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Companions and Competitors (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 3)

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Consistent with the overall quality of the Anchor Bible Series, the "Marginal Jew" series impresses with the depth, honesty, and objectivity of its scholarship. It may be that nobody is completely impartial when it comes to assessing the historical Jesus, but John Meier comes far closer than most, and he documents every opinion he offers. (If you're into footnotes, and I mean thousands of them,is this ever the series for you!)

I took on the challenge of this series when I read that Raymond E. Brown, the late great Catholic scholar and author, gave his highest marks to the first two volumes. Similar to Brown, Meier cooly and adeptly applies the tools of critical scholarship to his task of learning what we can of the historical Jesus. Fundamentalists will find his approach too liberal. Jesus Seminar types will find him too conservative. As a believing Christian who also wants to be intellectually honest in my faith, I think he's just right.

I've commented on the first two volumes of John P. Meier's series A MARGINAL JEW. This series is a centrist (or perhaps slightly left of center) work on the historical Jesus. While Meier denies or suspects the historicity of parts of the New Testament (such as the infancy narratives) he also thinks that the Gospel presentation of Jesus (a miracle worker who preached a present and future Kingdom of God) is accurate to a large extent.

Volume three is something of a disappointment. Meier discusses Jesus' followers (the crowds, disciples & apostles) and also Jesus' Jewish "competitors" (Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Essenes & Herodians). My concern centers on Meier's discussion of Jesus' competitors. It is evident from a casual reading of the NT that Jesus often came into dispute with the Jews of his day. As Meier notes, this is clear from an analysis of all the sources available. While Meier's discussion of these groups is interesting and informative, the issue of why Jesus disputed with them is not as detailed as one might expect. For example, the section entitled "Jesus and the Pharisees" is all of eight pages. Yet there are a great many statements of Jesus which are quite hostile to the Jews of his day that cry out for discussion. I realize that the at times shameful treatment of Jews by Western Christianity makes people reticent to discuss these issues, but I wonder if we are too accustomed to hearing about "Jesus the Jew" and "the Jewish roots of Christianity" to discusses these issues frankly. Meier promises that the fourth and final volume will tackle Jesus' view of the law, and I imagine that here Jesus' dispute with his contemporaries will figure prominently.

In this book Meier investigates Jesus' followers, disciples, and the other Jewish groups that Jesus interacted with. He wisely doesn't try to draw too many conclusions about Jesus' interaction with other Jewish groups because of the scarcity of sources. His treatment of Jesus' disciples is wonderfully done and brings insight into the nature of Jesus' disciples. I'm eagerly waiting the 4th book of the series.

I must say all of the books in this series are excellent. Meier looks at the evidence and reaches very logical conclusions. I want to also say that one has to be extremely impressed with the depth of scholarship and thought that Meier puts into all his "Marginal Jew" books. This one is no exception.

The 3rd volume keeps de methodological rigor of the first two. Accordingly, objective arguments and rational discussion are common place. The author has no problem when a question is not clear enough to emit a judgment of non liquet, not clear. Indeed, the book is not addressed to those seeking faith, but to those seeking historical rigour as much as possible.

Concerning the contents, in the first part Meier addresses Jesus followers in three concentric circles. The first one is the general populace that attended Jesus preaching. No special commitment was on their side, and they were equally supporters and enemies, poor's and riches, men and women, etc. The second strata were those committed to Jesus but without leaving their homes and livelihood. These were the ones offering home to rest to Jesus and their companions in their travels around Galilee (Mary and other women, the host in Jerusalem offering room for the last meal, for instance). These may had been rich people to offer such a huge infrastructure, because hosting Jesus and his wandering companions was not a cheaper thing to do: beds, food, water, clothes and other facilities were required (considering Jesus was totally unconcerned for material maintenance). Finally, the inner circle of followers were the disciples, being the 12 the closest ones. These were explicitly call and chosen by Jesus. According to the Gospels, also women were close disciples of Jesus, although not one of the 12. Certainly, no narrative relating the call of a women is depicted in the Gospels, but despite this narrative in the Gospels show women in the group, so they may be counted as disciples. On the other hand, is difficult to believe that any woman could join the group without the explicit or implicit agreement of Jesus. Still, this strange companion should cause an impact in Galilee: a single man wandering, who wanted the children to stay with him, with both single and married man, some of them living families and obligations behind, mixed with women without a concrete status; entering houses were they stayed the night together, or sleeping in the camps.

The second part is devoted to the competitors: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Qumran, Samaritans, Escribes, Herodions. I found specially interesting the chapters devoted to Pharisees, were a historical background is depicted. I had the impression they were a kind of satanic sect, but after reading the book I see them with a more objective and documented light. Also, the comparation with the Essenes and Qumran is very clever. Usually, authors stress similarities with Qumran and Jesus, but there also huge and insurmountable dissimilarities. To signal only one: Qumran was a sect with strict observation about who could be accepted, what he had to do to become a full member, what he had to do with his personal wealth... To say nothing of their eschatological expectations: they waited for a final combat between the sons of the light (themselves, obviously), and the sons of the night (the other ones). But Jesus never established and organized protocol to accept disciples: he just call them or left them join the company. Jesus never asked for sharing the money of the disciples, and did not distinguish between a full membership an another kind. Still, Jesus was a wandering prophet seeking to mix with sinners, not an illuminate seeking the fuga mundi, away form the world, in a monastery.

All in all, if you are looking for a documented account of Jesus human atmosphere without dogmatic or systematic deviations, you will feel like home.

Meier is one of the more famous of Catholic biblical scholars, and this is the third volume in his series entitled 'A Marginal Jew".

I found his reasoning that the 12 apostles were, partly, symbols of the regathering of the twelve tribes of Israel fascinating. Again and again throughout the Old Testament Yahweh promises to gather the scattered people of Israel, a promise that seems problematic at best, given how the lost tribes were forcibly intermarried to gentiles.

He mentions the current fad for hunting for new new sayings of Jesus in apocryphal literature. Then adds dryly, "in my opinion, they do not" (p 199) contain any new information.

As far as Peter's name change, he states, "Already in the first Christian generation Paul...refers to Peter regularly with the Aramaic 'Cephas'" (p 223), showing the name change happened early. Meier also notes that Peter "is always mentioned first in the four lists of the Twelve" (p 221).

Meier finds--along with many others who have read him--that Josephus was likely lying about being both a pious Essene and Pharisee. Meier also adds his voice to those other scholars who advise using caution about using rabbinic literature written after the destruction of the temple and reading those customs back into the Jewish people before 70 AD. Certainly the fact that "from the whole of ancient literature no individual Sadducee speaks to us in his own voice" (p 390) is a great tragedy for historians and biblical scholars.

Meier finds great contrast between the Essenes, who regarded the temple high priests as illegitimate and who were very concerned with using a different calendar than the priests did, with Jesus. Jesus accepted the present order and rebuked the Samaritan woman at the well for worshiping her five gods instead.

Again and again, in a variety of ways, Jesus indicated that the present order--the present covenant--would end, or be 'fulfilled'.

Some readers will find Meier leans a little to the left. What struck me as most likely to date his work is his constant references to Q, as if there were such a document, or as if scholars were in agreement that Q could be derived from what we have.

John P. Meier is a scholar among scholars who has done his homework and leaves no stone unturned. He is well versed and uses all the credible written sources available regarding the historical Jesus. He has established a strict criteria for determining the probability of what actually came from Jesus yet he is not arrogant in assuming that anything which doesn't match that criteria should be discarded. Meier's books are long and tedious but worth the effort. The labor of reading real scholarship will enable the reader to ignore the reams of sensational fluff churned out by new-age pulp mills which appeal to gullible thrill seeking conspiracy buffs.

Volume 3 is perhaps the best volume in the series because it explains how Jesus defined himself in relation to other Palestinian Jewish sects of his time. Meier places Jesus in the prophetic tradition of Israel. Jesus was an eschatological prophet who continued the message of his predecessor and mentor, John the Baptist. Jesus took the role of Elijah upon himself by preparing Israel for the coming of God. Much of what he did reflected the actions of Elijah who was expected to return at the end of time to prepare for the coming of the Lord. Jesus convened an inner circle of 12 disciples to demonstrate the gathering of the 12 tribes of Israel. Like Elijah, Jesus was a prophet who performed miracles.

Meier explains Jesus' relationships with other contemporaneous Jewish groups and puts to rest alot of myths. The Pharisees had the closest affinity to Jesus despite the animosity portrayed in the gospels. They shared common beliefs in an end-time messiah and the resurrection and appealed to the common people. They shared the same sphere of influence and naturally came into conflict. Meier suggests that much of this conflict may have been derived from the conflict between the Pharisees and the Jewish Christian Nazarenes wich were retroactively placed into the gospels. However Jesus' radical and unique interpretation of the law such as prohibition of divorce and oath taking and his rejection of fasting would not have endeared him with the more traditional Pharisees.

Jesus' chief nemesis were not the Pharisees but the Sadducees with whom he shared no common beliefs and who ultimately orchestrated his demise.

Meier dismisses any possibility that Jesus was affiliated with the Zealot movement which didn't exist as an organized entity until the Jewish War decades later. There was no major political turmoil in Palestine during Jesus' ministry which would be likely to spawn any such movement on a large scale. The fact that John the Baptist's and Jesus' disciples were not rounded up and put to death indicates that their movements were not deemed a serious political threat. Meier claims that the execution of John and Jesus were preventative measures due to their popularity. (I would add that it is unlikely the Jerusalem Church would have thrived and grown for some thirty years if it advocated violent resistance against Rome.) Meier dismisses the Jesus as Zealot idea to the realm of conspiracy theorists.

Meier puts to rest once and for all the tabloid sensationalism linking Jesus with Qumran. While they both shared intense eschatological expectations which led to radical ethics, Jesus reached out to all of Israel and there was nothing exclusive or sectarian about his ministry. Meier doesn't hold back any disdain for this nonsense..."The tabloid damaged minds that find these theories fascinating never seem to notice that if one of these theories were true it would invalidate all the other theories... For some, playing endlessly with bizarre theories is a satisfying end in itself...The theories of academics like Thiering and Eisenman are the stuff of puplp fiction and late-night talk shows."

Meier demonstrates that Jesus self-image was that of an eschatological miracle-working prophet wearing the mantle of Elijah. Unlike other Old Testament prophets, Jesus made demonstrations of his prophecies by performing miracles as signs of God's presence and the imminent coming of God's Kingdom.

A Marginal Jew, volume 3! Another 650 pages to digest in John Meier's fated-to-be standard treatment of the historical Jesus. Those familiar with volumes 1 and 2 know what to expect. Thorough discussion of the issues, lots of footnotes and conclusions which aren't too surprising or too shocking. Are we being cynical if we suggest that Meier is out to give the definitive defense of a broadly traditional Jesus? Whether we are or not that is what his "Marginal Jew" project is delivering.

But to volume 3 in particular. One immediate point is that his publishers have gone and messed up the colour scheme. Volumes 1 and 2 had the logos and the commissioned pictures all lined up and coordinated. Now the fonts change and some medieval picture is slapped on the front. This doesn't look good on the shelf guys!

We move inside and get the expected précis of what has gone before and the regurgitation of what Meier is up to: strictly historical scholarship. The book is supposed to cover Jesus' "companions and competitors". But I have issues. The most abiding of these is the what can only be polemical exclusion of any group that is non-Jewish. Now I'm all for a Jewish Jesus. I support Meier's understanding of Jesus as an eschatological figure in the Jewish prophetic tradition. But come on John! Your polemics against your opponents have gone to far! In your desire to present a Jewish Jesus you've now set him in a context which is not just Jewish but ONLY Jewish. Is that your "unbiased history"? Is your historical presentation meant to suggest that Jesus is a Jew among Jews and without any wider context, any wider "competitor" or "companion"? The interested reader can only read this volume as a deliberate rebuff to John Dominic Crossan's "Jewish Mediterranean Peasant".

That said, the book is once more thoroughly professional. Meier provides reams of material and is a reliable guide. I certainly recommend the book. No person interested in current historical Jesus scholarship can be without it and be credible. But I wonder if Meier himself is being credible. Its not so much what he writes about as what he doesn't. This is solid traditional scholarship. But is that good or bad?

The work of excellent biblical scholars like John P. Meier is fantastically impressive. But there is a serious question to be pondered. After four hundred years of biblical scholarship it is more than clear -- it is Loud and Clear -- that Christianity is fiction. The real Jesus and the Jesus of the Gospels and the Epistles are not the same. The Gospels are propaganda not history. But people still believe what the churches and clergy tell them. That makes the work of scholars from Richard Simon and Benedict Spinoza in the 17th Century to thst of John P. Meier in thke 21st Century WHAT???? Certainly not effective.

What is the point of it all?