The good news of Caesar

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God (Mark 1:1 NIV)

Caesar by his epiphany exceeded the hopes of those who prophesied good tidings (euaggelia), not only outdoing benefactors of the past, but also allowing no hope of greater bene-factions in the future; and since the birthday of the god first brought to the world the good tidings (euaggelia) residing in him.  
 

An inscription in Priene on the west coast of present-day Turkey.  

JESUS: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary. Copyright � 2006 by Marcus J. Borg. 

Jesus' wasn't the only one with "good news".  In this inscription Caesar is identified as a god.  He was more often called the, "son of god". The second title given to Jesus in the opening verse of Mark is also, " Son of God".  In this case I don't believe that the author was saying that Jesus was divine.  Most Bibles have a footnote at this phrase stating that it does not appear in all early manuscripts.  Also, coming as it does right after the title of, "anointed one", I would guess that this is a repetition or reinforcement of that term, the one chosen by God to be king.  God's son is a term used in the Jewish scripture in many places to refer to God's chosen king. King David is referred to as God's son and no indication is made that he is somehow divine, a god himself.

Caesar on the other hand used the phrase to suggest that he was in fact divine, justifying and legitimizing his rule. I would have to imagine that the gospel community were evoking and subverting this image of Caesar when giving this title to Jesus. They were saying that Jesus was the true " king" chosen by God and it his claim to authority that is legitimate.

So to sum up the opening verse, this book is about the ongoing important message about Jesus who is legitimized by being chosen by God to be king.

The beginning of the good news about Jesus

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

This first sentence tells us so much, but we come to it with a lot of later christian doctrine that can obscure what it might have meant to the original listeners.  Who was this original audience? If this early christian community is like those described in Acts, then I can imagine a tight knit group of people who had turned their backs on the conventions of society to live as part of what was essentially a commune where they had surrendered all their personal property to share all in common with the group, turned their backs on family, and defied social boundaries by joining Jews and gentiles, men and women, free and slave, the formally privileged and the  social outcast together.  This document codifies the communities' reasons for joining together and living in this radical way.  This is their mission statement and the topic given is the good news about Jesus.

I am struck by the fact that the book begins by saying that this is just the beginning of the good news about Jesus.  Whatever it is about Jesus that is important to them isn't finished.  The community sees this as something that's still occurring, or yet more to occur.  What that important message might involve is suggested by the title given to Jesus in this opening sentence.  He is called, the Messiah, literally, "the anointed one".  This title comes with a lot of baggage to the modern reader.  What did it mean to this group? In Jewish scripture the anointed one who had been set apart or chosen by God for a special purpose, specifically to be king of the Jewish nation.  Both Saul and David were anointed by the prophet Saul to announce that they had been chosen by God to be king.  It comes to mind that in the case of David, there is quite a period of time between when he is anointed and when he is recognized by the people as king.  So the Markian community is not only calling him king they are claiming that he is God's chosen king.  Another reason they may have used this title rather than directly calling him king, maybe a nod to the fact that most of his people do not recognize him as such like David when he was first anointed.

The title, "Messiah", would have come with some other associations to a listener of the time.  There was a popular belief in the Jewish community that God would send an " anointed one" who would free them from their oppression from the Romans and give Israel it's independence ushering in a new age of fidelity with God, the messianic age.  I don't know a lot about first century messiahism, but Jesus didn't exactly live up to the military leader expectation. Did the community see Jesus as fulfilling this hope?  Perhaps some still hoped for this kind of action; that Jesus would return and drive out the Romans.  Maybe that was why they called this record the beginning of the good news.  I don't think this is the case however. As we get further into this story the authors have Jesus less than enthusiastic about the title and prevaricating whenever asked if he is "the Messiah".  He also shows no interest in condemning the Romans or enciting any resistance against them. It would seem that this group makes use of the popular image of Messiah in some ways, but not in others.  Yet this was a dangerous title to use.  The Romans did not look kindly on those who claimed a king other than Caeser or one of the client kings under his authority.  There were several examples in Jesus time of rebels in Palestine who had countered Roman authority and had been ruthlessly been eliminated such as Simeon of Peraea C 4BCE, a former slave of Herod the Great, who had himself crowned.

The thought comes to me that the title may be a teaching device in line with those that Jesus uses in his wisdom teaching.  The authors often have Jesus use sayings and parables where the expected is contrasted with the unexpected to make the listener rethink their perspectives on the world.  The poor and meek are blessed, a father welcomes a son who has disgraced him, a woman spends all day searching for a coin of little value.  Likewise, in the macro story of Jesus, the whole idea of kingship and leadership is turned on its head.

More about Mark

I mentioned in the last post that the community Mark is writing for was mainly non Jewish and that the earliest copies of this writing is Greek.  I would imagine that one thing this group would know in common would have been Greek or Hellenistic culture.   Alexander the Great had conquered all of the Mediterranean and the Middle East as far as present day Pakistan leaving Hellenistic culture in his wake. After his death, Palestine was part of the Selucid kingdom.  The Herrads were all about a renaissance of Hellenistic culture and the Romans, taking their turn as world conquers, were also steeped in Greek culture.  Everyone in the possible location of Mark's community would have been versed in Greek thought, philosophy, myth and probably aware of the various mystery religions.

Another interesting thing about Mark's Gospel is that it puts Jesus' teachings in the context of stories about his life and makes the biography an intrical part of the message. The Gospel of Thomas, which is believed to be earlier, is a list of Jesus' sayings with no biographical information or context.  I would imagine that this would be the more common way a Rabbi's teaching would be recorded if written down.  Not knowing much about the literature of the first century, this seems unique to me.  Was there a form of biographical literature that he was following or influenced by?  The examples that come to mind are the stories of Moses, the prophets and kings in Jewish scripture.  Perhaps the myths of the Greek gods and the stories about Ceasar that were part of the Roman civic religion.  Whatever the influences may be, the stories about Jesus gives context to the teachings and gives us the author's interpretation for sayings that in straight lists like the Gospel of Thomas can be quite enigmatic.

I should also mention that the dating of this book, 60 A.D., would put it at the time of the destruction of the Temple by the Romans and most certainly amongst the Jewish revolt.  Even if the community was outside of Palestine, it would have been unsettling times full of apocalyptic rumours about Judgement and the end of the world.  Jesus and his disciples saw themselves as totally faithful to Judaism and the loss of Temple worship would only reinforce the communites' faith in their interpretation of Judaism as legitimized by God.

It was also a time when there is historic mention of some persecution of Christians.  Nero is said to blame them for the great fire in Rome.  Adhering to a religion other than the Roman state religion was tolerated as long as one also practiced the civic religion and took part in the socially expected religious ceremonies and practices.  This was something that even the mainstream sects of Judaism did.  However, the early Jesus communities were known for refusing to participate.  A few Jews doing this could be ignored by gentiles as a quirk of their race.  But when communities of mainly non-jews did this I would imagine that it caused the greater community to be less sympathetic.

I could probably say more, but as a last word before I get to the actual text, I just want to remind myself that more than the story of Jesus this is the story of this communities' traditions and vision of who Jesus was to them.  The teachings and stories chosen and the way they were interpreted reflect what was important to this group, how they saw the world, who they saw themselves as and their hopes for the future.