Jesus (65 page)

A great deal of insight came to me during a two-week pilgrimage to the Holy Land, taken for the purpose of deepening my knowledge of the life and times of Jesus. So I would like to thank my friend George Williams, SJ, who never flagged in the broiling heat while we walked along the shores of the Sea of Galilee looking for the elusive Bay of Parables or breathlessly trekked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Thanks to David Neuhaus, SJ, the Latin Patriarchal Vicar in Jerusalem, for his initial advice and later welcome in Jerusalem; to Joseph Doan Công Nguyên, SJ, and Antony Sinnamuthu, SJ, of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, for our comfortable home base for those days of pilgrimage; to Sister M. Télesfora Pavlou, CIM, and the Franciscan Sisters at the Mount Beatitudes hostel on the Sea of Galilee, which offered us a place to rest on the very spot of the Sermon on the Mount. Thanks also to Matthew Monnig, SJ, William Bergen, SJ, Thomas Fitzpatrick, SJ, Brendan Lally, SJ, Donald Moore, SJ, Jeremy Harrington, OFM, Garret Edmunds, OFM, Anthony Habash, and Rateb Rabie for their advice on the holy sites, and especially to Drew Christiansen, SJ, for encouraging me to make this pilgrimage.

As for the writing of the book, I am grateful to Roger Freet, my editor at HarperOne, for his encouragement, support, and good cheer; to Donald Cutler, my terrific literary agent; to Julie Baker and Kelly Hughes, my indefatigable publicists; to Suzanne Quist, Ann Moru, and Noël Chrisman for helping to get the final manuscript in shape; and to Matt Malone, SJ, the editor in chief at
America
magazine, for his support and enthusiasm. Thanks to Joseph McAuley, assistant editor at
America
, for his amazing, cheerful, and tireless help inputting all of my many edits and helping me check all of my Scripture citations. I could not have finished this book (on time or otherwise) without him. Thanks to an extraordinary copy editor who wishes to remain anonymous—a truly humble friend. Heidi Hill remains the world's greatest fact-checker, and she saved me from several howlers. And thanks to David Quigley for helping with the initial bibliography.

Most of all I want to thank the one whose book this is: Jesus.

N
OTES

Introduction:
Who Is Jesus?

1
. Mk 8:27–30. I will cite New Testament passages in the standard way—book, chapter, and verse—with the standard abbreviations. So: Mt (Matthew), Mk (Mark), Lk (Luke), and Jn (John). Thus, Mk 8:27–30, where this story appears, is the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, verses 27 to 30. Except for a few instances, I'll use the New Revised Standard Version (
NRSV
) translation, because it most accurately reflects the original Greek texts. Also, I'll list New Testament citations when quotes are taken from passages that are not the main focus of the individual chapters. For an explanation of the Greek transliterations, see chapter 2, note 9.

2
. Technically, “Palestine” was a Roman term. Jesus likely would have spoken instead of “Galilee,” “Judea,” and “Samaria.” I will use the term “first-century Palestine” because it's the most common way of referring to Jesus's homeland in the first century.

3
. Mk 7:24–30; Mt 15:21–28.

4
. Levine and Brettler, eds.,
Jewish Annotated New Testament
, 75.

5
. Mk 2:12.

6
. Mt 8:23–27.

7
. Mt 12:9–14; Mk 3:1–6; Lk 6:6–11.

8
. Sanders,
Historical Figure of Jesus
, 7.

9
. Mt 25:14–30.

10
. Jn 11:1–44.

11
. Lk 2:52: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” The other Gospels are silent about this crucial period in Jesus's life.

12
. Jn 5:1–9.

13
. Mt 13:1–9; Mk 4:1–9; Lk 8:4–8.

Chapter One:
Pilgrims

1
. Murphy-O'Connor died in 2013, as this book was being completed.

2
. The prestigious school is, technically, the École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem.

3
. Ps 121–22. Also, in Mt 20:18 Jesus speaks of “going up” to the city.

4
. Lk 9:3.

Chapter Two:
Yes

1
. Mt 8:28–34; Mk 5:1–20; Lk 8:26–39.

2
. Lk 7:11–17.

3
. Pixner,
With Jesus Through Galilee
, 15.

4
. Jn 1:46.

5
. Pixner,
With Jesus Through Galilee
, 14–17.

6
. Lk 1:18, 24.

7
. For an estimate of Mary's age at betrothal, Amy-Jill Levine, co-editor of
The Jewish Annotated New Testament
, pointed me to the Babylonian Talmud, which mentions a woman's age at marriage.

8
. Levine and Brettler, eds.,
Jewish Annotated New Testament
, 4. Betrothal was formalized with a marriage contract (Hebrew:
ketubah
).

9
. For transliteration of the Greek, I'll use the standard letters, with a “long mark,” or macron, to indicate the
eta
(ē) and
omega
(ō);
eta
is pronounced like a “long
a
” in English (as in the word “bay”) and
omega
a “long
o
” (“doe”). Also, for any ancient Greek scholars reading, I won't use the
iota
subscript; omitting it is the convention for New Testament transliteration according to the Society of Biblical Literature. As we move through the book, you'll be able to sound out the transliterated words, even if you've never studied Greek. So,
the angel's greeting to Mary, is transliterated as
Chaire, kecharitōmenē
and is pronounced more or less as
Kie-reh kay-kar-eh-toh-men-ay
.

10
. Zerwick,
Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament
, 171.

11
. Meier,
Marginal Jew
, 1:205–8.

12
. Lk 8:28.

13
. Some scholars suggest this difference between Zechariah and Mary: Zechariah asks for understanding, while Mary is simply wondering how her pregnancy will happen. Or perhaps as an elder and a priest educated in the faith, Zechariah was expected to demonstrate more faith.

14
. This process is elaborated in Meier's book
A Marginal Jew
, 1:41–48. The idea of the multistage development of the Gospels is supported by nearly all New Testament scholars.

15
. Other ancillary figures, like Simon of Cyrene, who helped to carry Jesus's cross, could have also provided eyewitness accounts.

16
. Wright,
Jesus and the Victory of God
, 170.

17
. Harrington,
Jesus
, 7. Traditionally, Mark was seen as relying heavily on Peter's testimony, Luke was associated with Paul, and John was associated with the “Beloved Disciple” mentioned in that Gospel.

18
. Jn 14:6.

19
. Fitzmyer,
Christological Catechism
, 8.

20
. Mt 9:9; Mk 2:14; Lk 5:27.

21
. Mt 13:18–23; Mk 4:13–20; Lk 8:11–15.

22
. Lk 6:20; Mt 5:3.

23
. Meier,
Marginal Jew
, 1:210.

24
. Fitzmyer,
Gospel According to Luke, I–IX
, 335.

25
. Lk 2:19.

26
. Mt 14:13–21; Mk 6:30–44; Lk 9: 10–17; Jn 6:1–14. Possibly there were
more
than five thousand—Matthew adds “besides women and children.”

Chapter Three:
Bethlehem

1
. Murphy-O'Connor,
Holy Land
, 477.

2
. Some sources say Luke may have gotten a fact wrong: the census is supposed to have occurred in
AD
6, but Quirinius began his governorship in
AD
7. Other scholars conclude that Luke is accurate. In his massive book
The Birth of the Messiah
, Raymond E. Brown, SS, includes an extensive discussion on the question (547–55) and casts doubt on the historicity of a Roman census at that time.

3
. According to Donahue and Harrington, “The term
prōtotokos
does not demand more than one child” (
Gospel of Luke
, 50).

4
. Herod had a record for murder, having slaughtered his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, his first wife, and two of his sons; and he was about to murder a third.

5
. Murphy-O'Connor,
Holy Land
, 230.

6
. Jn 6:35.

7
. Raymond Brown in
The Birth of the Messiah
offers a lengthy explanation of the significance of
kataluma
and the competing theories about where, precisely, Jesus was born (668–672). The word will appear again in Luke's Gospel near the close of Jesus's earthly life: the Last Supper takes place in a
kataluma
(22:11). Also, the use of the word
manger
reminds us that Jesus is destined to provide, and become, food.

8
. Johnson,
Gospel of Luke
, 50.

9
. Brown,
Birth of the Messiah
, 419.

10
. Von Speyr,
Book of All Saints
, 27.

11
. Mt 1:18–24.

12
. Gn 28:10–22.

13
. Gn 37:5–11; 40:1–23; 41:1–36.

14
. Von Speyr,
Book of All Saints
, 27.

15
. Luke's Gospel will later report a meeting between Mary and Joseph and a devout man named Simeon, who foretells Jesus's future and tells Mary, “a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:25–35).

16
. Mk 6:3.

Chapter Four:
Nazareth

1
. Murphy-O'Connor,
Holy Land
, 427.

2
. Lk 2:48–49.

3
. Some of the “apocryphal gospels,” that is, gospels not ultimately accepted by the universal church (and in general written later than the four canonical Gospels), include stories about Jesus's childhood and adolescence, as if to satisfy believers' natural curiosity about this time in his life. The
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
, for example, written in the second century
AD
, focuses specifically on Jesus's childhood.

4
. David Neuhaus, SJ, our Jesuit friend in Jerusalem, told me later that the walled-in property was once run by the Poor Clare sisters, but that a portion of the property had been given over to a community of a branch of the Little Brothers of Jesus and to a school for special-needs children.

5
. Reed,
HarperCollins Visual Guide to the New Testament
, 57.

6
. Reed,
HarperCollins Visual Guide to the New Testament
, 54.

7
. Crossan and Reed,
Excavating Jesus
, 66.

8
. Johnson,
Truly Our Sister
, 143.

9
. Mt 13:55–56.

10
. Crossan and Reed,
Excavating Jesus
, 54.

11
. Magness,
Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit
, 110.

12
. Magness,
Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit
, 130.

13
. Crossan and Reed,
Excavating Jesus
, 54.

14
. Johnson,
Truly Our Sister
, 141.

15
. Amy-Jill Levine, interview.

16
. Crossan and Reed,
Excavating Jesus
, 54.

17
. Johnson,
Truly Our Sister
, 145.

18
. There is a lively debate among scholars over how poor Jesus was. Meier argues for someone in the “lower middle class” (
Marginal Jew
, 1:282), but Johnson believes that, although his poverty may not have been, as Meier notes, the grinding, degrading poverty of the slave, it is misleading to compare him to a member of the “lower middle class.” “The analogy does not work,” says Johnson, “because there was no middle class. The family of [Mary and Jesus] lived on the economic underside of a two-sided system” (
Truly Our Sister
, 148). In
Excavating Jesus
, Crossan and Reed write simply, “Jesus was a Jewish peasant” (52).

19
. Crossan and Reed,
Excavating Jesus
, 69.

20
. John R. Donahue, SJ, a New Testament scholar, told me, “Galilee was as Jewish as other parts of Palestine, but it was not dominated by the Temple in Jerusalem.” Jonathan Reed suggests that the phrase “Galilee of the Gentiles” refers to a region inhabited by Jews, but encircled by Gentiles (
HarperCollins Visual Guide to the New Testament
, 64).

21
. Reed,
HarperCollins Visual Guide to the New Testament
, 55.

22
. Magness,
Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit
, 16–31, 77–84, 85–96, 145–80. Some of these customs were also designed simply to promote basic cleanliness and health.