Mistakes we might make in our word studies.

Yesterday I posted a piece about how to do a word study, and in it I largely emphasize how not to go to the dictionary first. ’Cause that’s how you do a word study wrong. Instead of drawing from the bible how its authors define a word, y’wind up overlaying the dictionary definition on top of the bible—whether it fits or not. (Or to use scholars’ words for it, y’wind up doing eisegesis instead of exegesis.)

When people overlay a definition upon the bible, they rarely looking at the context of the passage. (Yep, I’m gonna harp about context again. It’s important here too.) The few who do bother to look at context, often try to bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate the context as well till it fits their new definition.

Fr’instance. Years ago a fellow teacher was trying to teach his kids about planning for the future, for “where there is no vision, the people perish.” Pr 29.18 KJV Except he couldn’t find that verse in his NIV, because they translate חָזוֹן/khazón as “revelation.” See, khazón means revelatory vision, i.e. not just any vision, but something we get from God. Not our hopes and wishes for the future, but his. That’s why the second part of the verse—the part everybody forgets to quote—is “But he that keepeth the Law, happy is he.” Pr 29.18 KJV Context explains what “vision” means.

But my fellow teacher didn’t give a sloppy crap about what “vision” actually means. He just wanted to correct his kids who had no goals, and wanted to use the bible to help him smack ’em on the head. So he taught what he pleased. Context shmontext.

The same thing happens whenever Christians fixate on the dictionary in our word studies. We start with a word or concept we like; one which we already sorta know the definition of. We find a dictionary which gives us the definition we like. We dig out a bunch of verses and paste that definition over them, then try to interpret the scriptures by them, then marvel at all the new “revelation” we’re getting.

Hey, if Christians take the bible out of context in our regular, day-to-day bible reading, better than average chance we’re gonna take it out of context in our word studies. Such people don’t think context is important, and don’t care. But if we’re planning to live our lives based on these bible verses, context is always important. When Jesus said “Love your neighbor,” he proceeded to spell out in detail just who our neighbors are, lest we found a Webster’s Dictionary which suggests a neighbor is only someone we like. Lk 10.25-37 Such dictionaries aren’t all that hard to find. There are already plenty of mistakes in our minds; how many more will come out when we skip context?

White Jesus… and those who insist he stay that way.

This is the only physical description of Jesus in the bible.

Revelation 1.12-16 KWL

12 I turned round to see the voice speaking with me,

and in so doing I saw seven gold lampstands.

13 In the middle of the lampstands: One like the Son of Man,

clad in a full-length robe with a gold belt wrapped round his chest.

14 His head and hair: White, like white wool, like snow. His eyes like fiery flames.

15 His feet the same: White bronze, refined in a furnace. His voice: Like the sound of many waters.

16 He had seven stars in his right hand. From his mouth came a sharp, double-edged saber.

His face: Like the sun, shining in its power.

Since it’s in Revelation, a book which largely consists of apocalyptic visions, people don’t take it literally. I find this to be true of even the nutjobs who take everything literally in that book. A Jesus with bronze skin and white hair? Gotta be a representative vision. ’Cause Jesus, as everybody knows, is white.

Been white since medieval times—’cause that’s how artists painted him.
Warner Sallman’s 1941 painting Head of Christ, the one many an American Protestant church has on the wall somewhere. Wikipedia Arguably been white even longer than that: You know that picture of Jesus I use on the TXAB banner? Comes from Khristós Pantokrátor, one of the oldest ikons of Jesus we have, dating from the sixth century. Painted by Byzantine Greeks… so, no surprise, Jesus looks Greek. ’Cause when people try to produce an image of God, we have the bad habit of rendering him in our own image.

So that’s what we see in every European painting of Christ Jesus: He’s European. Artists wanted to identify with him, or make him more familiar-looking to local audiences, or portray him in church pageants without wearing brownface. Northern European paintings tend to make him look northern European; southern European paintings tend to make him look southern European. Italian artists made him look Italian, French artists made him look French, Dutch artists made him look Dutch, and American artists made him look… well, whatever ethnic background they have. Usually white.

So when I was growing up, just about every picture of Jesus to be found in Protestant and Catholic churches, depicted him as white. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most diverse parts of the country, and even so: White Jesus was everywhere.

Most popular was Werner Sallman’s Head of Christ, which you’ll still see all over the Christian subculture. Even in predominantly nonwhite churches: Black, Latino, Chinese, everywhere. They frame and display it the same way government offices display the President’s portrait. And of course white Jesus was all over our stained-glass windows, paintings, statues, Sunday school materials, Nativity crèches… stands to reason you’d get that idea fixed in your mind.

Plus, all the Jews I knew where white.

Yes, this is an excuse for being ignorant. You see, we were never taught otherwise. No pastor ever gestured at the portraits of white Jesus and pointed out, “Of course, you know he’s not really white.” This was the image of Jesus, and we unthinkingly accepted it.

More or less. Different artists might render the beard a slightly different color. Conservative churches might insist on pictures of Jesus with hair which doesn’t go past the neck. Movies might depict him with a fringed cloak and tunic—you know, like an actual first-century Jew. But for most Americans, that image from the Sallman painting would kick in: The real Jesus had brown hair, a white tunic, and either a red or blue toga. No fringes. Fringes look raggedy.

We’re meant to outgrow this worldview. But not everyone does.

Our suffering servant.

Isaiah 53.

Mixed in with all the Messianic prophecies about a king who’d restore Israel, conquer the world, and set aright everything gone wrong, there are also prophecies about a suffering servant who’d get crushed.

We Christians likewise recognize these prophecies to be about Jesus. But people only realized it after the fact. Before Jesus went through his suffering, Pharisees believed these prophecies can’t be about Messiah. He’s gonna conquer the world! It’s gonna be an easy victory, achieved through the Almighty’s power. Suffering and death? Has to be some other guy.

Y’might recall as soon as Jesus brought up the very idea this suffering servant was him, his best student Simon Peter recoiled. “This will never happen to you,” was his rebuke. Mt 16.22 Human nature being what it is, we pick and choose the bible passages we like, skip the rest… and consequently miss most of the story. ’Cause the parts we avoid are frequently the really important parts. Jesus’s death saves the world just as much, if not more so, than his second coming will.

The Pharisees believed Messiah would come once, to conquer the world. They presumed he’d do it same as other conquerors: Take it by force, and make humanity submit. Smite his enemies with an iron scepter. Politically-minded Christians figure they can take over their society on his behalf, and make our nation into an outpost of his kingdom. They don’t realize Jesus demonstrated, by humility and self-sacrifice, not conquest, how very much he deserves the world as his inheritance. They don’t get how he gets people to submit to him out of love, out of recognizing the absolute wisdom and rightness of his rule. That’s much harder to achieve than mere force. (Plus there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in the idea of forcing people to submit, instead of getting ’em to want to. Such is human nature.)

But winning the world through his suffering, rather than seizing it by force, is what Isaiah saw him do. And reported thisaway.

Isaiah 53 KWL

1 Does anyone believe what we’ve reported?

The LORD’s arm is upon this person who’s been revealed.

2 He grew up in God’s presence like a sapling, like something rooted in dry ground.

We could see nothing honorable in his form. He wasn’t anything to look at.

3 People dismissed and refused to hear him. A man in pain, familiar with illness,

dismissed like one who hides his face from people—we took no account of him.

4 But in fact he’d taken up our illness. He carried our pain.

We figured he’d been smited: God had struck him down to humble him,

5 but he was wounded for our rebellion, crushed for our evil deeds.

Our peace came from his punishment. His beating brought us healing.

6 Like sheep, all of us have wandered off; we all went our own way.

The LORD put all our evil deeds on him.

7 He was abused and humiliated, and didn’t open his mouth.

Like a sheep to slaughter, or an ewe to her shearers, is silent: He didn’t open his mouth.

8 Arrested, judged, he was carried off. His peers—who spoke up for him

when he was cut off from the land of the living? beaten for the evil deeds of my people?

9 They put him in the grave with evildoers, with the rich in death,

though he’d treated no one violently. No deceit was in his mouth.

10 The LORD was pleased to crush him, to make him unwell, to make his soul a guilt offering,

and see his seed survive. God will prolong its days. The LORD is pleased to make it prosper in his hand.

11 God will be satisfied by the trouble of this servant’s soul:

He will be right in knowing the righteous one, my servant, will bear the weight of both the great and the evildoers.

12 Therefore I will give him something from the great ones. He’ll be given spoil with the mighty ones.

For under them, his soul was poured out to death. He was counted with the rebels.

He carried the sin of the great. He brings light to the rebels.

Falling down—and other false memories of Jesus’s passion.

One of the odd things you’ll notice about the traditional 14 stations of the cross, is how often Jesus falls down. He does it thrice.

1. Gets condemned, is given his cross, falls down.
2. Encounters his mom, Simon of Cyrene, and St. Veronica; falls down.
3. Encounters the daughters of Jerusalem, falls down.

Then he’s stripped and nailed to the cross, so he’s not gonna fall down anymore—unless we count when he’s taken down from the cross, and likely they didn’t drop him in so doing. Still: Three of the stations of the cross involve Jesus falling down. And in St. Francis of Assisi’s original list of seven stations, Jesus falls in the second and fifth stations, so when Christians expanded it to 14, they added a fall.

Yet in the gospels, he doesn’t fall down. Although we can certainly imagine he did, what with being weak from sleep deprivation and blood loss, and the fact he clearly wasn’t up to carrying his own cross. But the gospels don’t say he fell down. He might’ve, but the authors never said so.

So what’s with all the falling down?

Simple: A popular medieval tradition borrowed this verse from Proverbs, and claimed it was a prophecy about Jesus:

Proverbs 24.15-16 KWL

15 Don’t plan a wicked ambush at the home of a righteous person. Don’t ruin his resting place.

16 A righteous person might fall and rise seven times. A wicked person falls into evil.

The medievals claimed Jesus was this righteous person who fell seven times, and he did it in the course of his passion. So only falling three times in the stations of the cross was actually underdoing it. He should’ve been keeling over more often than a Pentecostal during a revival. Every other station should’ve been another fall.

Of course you know actors in the passion plays will fall down every chance they’re given. It’s an easy way to show weakness and suffering. So it stands to reason Francis and the Christians thereafter would make sure it got into the stations of the cross. But nope, doesn’t happen in the gospels.

I know; it regularly surprises Roman Catholics when they look for the falls in the gospels, and find nothing. But it doesn’t come from the gospels. Comes from Proverbs.

Filling in “blanks” with Old Testament “prophecies.”

This is hardly the only time the traditional sufferings of Jesus don’t actually come from the gospels. Here’s another: Ever hear about people pulling out bits of Jesus’s beard? I’ve seen it happen more than once in a Jesus movie. I’ve also heard Christians use this story to argue Jesus had a beard, in case anyone speculates he might’ve been too young to grow one, or might’ve been uncharacteristically clean-shaven: “No, Jesus totally had a beard. ’Cause when they were beating him, they pulled out some of his beard, remember?”

Yeah, I remember the movies, but when I went looking for that bit in the gospels, ’tain’t there. Because it doesn’t come from the gospels either. Comes from Isaiah.

Isaiah 50.6-7 KWL

6 I gave my body to those who hit me, my cheeks to those who shaved my face.

I didn’t cower from shame and from their spitting.

7 My master LORD will help me, so I’m not ashamed,

so I steady my face like a flint, knowing I will not be embarrassed.

Traditionally “shaved my face” (Hebrew u-lekhayey l’mirtim/“and my cheeks to the scrapers”) gets translated “plucked off the hair.” Is 50.6 KJV But yep, it’s about Isaiah suffering, not Jesus. Yet plenty of Christians assume all these parts of Isaiah are messianic prophecies, and borrow this verse, among others, and claim they’re specifics about Jesus’s suffering. Provided a few centuries in advance, but hey, we want details.

Likewise the bit about Jesus being beaten till unrecognizable: Also from Isaiah.

Isaiah 52.14 KWL

Many were horrified by you: His appearance was ruined more than any man;

his shape more ruined than any of Adam’s children.

The bit about Jesus not crying out while he was flogged? Again Isaiah.

Isaiah 53.7 KWL

He was abused and humiliated, and didn’t open his mouth,

like a sheep to slaughter, or an ewe to her shearers, is silent, he didn’t open his mouth.

Okay, he didn’t open his mouth to defend himself in trial, Mk 14.61 and maybe he decided to be a badass when he was getting beaten, and made no sound as they wailed on him. But the Isaiah passage doesn’t necessarily refer to making no sound when he was beaten. There’s no shame in crying in pain, and it’s neither unrealistic nor unbiblical for an actor portraying Jesus to make such sounds. In fact, making no sound implies it didn’t hurt—that Jesus didn’t truly suffer—which creates all sorts of theological problems that it’s best to steer clear of.

The gospels and history provide us a whole lot of details about what Jesus went through. But this simply wasn’t enough for us Christians, who had to pull stuff out of the Old Testament, whether it was suitable or not, and tack it into the passion stories. All the more reason, when we talk about Jesus’s suffering, we need to crack open that bible and see for ourselves whether stuff went down that way. Because, as you can see, there are a few things we’re misremembering.

Jesus gets flogged.

Mark 15.15 • Matthew 27.26 • Luke 23.16 • John 19.1

Jesus’s flogging was definitely part of his suffering. But it’s actually not one of the traditional the stations of the cross. I know; you’d think it was, considering how much time Mel Gibson spent on it in The Passion of the Christ, where they beat the hell out of Jesus—as if there was anything of hell in him. But nope; traditionally the stations of the cross began with Jesus getting his cross, ’cause they’re the stations of the cross, not Jesus’s pre-cross sufferings. They’re part of St. John Paul’s list though.

And no, there’s no historical evidence that the Romans beat Jesus more than usual. The only details we have about his flogging is that he had a flogging. Takes up only a sentence in all four gospels.

Mark 15.15 KWL Pilate, wanting the crowd to stop it, released bar-Abba to them. He handed over Jesus, who’d been flogged, so he could be crucified.

Matthew 27.26 KWL Then Pilate released bar-Abba to them. He handed over Jesus, who’d been flogged, so he could be crucified.

John 19.1 KWL So then Pilate also had Jesus flogged.

Fraghellósas/“who’d been flogged” Mk 15.15, Mt 27.26 is in a verb tense called aorist: It happened, but it’s not past tense, so we don’t know when it happened. It didn’t necessarily happen after Judea’s prefect Pontius Pilate sent Jesus to his death; it might’ve happened before. Probably did, considering John records Jesus getting flogged and crowned with thorns before he was sent to be crucified, not after.

Jesus doesn’t actually get flogged in Luke, but Pilate implied that was the plan:

Luke 23.16 KWL

“So, once punished, I will release him.”

’Cause flogging was how Romans “punished” criminals… unless their crime was considered so grievous, the Romans would just crucify them. And they were pretty quick to crucify people too. Yep, flogging was the lenient punishment. Whereas in our culture, flogging is illegal, for obvious reasons.