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[Ed. Note: The Witness online does not usually publish work of this length. However, we believe that this extensive critique of Gibson's immensely popular new film to be an important contribution to the public debate about its theological analysis and historical perspective. To receive a copy of this article as an MS Word file document, please contact editor@thewitness.org.] The Passion: The Gospel as Political Parodyby Ched Myers
As an activist theologian, I feel some responsibility to defend the gospel against contemporary representations or reproductions that I judge to be particularly wrongheaded or dangerous. The problem is, there are too many of these to respond to. Given the (admittedly intriguing) pop cultural phenomenon surrounding this film, however, I have reluctantly been drawn into the fray. There is much to be perplexed and/or enraged about in Gibson's cinematic version of the trial and execution of Jesus. And there is plenty to deconstruct concerning the filmmaker and his psyche, not least his fascination for “ Braveheart -type” victim-heroes who suffer injustice and indignity, but ultimately wreak righteous and intensely violent payback on their adversaries. (One can speculate that such cosmic retribution would be the presumed “eschatological sequel” to Gibson's Passion film; let us hope he never makes it!) But the public issue most stimulated by the film has been whether or not it would rekindle old and persistent embers of anti-Semitism, and that is far more important to address than Gibson and his theology. In a recent forum in Oakland I did with Rabbi Michael Lerner and Victor Lewis on the film, Lerner rightly called on Christians to stand in solidarity with Jews in educating the public about the long and murderous history of Christian anti-Semitism. Of particular concern in this case is the medieval European legacy of pogroms that often followed on the heels of performances of a “Passion Play.” I write in the midst of Passover/Holy Week, and while no one thinks that we will see an increase of overt acts of anti-Semitism in North America right now, the shaping of prejudice is incremental and mysterious, and this film influences in the wrong direction. There are many things we can do to work against this film functioning as a “ Lethal Weapon V.” One is to try to set the record straight. The inevitable result of narrating the death of Jesus without narrating his life is that the credulous viewer is forced to surmise that Jesus must have been a nice guy who was killed for no good reason by mean, spiteful people. And if, in addition, the theological assumption (as is the case for Gibson) is that the main purpose of Jesus' life was for him to die “for our sins,” then someone had to do the dirty deed of killing him. I . A Life-less DeathMore than any of his particular characterizations, the thing that makes Gibson's work a potential tool for anti-Semitism is the structure of his story as a whole. He has chosen to make an account of a political trial and execution without ever bothering to explain why that confrontation occurred. The inevitable result of narrating the death of Jesus without narrating his life is that the credulous viewer is forced to surmise that Jesus must have been a nice guy who was killed for no good reason by mean, spiteful people. And if in addition the theological assumption (as is the case for Gibson) is that the main purpose of Jesus' life was for him to die “for our sins,” then someone had to do the dirty deed of killing him. Why not scapegoat “the Jews” as a whole? It makes a perfect rationale for Christian supercessionism. Such an interpretation of the Jesus story is, of course, a classic expression of doceticism, the earliest Christian heresy (in which Jesus is seen as divine but not fully human). It was roundly condemned by the early church, but we might say the church won that battle but lost the war, for docetic Christologies have functionally prevailed for most of the post-Constantinian history of Christianity. And when it comes to the matter of Jesus' trial and death, they have had horrific historical consequences. The Judean authorities that we meet in the gospels are portrayed as political officials conspiring to remove a dissident they perceive to be a threat to the status quo. This may be an ugly little scenario, but it is certainly not an uncommon one; one can find analogies throughout the history of civilization, from Socrates to M.L. King. But once these Judean authorities are portrayed by interpreters of the gospel as the uniquely fated villains in a cosmic drama, the storyline inevitably becomes conflated into “Jews are Christ-killers.” And let us be clear: readings of the gospel that blame “the Jews” and exonerate the Romans for Jesus' demise are still prevalent throughout Christendom – and Gibson's film has done nothing to resist or even acknowledge their terrible potential. This tradition has fueled two dark legacies through the ages. One is anti-Semitism, in all its different epochal guises. But the other is a fantasy nurtured within Christendom that apprehends imperial authority as benign or even beneficent. It is a (mis)perception from which the current American empire continues to benefit! In these ways, then, narratives like Gibson's perpetuate a version of Jesus' “life-less death” that is truly death-dealing rather than life-giving. As René Girard and his followers have long argued, the myth of redemptive violence empowers not redemption, but only more violence (for a good resource on this, see Swartley, 2000). Gibson has made the claim – at once both presumptuous and duplicitous – that any “problems” his critics may have lie not with the film, but with the gospels themselves. And indeed the question is being raised afresh in the wake of the movie concerning whether the gospel narratives themselves should be considered anti-Semitic. Many liberals, both secular and religious, are responding by stipulating in various ways that the gospel sources are neither historically credible nor even theologically reliable. Not only is this a curious defense, it is not very useful in the present culture war surrounding the film. It took a thoughtful rabbi to point out the obvious: It is unproductive for liberal theologians to criticize The Passion on the grounds that it is not consistent with what scholars now know of the historical accuracy of the Gospel accounts. Fundamentalists and traditionalists are not concerned with the “Historical Jesus” or trying to discover Jesus the Jew. That has been an exercise for liberal Christian and Jewish scholars studying the Second Temple time period. The Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are not generally engaged in those debates… They do not accept that scholars find historical inaccuracies in the Gospel accounts. The Gospels, to them, are sacred, canonical and revealed text, and they accept them as written (Gordon, 2004:3). In my opinion a better approach, and one with at least some chance of engaging conservatives who don't try to solve problems by throwing out the ancient texts, is to offer a careful alternative reading of those texts. The best defense against the bad theology and bad politics that have so perverted Christian interpretation over the centuries, right up to Gibson's film, is a more rigorous and compelling handling of the text. As Frederic Jameson put it, "Interpretation is not an isolated act, but takes place within a Homeric battlefield, on which a host of interpretive options are either openly or implicitly in conflict. . . As the Chinese proverb has it, you use one ax handle to hew another: in our context, only another, stronger interpretation can overthrow and practically refute an interpretation already in place (1981:13)." The task of this essay, then, is to offer an alternative reading of the gospel narrative of the arrest, trial and death of Jesus that takes seriously the legacy of anti-Semitic hermeneutics, but which also preserves the integrity and reliability of the scriptural texts.
I I. The Arrest: “…as a ‘robber'?”There can be no question that the gospel accounts of Jesus' death are fiercely critical in their portraits of the Judean authorities. This in itself , however, does not make them anti-Semitic, any more than Martin Luther King's excoriation of Jim Crow justice made him anti-American. (More to the point, my African-American activist friends who accuse Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice of “selling their people out” may be harsh, but they are not being racist.) But it certainly is the case that when wrenched out of context, these gospel criticisms can be and have been used to legitimate an anti-Semitic ideology. Given this history of abuse in Christendom, one can not simply exonerate the texts by insisting that they be separated from the history of their (mis)interpretation. One must rather feel the weight of this toxic legacy, and label these texts as one might a box of potent drugs which can both heal and kill: “Handle with care.” Attempts to “harmonize” what are four very different versions of the Jesus story have long been discredited because they give the editor such wide license to pick and choose. This effectively creates a “fifth” gospel – or in Gibson's case, anti-gospel. The only way to unravel Gibson's fabric is to examine each gospel separately, in order to see their different emphases and purposes. One of the many problems with Gibson's film is that it weaves in strands from all four of our gospel versions (not to mention his own gratuitous additions). Attempts to “harmonize” what are four very different versions of the Jesus story have long been discredited because they give the editor such wide license to pick and choose. This effectively creates a “fifth” gospel – or in Gibson's case, anti-gospel. The only way to unravel Gibson's fabric is to examine each gospel separately, in order to see their different emphases and purposes. If we are interested in reflecting upon the historical events that lay behind these narratives, it is best to focus first on the earliest gospel, Mark, upon which all subsequent versions depend. We must also acknowledge that many aspects of the gospel accounts have been deemed historically suspect by scholars. To sort these matters out we must first remember that every historical narrative (ancient or modern) is an ideological product. Thus it is the gospel writer's ideology – reflected in the way he has shaped, colored and exaggerated events and characters – that holds the key to whatever historical knowledge we can glean from these ancient testimonies. I will show below that a careful literary analysis of Mark reveals it as a powerful parody of the political-legal process that condemned the prophet Jesus. This “fiction,” understood within the historical and social context in which it was produced, reflects an even-handed critique of the Judean and Roman authorities, indeed portrays their collusion. Moreover, it articulates a sophisticated political theology which understands that resistance to injustice will inevitably bring confrontation with “the Powers.” But it also believes that nonviolent witness will ultimately prevail over opportunistic politics and brute force. Mark's account of the trial of Jesus is found in Mark 14:43-15:20. It takes place in the span of 24 hours, and is peppered by a refrain of public mockery. Jesus is ridiculed first by the Judean security forces (14:65), then by the Roman soldiers (15:16-20), and finally by the crowd gathered at the cross (15:29-32). Each refrain functions in Mark's narrative strategy as ironic confirmation of Jesus' stature as “prophet,” “king” and finally “Messiah.” Let us begin where Gibson's film starts: in the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark's portrayal of Jesus' seizure by the Judean authorities reeks of the overkill so typical of covert government action against civilian dissidents: a secret signal, a surprise attack at night, the heavily armed contingent (Mk 14:43-52). This all suggests that the security squad expected armed resistance; we are told that their instructions are to take Jesus away under “heavy guard” (Greek asphaloos ). Mark uses the brief skirmish that ensues (14:47) as an occasion for Jesus to point out the sordid character of the whole operation, holding the attackers responsible for the violence. “Have you come to capture me with swords and clubs as if I was a robber?” Jesus asks with dry sarcasm (14:48). The Greek verb sullambanoo (rather than the more common krateoo ) is a probably a biblical allusion to the arrest of the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 37:13). We also encounter here the Greek noun leesteen for the first time in Mark. We know from Josephus that this term was used to describe “social bandits,” a broad rubric that included nationalist Jewish guerillas, Robin-hood-type rural insurgents and urban terrorists. Jesus will be executed by the Romans between two such “robbers” (Mark 15:27). By using this term Mark is contending that Jesus was apprehended by both Judean and Roman authorities as an insurrectionist. If modern readers (or filmmakers) wish to ignore or deny the political character of Jesus' ministry, they must assert that these officials misunderstood their prisoner – which flies in the face of the plain meaning of the narrative. At the end of the arrest scene, Jesus accuses his adversaries of political
impotence, since they are doing covertly what they did not dare to publicly
(14:49). Nevertheless, this pressure from “homeland security” is enough
to cause all of Jesus' followers to flee the scene (14:50-52). This moment
represents the collapse of the “discipleship narrative” that has been
central to Mark's gospel. It is important to acknowledge that as hard
as Mark may be on the Judean authorities in this story, he is hardest
on Jesus' own intimates. This is underlined by the tragic cameo of the
disciple Peter's denial that Mark weaves into the trial narrative (14:54,
66-72). III. The Double-Trial Narrative as Political ParodyMark's trial narrative consists of two hearings, each of which presents a different charge against Jesus: blasphemy before the Sanhedrin (14:64), and sedition before Pilate (15:2). Both were capital offences in their respective juridical spheres. However, in Roman-occupied Palestine in the late Second Temple period it is unclear whether the Judean client government had the authority to execute the death penalty. While the majority of scholars contend that the Judean authorities did not have that power, the Josephus records an account of the stoning of James in Antiquities (XX,ix,1), while Acts 6:8ff narrates the stoning of Stephen. In either case, Mark's double trial construct must be explained. If the Sanhedrin did not need Roman approval to capitally punish heretics, then the fact that Mark included the hearing before Pilate means that he wished his readers to understand that Jesus was also wanted by the Romans on charges of sedition. If Roman approval was mandatory, on the other hand, we still have to explain why the Romans did the deed, rather than simply signing off on a Judean execution. This highlights the sole uncontested historical fact of the case: Pilate sentenced Jesus to crucifixion, which was a Roman penalty reserved exclusively for those convicted of insurrection. This can only mean that the Roman governor of Judea judged Jesus to be a substantial threat to imperial security. Trying to avoid this obvious conclusion, the traditionally religious reading of Mark's trial has assumed that the Sanhedrin was “using” Pilate for its own ends. As an historical assertion, this would have been impossible. Extra-biblical sources make it clear that of all the procurators stationed in Palestine during the Roman colonial period, Pontius Pilate (in Judea 25-36 C.E.) was one of the most ruthless. There is simply no historical evidence to suggest that Pilate could have been manipulated by the Judean leadership – much less by the “crowds” (see 15:15). On the contrary, he was expert at playing the native aristocracy off against each other for his political ends (J.D. Crossan reviews the evidence in a recent Tikkun article; 2004). Mark is not a modern journalist, however, but an ancient Christian polemicist. He took considerable literary license to draw characters in an unflattering light. If some aspects of his portraits seem historically implausible, they make perfect sense as a sort of ancient “political cartoon,” in which notorious figures are both unmistakably recognizable and clearly caricatured all at once. An analysis of Mark's trial narrative reveals that he has constructed a careful parallelism between Jesus' two “hearings.” Each consists of four aspects:
Sanhedrin trial Roman trial
Moreover, the interrogations in the two trials are almost identical. Jesus either refuses to respond or returns the sarcasm of the prosecutor's “naming”: High priest: “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” Jesus: He was silent and made no answer. High Priest : “You are Messiah, Son of the Blessed?” Jesus: “Am I?!” (14:61f)
Pilate: “You are the king of the Jews?” Jesus: “You say so?!” Pilate: “Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.” Jesus: He made no further answer. . . (15:2-5) The ideological function of this parallel composition was clearly not to implicate one party and exonerate the other. Quite the contrary: Mark wished to portray the Judean and Roman authorities as fully colluding in their railroading of Jesus, implying that both parties perceived him as a common enemy. And indeed such cooperation between elites in a colonial situation is quite historically plausible, particularly in the politically volatile context of the high holy days, in which there was always the threat that popular movements for native sovereignty could get out of hand. The aspects of Mark's account that are historically suspect, on the other hand, can be explained in terms of Mark's sharp literary polemic. There are strong elements of political parody in the gospel's grimly comic caricature of these proceedings. In this Mark was following a long tradition in biblical literature, as Ze'ev Weisman has overviewed in his excellent study, Political Satire in the Bible : “The role of the prophet as the assailer at the gate, who inveighs against manifestations of social and political corruption, frequently to the accompaniment of threats and even curses against the institutions and leaders of society, puts him in need of a polemic redolent with scorn, irony and wit” (1998:55).
IV. The First Trial Scene: “You shall not bear false witness!”Mark begins his parody by portraying the highest Judean court as a kangaroo affair: due process is thrown out in favor of a rigged, nighttime hearing. Twice the prosecution's attempt to coordinate the testimony of hired perjurers fails (14:56,59). Mark calls it pseudomartureo , the Greek verb used in the Septuagint version of the Ninth Commandment (Exodus 20:16 and Deuteronomy 5:20). With this deft editorial stroke Mark has told us his opinion of the legitimacy of this court. But there is also irony in the fabricated charge (Mark 14:58). Jesus' accusers have obviously confused his statements concerning the raising of the Human after three days (e.g. 8:31) with his prediction of the demise of the Temple (13:2). Yet it resonates because of Jesus' sharp public criticisms of the Temple-State; the Sanhedrin accurately perceives him as a political threat to the status quo. The charge also anticipates Mark's equally polemical juxtaposition of Jesus' body and the Temple curtain at the end of the story, in the apocalyptic moment of his expiration on the cross (see 15:37f). It is crucial for Christians to understand, however, that the critique of the Temple apparatus demonstrated by Mark's Jesus was social and economic, not religious. Mark portrays Jesus dramatically disrupting business as usual in the Temple courtyard (11:12-25), and lambasting the way in which poor widows were being exploited by wealthy scribes while standing in front of the Temple treasury (12:38-13:2). These episodes stand within the tradition of Jeremiah and Second Isaiah (both of whom Jesus quotes in 11:17). They represented Jesus' desire not to abolish the Temple cult, as Christian supercessionists imagine, but rather to challenge any institution that legitimated or perpetuated class oppression in Judea. Still, such a radical critique of the Temple was not likely to have been popular in a city largely economically dependent upon it, neither with the authorities who managed that apparatus nor with the local populace employed by it. Thus later some bystanders at the cross repeat the allegation (15:29). Mark's Jesus makes no attempt to refute the charges (14:61) because he understands this is a political trial in which legal arguments are moot, and in which justice is subordinate to the need for conviction. In the end it comes down to the question of his self-identification. (Apropos, America has seen more than a few of these kinds of trials in her day; one recalls the shrill and terrible interrogations of the McCarthy era. Mark's Jesus makes no attempt to refute the charges (14:61) because he understands this is a political trial in which legal arguments are moot, and in which justice is subordinate to the need for conviction. In the end it comes down to the question of his self-identification. (Apropos, America has seen more than a few of these kinds of trials in her day; one recalls the shrill and terrible interrogations of the McCarthy era: “Are you or are you not a member of the Communist Party??!!”) Jesus demurs over the question of his “Messianic” aspirations, instead invoking the witness of the “Human One” (14:62). This is an allusion to the biblical prophet Daniel's vision of the heavenly courtroom where true justice is vindicated (Daniel 7:9ff), and continues the apocalyptic thread that Mark has woven throughout the second half of his story (especially in chapter 13). According to Daniel, the heavenly Human One is the prosecutor of governmental “beasts” who persecute the saints of God. And in Mark's gospel, Jesus-as-the-Human-One goes on the offensive against the local authorities (Mark 2:10,28), the cosmic Powers (13:26), and finally here before the high court. It's this that pushes the court too far. The high priest charges blasphemy (14:63f; see Leviticus 24:26). He then consults with the rest of the Sanhedrin to secure the conviction, and turns Jesus over to be tortured (Mark 14:65f). (It is worth noting that Mark states the abuses to Jesus in a few bare phrases, while Mel Gibson expands these into a tiresome and gruesome feature film!) His captors “pommel” him (Gk rhapismasin , an allusion to Isaiah 50:6), and insist mockingly that that he should “prophesy.” This of course functions ironically, given that Mark understands Jesus to be following in the footsteps of the great prophet-martyrs – most recently John the Baptist (Mark 9:11-13). As he said: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and among his own kin” (6:4). The historical credibility of this hearing scene has been much debated. As far as we know, for example, a night time arraignment would have been in violation of rabbinic law. Indeed, Mark relates that “as soon as it was morning” the Sanhedrin assembled one more consultation of “the chief priests, the elders and scribes and the whole council” (15:1) – perhaps alluding to an attempt to render the formal indictment legal. In any case, Jesus' followers would not have been present at whatever hearing took place, and not likely to have gotten a first hand account of it from the authorities after the fact. So gospel writers had to rely on traditions of “outsider” speculation, which given the outcome of the trial, were inevitably harshly biased against the court. From a literary point of view, we are in similar territory to Mark's earlier account of a party that Herod threw for the Galilean elite, in which the infamous “dance of Salome” sealed the fate of John the Baptist (6:14-19). In that episode Mark is clearly parodying the decadent ways of the rich and powerful, complete with the absurd scenario of Herod allowing a dancing girl to determine the fate of an important political prisoner because of a drunken oath. Mark's trial scene is working in this same mode: as a polemic representing the point of view of the victim's followers. Meanwhile, paralleling the first trial is the pathetic cameo of the wayward
disciple Peter, narrated in “split screen” fashion (14:66-72). Peter's
denial of Jesus functions to contrast Jesus' simultaneous confession of
the “Human One” before the High Priest (14:62). Jesus is condemned while
Peter goes free, playing out the ultimatum given by Jesus to his disciples
at the midpoint of the story: “Whosoever tries to save his life will lose
it. . .” (8:34-38). For Mark, Jesus' “anticipation” of Peter's abandonment
(14:27-31) or of his showdown with the nation's rulers (8:31-33; 9:31f;
10:32-34) is not a sign of divine omniscience, but of shrewd political
realism. And it is a realism that extends to our own time. What was true
for Jeremiah and Jesus was also true for Gandhi and King and Ahn San Suu
Kyi: those who speak truth to power must always face the consequences.
And in the end, few indeed have the courage, character and conviction
to walk that nonviolent way. V. The Second Trial Scene: Which Gladiator Will Die?The second part of Mark's political cartoon now turns to the other half of the colonial “condominium”: the Roman procurator. Pilate immediately (and correctly) identifies the issue as one of political authority in an occupied country: “Are you King of the Judeans?!” (15:2). This title was held by Roman client-rulers such as Herod, and from Pilate's perspective was a contemptuous reminder that the Jews were not truly sovereign in their own land. The true nationalist Messianic title would be “King of Israel” (the designation used by the chief priests in their final taunt at the cross, 15:32). In contrast to the traditional view of Pilate as an unwilling, equivocating participant in events beyond his control, Mark's account actually gives us a sketch of procuratorial pragmatism at work. He manages to send a prominent dissident to the gallows, while dividing the nationalist crowd against itself with the aid of the solicitous Judean clerical elite. Initially Pilate, like the high priest, is unable to get Jesus to defend himself against the charges (15:3f). He is puzzled, thinking perhaps that this Galilean bumpkin doesn't understand the gravity of the situation (15:5). But then, in a shrewd public relations ploy aimed at playing the unruly crowd's patriotism off against itself, he decides to defuse the possibility of a popular uprising by granting a special, festival-specific amnesty (15:6). There was some historical precedent for such paternalistic gestures, though the evidence is scant. “Barabbas” (whose name translates ironically as “son of the father”) is then introduced into the narrative as someone “who had committed murder in the insurrection” (15:7). By this Mark likely means he was a Sicarii operative, insurgents who were known for political assassinations. Mark's ensuing account means to dramatize the people's fateful choice between two would-be “revolutionaries” – the guerilla terrorist and the nonviolent prophet – who represented divergent paths to national liberation. The elements of the narrative that are most implausible historically – namely, the absurd fiction of the procurator “consulting” the crowd (15:9,12,14), and the inconceivable spectacle of Jews calling for the crucifixion of one of their own (15:13f) – are fully consistent with a strategy of literary satire. I believe Mark's anti-imperial polemic is alluding here to the infamous Roman gladiator tradition, which to the Jewish mind would have represented the zenith of bloodthirsty pagan cynicism. Historian Barbara McManus (1999) describes two aspects of the gladiatorial games that are germane to Mark's narrative. The day long festivities, held in an open aired amphitheatrum , began with an elaborate procession that included the combatants and was led by the sponsor of the games. . . this usually was the emperor, and in the provinces it was a high-ranking magistrate. . . The morning's events might begin with mock fights. . . followed by animal displays. . . The lunch break was devoted to executions of criminals who had committed particularly heinous crimes – murder, arson, sacrilege. . . The public nature of the execution made it degrading as well as painful and was intended to serve as a deterrent to others. . . Criminals could also be forced to fight in the arena with no previous training; in such bouts death was a foregone conclusion, since the ‘victor' had to face further opponents until he died. . . In the afternoon came the high point of the games – individual gladiatorial combats. . . When a gladiator had been wounded and wished to concede defeat, he would hold up an index finger. . . At this point the crowd would indicate with gestures whether they wished the defeated gladiator to be killed or spared. . . The sponsor of the games decided whether or not to give the defeated gladiator a reprieve ( missio ). If the gladiator was to be killed, he was expected to accept the final blow in a ritualized fashion, without crying out or flinching. Some scholars believe there was also a ritual for removing the bodies of dead gladiators, with a man dressed as Charon (ferryman of Hades) testing the body to make sure he was really dead and then a slave dragging the body with a hook through a gate called the Porta Libitinensis (Libitina was a death goddess). The gladiators were usually slaves, war prisoners or condemned criminals. This public liturgy of death had both personal and political meaning for Romans. Thomas Wiedemann writes: “On each occasion when they fought, gladiators enacted a spectacle of death and rebirth, and they did that in the presence of the Roman people, enabling individuals to come to terms with their mortality by reflecting on the unprecedented power and continuity of Rome's universal rule” (1992:180). Alison Futrell adds: “The ritual performance in the arena was a means of Imperial control through directed attitudinal change, the creation and manipulation of mass emotional response, renewed regularly at the behest of the ruling hierarchy” (1997:212f). Against this backdrop, Pilate's “consultation” with (taunting of?) a Jewish crowd gathered outside the Roman praetorium concerning which prisoner should die becomes intelligible. So does Jesus' subsequent “death march” to the “place of the skull” (Mark 15:21f). This is Markan satire at its bitterest: the nationalist crowd, caught between the conflicting revolutionary claims of the urban guerilla and the rural sign-prophet, gets co-opted by their imperial overlord into this most pagan ritual. Rome prevails, Judea remains under the boot, and Jesus becomes an imperial statistic. Indeed, the fickle masses are central characters in the farce, and important to Mark's political message. In a matter of days the crowd has gone from “hearing gladly” Jesus' criticisms of the priestly elite (see 11:38) to being manipulated by them to scream for his demise (15:10f). They are truly “sheep without a shepherd” (6:34), as Mark earlier put it, in the tradition of Ezekiel 34's fierce indictment of Israel's political leadership. The tragedy of course is that the people again succumb to the will of their political masters – who, according to Mark, actually fear them (see Mark 14:2)! This is why the shrieks of the crowd (15:13f) echo the wails of the demons in Mark (see 3:11; 5:5; 9:26) and the cries of the oppressed (see 9:24; 10:47f; 11:9). The trial narrative concludes with Pilate's security forces making the parody complete. In the Roman military tradition of humiliating the defeated opponent, Jesus is disrobed and dressed up in a centurion's cloak and a “laurel wreath” of thorns. These symbolize the very militarism and imperialism he has resisted with his life (15:16f). Once again he is mocked as “king of the Judeans,” and “worshipped” with insults, then disrobed again and led out to be crucified (15:18f). Needless to say, if Mark were trying to exonerate the Romans, this was hardly a flattering portrait! While the via crucis in Gibson's film is an agonizing, interminable study in pietistic Catholic midrash , Mark's version is spare and grim, needing no embellishment. This is because in his time, this public spectacle functioned to deter subversives and to aggrandize the Roman military presence. It inspired not beatific (voyeuristic? sadistic?) ecstasy in the beholder, as in the film, but sheer terror. Jesus is marched, in the grand tradition of Roman conquest, to the site
of execution (15:21f). While the via crucis in Gibson's film
is an agonizing, interminable study in pietistic Catholic midrash
, Mark's version is spare and grim, needing no embellishment. This
is because in his time, this public spectacle functioned to deter subversives
and to aggrandize the Roman military presence. It inspired not beatific
(voyeuristic? sadistic?) ecstasy in the beholder, as in the film, but
sheer terror. So too the cross itself. To restive imperial subjects it
conjured the fate awaiting those who dared challenge Caesar's sovereignty.
To the “civilized” it represented a form of punishment so inhumane that
Cicero once urged that it be “banished from the body and life of Roman
citizens.” But to Mark's Jesus, it symbolized the cost of discipleship
(Mark 8:34f) – and the end of the world (Mark 13:24-27; 15:33-38).
That, however, is another story. VI. Summary: The Powers Killed JesusMark's trial scene is indeed a caricature. It is not an anti-Semitic tract, however, but the work of a Jewish dissident who is deeply disillusioned with the leadership of his nation. At the time Mark wrote – which I take to be sometime during the war with Rome in 66-70 C.E. – the Jewish followers of Jesus were still experiencing prosecution by synagogue and/or Temple authorities (as suggested by e.g. Mark 10:39 and 13:9-11), and execution by Roman officials. So the gospel's “victim/outsider” bias concerning Jesus' trial and death had stinging contemporary relevance. It both warned prospective disciples and comforted those already feeling the heat. The historical evidence for the events recounted by Mark is thin; all we know apart from the gospel testimonies is that Rome executed Jesus of Nazareth as a political dissident. Mark attributes culpability for Jesus' execution equally to the Judean and Roman authorities, and fiercely parodies both. In this sense, is not fundamentally different in its sharp criticisms of political leadership than those penned by Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah or Amos against Egypt, Babylon or Israel herself. Christians, therefore, who have tried impute from Mark's text some sort of cosmic, categorical, collective guilt to “the Jews” everywhere and for all time exhibit a profound biblical illiteracy. And as Rabbi Arthur Waskow is fond of saying, two movements emerged from first century confrontations between faithful Jews and Caesar's empire: Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. I stand by what I wrote at the outset of Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus , upon which the above comments are based: Mark's social criticism, though necessarily historically specific, is addressed to every culture and political formation. To limit it to late Second-Temple Judaism is not only to miss his point badly; it is to perpetuate the murderous historical legacy of misunderstanding and oppression that has too often characterized the attitude of gentile Christians (and pseudo-Christians) toward the Jewish people. . . The opponents of Mark's Jesus were, to use apocalyptic semantics, ‘Powers,' a rubric that embraces not only members of the Roman and Judean ruling classes then, but also those in North American now (1988:37f). At the conclusion of our recent forum, I suggested to Rabbi Lerner that from the perspective of first century Palestinian history, the cross was a Jewish symbol before it was a Christian one. Could the cross, which has for so long been a symbol of persecution for Jews on one hand, and a symbol of docetic salvationism for Christians on the other, be rehabilitated as a new symbol for the practice of nonviolent resistance that might be embraced by both Jews and Christians? The focus of Gibson's film is how Jesus died. The question of why Jesus was put to death, however, while of no interest to Gibson, is what Mark's gospel tried to address. The way Jesus died cannot, from Mark's perspective, be understood apart from the way he lived. His radical solidarity with the poor and outcast, his boundary-crossing and nonviolent actions, his creative re-enactment of the prophetic legacy, and his criticism of those with wealth and privilege all got him into trouble with the authorities of his day. And those who carry on such practices today – from whatever religious and/or political affiliation – can reckon on receiving the same treatment, whether in East Timor or East Harlem, Colombia or Columbia Heights. That story would be a movie worth making.
BIO: Ched Myers, an activist and theologian in Los Angeles, was formerly on the editorial board of The Witness . His most recent book is The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics (Church of the Savior, 2001). You can learn more about his work on his "Theological Animation" home page on the Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries website.
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