I would venture that the main reason I like Jesus so much is that, as a child, I was never really exposed to him and didn't associate him with any of my traumatic religious experiences -- like Hebrew School. My first encounter with Jesus came when I was about ten years old, and my father was driving me home from summer camp. For our seven hour journey, he brought two CDs, both with a messianic flair. They were the Who's Tommy, a concept album about a deaf, mute, and blind boy who can play pinball; and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar, a concept album about an almost equally remarkable man. I'm afraid that neither of them can compete with Ziggy Stardust, but he entered my life later.
This trip planted the seeds for my future Jesus obsession, although at the time I was more preoccupied with Judas, who has the best songs and is portrayed as a sullen anti-hero in Webber's musical. As a dually precocious and obnoxious kid, I busied myself looking for plot holes in both concept albums -- and found many -- but I was nonetheless enthralled with the story, which was teeming with all the richest plot elements: betrayal! Sex! Violence! I have been busily searching for and appreciating these virtues throughout my entire life.
Despite my affection for Jesus Christ Superstar, I didn't actually read any New Testament texts until I was in high school and found an article by Kurt Vonnegut that referenced the Beatitudes. Vonnegut held a deep appreciation for Eugene V. Debbs, the five-time Socialist Party candidate for presidency in the early 20th century, who liked to say things like this:
As long as there is a lower class, I am in it."Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up?" Vonnegut asked after sharing the quote. He went on to link Debbs's words with the Beatitudes, wondering why America's religious right almost never brings them up.
As long as there is a criminal element, I’m of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
"Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff," Vonnegut concludes.
What were these mysterious Beatitudes? I looked for them, I found them... And I was entranced! Who knew that this champion of the lower classes existed within the very text I had associated with all things terrible -- like Republicans and bat mitzvahs? He was a regular Marxist! My love for Jesus could only grow.
At the time, I actually thought I had stumbled upon something obscure and secret. Clearly, my fellow atheists could not know that these texts existed, or they would not hate Christianity so much. I set out to read the Gospels, tactfully ignoring the parts that didn't correspond with my new image of Jesus: the Red, the peacemaker, the Sacco and Vanzetti of the Second Temple Period. I also read every book and poem I could find that centered around Jesus -- these are where most of my quotes come from. But to my great chagrin, my new found enthusiasm was lost on my fellow atheists. They seemed determined to hate Christianity regardless of my exciting finds. Over time, my interest did not altogether fizzle out, but I learned to keep it inside, where it would periodically flair up again.
My bizarre Jesus obsession influenced my decision to read the bible, and this time I am determined to pay more attention to historical context, social climate, and the general ambiguity that surrounds the texts. There are two main questions that govern historical Jesus research: what were the aims of Jesus in contrast to those of his apostles, and what is the nature of the sources we have about Jesus? I'm not a New Testament scholar, and I certainly don't have time to delve into everything I'd like to talk about, but I'll try to return to these questions as I read the Gospels and subsequent texts. However, I do still have a sentimental appreciation for Jesus as a bleeding-heart liberal, so I'm not going to throw that out altogether in my reading. It's too fun. It's like Slaughterhouse Five all over again!
To conclude this introduction, I'm going to share one of my favorite quotes about everyone's favorite Second Temple messiah (unless you happen to be more partial to Simon bar Kochba). It comes from J.D. Salinger's novel Franny and Zooey and describes Jesus in precisely the way I like to think about him when I'm being most affectionate:
'The part that stumps me, really stumps me, is that I can't see why anybody -- unless he was a child, or an angel, or a lucky simpleton like the pilgrim -- would even want to say the prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that's all! Who isn't he head and shoulders over? Who? Both testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls - but, my God, who besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don't tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that -- but that's exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God.' Zooey here clapped his hands together only once, and not that loud, and very probably in spite of himself. His hands were refolded across his chest almost, as it were, before the clap was out. 'Oh, my God, what a mind,' he said. 'Who else, for example would have kept his mouth shut when Pilate asked for an explanation? Not Solomon. Don't say Solomon. Solomon would have had a few pithy words for the occasion. I'm not sure Socrates wouldn't have, for that matter. Crito, or somebody, would have managed to pull him aside just long enough to get a couple of well-chosen words for the record. But most of all, above everything else, who in the Bible besides Jesus knew -- knew -- that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddamn stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look?'Thanks for that one, Zooey Glass. Let's all keep it in mind as we delve into this exciting tome!
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