Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
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Reply to Smart 187<br />
God <strong>and</strong> a covenant between him <strong>and</strong> the Jews his chosen people. It relates<br />
in turn the birth of Jesus, the teaching of John the Baptist that the Messiah<br />
was at h<strong>and</strong>, the development of Christ’s mission through gathering disciples<br />
<strong>and</strong> preaching the priority of the Kingdom of God; his extensive use of<br />
parable <strong>and</strong> his miraculous deeds; his entry into Jerusalem prior to Passover<br />
(around the year 30 AD), the disturbance with the money-changers in the<br />
Temple, the last supper, his arrest <strong>and</strong> appearance before the Jewish high<br />
priest <strong>and</strong> his conviction for blasphemy in describing himself as ‘Messiah’ <strong>and</strong><br />
‘Son of God’, his transfer to Pilate who had him crucified for claiming to be<br />
‘king of the Jews’; Christ’s death on the cross, his burial, then subsequent<br />
appearance to various followers individually <strong>and</strong> collectively, <strong>and</strong> his final<br />
departure ‘into heaven’.<br />
In suggesting that this common core may be taken as it st<strong>and</strong>s I am not<br />
claiming that it is intrinsically plausible, let alone that it is self-authenticating.<br />
The point is rather that whatever one wants to make of it there are no good<br />
scholarly reasons for doubting that this is what was pieced together within the<br />
lifetime of people who could <strong>and</strong> may have known Jesus, <strong>and</strong> that this is what<br />
they sincerely believed. Whether one accepts it oneself is another matter, but<br />
if one does not that is no good basis on which to doubt that the gospel writers<br />
meant what they wrote. Arguments to the contrary tend to import historical<br />
speculations less plausible than the narrative, or to make philosophical assumptions<br />
about what could or could not happen <strong>and</strong> then reconstruct the text as<br />
deceitful or poetic.<br />
Br<strong>and</strong>on’s account is of the former sort. It argues that since blasphemy was<br />
an offence for a Jewish court, Jesus’ trial at the h<strong>and</strong>s of Pilate could not have<br />
been for that but only for sedition. Consequently, he must either have been,<br />
or been perceived to have been, an agitator against the authority of the state.<br />
In short, Jesus was a revolutionary (perhaps even a ‘Zealot’) not a claimant to<br />
the title ‘Son of God’. Such limited plausibility as this account may possess<br />
depends on not taking scripture seriously but assuming that it is foolish or<br />
knavish. Smart quotes Br<strong>and</strong>on’s observation that one of the disciples is<br />
called ‘Simon Zelotes’ <strong>and</strong> the implication that if Simon were a Zealot so too<br />
might be his master. Well, to begin with the use of the term ‘zelotes’ to<br />
identify a member of a revolutionary party only begins after the uprising of<br />
66–70 <strong>and</strong> even then this was not its only meaning. Admittedly Luke probably<br />
comes after this date, but why suppose that in an account of 40 years<br />
earlier he would choose to use an expression that did not then have a revolutionary<br />
connotation? This interpretation is particularly contentious given that<br />
‘zelotes’ (or in the Aramaic ‘cananaean’) had a definite theological meaning,<br />
identifying a person as particularly zealous on behalf of the ‘law’, even to the<br />
extent of enforcing it personally. Whatever its virtue or vice, this is a religious<br />
not a political disposition.