The Extended Body: The Social Body of Jesus according to Luke1

Abstract : Informed by body phenomenology and contemporary concepts of the social body, this article aims to interpret the particular movements and transformations of Jesus’ body as presented in the Gospel of Luke. From the outset Jesus’ body is inscribed in a Jewish genealogy. Likewise, the Gospel depicts the character of Jesus via the various landscapes he passes through as well as through the social interactions of which he is a part. While Jesus’ body is initially described as being energized by the mobile presence of the Spirit, it increasingly closes in and, at the end, simply disappears. Luke describes Jesus’ ascension and resurrection as radical transformations of Jesus’ body, by which Jesus’ body‐and‐mind (Leib) extends into a social body, at home in God as well as among his followers. This social body also crosses the genetic and cultural boundaries between Jews and Gentiles. Only through this extensiveness can Jesus’ body become accessible worldwide.     

Jesus the Teacher

One of the strongest portraits of Jesus in the Gospels is that of a teacher (Lee, 1988).¹ Other than the title “Lord,” people call Jesus “Teacher” more often than any other epithet in the New Testament, and often with a great deal of respect and admiration (Mark 10:17; Matt 22:16).² Jesus also calls himself a “teacher.” In the story of the preparation for the Last Supper, for example, Jesus instructs his disciples to find a room for the paschal meal and to tell the owner that “the teacher” has need of it (Mark 14:14; Matt 26:18; Luke 22:11). Apart from the portrayal of him as an infant, the earliest picture we have of him is the episode of the 12-year-old Jesus amazing the teachers in the temple with his learning (Luke 2:46-47). Other depictions include the itinerant Jesus teaching multitudes (Matt 5–7), individuals (John 3 and 4), adversaries (Luke 15), and disciples (Mark 4:10-20, 33–34; 7:17-23; 10:10-11,23-31). He teaches in the temple (Matt 26:55; Mark 1117; John 7:14), in synagogues (Matt 4:23; Mark 6:2; Luke 4:15; John 6:59), in houses (Mark 7:17-18; 9:28), from a boat (Luke 5:3), on the hillside (Matt 5:1-2), at a well (John 4:7-30), at table (Luke 7:36-50),on the road (Luke 24:13-32), and by the shore (Mark 2:13; 4:1). In other words, Jesus teaches people wherever he is and wherever they are. In fact, Matt 26:55 evidences that Jesus taught on a daily basis. Today, in the Western world this traveling teacher is considered the most famous pedagogue (Highet, 1950, 190). With these thoughts in mind, let's (1) examine the words used to specify “teacher” in the ancient world and show how Jesus both corresponds to and differs from the perceptions this title implies, (2) suggest some teaching methods used by Jesus, and (3) propose a way modern teachers can learn from him.     

Luke 2:2: Making Sense of the Date of Jesus' Birth

The suggestion made in this note is that in Luke 2:2 we shouldread ‘Quintilius’ instead of ‘Quirinius’.The evidence is primarily that of Tertullian, and the conclusionis that Luke 2:2 as emended confirms that the evangelist orhis source held that Jesus was born not in AD 6, but in 7 or6 BC, in line with other evidence in Luke himself and in Matthew.Further textual suggestions as to how we could make sense ofthe census are appended.     

The Evolution of a Pauline Toxic Text

The earliest followers of Jesus authored their identity narrative within the metanarrative of Jewish faith, thereby creating a new Jewish-Jesus sect. The Christian identity narrative arose as a new story and could not call upon either a Jewish or a Pagan metanarrative for its justification. It was a new creation inspired by the Spirit and authored by Paul. With his guidance, the Pagan followers of Jesus, Christians, articulated their personal and communal experiences of empowerment by the Spirit in a new identity narrative that would in time establish itself as the dominant metanarrative for Western civilization. Members of the Jewish-Jesus community in Jerusalem immediately denied the validity of the Christian narratives. They sought to subjugate the new story to their official and dominant story: that one had to be Jewish in order to follow Jesus. Paul urges the Christians to remain faithful to their personal stories of empowerment by the Spirit. Unfortunately, he also resorts to the use of toxic texts to disenfranchise his Jewish opponents.     

The Origins of the Anaphoral Benedictus

This paper presents evidence for the Benedictus following theSanctus having been introduced first in Jerusalem in the Liturgyof St James. The structure and variety of the Benedictus areexamined, along with theories of Jewish and Antiochene originin relation to the Apostolic Constitutions. A fifth-centuryJerusalem homily provides the first evidence for the Mattheanform, subsequently contained in all versions of the Liturgyof St James and which becomes normative for nearly all eucharistictraditions. The conclusion distinguishes between the originsof the idea of the anaphoral Benedictus and the origins of itsform. The idea of a ‘blessed be’ acclamation afterthe Sanctus may well lie in Jewish traditions, but the originsof its form lie in the Palm Sunday acclamation of fourth-centuryJerusalem.     

Eschatological Images of Prophet and Priest in Edward Schillebeeckx's Theology of suffering for Others

Eschatological images of Jesus as found in Jewish and Christian texts constitute the foundation of Edward Schillebeeckx’s positive orientation to suffering for others. Jewish prototypes provided the early Christians with an understanding of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection as the advent of the eschaton. The pre‐existing biblical figures, which early Jewish Christians appropriated in the aftermath of the devastating crucifixion, provided traditional categories through which the life and death of Jesus could be meaningfully interpreted. Jesus as the eschatological prophet‐martyr and Jesus as the suffering, eschatological high priest of the Epistle to the Hebrews are the most prominent and complex of the ancient figures. In Schillebeeckx’s analysis, each of the two composite titles ascribed to Jesus is an amplification of a prophetic or priestly prototype. The use of both models is predicted on Jesus’ compassionate and redemptive response to suffering – healing the sick, comforting the bereaved, giving hope to the oppressed, and proclaiming eschatological salvation. Schillebeeckx’s historical‐critical investigation of Jesus’ perception of his anticipated death, as revealed in the Last supper narrative, and his analysis of the meaning ascribed to the crucifixion in primitive Christianity establish the basis for a theology of redemptive suffering in the early church. Schillebeeckx has critically examined three pre‐New Testament interpretations applied to Jesus’ crucifixion: (1) the death of the eschatological prophet‐martyr in the Deuteronomic tradition of the prophets whose proclamations were typically misjudged by Israel; (2) the fulfilment of the divine scheme of salvation through the suffering of the ‘righteous one’, who is ultimately exonerated by God; and (3) a vicarious, atoning sacrifice (the Jewish prototype that later influenced Anselm’s substitution theory). The interpretative categories examined by Schillebeeckx with respect to the crucifixion are closely related to the biblical images upon which his theology of suffering is based.     

Sometimes it is better to receive: Ministry in a long-term care facility

The story of the sinful woman who annoints Jesus with her perfume and tears at Simon the Pharisee's table (Luke 7:36–50) is used as a model for pastoral work in a long-term care setting. Intervention in the depersonalization of institutionalization is seen as an important aspect in such ministries. The focus of intervention is allowing residents to move out of the receiving role into the giving role. A case example of a patient-led Bible class is presented. The difficulties that professional givers encounter in shifting to become recipients are noted.     

Seeking remission: Jewish conversion in the Crown of Aragon,c.1378–1391

Despite the expansion of research on the subject of Jewish apostates in Iberia, or conversos as they are more commonly known, we still know distressingly little about the history of Jews converted to Christianity prior to the riots of 1391. Focusing on the royal registers of King Pere III (Pedro IV of Aragon, 1336–1387) and his son Joan I (1387–1396), this article explores the issue of Jewish apostasy in the Crown of Aragon between 1378 and 1391. While Jewish conversion to Christianity is often described as the result of Christian violence, a closer look at Jewish apostates shows that reasons for conversion varied greatly in the late fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon. Jews sought conversion not only as a way out of economic and legal troubles but also in exchange for specific rewards from the king. Conversion led to much conflict between Jews and conversos and records suggest that the period experienced a rise in conversions. Yet rather than being the product of Christian harassment, which is entirely absent from the records, conversion may have been one of the few avenues left for marginal Jews to weather the declining economic conditions of the late fourteenth century.     

Reading the Lucan call of the first disciples differently: the voices of sensing and intuition

Abstract

This article argues that discipleship is a notion of growing importance to the Christian denominations and that the Marcan narrative of the call of the first disciples has been of particular importance in giving shape to this notion. The Lucan narrative of the call of the first disciple, involving the great catch of fish, is problematic in two ways, concerning its relationship with the Marcan understanding of call and also with the Johannine post-resurrection narrative. Against this background this article reports on an empirical study, drawing on the reader perspective and on the SIFT approach to biblical hermeneutics, that illuminates the distinctive voices of sensing types and intuitive types reading Luke 5: 1–7.     

Farming the land on three continents: Bilu, Am Oylom, and Yefe-Nahar

Jewish agrarianization projects in Eastern Europe began in the late eighteenth century. This article compares three such movements that emerged in the Russian Empire: the colonization of the southern Ukraine that took place in the early decades of the nineteenth century, and, later, in the 1880s, the initiatives known as Am Oylom and Bilu. The founders of the colonies in the Ukraine combined the ideology of the Enlightenment with Russian imperial considerations, while the later movements were part of a radical Jewish avant-garde that aimed to create a “new” Jew, who would be a hardworking farmer and live in a cooperative community. Yet these visions could be realized only in a new land free of old, anti-Jewish political systems. Thus the place of social and economic rebirth would be “New Russia,” the United States, or Palestine, and regardless of location or time, the initiators of these enterprises all adopted a consistently productivist rhetoric. In addition, the settlement projects all unknowingly advanced the expanding colonialist interests of the governments of Russia, North America, and Palestine. A revised version of this paper was presented at the international conference “Beyond Eastern Europe: Jewish Cultures in Israel and the United States”, Rutgers University, March 2007.     

'At that Time the Group Around Maximian was Enjoying Imperial Power': an Interpolation in Gregory of Nyssa's Homily in Praise of Theodore

The sentence ‘For at that time the group around Maximianwas enjoying imperial power’, the only chronological indicatorin Gregory of Nyssa's In Theodorum, may be identified on literarygrounds as a scribal interpolation. When this is recognized,the Passio Theodori (BHG 1761) becomes the oldest evidence forthe dating of Theodore's martyrdom.     

Regional history, Jewish memory: the purim of Narbonne

Records of traumatic events in the Jewish past provide the historian a rare glimpse at how community leaders interpreted and understood the historical conditions of diasporic Jews as well as their own immediate communities. In 1236 a violent altercation between a Jewish traveler and a local Christian precipitated a mass uprising against the city's Jewish community. Rapid intervention by the local viscount, Don Aymeric, restored peace to the Jewish quarter, averting loss of life or valuable property. Modern interpretations of this text have varied significantly since its discovery in the late nineteenth century. Scholars have struggled to reconcile it with their expectations of the shape and meaning of the Jewish past. Because the thirteenth-century author of this brief narrative suggested a typological link between the events in Narbonne and the story of Purim, the dominant modern interpretation has viewed this account as evidence of a very early Second Purim commemoration. However there is little evidence to support this claim. This article reads the narrative of the “Purim of Narbonne” against other medieval Jewish narratives about the history and legacy of Jewish Narbonne*.     

ENVISIONING JEWISH CENTRAL EUROPE: FRIEDRICH TORBERG,THE AUSTRIAN ÉMIGRÉS,AND JEWISH EUROPEAN HISTORY

This essay uses the Viennese remigré writer and journalist, Friedrich Torberg (1908–1979), his Austrian Jewish cohort, and their invented “Central Europe” and “Austrian Literature” to argue for a paradigmatic shift in émigré historiography. The cosmopolitan narrative predominating in émigré historiography has marginalized traditional Judaism. By shifting the focus from the German to the Austrian émigrés, and from the European nation state to the Austrian Empire, historians can reclaim traditional Jewish culture and pluralize the hegemonic narrative. Late imperial Austria, constitutionally federalist and ethnically and culturally diverse, made room for a Jewish national culture in ways that Germany did not. The Austrian émigrés shaped visions of Central Europe that foregrounded Jewishness and provided wider space for Jewish life than comparable visions of leading German émigrés. Yet, even Austrian émigré visions remained largely incognizant of rabbinic culture, the core of traditional Jewish life. To make traditional Jews agents of Jewish European history, European historiography must now move to incorporate rabbinic culture.     

A CHRISTIAN NATURALISM: DEVELOPING THE THINKING OF GORDON KAUFMAN

This essay develops a theological naturalism using Gordon Kaufman's nonpersonal idea of God as serendipitous creativity in contrast to the personal metaphorical theology of Sallie McFague. It then develops a Christian theological naturalism by using Kaufman's idea of historical trajectories, specifically Jesus trajectory₁ and Jesus trajectory₂. The first is the trajectory in the early Christian church assuming a personal God in the framework of Greek philosophy that results in the Trinity. The second is the naturalistic‐humanistic trajectory of creativity (God) that evolves from nonpersonal interactions in the universe and life to creativity in persons and is manifested in Jesus as love. This is elaborated further with Dean Keith Simonton's Darwinian understanding of genius and Marcus Borg's analysis of Jesus as Jewish mystic, teacher of alternative wisdom, and nonviolent resister to the domination system of the Roman Empire. What makes Jesus a religious genius is his exemplifying unconditional, universal love—a new mode of creativity (God) that has evolved from nonhuman to a human form.     

“Who then is the Faithful,Insightful Steward?” Consumerism and Luke's Stewarding Vision

Abstract : While at its face Luke's Gospel does not seem to address the realities of life and economics in a capitalistic, consumer‐oriented society, the complete rejection of first‐century economic and power structures presented in Luke offers opportunities to consider anew what it means for Christians in the twenty‐first century to live as faithful followers of Jesus Christ in today's overly consumer‐oriented society.     

Jewish pioneers on Canada’s prairies: The Lipton Jewish agricultural colony

This article offers a detailed analysis of the forces that shaped the Lipton colony in its 50-year existence, one of several dozen attempts to establish Jewish agricultural settlement on Canada’s Western prairies. Comparing both the particularities and the common features of Lipton with those of other colonies will allow strengthening some of the commonly accepted generalizations regarding these colonies, while at the same time showing other assumptions to be questionable or even myth. * A detailed discussion of the Jewish agricultural colonies in Western Canada may be found in Yossi Katz and John C. Lehr, The Last Best West: Essays on the Historical Geography of the Canadian Prairies (Jerusalem, 1999). Other sources discussing the colonies and the reasons for their establishment and ultimate disappearance are: Louis Rosenberg, “Jewish Agriculture in Canada” YIVO Annual of Social Sciences 5 (1950), 205–215; Louis Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews: A Social and Economic Study of the Jews of Canada in the 1930s (Montreal, 1931); Abraham J. Arnold, “The Contribution of the Jews to the Opening and Development of the West” Transactions of the Manitoba Historical Society Series 3 no. 3, (Winnipeg, 1968–’69).     

Elijah Levita: a Jewish Hebraist

Elijah Levita’s (c. 1469–1558) study of Hebrew was part of the longtime Jewish occupation with the language of Scripture. Yet much of Levita’s scholarship was at odds with prior Jewish approaches to Biblical language and the transmission of the Biblical text. In his many works, Levita provides a critical account of the development of Hebrew, Aramaic, and the masoretic scribal traditions. This article examines the relationship between Levita’s critical approach to the Bible and the Christian context within which he worked. With the rise of Christian Hebraism, an increasingly sophisticated and sustained discourse on Hebrew developed outside of Jewish circles. This created an alternative setting within which Levita could produce scholarship that challenged prior Jewish notions of language and the Bible. The viability of Levita’s scholarship was no longer contingent on Jewish reception alone, allowing him to express critical ideas without fear of internal censure and without assuming the hermeneutical posture typical of pre-modern Jewish scholarly expression. This article has benefited from conversations with advisors at Columbia University and with colleagues at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. In particular, I would like to thank Wim Smit (z”l) and Jennifer Greenfield for shaping my studies of early-modern European intellectual life and my colleague Naomi Seidman for helping me to better tell the story. Thanks to Kenneth Stow, Arthur Lesley, and unnamed third and fourth readers of this essay for their helpful suggestions.     

Blond, tall, with honey-colored eyes: Jewish ownership of slaves in the Ottoman Empire

Hundreds of Hebrew written sources, dozens of official decrees, judicial records (sijillat), and reports of European travelers indicate that slaveholding – particularly of females of slavic origin – in Jewish households in the urban centers of the Ottoman Empire was widespread from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This halachically and legally problematic habit was an unparalleled phenomenon in any other Jewish community in the early modern period. The presence of slaves in Jewish households effected family life in many ways. I dealt with two of them: The first is cohabitation of Jewish men with female slaves, usually non-Jewish, who in effect served as their concubines and bore them legitimate children; the second is marriage with manumitted slaves who converted to Judaism and became an integral part of the community. These phenomena attest once again to the great extent to which Jewish society and its norms and codes were influenced by Muslim urban society, and the gap between rabbinic rhetoric ideals and the dynamic daily existence of Jews from all social strata. Research for this article was carried out during my postdoctoral fellowship as a Mandel Scholar at the Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center, the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The article is based on a lecture delivered at a conference in honor of Prof. Amnon Cohen in June 2005 at the Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem; and in Ankara, Turkey, in October 2005. I thank Prof. Kenneth Stow for his kind and friendly guidance.     

Is there still a “Jerusalem School?” Reflections on the state of Jewish historical scholarship in Israel

This essay examines the study of Jewish history in Israel at the juncture of two currents: the ongoing expansion of an international community of Jewish studies scholars and the waning interest in the field in Israel itself. Mindful of the latter trend, it is easy to adopt a declensionist narrative, according to which the “Jerusalem School,” with its monolithic and Palestinocentric view of the past, has run its course. And yet, that framing occludes a number of novel tendencies in Israel, arising in the present “post-post-Zionist” moment, that expand the contours of Jewish historical scholarship in productive ways. They include: the well-known and controversial work of the “New Historians;” the work of a succeeding generation of scholars who have brought new intellectual and methodological openness to the study of Zionism; the work of Israeli scholars who have introduced a new measure of reflexivity through careful examination of the history of Jewish historiography; and the work of Israeli scholars who have eschewed the once-regnant view of an “immanent causality” in Jewish history. In conclusion, the article suggests that kernels of these trends were present in the founding generation of scholars at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, though the current generation of scholars is both more critical toward the Zionist nationalist narrative and more global in its orientation.