The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics

After finally finding the time to read Avalos’ work, I found what I believe to be the generic flaw of the ethical claims of the New Testament: for the Christian doctrine of redemption to be credible Jesus must function as the perfect sacrifice for the propitiation of the Almighty’s just wrath against human sin, as the purported “Lamb of God,” that is, he has to be completely sinless in thoughts, words and deeds. The problem is that even the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles relate actions of Jesus which are prima facie sinful actions or utterances. A few of the more blatant examples follow:1. Driving the money-changers out of the Temple: Jesus makes a whip and drives out the money-changers and sacrificial animals for sale in the Temple precincts as related in Matthew 21:12–17, Mark 11:15–19, Luke 19:45–48 and John 2:13–16. Jesus claims these activities defile the Temple. However for pilgrims to fulfill their vows and obligations, whether paying tithes or offering sacrifices, they require an acceptable currency and clean and whole sacrificial beasts. The currencies circulating in the Roman Empire all had inscriptions of pagan gods or of titles of the Emperor viewed as blasphemous by pious Jews. Therefore pilgrims needed money changers to exchange such coins for Temple minted coins that were not blasphemous. If pilgrims had to bring their own sacrificial offerings to Jerusalem such animals could starve, become injured traveling or suffer illness en route, perhaps even dying, or might have arrived as unsuitable for sacrificial offerings. Therefore it was more expedient for pilgrims to bring money to buy beasts at the temple ready to be sacrificed. In short these activities were necessary and lawful for temple worship to be fulfilled. If he was born subject to the same human and divine laws incumbent on other Jews then Jesus had no legal right to engage in assault, vandalism, and creating a dangerous riotous tumult. When asked to explain by what authority he done these things his answer, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again,” is a non sequitur and fails to argue any authority. His actions are clearly illegal and sinful. 2. Destroying the Pig Herd: When Jesus exorcised a man possessed by 2,000 demons he harkened to the pleas of the demons to allow them to possess the nearby herd of pigs that then stampeded over a cliff into the Sea of Galilee and drowned. See Matthew 8:28–34, Mark 5:1–20, and Luke 8:26–39. While exorcising the possessed man might have been laudable Jesus had the option of driving the demons into the primordial abyss but instead accepted the pleas of the demons to possess the hapless pigs. These animals then suffered terror and torment killing themselves as a result. This was gratuitous cruelty to these animals. Moreover Jesus destroyed the property and livelihood of the Gerasene Gentiles whose economy depended on these pigs. Therefore this was a heedless destruction of property impoverishing many innocent people. These results of the exorcism were arguably sinful. Why does Jesus have mercy on the demons but not on the pigs or the Gerasenes?3. The cursing of the fig tree: presented in Mark and Matthew as an actual event and in Luke as a parable. A hungry Jesus curses a fig tree because it has no fruit for him. Hector Avalos rhetorically asked if Jesus had the power to wither a fig tree why did he not have the power to make it fruitful and able to feed not only him but other hungry people? Apart from the wanton destruction of a hapless plant this is an instance of Jesus losing self control in a display of wrath that was sinful and scandalous.4. “Creating” widows and orphans: In discussing the economic impacts of Jesus’ demands on his followers Avalos points out something Christian commentators seem to completely overlook: the Hebrew Bible commands believers to provide for widows and orphans. However by demanding that his followers forsake parents, kinfolk, wives and families to follow him in effect Jesus creates widows and orphans. With the possible exception of the disciple John all the other followers were grown men who presumably had married and begotten children. By taking these men away from their livelihoods how then were the abandoned wives and children to be provided for? This is clearly a self-centered and irresponsible exercise of his authority over his followers.Avalos covers many other issues of questionable ethical behavior by Jesus that are instances of what one could call “charismatic exceptionalism” namely the idea that some charismatic personality, whether a prophet, cult leader or dictator has the right to violate laws and norms incumbent on the rest of humanity. In the cases cited above if anyone other than Jesus had done these things an ordinary Christian or theologian would have had no problem in denouncing such actions as being illegal or at least sinful. Yet whenever Jesus does anything arguably unethical the apology mills go into overdrive to explain how the “sinless Savior” is somehow above the law or entitled to break it.Where Avalos could have done more: There are some teachings and parables of Jesus that are either logically incoherent or else manifestly unethical and Avalos challenges some of these. E.g. his declaration that “Blessed are the poor” makes no sense if viewed in the present circumstances of people living in poverty for there is nothing self-evidently virtuous in the mere fact of being poor. Indeed could not poverty sometimes be due to sloth and wasteful living? However there are other parables which cried out to be criticized as promoting unethical behavior. In the parable of the dishonest steward (Luke 16:1-13) Jesus cited an example of a dishonest property manager who was about to lose his position after being found out by his employer. The steward then systematically cheats and shortchanges his employer in order to curry favor with the creditors with whom he hopes to find future employment. While the parable begs the question why any of these creditors would wish to hire a man who had proved himself manifestly dishonest Jesus praises the “shrewdness” of the dishonest steward to his disciples whom he then suggests should be just as shrewd in managing the affairs of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is clearly commending dishonest and devious behavior here, all the homiletical rationalizations aside. I believe Avalos could have spent some effort in exposing this and other questionable teachings attributed to Jesus.In summary Avalos’ work exposes any claim that Jesus was a paragon of ethical thought and behavior much less was he the sinless perfect sacrifice required for the universal atonement for human sinfulness.

Avalos makes three kinds of claims about the NT in his book.The first set of claims deals with the problems of the actual texts themselves. According to Avalos:1. Words attributed to Jesus are sometimes inaccurate, sometimes plain wrong. There is a lack of internal consistency (does everything in the NT tie together? No.) And external consistency (do the claims made in the NT stand up to verification from other non-NT sources? No.)2. Jesus is sometimes portrayed as saying things and behaving in a manner which we would regard as extremely unsuitable by anyone, let alone the leader and inspirer of a monumental religious movement that has lasted for over 2,000 years. What is more, Jesus does not adhere to the standards of modern ethics.3. Nothing that Jesus says or that the NT teaches is actually new, it had all been said before in the previous 1,000 years, and sometimes in a much better way.Avalos gives detailed examples of test cases of each of the above problems. It makes for fascinating reading once you decide, as a reader, to follow his non-sectarian methods of textual analysis.The second set of claims is about the way the problems raised above have been treated by commentators, redactors, and translators. He claims that:1. Often the offending discrepant passages are simply not commented upon: commentators pick and choose which portions of text to focus their attention on, in line presumably with their doctrinal leanings, and ignore what they do not like to see. Translators smooth out discrepancies. Free translation allows the translators to interject their own doctrinal understanding of the meaning of a text.2. Some commentators play the metaphorical / literal game: passages which support a favoured reading are treated literally, those that do not are to be treated as metaphorical. This of course is dishonest and leads to circular arguments. Avalos is brilliant at dissecting this kind of intellectual dishonesty - I'm just waiting for the response from some of the authors he has exposed so mercilessly.3. Another way to harmonize the problems in the text is to play elaborate linguistic games with the meanings and in fact to influence the way in which lexicons and dictionaries are compiled around uncomfortable words. For those who love the minutiae of such things, Avalos is exquisite: because of course, the devil is (sometimes literally) in the details.The third set of claims is perhaps the most difficult to swallow, but they fall from the first two sets. Jesus is not a pacifistic, free-loving, inclusive, anti-authoritarian itinerant preacher (wine-bibbing? Perhaps he is there.) Jesus sets up the "kingdom of God" in opposition to the kingdom of Rome, using direct physically confrontational language. Like a latter-day cult leader, he demands absolute submission to him from his followers, and he damns anybody who does not wish to follow him. He egotistically sets himself up as the only conduit to God. He focuses on the need for each of his followers to be obedient to none but him, to the exclusion of anyone else with whom the follower may have had social, moral or emotional obligations.Behind all this dishonesty, Avalos claims, is the fact that most of the commentators, teachers, and redactors have a deeply held view of what the text must say, and so they form an impregnable industry which is dedicated to keeping problems and discrepancies out. The result of their activities reaffirms their faith leading to a circular form of argumentation.We may choose to believe that the text of the NT is in every word (in a lost Koine Greek source) directly inspired by God and that everything in the NT must be taken literally, or when that is impossible, we must use our faith to iron out the contradictions. Good luck with that.Alternatively, we may accept that the NT is made up of a multi-authored hodge-podge of texts many of which echo ideas that were common in the milieu in which the NT was assembled. Many texts are all-too-human reflections of the mental state of their writers. The NT has been redacted over and over again by writers with many different reasons for their redactive work. The final 27 books were chosen to represent a particular view of the growing Christian faith in the 5th century. Avalos' critique is precisely what one would expect if this were the case.Our task as Christians is to understand that the kingdom of God is qualitatively different from any earthly kingdom and that the portrayal of Jesus the Anointed as both fully God and fully man is the essence of our faith. The NT is not a detective story or a novel. It is not a philosophical treatise or a guide to life. It is a hugely successful collection of texts that encourages each of us to listen to the word of God.This is what the commentators, the redactors, the translators and the scholars try to do for us. As Avalos points out, they all believe there is a message there for us (however imperfectly they may frame their belief). I doubt we will ever achieve a single authoritative Koine Greek text in which all the inconsistencies and absurdities have been ironed out or explained. But do read it carefully, critically, and listen to the voice of the word of God within these pages. I'm sorry for those whom the study of the NT has caused to stray from the path of truth. The concept of the divine is a challenge to each of us, and I pray that God in his infinite mercy will gather us all to him in his unfathomable love.

Facts the church never tell you that Jesus is more of Zealot or Jihad who preached violence. Paul created modern day Christianity and made it look peace loving so the Roman would buy his cult..