Jesus understood under the symbols of Sponge

I finished this book almost two weeks ago, and have been struggling with it since. I liked it, and I liked it a lot. I've covered this before,but despite growing up in a working class 'hood filled with many immigrants from the old country, I was always pretty happy with the religious instruction given in my parish, St. Rita, growing up. Although it was squashed down on us that our sole purpose was to get our souls into heaven - the sacrament of confession was quite possibly THE MOST important to us 'cause if ye got carhit outside the confessional booth after a 'good confession', y'd go straight to heaven - its very obvious I also got plenty of doses of the humanist Jesus and the deep importance of loving your enemies and all that. Lots of bible background in school and in church, understood the Good Samaritan story, knew that people thought Jesus was special.

But I always wanted to read more about the biblical background in the same way that I learned materialism back in the grad school day. Always loved reading iconoclasts like Marx and X and Hill and Parenti and Hobsbawm and others put their spin on familiar subjects. John Sponge is a like iconoclast, mixing up history, religion, culture, science, sociology, etc to create a very interesting mix of his ideas on Jesus and god. Good read, too.

So it happened to stumble upon this book by chance. It happened to be in a lib's New Book' section, and I grabbed it. Took 2-3m to finally start it, but then ate it all up and quick. Sponge, basically, amounts to what some have called him : an atheist bishop. He danses around the topic by saying that we have been bound too long by an image of a 'theistic god', which means a god that hangs out, listens to prayers, the big white beard and all. What he does is dissemble the historical/cultural Jesus that has been passed down to us and instead give us his ideal of who Jesus is. It takes a long time and like any historian, he builds his case bit by bit.

The first (of three) part of the book is entitled "Separating the human Jesus from the myth", and a partial list of chapters will tell you its targets : Chapter Two - "There was no star over Bethlehem" discusses the various accounts of Jesus' birth, and the inconsistencies between them. He also uses nice historical thinking when he writes about no historical record about the 'census' that forced Jesus's family to go to Bethlehem. Chapter Four - "The Historicity of the Twelve Disciples", discusses that if there were twelve disciples, how come there are like 15-6 mentioned ?? And he discusses miracles in Chapters 5-6-7-8. And finally, he presents the crucifixion narrative as "Liturgy masquerading as History" - meaning that instead of literal history, the crucifixion is instead written up as if it were a liturgy to be followed in 'mass'.

And that's the whole bit- the gospels, Sponge writes, should never be read as literal history. One totally should use them as a 'way to live' and even to seek out historical clues in the gospels. However, Sponge wants us to remember that the gospels were written 15-50 years after Jesus's death, and were handed down as oral tradition before that. So= literate readings of it ? NO !! Sponge sees the Gospels and talk of Christ as God as an attempt by humans to put the Jesus experience that they received into human words = and failing miserably. There are no way we can use human language correctly in this task-it just beggars- and successive generations have taken the gospel attempts to put 'God into words' as literal truth. I paraphrase Sponge when I write that Sponge is looking for the Jesus experience, not the 1st Century explanation of it.

Sponge writes :

" Perhaps if we can break Jesus out of religion, free him from creeds, doctrines, and dogmas, we can once again hear his invitation to enter the God experience known in the fullness of life. That is the Jesus I seek. he neither was nor is a miracle worker. He did not walk on water, heal the sick, or raise the dead. rather, in his radical humanity, he lived out the meaning of God and caused those who glimpsed his life or felt his power to exclaim "God was in Christ', and this God, the gospel writers assert, can also be in me and you. " (p.95)

The second part of the book is entitled "The original image of Jesus". Since the gospels were written by members of a movement that was heavily dominated by Jews, there is - unsurprisingly- lottsa Jewish stuff in them. Being a catholic, it is of course "Catholic Stuff" because that's the way it's always been presented growing up. Adam, Moses, Noah?? All Catholics and part of the catholic tradition, as far I always knew. But one must remember, there was lotta Jewish history before Jesus came along- and this is what Sponge is on in this section. Again, the gospels were written- Sponge argues- mainly by Jewish lads for Jewish people which also were...... well now also Christians. So, again, one must read through Jewish eyes the gospels to fully get all of their meaning. Again, some chapter titles: Jesus understood under the symbols of Yom Kippur, Jesus understood as the new Passover, Jesus as the Son of Man, etc..... So in writing the gospels for a heavily Jewish crowd, the writers wrote about Jesus to evoke some of the ideas and prophets in the Old Testament to tie him into that tradition. The net result, however, is to partially obscure Jesus's true message; which comes in Part Three.

In Part Three, Sponge feels Jesus ultimate message is in John 10:10 : "I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly" - not 'Love your enemies". Sponge goes into science - evolution even- to explain his vision of God which Jesus enabled Sponge to see. People have it in them evolutionarily to be wary of others. In animals the pack sticks to-gether for the good of the whole pack, and treats all others suspiciously. However, Sponge sees Jesus' message as superseding this pack mentality. The Jesus message is to reach out to those who are not your family or frenz- love your enemies, Jesus says. This was a freak out in the day, because the people were taught to stay away from others and not 'cross tribal boundaries' as Sponge calls it. Jesus crossed many such boundaries- the curing of the lepers, the parable of the Good Samaritan, even that he had a lot of female disciples (he used context for this). Sponge writes

" The claim is made in these passages that Jesus is what God is, because in the fullness of Jesus's humanity we can experience what it means to live beyond the barriers of our evolutionary past and soar into a humanity that is spirit filled, open to the source of life and love ........ " (p 263-4).

And he crosses religious rules. The context of the time was that there were rules about rules about rules, and one had to follow all of these religious rules unless one wanted to be sinful. There is a story of a woman who was considered unclean by religious law, yet Jesus hung out and even cured her. He also cured a cripple on the Sabbath, another Total no no back then (p269). People got upset that Jesus was 'working' on the Sabbath, when one is supposed to rest. However, Sponge writes that to Jesus:

" Human life was not created to fit into the sabbath laws, he proclaimed. The opposite was true; the sabbath laws were designed as an aid in the enhancement of human life. If religious rules do not enhance life, they must be set aside in the name of humanity. Contrary to thousands of years of religious teaching and practice, the ultimate purpose of religion is not to please the presumed external supernatural deity, Jesus was saying; it is rather to enhance humanity. " (p.256)

So- to Sponge, the ultimate message of Christ is to overcome all boundaries and rules and distinctions and diversions that have kept all people apart for all of time. Instead, we are to serve one another. this is the purpose, and not to 'serve god' - back to that old theistic definition of god he wrote of earlier.

So- he's saying, in our language- there is no god, and when you die, that's it- no more you. But to touch the Divine? Well, you can- just follow Jesus's teachings about reaching out to those who you would normally not and making sure that they receive a full dose of...........of fuck, I'm not even sure. Again, Sponges 'Jesus message' is "I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly". We, too, are to do the same.

Again, I loved the book and have been very influenced by it. Now reading Pagels/ Kings Gospel of Judas, and will read more on bible scholarship. But beyond the scholarly level, I must amidt I did a hard existential bit for two days realising that when my 76.3 years are over, that's it. I always have it that the idea of a god is rather far fetched, but I've been easy on myself with "Well, I can't explain Love, I can't explain consciousness, anything is possible. Vito long ago disabused my "Hey, I think that I got a proof of God : what about Love?" and he mumbled something about "Well, what about the the scientific ideas bout the chemical basis of Love??:, and Sponge takes out my "Well, what about consciousness? I can't explain that!!" with the argument that consciousness is simply an evolutionary uptic of the 'flight or fight' responses....or something like that. So, in my lazy way I've always been able to push such questions back for 'later'. Yet, my ideas jibe well with Sponge in many ways, and it's hard to dig his arguments about most things but not this final thing. It's hard to think that one day I will not exist. Again, for two days I went through this deep funk, and quite frankly : I was unhappy. Sponge writes that one must get the heavenly God idea out of our heads to fully live a humanistic life the way Jesus did. So- the way to truly serve god is to make sure she doesn't exist. And don't worry- I'm into the bible scholarship these days, so Ill be reading more. Need to get those gnostic gospels- very interesting deals.......