Who is ‘Jesus’ and what place – if any -- does ‘Jesus’ have in these reflections on my search for a very healthy center? (The single quotes are my way of indicating attention to the variety of images/interpretations that have evolved from the historical figure ‘Jesus’ since the beginnings of Christianity.) I have no better place to begin an explanation than a 1986 conversation with my special friend Sheldon Korones, MD. It was a few days before Passover. I was sitting with Shelly at his kitchen table engaged in yet another of our weekly meetings to reconstruct the experiences that led to his leaving private practice in 1968 to care for critically-ill inner-city newborns. Though Shelly is Jewish by birth and I Christian by birth, we have discovered during two decades of conversations that – as he once put it – “we drink the same wine from different goblets”.
That evening in 1986, Shelly recalled fondly his Lower East Side childhood experiences at Passover in the Yiddish home of his Russian grandparents. Before moving on to another subject, we detoured into a discussion of ‘Jesus’. One exchange from that conversation still echoes clearly for me. Shelly reflected, “Doug, it’s a shame what we did to one of our boys.” To which I responded, “And it’s a shame what Christianity has done with him, too.” I had ruinous anti-Semitism in mind and more.
My earliest ideas about ‘Jesus’ formed as I grew up deep inside a small West Kentucky town/culture in which it was taken for granted that the Bible -- literally read -- meshes into a unified and authoritative way of thinking about ‘God’, nature, and life. Those ideas began to melt away when, as a historian-in-training, I sought to know who this Jewish figure from the days of Augustus Caesar was, the ‘Jesus’ before the theological portrayals of him generated by the religion that evolved in his name. And as a storyteller straining to ‘see from below’, I had to decide if the image of ‘Jesus’ still possible after historical examination merits attention as someone capable of having a respectful and gentle presence with victims of innocent suffering, clearly distinct from the bruising presence so characteristic of the religion that claims to represent him.
By the 1986 conversation with Shelly, I had been carried far away from the religious language about ‘Jesus’ familiar to me from my youth, carried away by educational experiences – esp., learning to work with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew sources from antiquity; studying carefully the history of ideas that have shaped western societies; and becoming familiar with the underpinnings of today’s scientifically ordered milieu – and carried away by exposure to the unspeakably harsh realities of human suffering. My eyes had been opened to the complexities of interpreting ancient texts. I had realized that living in sheep-like naiveté makes one easy prey for life’s wolves. I was engaging the implications of admitting that speaking of ‘God’ as creator . . . as lord . . . as king . . . as father . . . as up there . . . as listening . . . as anticipating . . . as acting . . . as controlling . . . and the like collapses into idolatrous language when spoken as children speak of Santa Claus (i.e., without reservation/caution re the anthropo-, socio-, and cosmomorphic nature of such ‘God’ language). I was coming to grips with the fact that my way of seeing life experiences is irreversibly scientific. I had resolved to speak consistently whether among academic historians, theologians, and philosophers or in the medical education sphere or with parents of mentally and/or physically disabled children or before graduate students in seminars about human suffering, or . . . . And I was prepared to reject any ideas that would draw me back or away from the resolve to become the sort of person who strives to be truly present -- without regard for spiritual or theological cost -- with individuals who are experiencing the worst of life.
I had already looked for ‘Jesus’ through this multi-layered grid for many years prior to the 1986 conversation with Shelly. I have continued this critical inquiry to the present. Here is the ‘Jesus’ I saw then and still see. In spite of the many ways ‘Jesus’ was representative of his time (and, therefore, distant from today’s modern/scientific time), I benefit from pondering his decisions. I listen to his stories. I resonate with his vision for life. I commemorate his execution.
That evening in 1986, Shelly recalled fondly his Lower East Side childhood experiences at Passover in the Yiddish home of his Russian grandparents. Before moving on to another subject, we detoured into a discussion of ‘Jesus’. One exchange from that conversation still echoes clearly for me. Shelly reflected, “Doug, it’s a shame what we did to one of our boys.” To which I responded, “And it’s a shame what Christianity has done with him, too.” I had ruinous anti-Semitism in mind and more.
My earliest ideas about ‘Jesus’ formed as I grew up deep inside a small West Kentucky town/culture in which it was taken for granted that the Bible -- literally read -- meshes into a unified and authoritative way of thinking about ‘God’, nature, and life. Those ideas began to melt away when, as a historian-in-training, I sought to know who this Jewish figure from the days of Augustus Caesar was, the ‘Jesus’ before the theological portrayals of him generated by the religion that evolved in his name. And as a storyteller straining to ‘see from below’, I had to decide if the image of ‘Jesus’ still possible after historical examination merits attention as someone capable of having a respectful and gentle presence with victims of innocent suffering, clearly distinct from the bruising presence so characteristic of the religion that claims to represent him.
By the 1986 conversation with Shelly, I had been carried far away from the religious language about ‘Jesus’ familiar to me from my youth, carried away by educational experiences – esp., learning to work with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew sources from antiquity; studying carefully the history of ideas that have shaped western societies; and becoming familiar with the underpinnings of today’s scientifically ordered milieu – and carried away by exposure to the unspeakably harsh realities of human suffering. My eyes had been opened to the complexities of interpreting ancient texts. I had realized that living in sheep-like naiveté makes one easy prey for life’s wolves. I was engaging the implications of admitting that speaking of ‘God’ as creator . . . as lord . . . as king . . . as father . . . as up there . . . as listening . . . as anticipating . . . as acting . . . as controlling . . . and the like collapses into idolatrous language when spoken as children speak of Santa Claus (i.e., without reservation/caution re the anthropo-, socio-, and cosmomorphic nature of such ‘God’ language). I was coming to grips with the fact that my way of seeing life experiences is irreversibly scientific. I had resolved to speak consistently whether among academic historians, theologians, and philosophers or in the medical education sphere or with parents of mentally and/or physically disabled children or before graduate students in seminars about human suffering, or . . . . And I was prepared to reject any ideas that would draw me back or away from the resolve to become the sort of person who strives to be truly present -- without regard for spiritual or theological cost -- with individuals who are experiencing the worst of life.
I had already looked for ‘Jesus’ through this multi-layered grid for many years prior to the 1986 conversation with Shelly. I have continued this critical inquiry to the present. Here is the ‘Jesus’ I saw then and still see. In spite of the many ways ‘Jesus’ was representative of his time (and, therefore, distant from today’s modern/scientific time), I benefit from pondering his decisions. I listen to his stories. I resonate with his vision for life. I commemorate his execution.
