12). 14. Don’t worry about things (Luke 12, Matthew 6). 15. Son of Man coming unexpectedly (Luke 12, Matthew 24). 16. The mustard seed and the Kingdom (Luke 13, Matthew 13). 17. Parable of the feast (Luke 14, Matthew 22). 18. Parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15, Matthew 18). 19. What will happen when the Son of Man comes (Luke 17, Matthew 24). 20. Parable of servants investing the master’s money (Luke 19, Matthew 25). 21. Twelve thrones for the disciples (Luke 22, Matthew 19). It was fairly common in ancient times for students of great philosophers to record the words of their masters. Someone must have done so with the words of Jesus. It is interesting to see what Q contains and doesn’t contain. The people who wrote Q collected Jesus’ sayings, and copied and shared the ones that meant the most to them. In Q, a portrait of Jesus emerges. Jesus is a teacher, with very special authority from God. Jesus is revered as Wisdom personified. Like other Prophets, he is destined not to be heeded by the people, who fail to obey. The Q sayings are full of details of the rural world of Galilee. The people who preserved these sayings were Messianic Jews who were trying to spread the word about Jesus to other Jews and probably not succeeding much. The fact that Q says nothing about Jesus’ death and resurrection is a curious fact, and it may be that Jesus’ followers had other documents that focused on the Passion. Certainly, Paul’s letters show that the events of Jesus’ resurrection were known. Q, however, focused on Jesus as a teacher. Now, some scholars will say that Q does not exist. And they cannot be proven wrong. But there is one piece of evidence that supports the existence of Q, and that is the finding of a different collection of Jesus’ sayings. I’m referring to the Gospel of Thomas, which was found among the Gnostic writings which were buried in the fourth century and dug up in 1945 in Egypt. The Gospel of Thomas consists of 114 sayings of Jesus, without any narrative. In other words, Thomas looks just like what people think Q would look like. The existence of Thomas makes it possible that a similar sayings collection, Q, also existed. But don’t jump to the conclusion that Thomas is Q. Q was written before the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. Thomas was written much later – it is clear that Thomas is very much a Gnostic book. That is to say, many of the sayings in Thomas, which are ascribed to Jesus, are rather unlikely to have been said by him. Instead, they are Gnostic religious ideas which have been put into Jesus’ mouth. Thomas probably does contain some real sayings of Jesus, and in fact, some think that these sayings are preserved in a very early, more authentic wording. But Thomas also contains some wild and crazy sayings that are just classic Gnostic mysticism and not from Jesus at all. Here are two examples, the first seemingly authentic, the second very Gnostic: 1. “The disciples said to Jesus, ‘Tell us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.’ He said to them, ‘It is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large branch and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.’ (Thomas 20; see also Mark 4:30-32, Matthew 13:31-32, and Luke 13:18-19). 2. “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the domain of Heaven.’ (Thomas 114). It is interesting to think about Q and about the early transmission of Jesus stories. People talked about Jesus, spreading an oral tradition, but it is good that others wrote down his sayings. Between the time of the life of Jesus, and the writing of the first gospels, perhaps three or four decades passed. It is reassuring to know that Jesus’ words were kept safe in writing during that time. For the words of Jesus are precious treasures. Clearly the Q community thought so as well. We are in their debt.

#67: “Bad Neighbors”

#67: “Bad Neighbors” by Brendon Wahlberg When you think of modern day Israel, you think about the bad relationship it has with its neighbors, such as the Palestinians. Sadly, if you go back and look at the Old Testament period, you will find that the situation was pretty much the same. Back then, Israel was also surrounded by enemies. To the east, across the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, there were the small countries of Ammon and Moab. To the south, there was the country of Edom. Israel’s history with these three countries was a centuries-long chronicle of warfare, which is ironic, considering that the peoples of all four countries were closely related to each other. In fact, the Hebrew Bible tells stories which explain the origins of Ammon, Moab, and Edom, and sure enough, their ancestors were blood relatives of such biblical figures as Lot and Jacob. Predictably, these ancestor stories made sure to deeply insult Ammon, Moab, and Edom, proving that no one can put each other down like family can. The stories in Genesis which relate to the origins of Ammon, Moab, and Edom, are called Etiological tales. This means they are the kind of stories that give a reason for the way things are in the present day. For the writers of Genesis, the “present day” neighbors to the east and south were long time enemies. Etiological stories were needed, not only to explain why the enmity began centuries ago, but also to explain exactly why Israel was superior, and why those enemies were inferior. In my study Bible, Genesis 19:30-38 is entitled, “The shameful origin of Moab and Ammon.” The story picks up right after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the escape of Lot (nephew of Abraham) and his two daughters. “Now Lot went up out of Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; so he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, ‘Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the world. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.’ So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. On the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, ‘Look, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.’ So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger rose, and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab; he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and named him Ben-ammi; he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.” Here, in one brief story, you have the origins of both the Moabites and the Ammonites. Writings on an ancient artifact called the Moabite Stone (from around 800-900 BCE) describe the victory of a Moabite king over Israel’s king, but they also show just how similar the languages of the two peoples were. The cultural closeness of these semitic countries is reflected in Genesis, which says that Israel and Moab share a common ancestor. But look at the obvious insults to Ammon and Moab. Genesis says that both countries were the result of drunken incest between Lot and his daughters. Even the names in the story reflect this incest. Moab is from the Hebrew, Me’Ab, which means “from father.” Ammon is from Ben-ammi, which means “my father’s son.” Historically, Israel and Ammon were constantly at war, and most of the biblical references to Ammon reflect this. Sometimes Israel conquered and ruled over Ammon, and sometimes not. The following words from Ezekiel illustrate the deep animosity between the two countries. “Say to the Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord God: […] Because you said, ‘Aha!’ over my sanctuary when it was profaned, and over the land of Israel when it was made desolate, and over the house of Judah when it went into exile; therefore I am handing you over to the people of the east for a possession. They shall set their encampments among you and pitch their tents in your midst; they shall eat your fruit, and they shall drink your milk. I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels and Ammon a fold for flocks. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. For thus says the Lord God: Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice within you against the land of Israel, therefore I have stretched out my hand against you, and will hand you over as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and will make you perish out of the countries; I will destroy you. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 25:3-7) Moab’s conflict with Israel goes back to the Exodus, when the two nations fought each other during Israel’s entry into Canaan. It was the king of Moab who wanted Israel cursed in Numbers 22. The fighting continued through the time of King David and beyond, until Babylon destroyed the Moabite kingdom. The following words from Isaiah illustrate the animosity between Israel and Moab. “We have heard of the pride of Moab—how proud he is!—of his arrogance, his pride, and his insolence; his boasts are false. Therefore let Moab wail, let everyone wail for Moab. […] This was the word that the Lord spoke concerning Moab in the past. But now the Lord says, In three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will be brought into contempt, in spite of all its great multitude; and those who survive will be very few and feeble.” (Isaiah 16:6-14) The biblical origin of Edom is also found in Genesis, in the story of Jacob and his brother Esau (Genesis 25:19-34). “These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. The children struggled together within her; and she said, ‘If it is to be this way, why do I live?’ So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.’ When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. Afterwards his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skilful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.” Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, ‘Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!’ (Therefore he was called Edom.) Jacob said, ‘First sell me your birthright.’ Esau said, ‘I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?’ Jacob said, ‘Swear to me first.’So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.” Again, Israel and Edom were closely related, having a similar language, so to explain this, Genesis tells us that the ancestors of both countries were brothers. Just as Israel and Edom frequently fought, so did Jacob and Esau fight, even in the womb. The names in the story also explain some things about the country of Edom. Edom is similar to the Hebrew adom, which means “red”. Esau was born red, and he was eating red food in the story above, so he and the nation which descended from him were called red. Edom was a region with lots of reddish sandstone, and many of its people may have had red hair or ruddy skin like Esau. Esau was very hairy, and this may have been a joking reference to the main mountain in Edom, Mount Seir. In Hebrew, Sa’ir means hairy, and the two words sound alike. Jacob’s name comes from the Hebrew word for heel, because he grasps his brother’s heel in an attempt to be born first. In the story above, Jacob claims Esau’s birthright, and later steals their father’s blessing that belonged to Esau. Jacob disguises himself as Esau, tricking his father into giving him the precious blessing of the firstborn. When Esau discovers this, the following events occur. “When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me, me also, father!’ But he said, ‘Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.’ Esau said, ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.’ Then he said, ‘Have you not reserved a blessing for me?’ Isaac answered Esau, ‘I have already made him your lord, and I have given him all his brothers as servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?’ Esau said to his father, ‘Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!’ And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. Then his father Isaac answered him: ‘See, away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck.’ Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’” (Genesis 27:34-41) Again, the story seems to explain the inferiority of the country of Edom, in an etiological manner. Jacob/Israel got the blessing while Esau/Edom did not. Despite Edom’s military prowess, Israel would still rule over it, even if sometimes Edom threw off that “yoke”. Historically, Edom was sort of an “older brother” who nevertheless came in second. The Israelites encountered the Edomite nation during the Exodus. Later, King David conquered Edom; down through the centuries, Edom was sometimes ruled by Israel, and sometimes not. After the victory of the Maccabees, Israel conquered the Edomites one last time, and forced the population to convert to Judaism. By the time of Jesus, the territory that was once Edom became the Roman province of Idumea. King Herod the Great was an Idumean, which partly explains why he was so disliked as a ruler of Judea. He was, after all, one of those descendants of Esau who were so inferior, outsiders who only worshipped the true God because they were forced to. Israel, Edom, Ammon, and Moab were altogether bad neighbors. Despite being similar and having common ancestors, they worshipped different gods and fought and hated each other for centuries. It is a poor way to live, and sadly it continues in the modern age. As a people, we should instead follow the teaching found in both the Old and New Testaments about how to interact with our neighbors. “You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbour, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:17-18) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 19:19)

Hey, Jude

#66: “Hey, Jude” by Brendon Wahlberg
The letter of Jude is one of the four shortest documents in the New Testament. Tucked in next to the book of Revelation, it fills up only one page of the Bible. Yet this little letter contains some very big mysteries. Chief among them are such basic questions as who wrote it, and what enemies is it talking about? These questions perplex scholars to this day. Additionally, although it is very short, Jude is loaded with references to other writings. Some of these references are very obscure and surprising. So let us take these mysteries one at a time, and see if there are any answers.
“And don't you know that it's just you? Hey Jude, you'll do…” -The Beatles
Who is this Jude person anyway? The short answer is, no one is sure, and we probably cannot ever be sure. But there are a few candidates. The first thing to realize is that the name Jude is a translation of the Hebrew name “Ye’hudah”. This name is variously translated in English as Judah, Jude, and Judas. That’s right – the name Jude is the same as the name Judas. The letter of Jude could just as easily be called the letter of Judas. But then people would associate the letter writer with the Judas who betrayed Jesus. For this reason, in some Bible translations, other Judases besides the betrayer are called “Jude” instead.
So who are the candidates? Number one is Judas Iscariot. But of course it probably isn’t him, because he was long dead by the time the letter was written. That was easy, wasn’t it? So, who else is there?
Number two is the Disciple/Apostle Jude, one of the Twelve. When the Gospel of Luke lists the twelve disciples (6:14-16), one of them is named “Judas son of James”. He is carefully differentiated from “Judas Iscariot who became a traitor”. Likewise, the Gospel of John mentions “Judas (not Iscariot)” (14:22). Curiously, when Mark and Matthew list the twelve disciples, they omit Judas and replace him with Thaddaeus (or Lebbaeus). This has made some scholars conclude that Judas son of James and Thaddaeus are really the same person.
So, did one of the twelve apostles write the letter of Jude? Again, the answer is that it is unlikely. The author never claims to be one of the apostles. If he was one of them, he probably would have said so. The author of the letter introduces himself instead as “Jude, a servant [literally, “a slave”] of Jesus Christ and brother of James” (Jude 1). However, the apostle Judas was called the son of James in Luke’s gospel, not the brother of James. Also, later in the letter, the author says, “remember the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, for they said to you…” (Jude 17-18). If the author was an apostle, why would he talk about the apostles as if he was not one of “them”?
Moving on. Who else is there? Number three is perhaps the most likely candidate. Mark 6:3 lists the male siblings in Jesus’ family. “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon…” So, one of Jesus’ brothers was named Jude/Judas. Christian tradition holds that this Jude wrote the Letter of Jude. It is possible that this was the case. Jesus’ brothers, including Jude, became leaders in the early Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem. The most important of these sibling leaders was “James the Just”. He could have been the brother “James” mentioned in Jude 1. If the author was Jude, brother of Jesus, it would make sense that his letter would have been saved. But then, why didn’t the author call himself “brother of Jesus Christ” in the beginning of the letter? Wouldn’t that be at least as important to mention as “brother of James”? Or, was Jude a brother of Jesus who was too humble to mention it, calling himself a slave/servant instead?
Candidate number four is: anyone at all. Some letters were “pseudepigrapha”, meaning that they were written by anonymous authors who used the names of apostles to lend authority to their works. Jude might have been one of those. In the end, without more evidence, we can never know for sure.
“Hey Jude, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better…” -The Beatles
What bad situation is Jude writing about in his letter? Who are the good people he is writing to? Who are the bad people he is complaining about, and what have they been doing wrong? What can be done about it? The Letter of Jude is rather vague about all of this. In some of Paul’s letters, there are specific details regarding places, events, names, and conflicts between people. These details make it possible to identify dates and historical situations in Paul’s letters. Not so for Jude. Scholars cannot determine when or where Jude wrote. It is hard to decide who he was writing to or exactly who he was attacking.
So, what do we know? Jude seems to be a general letter, meant to be spread around to everyone, encouraging believers to defend their faith and fight against the influence of troublemakers among them. Jude condemns an unspecified group of bad people for their bad behavior. The following verses mention some of the things they were doing. These ungodly intruders have stolen in among the faithful, perverting the grace of God into licentiousness and denying Jesus (4). Jude mentions that they are sexually unnatural and immoral, indulging their lusts (7). Furthermore, these malcontents reject authority and complain all the time (8,16). In their ignorance, they speak slander against the angels (8,10). At the shared thanksgiving meals, the love feasts, these people eat greedily (12). They are insincere flatterers and scoffers (16,18). And they are causing divisions among the godly (19). Who were these people? Some scholars think they may have been Gnostics, that is, if the letter was written at a late date, say, in the early second century. If Jude was written in the mid-first century, then we just do not know.
What does Jude want the faithful to do? He hopes they will fight for the faith (3), pray in the Holy Spirit (20), look forward to eternal life (21), have mercy on those who are wavering (22), and save others from “the fire” (23). As I said, it is all pretty vague. Maybe Jude is describing the kind of behavior that could have arisen in a community which was expecting the end of the world. Some people may have decided that if the end was coming, they could join up with the Christians in order to save themselves, while also cutting loose and living it up with food and sex before Jesus returned.
“So let it out and let it in, hey Jude, begin - You're waiting for someone to perform with…” -The Beatles
What are all the references Jude makes to other books? Were you ever handed a small book containing a copy of only the New Testament? Those annoy me, because they are incomplete Bibles. I think that without the Old Testament, the New Testament is impossible to understand. The letter of Jude is a good example of why this is so. Despite its short length, Jude makes many references to Old Testament stories. Jude doesn’t explain the references. He assumes that the reader knows the Hebrew Bible and understands them. I counted at least eight interesting references in Jude. Each one is used to illustrate bad behavior and to show how the bad people are going to be punished. Let’s look at them one by one.
1) Jude 5 mentions “the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” This is obviously a reference to Exodus 14, the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt.
2) Jude 6 mentions “angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great Day.” This one is a reference to the story of the fallen angels, which is briefly mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4. It is also a reference to a book which did not make it into the Bible, named “1 Enoch”. We still have the Book of 1 Enoch today, and we know that it was once considered authoritative by many people. Compare Jude 6 (above) to the following: “And to Michael God said, ‘Make known to Semyaza [a fallen angel leader] and the others who are with him, who fornicated with the women […] bind them for seventy generations underneath the rocks of the ground until the day of their judgment…” (1 Enoch 10:11-12). Jude quotes Enoch again later in the letter, as we shall see.
3) Jude 7 mentions “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which […] indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust…” This is a reference to Genesis 19, the story of Lot’s escape from the destruction of Sodom.
4) This next reference is a tricky one. Jude 9 is talking about how it is bad to slander others, and to illustrate this, Jude refers to an example of a time when the Archangel Michael refused to sin, avoiding slandering even…Satan himself! “But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’” (Jude 9). The question is, what is this a reference to? The Bible has no story of Satan trying to claim Moses’ body while Michael confronts him. Fortunately, a third century Christian writer named Origen has the answer for us. Origen wrote: “…in the work entitled The Assumption of Moses, a little treatise, of which the Apostle Jude makes mention in his letter, the archangel Michael, when disputing with the devil regarding the body of Moses…” So, you see, Jude was referring to an apocryphal book which is now lost to us.
5,6,7) A single verse, Jude 11, has three references to the Old Testament in it. “Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah’s rebellion.” This is a lot of references to pack into one sentence! But we can identify them easily enough. Cain is the brother of Abel who responded to God’s disapproval with anger, jealousy, and violence (Genesis 4). Balaam was hired to go and curse God’s people, until an angel stopped him (Numbers 22). Korah was a Levite who led a rebellion against the authority of Moses and Aaron because he wanted to be a Priest but was denied (Numbers 16). Korah was swallowed up by the earth when God judged him.
8) Jude 14-15 is a second reference to 1 Enoch. You can compare the following two passages for yourself:
“It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, ‘See, the Lord is coming with tens of thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’” (Jude 14-15)
“Behold, he will arrive with ten thousand times a thousand of the holy ones in order to execute judgment upon all. He will destroy the wicked ones and rebuke all flesh on account of everything that they have done, that which the sinners and the wicked ones committed against him.” (1 Enoch 1:9)
The fact that Jude makes references to two non-canonical books, namely “1 Enoch” and “The Assumption of Moses”, has always been a problem for some readers and a source of controversy. It is assumed that any book that is in the Bible is inspired by God. It troubles people to think that an inspired letter can refers to apocryphal sources. What does it mean when Jude, an accepted book, quotes a rejected book? Does that confer any portion of authority or canonical status on the book which Jude is quoting? Probably not, but the very idea can be upsetting to some. In the fourth century, when the New Testament canon was being finalized, some people objected to including Jude, precisely because it made those references to things like Enoch.
So there you have it - Jude, a small book containing large mysteries. I am sorry there are few answers to give you. My own amateur scholar opinion is that Jude was a leader in a community that revered angels and complicated angel lore (like their names, types, and ranks). Jude’s letter has several direct and indirect references to angels, in verses 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, and 14. That’s about 30% of the verses! Jude refers to books like Enoch, which tell detailed and elaborate stories about angels. Clearly, Jude was an angel fan. I think Jude’s enemies were fellow Christians who did NOT believe in all the angel lore, but instead scoffed at it, loudly enough to make others begin to doubt it too. Jude said that his enemies had slandered the angels, the glorious ones. Using poetic insults, Jude called his enemies “wandering stars for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever” (13). Wandering stars, known to us as planets, were once thought to be fallen angels. Jude meant that if you disrespect the angels, you deserve the same fate as the fallen angels.
(We’ll just have to finish by playing out the end of that old Beatles song, so that it will be stuck in your head as it is in mine. “Naa, Na Na, Na Na Na Naa, Na Na Na Naa , Hey Jude…”)

Paul's First Letter

#65: “Paul’s First Letter” by Brendon Wahlberg
The New Testament contains thirteen letters that are traditionally thought to be written by the Apostle Paul. However, scholars generally agree that Paul did not write all of them. For example, the great majority agree that the Pastoral letters, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus, were not written by Paul. Instead, later authors probably wrote in his name to give their letters and beliefs more authority. (Hebrews is another letter that Paul probably did not write, and his authorship was in doubt even in ancient times.) Then there are the letters that scholars are evenly divided about. Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians may have been written by Paul, but many scholars are not sure. Scholars agree that seven letters were almost certainly written by Paul. These are 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Philemon. People arrive at this list by analyzing the similar or contrasting style, vocabulary, structure, and religious ideas of each letter while taking into account what is also known about Paul from the Book of Acts and other sources.
If you take this list of seven letters as the ones Paul really wrote, you can then ask, which letter was first? Of course, scholars have a consensus opinion about this, too. It is agreed that 1 Thessalonians is the oldest letter written by Paul that ended up in the New Testament. In fact, scholars agree that 1 Thessalonians in the oldest book in the whole New Testament. This letter was probably written around 51-53CE. Everything else came later – all four Gospels, Acts, Revelation, Paul’s other letters, and the non-Pauline letters – all later.
Think about that for a moment. In 52CE, Jesus’ crucifixion was about twenty-two years in the past. The public could not hear him speak or teach any more. Christianity was spreading around the Mediterranean and winning converts among Gentile nations, but there was no New Testament to read. A new convert in the busy port city of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, in 52CE, would have no Gospel of John, no Letter to the Romans, no Book of Revelation. This convert might well have never seen a Jewish scroll like Isaiah or Psalms either. The convert only knows that a travelling missionary named Paul came through Thessalonica about a year earlier, and started a small congregation among the people of the city, introducing them to a new version of the old Jewish religion, which could now include Gentiles. But maybe there was nothing from Paul that was written down, and the convert had to hear about the new faith through word of mouth. Maybe the convert had friends among the new, small gathering of the “Followers of the Way”, or “Christians” as they were eventually called in far away Antioch. The convert joins them, and around that same time, a letter arrives from the group’s founder Paul, who is writing from down south in Greek Corinth, where he has another congregation.
The letter is important to the group in Thessalonica. It is something they can hold onto, read from, and share. It addresses their fears and confusions and corrects their misconceptions. It tells them how they should be living. When Paul was there among them, he told them to expect the end of the world. The new convert is excited and uncertain about many things. But now there is a letter to reassure him or her. The letter is now the only written document in the city that contains Paul’s teachings about the new faith. The letter, along with the group’s memories of Paul’s verbal teaching, is all they have. One little letter, which only takes up about three pages in a modern Bible, was their whole scripture. No wonder they saved and copied it, so that we still have the text of it today.
Now, imagine that you are this new convert, who has been listening to the group leader read the letter to everyone (Paul commanded in the letter that this should be done (1 Thess 5:27)). This exercise allows us to put ourselves in the place of someone who has only 1 Thessalonians to go on. What does it say inside it? What can you learn about the Way? Once you have heard the letter, what concept of Christianity do you have? If your whole Bible was that one three-page letter, what would you know? What would you believe?
The letter begins with greetings to your small church from Paul and his coworkers, Silvanus and Timothy. Together, they visited your city a year ago. Paul had wanted to return, but could not. So he sent Timothy alone for a brief return visit, to check on whether your group had stayed faithful or fallen apart (3:5). Timothy was reassured by what he saw, and reported back to Paul, and so Paul’s letter is full of relief that things are still okay.
Paul greets you in the name of the God you now share. This is God, the Father of us all (1:3), who loves us and has chosen us (1:4). This God is true and living, unlike the false, nonliving idols you used to venerate. Now you serve this God (1:9). But God is not the only one you should worship. God has a Son (1:10), Jesus Christ (Jesus the anointed), who is also called the Lord (1:1). Jesus died, killed by some Jews in the small Roman Province of Judea (2:15), but God raised him from the dead (1:10). There is also something called the Holy Spirit, which helped Paul and his friends bring his message to your group a year ago, giving their words the power to win converts (1:5). God gives this Holy Spirit to you as well (4:8). Everybody in the group has this Holy Spirit. As a result, your group accepted Paul’s message as the word of God himself (2:13), not as mere human words. Since then, your group has been imitating Paul, his friends, and the Lord, trying to be a good example to others (1:6).
While you serve God, you are to wait for the Lord Jesus to return from Heaven, where he is now, in order to rescue you from God’s wrath that is coming (1:10). Paul has called his message “good news” (1:5), and you agree that being rescued from wrath is good news for you. What do you and your new group mean to these missionaries? Why do Paul and his friends care so much about you? Apparently, your group is their pride and joy (2:19-20). When the Lord returns, the only achievements that will matter to God are works such as converting people like you! Paul calls your group his “brothers” again and again in the letter. You are like family to him.
When Paul visited a year ago, he showed your group how to live properly (4:1). Now, in his letter, he reiterates these guidelines. These are important rules – Paul says they are God’s will (4:3). Rule One (4:3) is: no fornication! This means, control your own body, people (4:4). Don’t be full of lustful passion like your neighbors who do not know God (4:5). Especially do not take sexual advantage of fellow members of the congregation (4:6), because you have all been called together by God to be “Holy”, which seems to mean the same as being pure (4:7). Rule Two (4:9) is: love each other. (Except, see rule number one for certain restrictions.) Rule Three (4:11) is: live quietly, and mind your own business. Rule Four (4:11-12) is: have a job so you can support yourself and not rely on others. You think you can live with these rules. In fact, God seems to be pretty sensible about these things.
Later on in the letter, Paul has some more rules to live by (5:12-22). These things also seem to make sense. Show respect for the leaders of the congregation, for the work they do. Have peace between the members of the group. Tell each other to keep working. Help the weak ones. Don’t ever be evil. If somebody is evil to you, don’t repay them in kind. Instead try to do good to everyone. Always rejoice, give thanks, and pray. This all sounds good. And why should you do all of these things? Because the Lord Jesus is coming back, and when he does, you will need to be blameless (5:23). Paul is satisfied with how well your congregation is doing so far (4:1), but he wants you all to do more and more of the right things. This is all because of what Paul says is coming in the future.
When Jesus returns, it will be like this… Something called an archangel will call out, there will be a sound like the blast of a horn, and Jesus will descend from Heaven. At the same time, your group will be lifted up to meet him in the clouds. After that, you will all be with the Lord forever (4:16-18). Jesus died for you so that you can live with him (5:10). This will be your salvation, because if you are not included, you are in for destruction and wrath from God (5:3,9).
You know that some people in your group have been worrying about exactly when Jesus will return. Also, a few of the oldest people have died during these past few months, and what if that means they won’t be included in this salvation, just because they died a little too early? Paul probably heard about your worries from Timothy, and it is Paul’s goal to “restore whatever is lacking in your faith” (3:10). So now, in the letter, Paul has made sure to address those concerns. Jesus will return, he says, at an unexpected time (5:2). But as long as you keep on track spiritually, you will be ready. The ready person is “awake”, “sober”, a “child of the light and the day”, “faithful”, “loving”, and “hoping”. This is in contrast to those who are “of the night”, “of darkness”, and “drunk” (5:4-10). And as for those who have died, Jesus will be sure to raise them from the dead so that they can be included along with you and the rest of your group (4:14-16). So, there you go. It’s all good…as long as you are good.
It has been interesting to look at Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians as if it was the only book of the Bible that we had. If indeed this was Paul’s earliest letter, then for some people, that must have been the situation. When you look at the letter from this perspective, you nevertheless see that the basics of Christianity are all there. You can find the trinity, the second coming, the promise of eternal life, ethical instructions about how to live in peace and holiness as a community, and a description of the end times. Our imaginary convert would, in fact, have a pretty good understanding of Christianity from 1 Thessalonians alone!
There isn’t much in there about Jesus, however. The gospels, written later, reveal just how much was remembered about Jesus, his life, and his teachings: quite a lot, in fact. But for Paul, little of that was important enough to include in his letters. Paul seems to have wanted to stick to the bare bones – Jesus was God’s Son who died for all of us so that we might have eternal life. Jesus was raised from the dead by God, and he will return to us from Heaven. In the meantime, God has called us to live according to his will. What more do you need to know?

The forecast calls for not one stone left standing upon another…

#64: “The forecast calls for not one stone left standing upon another…” by Brendon Wahlberg
“As he came near and saw the city [Jerusalem], he wept over it, saying, […] ‘Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’” (Luke 19:41-44)
“When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’ […] ‘When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it; for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people; they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” (Luke 21:5-24)
Did Jesus really predict the destruction of the second Jewish Temple? This is an easy question for the faithful to answer. It says he did, in these passages from the Gospel of Luke, and in similar passages in Mark 13 and Matthew 24. Therefore it must be true. A more skeptical scholar might hesitate to answer so readily. There are places in the Bible where prophets seem to predict the future. It is possible that in some cases, what seems to be a prediction was written after the event in question. In other words, if the Gospel of Luke says Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple, then maybe the Gospel was really written after the Temple was destroyed. The author knew what had already happened, reasoned that Jesus must have predicted such a major event, and put the words into Jesus’ mouth.
How do we decide what we think is the truth? Well, there are at least two ways we can look at this. First, we can use our knowledge of history to see how accurate the predictions themselves were. Second, if the predictions were accurate, we can use our knowledge of the New Testament books to look for clues about when they were really written down; either before or after the destruction of the Temple.
What did Jesus say would happen? He said that an enemy army would surround Jerusalem and conquer it. Many people would die, and many would be captured and taken away. Women and their infants and children would not be spared. As for the Temple, it would be torn down stone by stone. The city would be in the hands of the Gentiles for a long time. These were heartbreaking and catastrophic predictions. Jesus himself wept over them. Yet, how accurate did they turn out to be? Very accurate, sadly. In 70CE, about forty years after Jesus spoke, the Romans attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.
How did these events come to pass? Actually, we know what happened in great detail, thanks to the Jewish historian Josephus. He lived though the events, and wrote them down in his book, The Jewish War, about five years after the destruction of the Temple. Each of the things Jesus predicted may be found in the writings of Josephus. The historian tells us that the Jewish nation revolted against Roman rule, beginning a four year war that ended when the Roman General Titus arrived at Jerusalem with four legions of soldiers. Just as Jesus had said, the Romans surrounded the city, and considered what to do, whether to attack the defensive walls or besiege the city and starve the Jews. Titus decided to strip the land of trees for miles around, and build a wooden wall of his own around the entire city, to prevent any of the Jews from escaping. Jesus had said, your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side.
The effect of the siege was devastating. Inside the city, there was a famine. Entire families began to die, and desperate people turned on each other within the walls. But the Zealot rebels refused to surrender. Josephus blamed the rebels for the suffering that followed; he was ultimately captured, surrendering to the Romans and joining them. Josephus felt that the entire city should have surrendered. How bad did it get in Jerusalem? The following horrible story is recorded in The Jewish War.
A wealthy woman named Mary fled to Jerusalem during the war, and was caught in the city during the siege. What little food she had brought was soon stolen by the guards, and it became impossible to find any more food. Driven mad by hunger, she took her infant son, who was still breastfeeding, and said in despair that there was nothing to preserve him for in a world of war, famine, and rebellion. If they did not die of hunger, they would be killed by the violent Zealots within the city, or enslaved by the Romans. She killed her son, roasted him, and ate one half of him. Then she hid the rest of him until some Zealots, smelling her cooking, threatened to kill her unless she gave them the food she had hidden. When she uncovered her son’s remains, even the Zealots were amazed and horrified, and left her with her prize. The story spread around the city, bringing more despair. Jesus had said, Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days!
Meanwhile, General Titus’ legions built earthwork ramps and eventually gained entry into the city. In the fighting, they took the fortress of Antonia and moved on to the Temple. The Temple was made of white stone, and plated with gold. Battering rams could not penetrate its walls, but there were wooden gates which the soldiers burned. Titus wanted to preserve the huge, beautiful building, but the fires spread out of control, and the Temple burned. The Jews watched in horror. When the fighting was over, Titus walked into the Holy of Holies, the small room that once housed the Ark of the Covenant. To his disappointment, he found only an empty room. When the Temple burned, the gold plating that decorated it, and the gold and silver treasures within, had melted and run in between the cracks in the great stones. Roman soldiers, greedy for this wealth, pried the stones apart and knocked them down to get the precious metals. Titus then ordered the Temple and the whole city to be razed to the ground. Jesus had said, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.
Many people had died during the siege, and of the survivors, the aged and the infirm were killed outright. Some of the tall and beautiful survivors were saved for parading in a triumphal march to Rome. As for the rest, those younger than seventeen were sold as slaves all over the Empire. Those older than seventeen were sent to work in Egyptian mines. Jesus had said, they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations. As for Jerusalem, the city was torn down, including its walls. The Judeans were foolish enough to revolt against Rome again in 132 CE, under their would-be military messiah Bar-Kochba. After that revolt failed, the site where Jerusalem once stood became the location for a newly built Roman city. Jesus had said, and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Apparently, that time lasted until the modern age, up until the founding of the modern state of Israel.
So now we can clearly see that Jesus’ predictions were remarkably accurate…so accurate that we might wonder if they were written down after the fact, as I explained above. So now we have to examine the issue of when they were written down. Was the Gospel of Luke written before or after 70CE, when the Temple was destroyed? Although scholars cannot be sure, there are several clues that suggest it was before 70CE. Luke’s gospel was actually a two-part work along with the Book of Acts. Luke was written first, then the sequel, Acts. Acts is mostly about the Apostle Paul, but the book concludes with Paul still alive. Paul died as a martyr in 64 or 65 CE, beheaded by the Romans. If Acts was written after 65, it is very unlikely that Luke would have omitted the story of the death of Paul (or the death of Peter in 67CE, for that matter).
Other things that Acts omits are descriptions of the terrible persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Nero in 64CE, and the murder of James the brother of Jesus in 62CE. Therefore, the Gospel of Luke was probably written just before 62CE, and thus also before 70CE – in other words, before the Temple was destroyed. Jesus’ predictions about the Temple also appear in Mark. Most scholars think Mark was written before Luke in any case. I do not know if this reasoning is airtight, and certainly many scholars disagree with such an early date. This is based on the view that predictive prophecy is impossible. But let us look at the question from another angle. If Luke was writing about the destruction of the Temple after it happened, then why would he only have included the prediction of the destruction? Wouldn’t he also have been sure to write about how Jesus’ prediction came true, as more proof of Jesus’ divinity?
Before we leave this topic, it may be worth looking at one other aspect of it. Jesus made his predictions privately to his disciples. He did not shout a warning to the whole people from a hilltop. That may lead us to question whether it was fair to warn only a few people about something so catastrophic. Perhaps the spreading of the gospels with the predictions in them, a few years before the tragedy, counts as a warning. However, Josephus does record several other signs and warnings that were given, suggesting that God does not destroy without warning. A comet resembling a sword stood over the city for a year. Before the rebellion, on one Passover, a great light shone around the Temple at night, a heifer gave birth to a lamb, a huge brass Temple gate opened all by itself, and a vision of soldiers surrounding cities appeared in the clouds. Four years before the war began, a prophet named Jesus, son of Ananus, walked around Jerusalem day and night, crying out, ‘A voice against Jerusalem and the Holy House and a voice against this whole people! Woe, woe to Jerusalem!’ He was whipped and dismissed as a madman, but he continued his efforts for seven or eight years, until he finally saw happen the doom he had foretold. He was struck and killed by a stone from a Roman siege engine. Josephus’ main point was that God warns us in order to save us from the miseries which we bring upon ourselves. But the people saw some of these signs as good omens, and ignored the rest.
And so, what do you think about our main question? Having looked at all of this carefully, I say that there seems to be enough evidence for us to conclude that Jesus did probably predict the destruction of the Temple, a remarkable prophecy that was full of tragedy, yet very suggestive of Jesus’ divine nature. We can only hope that we ourselves would heed such warnings if we were given them.

What Did Gnostics Believe In?

#63: “What did Gnostics Believe In?” by Brendon Wahlberg
You hear about the ancient Christian Gnostics every once in a while. For example, you might have read that there is a “Gospel of Thomas” that contains secret sayings of Jesus not found in the canonical gospels, and that this gospel was written by Gnostic Christians. Or, you might have seen a news report about the newly published “Gospel of Judas”, which was also written by Gnostics, and which contains the secret revelation that Judas was a hero who helped Jesus shed his unwanted body. Or, you might have seen or read “The DaVinci Code”, and heard one character (misleadingly) say that there were once many competing Gospels, written by such figures as Philip or Mary Magdalene. You may have learned that these books were also written by Gnostics, and that some claim to contain information kept secret from Jesus’ disciples. “Gnostics” were named for being “knowers” (from the Greek word gnosis, knowledge) of this sort of secret religious information.
If these books ever made you curious enough to actually read one or two of them, you probably experienced a rather rude surprise. Knowing that the Bible is basically readable by the average person, you may have picked up a Gnostic text expecting it to be readable also. Then you found the book to be incomprehensible, a confusing and rambling tract full of alien terms, names, and concepts. How could this be? Aren’t these the writings of a type of early Christians? How can they make so little sense to Christians today?
The reason we can pick up the Bible and understand it is that we have the cultural and religious background and education we need in order to make sense of it. If you knew absolutely nothing about the Bible, if you had never heard of God, Israel, or Jesus, then the Bible would seem like quite a bewildering story. In the same way, the average Bible reader just doesn’t have the background to understand the writings of the Gnostics. Gnostics had their own cosmology, their own view of reality, their own creation story, their own divine figures, and their own vocabulary. They claimed to have secret knowledge that, if you knew it, would free you from this corrupt world and bring you to eternal life. Now think about it: if your group has such valuable secret knowledge, it actually makes sense to have your writings be cryptic and hard to understand. That way, you keep outsiders from readily learning your secrets, and you make insiders have to work to understand the secrets; in working hard to grasp them, the insiders will value the secrets more highly.
In short, to understand anything the Gnostics wrote, you need to have a basic sense of what they believed in. And so the topic this month is a brief summary of Gnostic beliefs. Gnostics 101, if you will. This can serve two purposes. First, if you ever want to try to read some of those Gnostic gospels, this information will help you to make sense of them. They were apparently written with the assumption that the reader already understood the belief system, taking it for granted that the reader already knows about such things as “Barbelo”, “aeons”, “Sophia Pistis”, “Yaldabaoth”, and “demiurge”. Well, once you learn these terms, you too can follow what the Gnostic writers are trying to say (maybe!). Even if you have no such interest, the second purpose of this primer can be to show what a bizarre set of beliefs the Gnostics had, and how alienated from the world they must have felt. You have to admit, they were strange; perhaps today, only the beliefs of the Scientologists can come close to what the Gnostics were once all about.
First, though, we need a little background. For a long time, no one really knew for sure what the Gnostics believed. We didn’t have anything written in their own words, and they had long ago vanished as a religious group, stamped out as heretics by the growing Orthodox Church. In fact, all we knew about them came from the writings of their heresy-hunting enemies in the church, men like Irenaeus who wrote about Gnostic beliefs only in order to ridicule them and denounce them. Imagine for a moment that there were no more copies of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) in the world because long ago, the alternate universe Muslims had stamped out Judaism and Christianity as heresy. All we had were a few writings of scholars trying to prove that these older religions were twisted nonsense. We would only have a biased, fragmentary, and warped view of what those lost groups once believed. And so it was with the Gnostics, until one day in Egypt, in 1945, a cache of fifty-two actual Gnostic writings was found. Known as the Nag Hammadi Library, this buried collection dates back to around 400CE, and contains copies of books written in the second century. It opened our eyes to the actual beliefs of the Gnostics.
Gnostics didn’t all believe in the same myths. There were different groups of Gnostics, who followed different founding leaders, such as Valentinus or Basilides, or who revered different teacher figures, such as Seth or Cain, the sons of Adam, or Thomas the disciple. These groups all had their own writings and followers, and the smaller details of their beliefs were sometimes different. But it is still possible to describe a general Gnostic world view, just as we can describe a general Christian theology today, even though there are many branches of Christianity.
For Gnostics, there was a time and a place before the universe of matter was created. The immortal realm, called the Pleroma, was home to divine figures, including a mother goddess named Barbelo, a father god called the Great One, or the great invisible spirit, and their offspring, Autogenes the Self-Generated. Autogenes populated the realm with other beings called aeons. These aeons paired up and generated other beings. The Pleroma was full of light and wisdom. The creation of our own universe, however, was a cosmic disaster. One of the aeons, named Sophia Pistis, who was supposed to be wisdom itself, did an unwise thing. She wanted to create an offspring on her own, without a partner and without permission of the Great One. The result was a misshapen, deficient, imperfect creature, who came into being outside the Pleroma, and who did not even know about the immortal realm at all. This inferior being, known as a demiurge, was named Yaldabaoth. He stole a part of his mother, a part of her power or substance, leaving her incomplete and outside the Pleroma. Then the demiurge went on to create our universe. He took the stolen part of Sophia and imprisoned it as sparks within living beings in his newly created world.
So ignorant and arrogant was this demiurge that he thought he was the most powerful god in existence. He created beings called Archons and Angels, and also humans, and told them he was the only god. By now you realize what the Christian Gnostics were driving at with this story. They were saying that the God of the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh, was really this demiurge. Because Yaldabaoth was corrupt, so was the entire universe he created. All matter was evil, in fact. The universe was full of pain and suffering because of who made it. Really, the only good and pure things in the entire universe were the remaining sparks of Sophia, which were trapped inside some people (but not all people).
The goal of salvation, then, is to allow those sparks to escape the material world, to reunite them, and to return them to the divine realm. That can only happen if select people learn the truth that they have a spark of Sophia inside them. People have to learn the truth about who they are, where they came from, and how to return to where they belong. This truth is the secret knowledge of the Gnostics. And it cannot be learned from the world around us, for that world is inferior and corrupt. No, the truth can only come from the realm of truth. For people to learn the truth, a divine being from the Pleroma must come down and tell it to us. Gnostic Christians believed that the one who did that was Jesus, and that Jesus was really Autogenes the Self-Generated.
At this point, it is important to realize that there were Gnostics who were not Christian at all. Some Gnostic writings have nothing Christian in them. They may have Gnostic ideas like aeons in them, but they do not mention Jesus at all. What does this mean? Well, modern scholars still argue over the origins of the Christian Gnostics. Did they arise within Christianity as a splinter group of Christians who started to believe something very different from the apostolic tradition? Or, were they basically pagan philosophers from outside Christianity who encountered Christianity and adopted Jesus as the knowledge-giving savior they were looking for? There is a strong case to be made for the second view. Some Gnostics adopted Jesus as their savior who gave the secret information they needed. They fit him into their cosmology as the one who could release them from the evil world of matter. And some Gnostics had no need for Jesus.
But adapting the Jesus of existing Christian tradition to a role as a Gnostic savior was problematic. To come down to earth, an aeon had to exist in an evil material body. Why would any aeon do that when the whole idea was to escape the material world? Gnostics had two solutions. Some thought that Jesus’ body was an illusion, and that he was only here as a spirit who looked human. And some thought that he did take on a body long enough to teach the necessary secret knowledge, but that he then shed his body to return to the Pleroma. In the “Gospel of Judas”, Judas helps Jesus to do just that.
Gnostic Christians must have felt that they were special, because only a select few people had a divine spark, and only they could receive this truth. But they also must have felt profoundly separate from the world. They were ascetic in their lifestyle, abstaining from sex, wine, and fine food. Trying to escape the body meant not giving in to its desires. They probably kept to themselves, but it was inevitable that they came under attack anyway, for the effect they had on some mainstream Christians. Gnostics could not be allowed to lure people to their side. They really earned their label of heretics. They rejected God and his creation, denied that Jesus was a real human being, and claimed that it was secret information, not faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, that brought salvation.

Chapter and Verse, for better or worse

#62: “Chapter and Verse, for better or worse” by Brendon Wahlberg
You read the billboard as you speed past it on the highway. The words “John 3:16” are printed on it in enormous letters. It is a very brief, somewhat mysterious message, but of course you know what it means. It is an abbreviation that designates a Bible passage, from the gospel of John, Chapter 3, verse 16. If you didn’t know what that passage was, you could quickly find it by using the chapter and verse numbers. These numbers seem to us to be as much a part of the Bible as the words themselves. They are a convenience that we take for granted, allowing us to find any passage with ease. However, our current chapters and verses are a relatively recent invention. The Bibles of the ancient world did not have them. How, then, did we get our modern Bible chapter and verse numbers? Who added them, and why? And are they entirely a blessing to have?
To make a long story short, the chapter divisions that we use today were added by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, who lived between 1150 and 1228 CE. The verse numbers that we use today were added by a French printer, Robert Estienne, who lived between 1503 and 1559 CE. I’ll have more to say about them in a moment, but first we should look at how the Bible was divided before either of those men came along.
The first section of the Bible to really come together as a large unit was the first five books, the Torah. The Jews of antiquity had a basic need to divide the Torah into sections. Why? Because they had the custom of reading one section a week, out loud on the Sabbath. The 54 sections were planned out so that it would take one year to get through them all. (And an earlier system used 154 sections and took three years to complete.) Divisions in books of the Hebrew Bible appeared on paper as blank spaces or single Hebrew letters, inserted between sections. It was a start, but it was not as convenient as the modern system of having chapters.
Similarly, if you look at an ancient New Testament, you might well find it difficult to find the passage you wanted. The text was written in large letters with no spaces between them, and hardly any punctuation. And of course, no chapter and verse numbers. It looked like something analogous to this (except that it was in Greek):
ANDJUSTASMOSESLIFTEDUPTHESERPENTINTHEWILDERNESSSOMUSTTHESONOFMANBELIFTEDUPTHATWHOEVERBELIEVESINHIMMAYHAVEETERNALLIFEFORGODSOLOVEDTHEWORLDTHATHEGAVEHISONLYSONSOTHATEVERYONEWHOBELIEVESINHIMMAYNOTPERISH
Picture the entire gospel written like this. Now picture trying to find that passage about being born again, which you perhaps wanted to read. Wouldn’t you like some chapter numbers to help you? But no, the Bible was without them for about a millennium.
Enter Archbishop Langton, who is credited with giving us our modern chapter numbers. He was a great church writer, who composed many sermons and treatises. In 1227, a year before he died, he divided the Bible into chapters. In 1244, Langton’s contemporary, Cardinal Hugo, came up with his own chapter system. Hugo’s reason was that he was writing a concordance with his students, and he wanted a fast, easy way to quickly find any particular word in the Bible. But it ended up being the particular chapter numbering of Langton that we use today. However, there were still no modern verse numbers, and there would not be any for about another three hundred years.
Enter Robert Estienne, also known as Robert Stephens. He was a scholar and a famous printer who worked in Paris. A former Catholic, he became a Protestant and printed the entire Bible several times. In 1551, he printed the first Bible that contained the verse numbers which we use today. Legend has it that Estienne jotted down the verse numbers of the Bible while on horseback, on a trip from Paris to Lyons. This story is not taken seriously by historians, who say that he probably wrote down the verses while resting at inns along the road. But if you look at how haphazardly the verse numbers interrupt sentences, you can almost believe that they were placed by a man who was jouncing along on a horse.
And so, thanks to Langton and Estienne, whenever we open a Bible, we can use those convenient chapter and verse numbers to find our place. A scholar can simply refer to, say, Matthew 2:1 as he is writing, in a simple and efficient manner. Nowadays, we say that someone who is familiar with the Bible can quote it, “chapter and verse”. And that huge billboard can simply say on it, John 3:16. But are chapters and verses, as we have them, entirely a good thing? It turns out that the system has some flaws, to be sure.
You have to wonder what rationale was used by either Langton or Estienne when they decided exactly where to place a particular chapter or verse number. It would make sense to put the end of a chapter at a place where there is a natural break in the story, right? And to start a new chapter where a new part of the story begins. But Langton was not very concerned with that. Look at the first two chapters of Genesis. The first chapter ends before the first creation story is quite finished. Chapter 2, verses 1-3, has the conclusion of that story. The second creation account begins with Chapter 2, verse 4. There are many places where the end of a chapter is not the end of a story. But we have had this chapter numbering system for so long now, that we are kind of stuck with it. To help with the problem, some Bibles insert brief headings where a new story section begins, describing the contents of that section, regardless of where any chapter might begin or end.
Likewise, Estienne’s verses seem kind of random as to where they were inserted. Here is a brief passage with the verse numbers kept in it: “13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali…” (Matthew 4:13-15) You can see that the verse numbers often fall smack in the middle of a sentence, interrupting it, sometimes more than once.
It can get kind of ridiculous. Here is a passage with the shortest verse in the New Testament, made up of only 12 letters in Greek, in Luke 20:30: “27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.” It was not as if the verses had to be short or anything. Look at Esther 8:9. That single verse is 84 words long in the NRSV translation!
The main problem with the illogical placement of chapter and verse numbers is what it does to readers. These numbers encourage a reader to start or stop reading in an arbitrary place, so that the reader doesn’t get the whole story. This allows many people to take verses out of context, to ignore the surrounding words, and to fail to understand the real meaning of a passage as it fits within the larger book. For a thousand and a half years or so, the Bible had no verse numbers. The verse divisions were made by a Frenchman, not dictated by God. They are not Holy Scripture, in other words.
When you read the Bible, try not to cherry pick verses out of context. Remember that when the words were written, they were not meant to be divided up into those verses in the first place. Always read more than just one small passage. Consider the book as a whole, and discern stories within it regardless of chapter numbers. Read what comes before and what comes after your passage. Use a study Bible and read the annotations that show you how your passage connects to other passages in other books of the Bible. Only then can you begin to really understand what you are reading in the Holy Bible.