8 – Context

‘My Lord! Relieve my mind, and make my task easy for me, and untie my tongue, that they may understand what I say.’ (Qur’an 20:25-28)

‘You have not,’ it may be objected, ‘given us the context of all these sayings. You have only quoted very short passages of scripture. You are deliberately omitting key portions of the Gospel message in order to mislead people.’

This is another common reaction from Christians to the points I have raised here.

In fact, it may be the most common justification for turning away from the approach discussed in this book. The argument is that one Gospel verse is simply not complete without connection to, or comparison with, another Gospel verse.

It is extremely important for us to understand, then, that this argument arises from a deeply flawed understanding of the way the Gospels were written.

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The best (non-Muslim!) Biblical scholars in the world now agree: Before there was a story of Jesus, there were Gospels.

The best (non-Muslim!) Biblical scholars in the world now agree that the individual Gospel sayings I am citing here must stand, and be interpreted, independently.

The original sayings of Jesus were not ‘hard-wired’ to other verses, as we may have been taught, and they are certainly not ‘hard-wired’ to the later writings of the Apostle Paul.

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It is not necessary for you to take my word on the matter to resolve this extremely important issue for yourself.

We are talking about a central finding of modern New Testament research. We are talking about a finding that is quite clear for anyone willing to take a moment appeal to the scholarship … and not even recent scholarship, but the scholarship of six or seven decades ago. We are talking, at this point, not about whether Islam agrees with Christianity, but about the objective facts of contemporary textual analysis of the Gospels.

Here is the proof.

• ‘It is one of the points made by recent criticism that the characteristic method of Gospel compilation was just this artless collocation of originally independent units, and that the more effort after continuity there is, the more advanced is the stage of development from the original tradition.’—’A New Gospel,’ C.H. Dodd, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library (1936), reprinted in New Testament Studies, (Scribners, New York, 1956), p. 12-52.

The more comprehensible the narrative is—the further removed the Gospel passage in question is from the original tradition, from the ‘originally independent’ units. The more artful the narrative is, the less authentic a given account is likely to be.

So if someone insists that we must ‘interpret’ (for instance) Jesus’ description of the requirements of salvation in Matthew 5:25-26 by first reminding ourselves that such a verse cannot be ‘understood properly’ without recourse to some other Gospel verse or story …

… that person is—from the viewpoint of modern scholarship—simply mistaken.

Actually, we must begin by asking ourselves what such a passage means when viewed as a single unit. We cannot assume that it was originally composed as part of some larger narrative whole. It was not.

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To make this point in public is to be considered, in some quarters, a ‘bad Christian’.

Yet is it really ‘good Christianity’ to ignore the painstaking Biblical scholarship of the past century? Surely one does not become a ‘better’ Christian by obediently closing one’s eyes to facts when ordered to do so.

We now know that we draw closer to the historical Jesus when we evaluate ancient Gospel sayings independently, without the benefit of narrative continuity … because that is how they were originally collected. Rather than pretend this important fact does not exist, we must use this fact to gain a greater understanding of the original Gospel message.

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Whether it is popular for us to say so or not, whether our priest or pastor wants to admit it in front of the congregation or not, whether raising the fact is convenient to our loved ones or not, the very first Gospels were collections of Jesus’ sayings. They were not stories.

These early Gospels largely avoided storytelling. They simply reported what Jesus said at various points during his ministry. Early believers remembered individual sayings of or brief exchanges with Jesus, and shared them with each other in conversation, then memorized them. This oral tradition eventually became a written tradition.

As thoughtful Christians, we should, of course, be interested in what Jesus actually said. I hope you will agree that if someone claims to be a Christian, but is not interested in what Jesus said, that is a very strange variety of Christianity indeed!

And so we should be interested in determining which sayings were in fact contained in those earliest Gospels.

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The creation of the later Gospels—including Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—was not, as we may have been taught, a matter of someone ‘starting from scratch’ or writing under the spontaneous ‘inspiration’ of God. Rather, these traditional Gospels came about through the careful drawing together and amplifying of various existing traditions. The individual sayings were gathered into discourses, and, eventually, surrounded by narrative material—by a story.

This means that, when we consider the authenticity of the various Gospel sayings in Q, the smallest possible unit of the text is often the most important. The ‘explanatory’ or ‘story’ material that may surround that small unit of text, when it shows up in the traditional Gospels we have today, is, by definition, somewhat suspicious. Why? Because all the narrative material within the Gospels is, by definition, of later origin than the brief sayings that were memorized and transmitted orally by the first believers.

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Even if it is difficult to do, we must learn to look past the ‘story’ of the Gospels, and focus intently on the individual sayings themselves, if we wish to understand Jesus’ actual mission.

We have, however, been taught by religious authorities for most of our lives to accept the narrative material that surrounds a Gospel saying as undisputable truth, or even as historical reality. If a certain passage says that Jesus said such and such in order to explain thus and so, then that (we have been taught) is how it must have taken place. But if God gave us the Gospels, as He did, He also gave us minds—and we should hold as self-evident that He wants us to use both of them.

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Once we look past the narratives, we may focus directly on what remains of the memorized versions of the early individual sayings of Jesus. Refusing to do this is not a sign of faith, but rather a sign of obedience, and the two are not identical.

Fortunately, the earliest versions of these sayings appear to have been preserved for us in Q. How accurately they have been preserved, we will never know. But they are there. And they are earlier than what surrounds them.

That is why I have only quoted very short Gospel passages in this book, and avoided cross-referencing them to other Gospel passages.

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At this point, I often hear the following: ‘What you say about the scholarship and the textual development of the Gospels seems interesting. But still somehow, I cannot escape the feeling that the texts in questions have been manhandled.’

And this is true. They do appear to have been manhandled. But it is not modern scholars who have been doing the manhandling.

To explain what I mean, I must give you some background information … and apologize in advance to you. I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity in my life to study the world’s religions fairly closely. Some historical patterns in the development of religious culture are impossible to ignore, and I am about to share a few of them with you now—but I want to say ahead of my time that it is not my intention to denigrate anyone’s faith or to attack any person’s conception of God. My intent is only to call attention to the simple facts of history, facts that may be confirmed by consulting any good encyclopedia or responsible textbook on comparative religion. If we study these facts, we may be able to come to some conclusions about how the real manhandling of the message of Jesus took place.

Consider that …

·        Many faith movements from before Christianity promoted the idea that the suffering and death of someone else makes salvation possible.

·        Long before Jesus, the god Attis, in Phrygia (contemporary Turkey) was regarded as the only begotten son of God and the savior of mankind. On March 24th of each year, he supposedly bled to death at the foot of a pine tree. His blood was believed to bring forth new life from the earth. Each spring, his worshippers celebrated his triumphant rising from the dead.

·        Long before Jesus, the god Abonis of Syria was regarded by his followers as having died to attain redemption for all mankind. Each spring, his worshippers celebrated his triumphant rising from the dead.

• Long before Jesus, followers of the Egyptian god Osiris celebrated, each spring, his triumphant rising from the dead. They also celebrated his birthday—on December 29th.

·        Long before Jesus, the Greek demigod Dionysius was regarded as the son of Zeus. His followers celebrated his triumphant rising from the dead at the spring equinox. His Roman incarnation, Bacchus, had a familiar birthday: December 25th.

·        Long before Jesus, followers of Mithra, the Persian sun-god, celebrated his birthday on December 25th. Their religious rituals included a Eucharistic supper at which believers participated in Mithra’s divine nature by means of a holy meal of bread and wine.

C.S. Lewis makes (understandably) brief reference to these traditions in Mere Christianity. He does so as part of a sweeping historical survey of human religious experience. Rather than offer his readers the specifics of these faith systems—specifics that I have just shared with you—Lewis tells us that these movements were precursor faiths to Christianity: rough drafts, if you will, of humanity’s eventual attempt to bring itself closer to the (as-yet-unborn) Jesus Christ.

This is either supreme intellectual laziness or deliberate deception. And Lewis’s was not a lazy mind.

So let us acknowledge the facts. The pagan constituencies played a major role not only in the development of the Gospels, but also in the later theological doctrines, rituals, and sensibilities of the Christian Church. These influences betrayed the original message of Jesus.

The influences of those pagan groups, fortunately, appear to be entirely absent from the early Gospel passages we find in Q. And that is why I pay such close attention to them, and to the rigorously monotheistic pattern of worship they outline—and why I believe you should, too.

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We have been looking at the ‘context’ supplied by human religious history before Jesus. Religious history after Jesus’ ministry, however, is just as revealing. This, too, is a source of ‘context’. Of particular importance is this fact:

The doctrine of the Trinity was formally imposed upon Christianity over three centuries after the birth of Jesus, by the Roman Emperor Constantine.

At the Council of Nicea in 325 came the first formal approval of the doctrine that God was ‘triune’ in nature, a move that paved the way for the ruthless persecution of those who rejected this doctrine. The Council was summoned by the Emperor, and not by any religious figure within the Christian community, a fact that sheds some insight on the political importance of this event.

Constantine did not invent the Trinity, but he had some distinctly earthbound reasons for backing the three-in-one formulation, chief among them unity in his kingdom. As one resource puts it:

‘As it exists today the doctrine (of the Trinity) developed over the centuries as a result of many controversies … These controversies were for most purposes settled at the Ecumenical Councils, whose creeds affirm the doctrine of the Trinity. Constantine the Great, (who called) the first council in 325 AD, arguably had political motives for settling the issue, rather than religious reasons.’

[Source: Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org)]

Those groups who dared to disagree with the emperor’s formulation were quickly labeled heretics and, eventually, exiled or eradicated.

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What kind of man was this Constantine, this ruler who played such a fateful role in the global development of Christianity? I am afraid the image he presents in history is not a particularly flattering one … if we are willing to look beyond the careful euphemisms of his traditional biographers.

Constantine was a genocidal tyrant who used violence on the large and small scale to pursue his (sometimes mysterious) objectives. He murdered his own son and wife for reasons no one has been able to piece together; he slaughtered literally thousands of political opponents; he was known to be an enthusiastic fire worshipper. And he was baptized as a Christian only on his deathbed. And yet, regardless of how deeply his own personal commitment to the faith went (or didn’t), this ruthless, pragmatic, and possibly sociopathic head of state was, after Christ himself and the Apostle Paul, probably the most influential man in the history of the faith.

This fact is worthy of close consideration by every follower of Jesus.

The case can be made, in fact, that Constantine outranks both Jesus and Paul in influence. It is Constantine’s Nicene formulation of the Trinity that has governed, in a determining way, most Christian theology for the past seventeen centuries. Many people today act as though this historical reality is as natural an outgrowth of the mission of Jesus as the rain falling and the grass growing. It is not.

Anyone who maintains that the Gospels themselves support Constantine’s brand of orthodoxy must confront an awkward question: How are we to account for the fact that no one preached the Nicene formulation before the time of Constantine?

No responsible historian of Christianity disputes the stark and enduring changes in Christian theology that took place in the centuries following Jesus.

These changes did not spring from thin air. Rather, they culminated in Constantine’s council. They carried distinct political benefits for the Emperor‘s regime. And they are simply impossible for a modern, thoughtful Christian to come to terms with without accepting at least the possibility of apostasy—that is, formal betrayal of the theology Jesus himself followed, the theology of total submission to the One Creator God.

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The remarkable thing is that so much of that original theology is still evident in the earliest Gospel verses. Look at the teachings we find in Q … and ask yourself how closely they match the ‘context’ of Constantine.

In Q, Jesus warns us to fear only the judgment of a single God:

‘And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.’ (Luke 12:4-5)

This is identical to the Islamic principle known as Taqwa. Compare:

‘To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. God’s retribution is severe. Should you then have fear of anyone other than God?’ (Qur’an 16:52)

In Q, Jesus warns humanity plainly that earthly advantages and pleasures should not be the goal of our lives:

‘But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.’ (Luke 6:24-5)

This is identical to Islam’s warning that we must not be fooled by the allures of Dunya, or earthly life. Compare:

‘The desire to have increase of worldly gains has preoccupied you so much (that you have neglected the obligation of remembering God)—until you come to your graves! You shall know. You shall certainly know (about the consequences of your deeds). You will certainly have the knowledge of your deeds beyond all doubt. You will be shown hell, and you will see it with your own eyes. Then, on that day, you shall be questioned about the bounties (of God).’ (Qur’an 102:1-8)

Perhaps just as revealing, Q teaches nothing whatsoever of the Crucifixion, or of the sacrificial nature of the mission of Jesus … an intriguing omission indeed!

And consider the following chilling words:

‘And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But those who believe they own the kingdom of heaven shall be cast out into the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (Matthew 8:11-12)

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There is context … and there is betrayal. Each of us must decide for ourselves which is which.

Those of us who are unwilling to accept the pagan remnants of Constantine as the permanent foundation of our religious faith may, as our detractors claim, not be ‘real Christians’.

Then again … one never knows. We may be.

The more I looked at the Q sayings, the more impossible it became for me to reconcile the notion of the Trinity with that which seemed most authentic to me in the Gospels. I found myself face-to-face with some very difficult questions:

·        Where in the Gospels did Jesus use the word ‘Trinity’?

·       If Jesus was God, as the doctrine of the Trinity claims, why did he worship God?

·   If Jesus was God, as the doctrine of the Trinity claims, to whom was he praying, and why?

The more I tried to ignore these questions, the more they haunted me.

In November of 2002, I began to read a translation of the Qur’an. I had never read an English translation of the entire text of the Qur’an before. I had only read summaries of the Qur’an written by non-Muslims. (And very misleading summaries at that.)

Words do not adequately describe the extraordinary effect that this book had on me. Suffice to say that the very same magnetism that had drawn me to the Gospels at the age of eleven was present in a new and deeply imperative form. This book was telling me, just as I could tell Jesus had been telling me, about matters of ultimate concern.

The Qur’an was offering authoritative guidance and compelling responses to the questions I had been asking for years about the Gospels.

The Qur’an drew me to its message because it powerfully and relentlessly confirmed the sayings of Jesus that I felt in my heart had to be authentic. I knew as a fact that something had been changed in the Gospels. I knew too that that something had been left intact in the text of the Qur’an.