Rabbi Jeshua
Rabbi Jeshua of Nazareth
I often wonder how you’d feel
Were you to hear what they do say
Who claim to follow you.
Would you be happy with those books
They claim are “Gospel Truth?”
And say exactly what you taught
Correct in every detail?
First, tell me, did you really think
You were the Lord’s Anointed?
Your people’s true Messiah?
Despite – it seems – you much preferred
To call yourself just, “Son of Man?”
What would you think were you to learn
They say your mother never shared
With her good husband Yussef
A happy marriage bed?
Why do you think that more than that
They say they know he’s not your Dad
And adamantly claim you had
No human father?
Instead they say that you were born
While she was still
A maid who’d never known a man?
Yes, Rabbi, truly, that’s their claim.
They also say you weren’t just good,
But lived a “spotless, sinless life,”
That never did you think or do a single act not “perfect.”
Which means, they say – they are quite sure -
You never with yourself did play
Or with a woman, or a man,
Express desire at all.
They’re not content to say you spoke
With words that challenged and inspired,
And had a gentle touch which showed
You knew the pain so many felt
The suffering, guilt and weakness.
For did you not say that your God
Requires of us to bring about
A rule based here upon this earth
On justice and compassion?
Instead it seems they’d rather say
You really did on water walk
And calmed wild storms.
That bread and fish you multiplied
And exorcised fierce demons.
The also say
You turned the cleansing jars
Which held much water into richest wine,
And even raised your friend from death
Some days after his passing.
And if you were to say,“Oh yes.
These stories that they quote,
Like many words of mine,
Are just the vivid tools we use
To puzzle, move, inspire, provoke
Through poetry and picture.”
They will reply, “Oh No.
For us with Faith, all this is Fact.
Our Jesus is not just a man, or even a great prophet.
He is the “Word Made Flesh” which means
You see – he’s God in human form!”
“What’s more,” they cry, “He cannot die!
For when so cruelly crucified,
He rose in flesh the third day after.”
So – were you then to come back here – as they are sure you will -
Would you them thank for keeping faith
With all you taught and did?
Your true disciples – or
Might you just say,
“I fear these poor goyim have gone quite mad.”
Since the early 19th Century scholars have been applying the historical-critical method to the study of the Christ ian Scriptures. The result has been – as the present Pope has quoted a leading German Catholic scholar as saying – that, “a reliable view of the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth through scientific effort with historical-critical methods can be only inadequately achieved.” (forward to Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger.)
For the present Pope this then justifies him in going beyond the historical critical method to write from “a position of faith” which for him means that the divinity of Christ and the overall coherence of the scriptures (and no doubt the authority of the Church) is assumed from the start to be true.
If however one starts from the assumption that the recods we have give us good reason to see Rabbi Jeshua as an exceptional, charismatic individual whose personality, teaching, life and example in facing an appalling death made a huge life-affirming impact on those who became his followers, and that those who then later wrote the letters and narratives were motivated to express as powerfully as they knew how their new found sense of his presence within them, the result may be rather different.