Minor Thoughts from me to you

"Then some of the scribes and pharisees said to him, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." He said to them in reply, "An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the Sign of Jonah the prophet. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights." (Matthew 12: 38-40)

It's been a good, long while since I published any anti-Christian screed on this site. I feel inspired to do so today because this morning - and I want you to know I am not making this up - Atheist Me led the daily devotional for my school's students. Their pastor couldn't get out of his driveway and needed a fill-in.

In case you're wondering, no: even for a man who refuses to step foot in a worship service these days and would on principle never tell a child that Jesus is alive, much less loves him or her, it was pretty easygoing. I simply asked one of the older kids to lead the rest in prayer and then chose as our subject a parable from the Gospel of Luke which I do find valuable - in this particular case, the tale of the good Samaritan.

And to digress from this post's point, I find that this story - and indeed many stories from the Tanakh set after the reign of Solomon - have special resonance for Koreans (my students are all Korean), since these tales are set at a time when Israel is divided in twain and the northern segment of the population is considered to have gone seriously astray. In fact I like to bring home the point by reintroducing them to the tale by retelling it with new principal actors. That is, I tell them about a Korean man who gets mugged and passed over by a pastor and a missionary before being saved by a North Korean communist. In the future I plan to do the same wherever I go, should I have the opportunity: have Tutsis saved by Hutus, Jews by Muslim Palestinians, etc. I think it's the only way to restore the desired effect of a passage that has long since lost any relevancy.

OK, then: screed time.

Matthew 12:38-40 is a pretty major smoking gun that a lot of the Gospel accounts of Jesus need to be taken with more than a grain or two of salt. Far more people - even almost everybody - should notice it, but since reading the Bible is for most an act of worship rather than an exercise in critical thinking, and one written in an alien style that easily disorients the modern reader, neither the demands of Jesus' enemies or Jesus' own reply seem as bizarre as they should. Their conversation really should go something like this:

PHARISEES: Teacher, give us a sign!

JESUS: Oh, for the last - Huh?

SCRIBES: Show us a miracle so that we'll believe you!

JESUS: Forget it! Thirteen verses ago I was healing people left and right and your type accused me of witchcraft!

PHARISEES: Well... Do one now and we'll believe you.

JESUS: No. In fact, the only miracle I'm going to show this wicked generation is the Sign of Jonah.

LAME PERSON: That's it?

JESUS: Yes. That's the only one. Sorry.

LAME PERSON: But you healed Matthathias down the street of his leprosy. And Rachel of her epilepsy. And... A ton of other people.

JESUS: OK, OK, I'll heal you too. Just pipe down.

Clearly we've got some editorial funny business going on here; the passage simply doesn't make sense in its context. But then whence came it? Since the Gospel of Mark doesn't include it and both the other Synoptic Gospels do (and choose for its inclusion different places in the narrative) a decent educated guess is that it's a quotation out of "Q", the mysterious, missing wellspring from which the first three Gospels all seem to draw.

A'right, then: it's a quotation of Jesus, probably pulled from a list of them, that both Matthew and Luke noted and felt should be included. Yet, what about the content of the quotation itself? First we should note that the quote itself varies according to the gospel in which it is read, meaning either Matthew, Luke, both, or subsequent editors chose to add their own touch what Jesus was saying in this passage. Luke's adds more quotes from Jesus after it (the original, stand-alone quote at most included "An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the Sign of Jonah the prophet") clearly peg the sign of Jonah to be simply Jonah's preaching. Someone who had his hand in Matthew, however, appears to have decided that Jesus was foreshadowing here (which in the context of Gospel of Matthew is not unreasonable, less so otherwise). Rather than let the Lord's sly allusion slip by any less savvy readers, he's written in J.C. simply spelling it out.

Second, we note that for all the clarification Matthew's (first? second?) author has added, we're still left with the quandary of why the Pharisees and scribes are asking Jesus for miracles - perhaps the gospel writers simply should have placed this passage earlier in Jesus' ministry, before He started healing? - and why Jesus says He won't. What's the most logical explanation?

The author or editor of Matthew tries to solve the problem himself; unlike the less gilded lilly of Luke's gospel, in which Jesus clearly identifies the present generation as the wicked one of which He speaks, Matthew makes Jesus' targets more generic. In Matthew, Jesus is talking about any generation that wants proof of His authority. Very handily, this not only erases the contradiction but gives churches a verse with which to counterattack when people demand they prove they represent God with some good old-fashioned miracle-working. The preferable take for Christians, then - but also the less trustworthy, since Matthew is clearly messing with his inherited text elsewhere in even the same section.

I'll offer a different idea, using the principle of analogy and a particular comparison borrowed from the excellent book I'm reading by scholar Dr. Robert M. Price (The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man). Another would-be messiah named Sabbatai Zevi, who would unfortunately go on to really disappoint his followers by choosing to convert to Islam rather than be martyred, was said by the Jews to be working all sorts of wonders during his candidacy - despite he himself saying he wasn't up to do any. The nature of personality cults and mystic beliefs took its course regardless, with various people claiming they'd been the recipient of his healing touch or what have you. Just as today (the overwhelming desire of the Catholic population to see Mother Theresa canonized has resulted in multiple, often embarrassing claims, such as that the visible glare of light in a photo of her is actually a heavenly radiance), people found magic where they wanted to find it.

Maybe Jesus' followers were likewise far more responsible for His miracles, even in the face of His own knowledge and declarations that He would not perform them (He fails at one point in Mark to do any miracles, ostensibly because the people in that location have no faith). Their imagination and experiences accomplished what Jesus Himself refused to do. Their reports are what is chronicled in the Gospels.

I think the taste from this morning is out of my mouth now.