3. The resurrection of Jesus: A unique signifier of his divinity?

 

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

(Matthew 27:50-53)

 

The affirmation of Jesus’s divinity is his resurrection. Yet, according to Matthew, when Jesus died many dead came back to life. His reanimation is no unique signifier of his divinity. Jesus is not even the first to be reborn on this day.

How would the writer of Matthew know that the dead were raised to life at the moment Jesus “gave up the ghost”? Of course he wouldn’t. There is no way that the death of Jesus could be confirmed as causing the other resurrections. Why do none of the other canonical gospels mention the marvellous sight of many dead coming out of their graves and visiting the city? Because it never happened. The alternative to admitting the canonical gospels contain such inventions is to deny any uniqueness to the resurrection of Jesus on that day.

 

2. How does the (life and) death of Jesus atone for our sins?

Early Christians believed that blood had redemptive powers:

all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness

(Hebrews 9:22)

To regard a substance as having such abstract powers invariably comes from a form of thinking known as sympathetic magic. JG Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1889) extensively documents and elucidates such rituals. The belief in the abstract restorative powers of blood stems from a naive essentialism that should be anathema to the modern educated mind:

But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

(Genesis 9:4)

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul

(Leviticus 17:11)

For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.

(Leviticus 17:14)

We now know that life cannot be defined as that which has blood pumping through it, that blood is not at all a life giving essence but rather one substance among many, part of a system that enables but one of many complex chemical reactions that sustain a living organism. The line between the living and the inert is not a sharp one, rather a matter of degree. Blood is not magical.

Why is God vengeful? That is, why does this being require a violent sacrifice (blood) to atone for sin? Is God not supposed to be accepting of those who come to him? Why does he need some kind of payment, ransom, or substitution at all?

A sophisticated Christian may counter that blood is symbolic. This is not in accord with the Hebrew Bible, and of course it raises the question “symbolic for what?”

The scapegoats

The Day of Atonement occurs on day ten of the seventh month in the Jewish calendar. On this day, the High Priest of Israel would sacrifice a bullock as an offering to propitiate for his own sins. Then he presented two goats at the tabernacle which were chosen by lot. One goat was “The Lord’s Goat”, a blood sacrifice, and the other was the scapegoat, to be sent away into the wilderness. The High Priest confessed the sins of the Israelites to Yahweh, placing them figuratively on the head of the scapegoat, who took them away never to be seen again. With the cleansing magic of the blood of the Lord’s goat, The sin of Israel was atoned for.

In the New Testament, Barrabas is reportedly set free. Yet why would the Romans release a rebel leader and murderer on the request of a crowd of Jews? Why have the Jews suddenly turned against Jesus? Acts 25:16 (almost certainly written by the author of the Gospel of Luke) reads

I told them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over anyone before they have faced their accusers and have had an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges.

There is no precedent in Roman custom for releasing those to be crucified. More specifically, the practice is not in accord with what is known of Pilate’s dealings with the Jews. As history, the story is completely implausible. It is to be understood as not only a parallel to the Jewish practice of atonement through scapegoating, but as a direct replacement for it. Barrabas means “son of the father”, so we have two sons side by side. In some manuscripts of Matthew, Barrabas is even called Jesus Barrabas. The conceit is that there is no need to practice the Jewish sacrifice of two goats each year now because the ritual is subsumed into the one-time sacrifice of God’s son. So Barrabas is set free and disappears, the wilderness goat, and Jesus is slain, the blood sacrifice. The parallels may not only be an attempt to update and replace the old rituals, a constant theme of the canonical Gospels. There may be intended an ironic commentary, in that the wrong “goat” was chosen by the people to die.

Now, the life of Jesus cannot be only that of an animal, a blood sacrifice to Yahweh. So the tale must be refined. The writers of the New Testament books naturally attempted to do this, as did Christian leaders.

The Moral Influence Theory of Atonement

The oldest theology on the atonement is probably the moral influence view. The idea is that the entire life and death of Jesus encourages a moral betterment of society. However, this theory is not satisfactory at all. Christ’s death is no longer a necessary or uniquely redemptive act. Rather than being saved by the blood of Jesus, people save themselves through their own behaviour. The divinity of Jesus becomes a side note.

There is intense debate on whether the moral influence view is contradicted by scripture, especially the declarations by Paul that people are saved by faith and not “works of the law”.

Does such moral influence even work? Robert Ingersoll asked the razor sharp question, “Has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin?”

In fact it seems that belief in forgiveness is a predictor of higher crime rates. In a study of 143,000 people across 67 countries, Azim F. Shariff and Mijke Rhemtulla found that

the proportion of people who believe in hell negatively predicts national crime rates whereas belief in heaven predicts higher crime rates.

The Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement

The penal substitution theory did not emerge until the 11th Century CE. The major critic of this view of the atonement was Faustus Socinus, whose objections were:

1. Perfect satisfaction for sin, even by way of substitution, leaves no room for divine forgiveness or pardon.(Is God unwilling or unable to forgive without someone suffering?)

2. It is unjust both to punish the innocent and to allow the guilty to go free.

3. The finite suffering and temporary death of one is disproportionate to the infinite suffering and permanent death of many.

4. The grace of perfect satisfaction would appear to confer on its beneficiaries a freedom to sin without consequence.

Another flaw in  the penal substitution theory is that only a victim can forgive you for what you have done to them. Penal substitution bypasses the hurt done to victims and so is unjust.

The Satisfaction Theory of Atonement

The satisfaction theory is found in the works of the medieval theologian Saint Anselm of Canterbury. The death of Jesus is seen as an alternative to punishment altogether. Rather, it is said to restore the honour that sin had taken away. On this view, God is something like a mafia Godfather.

Thomas Aquinas refined the satisfaction theory, postulating that the crucifixion of Jesus restored a universal moral imbalance.

The weakness of satisfaction theory is that it abstracts the death of Jesus and dodges the question of what the crucifixion was actually supposed to achieve. Aquinas says that punishment is medicinal, and the death of Jesus was medicinal, but how are they medicinal? What is the active ingredient in the medicine? How is the death of Jesus a morally restorative act? What is good about it?

The Ransom Theory of Atonement

Another early (as opposed to medieval or later) theory is that the death of Jesus paid a ransom. Traditionally the ransom is paid to Satan. Yet this gives undue power to Satan: What hold would he have over Jesus, who reportedly resisted him?

Anselm’s refutation of the ransom theory was that Satan, being a rebel and outlaw, could have no just claim over humans.

Furthermore, the idea is unscriptural. There is nothing in the Bible about the devil demanding a ransom for humans.

There are other theories of the atonement that the reader can research for themselves. Suffice to say none of them are satisfactory.

What does the Bible say?

Paul doesn’t make the issue any clearer. He doesn’t stick to any soteriological model, preferring to pile on the metaphors, presumably to enrichen the death of Jesus beyond that of Jewish blood sacrifice. Throughout the New Testament you will find a conflation of many, often contradictory, ideas on the death of Jesus. In passages such as 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13, Jesus is the scapegoat.

In Romans 3:25, propitiation, faith, and blood are what redeem us.

In Romans 6, a surrendering of freedom is implied. The death of Jesus makes us “slaves of God.”

In Romans 8:3

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh

flesh is the redemptive element.

Elsewhere, the death of Jesus is an economic transaction, as in Acts 20:28 :

…feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Let us not forget that the idea of blood’s magic cleansing properties is littered throughout the New Testament as well as the Old.

Atonement cannot be a combination of the theories since all of them are flawed, and most of them are mutually exclusive. To the Jews, the capture and execution of Jesus is evidence that he was not the Messiah. So why does the story of Jesus end this way?

Remember that The New Testament was intended to replace the Old. Christ’s death is a direct replacement for the Judaic practices of blood sacrifice and scapegoating. But Paul, especially, tried to seal the deal with as many convincing metaphors as he could muster. This has opened the way for two millennia of wild and contradictory theology.

The problem of atonement should be a huge stumbling block for Christians. At the very least, each Christian should have a satisfactory theory as to how Jesus is salvation. That would not suffice were humans less mentally flighty creatures. That is, it should not suffice, since for all the imaginative invention of theories we are capable of, the failure of the allegedly holy texts to make the crucial matter clear is a giant red flag.

1. The inconstancy of Christian morality.

In the fifties, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel released records as that most familiar American duo, Tom & Jerry. It was the sixties before their now famous Jewish names were allowed an airing. A similar thing happened with Jesus. Truth is, without Paul, Jesus may have been simultaneously too Jewish, too old fashioned, and too radical to make it big. Jesus in the Gospels is not quite the laissez faire hippie that many Christians want him to be. He is quoted as saying

Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery

(Matthew 19:9)

yet good Christians divorce for reasons other than infidelity all the time. Society’s moral values have changed, and the moral values of Christians have changed with them. Jesus says nothing against slavery whereas a modern Christian placed in his situation and time might feel compelled to speak out.

So it is all very well for Christians to talk of Christian moral values, but what are they?
Christians, just as everyone else, do not agree between themselves on key moral issues, such as abortion, birth control , stem cell research, and capital punishment. One response to this disparity is that dissenters from any given view are not True Christians. Exactly what is required to be a True Christian varies from individual to individual. From my research into the Bible, the number of True Christians is either one male or 144,000 virgins (male). The “No True Christian” defence is of course almost invariably equivalent to the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Biblical ethics are predicated on absolutes. The Jews’ God worshipped by Christians is assumed to be eternal and unchanging. His moral character is also eternal and unchanging. What God finds good will always be good.

Thou art near, O LORD; and all thy commandments are truth. Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever.

(Psalm 119:151-2)

Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

(Psalm 119:160)

If Jesus did somehow “fulfill” the law (whatever that means) so that all of it no longer had to be obeyed, then God’s judgements are not unchanging. God once hated covetousness, now it is the basis of our economic system and he is more than fine with that. Once God was filled with moral repugnance whenever a man lay with a man, now he grumbles under his breath that whatever gays get up to in their own homes they shouldn’t broadcast it. Some even say that God is pro-homosexuality. Many years in the future, it is possible that all righteous Christians will be just as in favour of marriage for all as they now are opposed to slavery and segregation.

When Paul saw in Jesus a less Jewish Jew, a Jew for all, a major stumbling block was the law. All those homogenizing restrictions would never fly across diverse communities. Thanks firstly to Paul’s rebranding, and contributions from many a committee over the next 1500 years or so, the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith suddenly came up with the idea that God gave Adam only the moral law. Additionally to the Israelites, for He loved them especially, the Lord gave even more (i.e ceremonial and civil) laws.

In reality, to the Israelites the Law was all three things: it was moral because to do what God commanded was right. It was ceremonial because observance of the law was a constant reminder of the covenant. It was civil because there was no separation of holy and civil law.

The Westminster Confession’s apologetic is popular even in the face of the following words attributed to Jesus:

For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

(Matthew 5:18-19)

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.

(Matthew 5:17)

Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law.

(John 7:19)

We find in modern times that, contra Leviticus, blasphemy, adultery, working on a Saturday, and dishonouring your parents are no longer punishable by death. Most Western slave owners were Christians, and found support in the Bible for slavery during the debate that led to the American Civil War, yet today you would be hard pressed to find a Christian who is in favour of the enslavement of other human beings. Many Christians are supportive of gay rights, a large number are gay themselves, and would never dream of characterising a man lying with a man as an “abomination”. Despite 1 Timothy 2:12,

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet

we have female priests.

As a young teenager I was greatly amused by a rather uncomfortable and surprised Cliff Richard at pains on a Saturday morning kids’ breakfast show to explain that, yes, it was almost impossible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, but it could be done, with God.

Why make it so hard for God? Or rather, why take the risk? The powerful are loathe to give up their power, and Jesus here must make room for a greater god. It is also this faithful adherence to Capitalism that negates the commandment not to covet your neighbour’s possessions. For over time, the moral values of Christians have changed due to secular influence. There are indeed Christians who resist changes, and this is a further indication that if there were a God he would have been guilty of failing to tell his flock exactly what values to hold.

Of little contention is the golden rule, which we all (except psychopaths) imperfectly follow, and social humans must have followed long before Christianity or even Judaism. The golden rule is not sufficient to negotiate social life. The rest is pretty much up for negotiation it seems, so that Christian morality is nothing other than the wide-ranging moral opinions of Christians. One apparent way out might be to assert (hope? imagine?) that God gives us instinctive knowledge of what is right and wrong in context-dependent situations. I certainly think even implicit recognition that scriptural commandments are inadequate is to be welcomed, but how do we know it is God instructing us?

A 2009 study at the University of Chicago showed that what religious subjects attributed as God’s will aligned with whatever beliefs they held at the time.

Far from being constant, “the will of God” (as perceived by the subjects) could be manipulated by the researcher. Of course, they may not have been True Christians, or testing God is bound to lead God behaving as if he did not exist, or whatever unfalsifiable defence you wish to use to preserve the divinity of your conscience.