The Hermeneutics of Empire: the West and the Middle East

In colleges and universities, we routinely isolate academic disciplines like history, theology, and textual criticism. In real life, these divisions are not clear or neat.

Political power can be gained by those who determine how a given set of facts is woven into a narrative, or by those who can decide which narrative, among a set of competing narratives, will become canonical.

Once a narrative is established, another layer of decisions will be made about how it is understood or applied. These decisions will likewise determine the distribution of power.

In the complex set of conflicts which is the “Middle East” or “Near East” - already in this nomenclature a decision is being made about the perspective from which the region is viewed - narratives have been, and are being, formulated, understood, misunderstood, applied, misapplied, told and retold in numerous ways.

The sheer number of variations on any one of these narratives, and the complexity of these narratives, explain why the long-sought diplomatically negotiated stable peace is so elusive. Deeply divergent narratives leave little room for common ground or a mutually adopted set of axioms which might be used as a starting point for a new narrative.

The Middle East presents us not only a with groups and their interactions with each other, but also with interactions between the Middle East and the rest of the world.

This region has been the springboard for empire and would-be empires, both in ancient and modern times. It is telling that in every century, more than one invading force has left the Middle East, heading for regions as diverse as North Africa, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, Austria, and India.

The concept of “empire” is a staple in constructing narratives about the Middle East. Empires from outside the region have worked their way into the narratives as well, including invaders like Alexander the Great.

Author Mitri Raheb reflects on the role which “empire” plays in narratives about the Middle East. The diverse people groups which share, because of their location, the name ‘Palestinian’ see themselves, according to Raheb, as objects having been manipulated by a long series of empires:

Hermeneutics is the study of the theory and practice of interpretation. Interpreting a story is an art that requires much creativity and imagination. It is also a science. It is not an innocent science, but one very closely related to empire. The empire wants to control the storyline - its meaning, production, and marketing. It does so consciously and often - far more dangerously - unconsciously.

The extent to which Raheb speaks for a large segment of Palestinians is not clear. He asserts that a modern empire, not organized as a single state like previous empires, but rather a cultural and economic empire, is maneuvering this ethnically and religiously diverse group.

He posits the “West” as having created the nation-state of Israel and maintained it at the expense of the other nations which had previously occupied this land:

Hermeneutics is one of the most hazardous and repressive elements in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our problem would be much more easier to deal with if it were solely a massive injustice, a problem between Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, the Western world is part of the intractability rather than part of the solution. The Israeli occupation is subsidized by the United States and Europe. The Israelis would not have the financial capability to build a three billion dollar “separation wall” or the thirty billion dollar settlements in the West Bank if they paid the bills from their own pockets. “Rich uncles” donate that money and/or provide soft loans. They do so because, for them, Israel belongs to the empire. In short, it serves their interests, although a small but growing number of people are beginning to realize that Israel is becoming more of a permanent liability than a strategic partner.

It may be asked, to which extent one can properly posit a monolithic “West” and to which extent it unanimously and univocally asserted itself in the creation and sustenance of modern Israel.

The significance of the founding of the nation-state of modern Israel is doubtless significant, but lost in many of the narratives is the fact that even prior to that event, the hope for a peaceful and forward-looking organization of the Middle East was fading as the French Mandate and British Mandates gradually deconstructed themselves.

While many narratives see Israel’s founding in 1948 as the single great destabilizing event, a constructive pattern for the region had by that time perhaps already been lost, when postwar England and France felt themselves overextended and could no longer invest the resources to plant and maintain stability in the area.

So, while Mitri Raheb and others see Israel as an ‘occupation,’ the greater and more foundational problem is perhaps the lack of British and French occupation of not only Palestine, but Syria, Iraq, and other territories in the region.

Because he sees only Israel as the destabilizing factor, Raheb is forced to argue against any and all influence from outside the region:

It is not only the flow of hardware, military equipment, and advanced technology that provides the fuel to maintain the occupying power, but it is also the “software” - the culture, the narrative, and the theology - that helps to power the state of Israel. These provide the soft power or halo that enables Israel to continue to get away with its oppression of the Palestinian people without serious ramifications. This software was long in the making, but it became a dominant reality following World War II. Since then, we have been told that God is on the other side, on Israel’s side. From that time on the story has been mixed with history, and biblical Israel with the modern state of Israel. The myth of a Judeo-Christian tradition has blurred the scene in Palestine, and for the last sixty-three years Palestinians have been demonized by a dominant Western culture.

Raheb sees a monolithic “West” as supporting Israel and therefore oppressing the coincidental mixture of nations which had been on that piece of land. He is perhaps naive to imagine such a unified Western intent or action, given the disunity between European and American diplomats on precisely this question.

In addition to cultural and economic imperialism, Raheb argues that religious motives are at work here. Perhaps he is correct, to the extent that we can distinguish religions from God. Sets of traditions and institutions manufactured over the centuries by people do indeed have an impact in these narratives.

God, on the other hand, is far above these petty power grabs - and far below them. He is present whenever there is an impulse for humane action - with no regard for the ethnicity or nationality of the people among whom such an impulse might take place.

Jesus is present in every humanitarian act, every sincere initiative toward peace, and every step away from institutionalized hatred and violence.

Jesus will not, however, allow Himself to be confined in anyone’s narrative. He is always bigger.

The physical universe in which we live - not only the Middle East - is essentially and permanently flawed. A utopia cannot be constructed here.

We can and should look to improve the world, but we must not allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that we can perfect it. There will always be plagues, famines, wars, and rumors of war.

In our temporal-spatial continuum, there will not be a perfect and lasting peace, with perfect and lasting justice, in the Middle East - or anywhere else. We can make it more peaceful, and more just, and we are morally obliged to make it as peaceful and just as we can.

That will not be done by wading into a tangle of numerous complex narratives constructed by Israelis and Palestinians.

History: God at Work

Because God is active in concrete ways in the physical world, history is not merely an random record of “what happened.” History is theology. History is God’s diary - a record of what He’s done.

Given that history has spiritual significance, the way in which historians do history becomes a theologically relevant matter. This is obvious in cases like Constantine’s imperial policies, or Henry VIII’s break with Rome, but is equally important in less obvious cases, like Mao’s conflict with Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) or how Chandragupta Maurya taxed the peasants of India.

All history is sacred history.

Seeking to unfold the spiritual implications of historical methods, author Mitri Raheb looks at the ways in which the history of Palestine has been recorded. Palestine - or ‘Philistia’ - has been documented as a geographic region for millennia, occupied or dominated by various nations at various times.

To even mention Palestine in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries is obviously a politically sensitive topic. Yet to speak of Palestine only in those centuries is to ignore at least four thousand years of recorded history.

If we examine the ancient history of Palestine, and the many different ethnic groups which lived in, or moved through, it, we can do so either in the light of contemporary events - in which case we are gerrymandering history for the sake of modern politics - or ignoring contemporary events - in which case we are refusing to examine evidence which may shed light on what’s happening now.

The history of Palestine is the history of the land - in the direct physical sense - and not the history of a nation or of a state, because various nations and various states have occupied or ruled this land.

Mitri Raheb states a bold thesis about the historiography of Palestine:

Historical writing by Christians that takes account of the Near East and Palestine falls, without exception, into one of two approaches. The first is biblical history, which starts approximately with Abraham and continues, give or take, up to the time of Jesus. Scholars in this field apply their research to the history of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, and then reflect on the implications of those empires on Palestine. This stream of history generally ends with the second Jewish Revolt in the middle of the second century AD. Because this field is concerned with biblical history, interest in the history of Palestine ends there. After that no one is obliged to hear, study, or even research anything that has to do with the Palestinian history that follows.

According to Mitri Raheb, historians make one of two mistakes: either they treat the history of Palestine as ending between 100 and 200 A.D., or they treat its history as largely uninteresting. Naturally, these formulations are overstatements - very few historians indeed would assert such propositions - but Raheb argues that they, in practice, treat Palestine this way:

The second approach is that of church history. Church history is taught mainly as world history and mainly as Western history. It usually begins with the early church, proceeding from Constantine and the Byzantine Empire to the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, the era of Scholasticism, to the Reformation, and on to mission history, concluding with contemporary history. With the exception of the first two centuries and, to a certain degree, the Crusades, Palestine is not deemed noteworthy, and thus its history remains largely in the dark.

The question, then, begs to be asked: in which way should historians treat Palestine? As a question of historical methodology, Palestine should be treated in the same way as any other territory.

If history is theology, then the history of Palestine is a record of how God has manifested Himself there - just as the history of Thailand or Bolivia is a record of how God has shown Himself in those areas.

God is not interested in one’s citizenship. God is not interested in whether one is culturally Jewish or Muslim. God is interested in giving good things to people.

The religious categories of the region are a mess. To be identified as “Palestinian” does not entail automatically that one is a Muslim. God’s vehicle for reaching people is not cultural Christianity. His vehicle is Jesus.

What has Jesus been doing in Palestine for the last four thousand years? What is He doing there today?

These same questions can be posed about China or Bolivia or even the United States.

Spiritual Sight, Spiritual Alertness

The New Testament repeatedly uses the metaphors of sight (Matthew 7:5, 13:13) and sleep (Mark 13:36) to indicate spiritual conditions. Correspondingly, the reader is admonished to see (Isaiah 42:18, 46:8) and to awake (Ephesians 5:14, Romans 13:11).

Extending the metaphors, the reader may imagine not only someone who is totally blind or completely asleep, but also someone whose vision is impaired or who is drowsy. These would indicate a spiritual condition similar to that described by John in his letters to Ephesus and Sardis - indeed, in the latter letter, he commands that church to “wake up” (Revelation 3:3).

Those who are asleep are not conscious and not aware of their circumstances - they don’t know what’s happening around them. That of which they are aware is a dream - a fiction. To be spiritually asleep is to be in a state of delusion. C.F.W. Walther, preaching on chapter thirteen of Paul’s letter to the Romans, writes:

Sie lernen daher auch nie die Gefahr kennen, in der ihre Seele von Natur schwebt, ewig verloren zu gehen. Sie kommen nie zur Erkenntnis ihres großen natürlichen Verderbens. Sie sehen es nie ein, daß ihr natürlicher Sinn ein fleischlicher und daher nichts als eine Feindschaft wider Gott sei. Sie lernen das Böse von dem Guten, das Wichtige von dem Nichtigen, das Glück von dem Unglück nie recht unterscheiden. Sie erfahren es aber auch nie, welche große Gnade es für sie sei, daß Christus in die Welt gekommen ist, die Sünder selig zu machen; Jesus wird in ihrem Herzen nie groß, herrlich, überschwenglich tröstlich, nie ihr ein und alles. Die Welt und was die Welt einem Menschen verschaffen kann - das bleibt ihr höchstes Gut, um das sie vor allem täglich sorgen, darnach sie täglich am ersten trachten. Zu einem entschiedenen Haß der Sünde, auch ihrer Schoßsünde, und zu einer lebendigen Einsicht, daß die Welt mit allem, was sie enthält und was der Mensch darin erstreben und gewinnen kann, nichts ist, kurz, zu der Weisheit Salomos: „Es ist alles eitel, es ist alles ganz eitel“ - dazu kommen sie nicht.

Walther had arrived in the United States in 1839, as part of a group led by Martin Stefan. When Stefan’s leadership was discovered to be suboptimal, he was dismissed from the band settlers, who had immigrated in order to establish a community in which they might practice their faith. Walther became an influential leader in the wake of Stefan’s exit.

The scriptural metaphors of blindness and sleep, and their moderated forms of blurry vision or grogginess, can serve in the process of examining one’s conscience. In quiet meditation, one can ask, “in which ways is my spiritual vision defective? in which ways am I spiritually drowsy?”

Sin - whether our inherited sinful nature or the sins we personally commit - can make us comfortable in our unawareness. Although impaired vision and grogginess are handicaps to our effectiveness, they can keep us pleasantly unaware of the challenges to which God might be calling us - whether they be challenges of service or challenges to reform our lives.

Being unable to accurately or completely perceive spiritually our own condition, we live in a fiction created by our own imaginations. Walther explains:

Ihr ganzes Leben bringen sie wie im Traume zu. Sie schlafen, und meinen doch zu wachen; sie sind tot, und meinen doch zu leben. Sie sind in einer steten Täuschung begriffen. Wenn sie Gott im Irdischen segnet, um sie durch seine Güte zur Buße zu leiten, so nehmen sie diese Güte für ein Zeichen ihres Gnadenstandes an und werden nur um so sicherer; wenn ihnen Gott hingegen Not und Jammer schickt, um sie von der Erde loszureißen und zu sich zu ziehen, so fangen sie an, mit Gott zu hadern und Gott um so feinder zu werden, als einem Ungerechten, der ihnen Härteres auflege, als sie verdienen.

When I spend time examining myself a find only a few small sins, then I know that I’m spiritually drowsy and that my spiritual vision is blurred: self-examination should lead to a strong awareness of my need for forgiveness. If it’s time to confess my sins, and I can’t think of much to confess, then spiritually I’m not fully awake and my vision into my soul is impaired.

I need to be alert and keep a keen watch - Jesus encourages us to be “on guard” or to “beware” or to “watch” (Matthew 10:17, 16:6; Mark 13:9; Luke 12:15) - because even when Jesus defeats one temptation in my life, another will arise from a different and perhaps unexpected direction.

If I am aware of my sin, but think that I can do something about it, then I’m not seeing the situation accurately - I’m dreaming, or my vision is impaired. The reality is that I am utterly helpless against my sin, and the only one who can do something about the situation is Jesus. To think that I can somehow fix my life is a delusion.

To feel utterly hopeless about life, to feel trapped and enslaved to my sin, to consider myself worthless - these, too, are nightmares and not realities, brought about by my spiritual sleepiness and spiritual myopia. Jesus is always at work to save, to help, to forgive. We are never without hope, no matter how painful our situation.

To be fully awake, then, is to be aware that Jesus is ever active and is so on our behalf. To have clear spiritual vision is to fix our eyes on Jesus (Psalm 141:8)

Sleep and Blindness - Instructive Metaphors

The New Testament uses the metaphors of sleep and blindness to describe the human condition - the sinfulness and the powerlessness over sin which constitutes the natural lives of human beings. Paul writes that (II Corinthians 4:4) “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.”

Spiritual blindness is the inability to “see” - i.e., to understand, know, discern - the spiritual realities in one’s concrete situation. Spiritual sleep is an unawareness and lack of perception of those realities. Urging followers of Jesus to alertness and new levels of awareness, Paul writes (Ephesians 5:14), “Wake up, sleeper!”

As with all metaphors, these two metaphors have boundaries: limits to their applications. Those who are physically literally blind are aware of their blindness, know they are not receiving certain sensations, and can inquire about, and investigate, that which they are not seeing. Those who spiritually metaphorically blind often do not realize that they are failing to sense or perceive something, and therefore do not ask about what they’re missing.

Those who are physically literally asleep are unconscious, not conscious of anything happening around them. Those who are metaphorically spiritually asleep are aware of some things happening around them, but not of spiritual things.

Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther was born in 1811 in Langenchursdorf in Germany. He later emigrated to the United States. Concerning the use of the sleep metaphor in Paul’s letter to the Romans, Walther wrote:

Wie ein leiblich Schlafender nichts von der sichtbaren Sonne weiß, die bereits über ihm aufergangen ist und ihre Strahlen in sein Schlafgemach wirft; wie er nichts von der Gefahr ahnt, in der er schweben mag, und weder das Böse noch das Gute wahrnimmt, das ihn umgiebt; wie er aber, nur von nichtigen Traumbildern umgaukelt, bald ergötzt, bald erschreckt wird; wie er nämlich bald vom großem Glück, Reichtum und Ehren, bald von schwerem Unglück träumt, während weder das eine, noch das andere Wirklichkeit hat: ähnlich ist im Geistlichen der Zustand aller Menschen, ehe sie das Gnadenwunder erfahren haben, durch Gottes Wort und Geist umgewandelt worden zu sein.

The metaphor of blindness is not limited to the condition of people prior to justification. Those already justified, and in whom the process of sanctification has begun, are still in danger of blindness, as John writes (I John 2:11), “But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.”

John is writing here to those who have already been made into followers of Jesus, in whom the Holy Spirit has already worked to some extent. Yet they, too, are capable of blindness. Therefore no reader may feel exempt from the New Testament’s warnings and admonitions about blindness.

Likewise, those who are followers of Jesus are encouraged (Galatians 6:9) to “not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” To ‘grow weary’ and to ‘give up’ would be to give in to sleep and fall asleep. The danger of falling asleep, as happened in the Garden of Gethsemane, is real for any human. Walther notes:

Alle natürliche Menschen liegen nämlich in einem tiefen geistlichen Schlafe. Sie erfahren nichts von dem alles erleuchtenden Lichte der bereits über ihnen aufgegangen Sonne des Evangeliums. Die größte Anzahl derselben achtet vielmehr dieses himmlische Licht für Finsternis, hält die göttliche Weisheit, die sie selig machen will, für Thorheit, ja, wütet und tobt wohl gar dagegen, als gegen das furchtbarste Hindernis des wahren menschlichen Glückes. Andere hingegen hören das Evangelium wohl noch, aber während es ihr leibliches Ohr hört, bleibt das Ohr ihres Geistes dafür verschlossen. Sie sind jenen besonders gefährlich Kranken gleich, die bei offenen Augen schlafen. Sie lassen sich von dem Licht des Evangeliums mit seinen himmlischen Strahlen beleuchten, aber ihr Verstand und ihr Herz bleiben unerleuchtet. Sie kommen nicht weiter, als bis zu einem kraftlosen historischen wissen, zu einer unfruchtbaren buchstäblichen Erkenntnis, zu einem toten, nur im Kopfe befindlichen Glauben.

These metaphors admit of degree: short of being blind, one can impaired vision. In fact, people by nature lack perfect spiritual vision, and Paul tells us (I Corinthians 13:12) that we see as if via a smudged mirror.

Likewise, short of being fully asleep, one may be drowsy or fatigued. When drowsy, one risks both falling asleep (Matthew 25:5) and being weary. If not asleep, one’s weariness may prevent one from effectively working for God’s Kingdom (Hebrews 12:3, Revelation 2:3).

While having boundaries like all metaphors, the metaphors of sleep and blindness in the New Testament apply both to the unjustified and to the seasoned follower of Jesus; they also admit of degree.

Why the Details Might Matter

The name ‘Jesus’ in English was derived from the German Jesus, which came from the Latin Iesus, which in turn arose from the Greek Iesous, rooted ultimately in the Hebrew Yeshua.

The journey of one name through at least five languages can be more fully understood if one hears the pronunciation of each form, and if one sees the Greek version and the Hebrew original in their own alphabets.

Of greater philological interest are the regional variations in spelling and pronunciation of this one original Hebrew name. While the proper Hebrew form Yeshua finds its source in the Tanakh (Old Testament), at the time of Jesus in the region of Galilee, it was often pronounced Yeshu and sometimes spelled accordingly.

The Hebrew name Yeshua is rendered, confusingly, into English as “Jesus” in the New Testament, but as “Joshua” in the Old Testament. So in Hebrew, Jesus is Joshua, and Joshua is Jesus.

During the time segment recorded by the four canonical gospels, roughly 5 B.C. to 30 A.D., the name Jesus and its regional variants was very common in the Roman territory “Syria-Palestina.” This popularity may have arisen from the fact that men were rarely or never given the names Moses, David, Solomon, or Aaron at that time; this was done out of reverence and respect. One of the names which was permitted was Joshua. Joshua was the successor to Moses, and thus as close as one could come to naming a baby boy after Moses.

Many other names in the New Testament were also very common at the time, including Joseph and Mary. The brother of Jesus, named James, also had a frequently-given name, but one which is also confusingly translated, because the same Hebrew name which is translated into English as “James” in the New Testament is translated as “Jacob” in the Old Testament. Thus, in Hebrew, James is Jacob and Jacob is James. Professor David Flusser writes:

Jesus ist die übliche griechische Form des Names Josua. Zur Zeit Jesu wurde der name Jeschua ausgesprochen, und so heißt manchmal Jesus von Nazareth in der antiken jüdischen Literatur. Manchmal heißt er dort auch Jeschu. Das ist fast sicher die galiläische Aussprache des Namens. Durch seine besondere galiläische Aussprache verriet sich ja auch Petrus nach der Festnahme Jesu (Mt. 26,73). Der Name Jesu gehörte damals zu den üblichsten Namen der Juden. In den Schriften des antiken jüdischen Historikers Flavius Josephus werden zum Beispiel zwanzig Männer dieses Namens erwähnt. Der erste ist der biblische Josua, der Nachfolger des Moses, der das Heilige Land erobert hat. Die antiken Juden haben aus religiöser Scheu bestimmte wichtige biblische Namen gemieden, unter ihnen David und Salomo, Moses und Aaron. Vielleicht war damals der Name Jeschua-Jesus so verbreitet, weil man den Namen des Nachfolgers des Moses stellvertretend benutzt hat.

Although much of this information may seem like so much linguistic trivia, it does offer the following significant suggestions: First, the details of the New Testament narrative square with data about the naming of people during that time; Second, Nazareth being located in the region of Galilee, the regional variation fits; Third, the concreteness and specificity of this philological data serves to keep our conceptualization of Jesus in the realm of the concrete and specific.

Jesus is not an idea or an archetype. Jesus is a physical individual, a flesh-and-blood human being, who lives in a historically-conditioned time and place exactly as other human beings do. The fact that this Jesus is divine and eternal does not minimize His historical specificity. It is for this reason that the creeds emphasize that He is simultaneously fully human and fully divine.

As with any human being, whether judged significant or not by historians, the amount of data which could conceivably be recorded about her or him is nearly infinite. If one were transcribe every word this person spoke, every journey this person took, everything she or he ate or drank, which clothing she or he wore, what others said or wrote about her or him, etc., the sum of the evidence would be overwhelming.

Thus the Gospel According to John concludes (21:25): “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

The New Testament, therefore, does not contain all, or even most, of the physical data about the earthly life of Jesus. On the contrary, it contains a selection from the large menu of facts. Given the doctrine of inspiration, we may deduce that the data given in the New Testament are sufficient for purposes for which the text was given.

The text was inspired not to satisfy our historical curiosity, but rather to enable humans to find spiritual peace, meaningful earthly lives, and blissful eternal lives. Therefore we find significant gaps, from a historian’s point of view, in the narratives about the childhood of Jesus.

To fill those gaps, some have sought non-canonical texts, most of which specious, not plausible, and often fabricated to serve an ideological purpose rather than to relate the data about Christ’s childhood. Professor Jürgen Roloff writes:

An keinem anderen Punkt werden die Evangelien den Erwartungen moderner biografisch orientierter Geschichtsschreibung so wenig gerecht wie mit ihren Aussagen über Herkunft, Entwicklung und Frühzeit Jesu. Als gegen Ende des 1. Jahrhunderts n.Chr. das Interesse an dieser Thematik erwachte, fand es nur noch verblasste, durch legendarische Motive überlagerte Erinnerungen vor.

While many details of the Messiah’s childhood years are missing, documented are His locations. Born in the Bethlehem, He spent some time as a refugee in Egypt, and was more at home in Nazareth. His identification with Nazareth is twofold: He spent formative years there, but it was also the home of His extended family.

Nazareth’s role as an ancestral home - the roots in Bethlehem were even further in the past - carries significance. Having been abandoned to gentile populations after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom (ten tribes) around 720 B.C., and after the exile of the Southern Kingdom (two tribes) around 586 B.C. - those two kingdoms being the fragments of the original unitary Israelite Kingdom which was split in a civil war around 930 B.C. - the region of Galilee, and the town of Nazareth within it, had been considered “heathen” territory for several centuries.

During those years, perhaps small numbers of Jews continued to practice their faith among the pagans who controlled the land.

Eventually, after the people of the Southern Kingdom returned from the Babylonian Exile and reestablished their residence, they began to expand northward, reclaiming the Galilean territory. This is an instance of the “theology of the remnant.” It is also an instance of a “Kairos” - a point in time, in this case a significant point: not only had the nation become spiritually refocused as it emerged from the Babylonian Exile, but Nazareth and the surrounding Galilee were spiritually reclaimed, thus becoming a ready and fitting home for the Messiah. Jürgen Roloff continues:

Zuverlässig, weil fest in ältester Überlieferung verankert, sind lediglich die Angaben über Jesu Herkunft aus Nazaret. Dieser im Hügelland von Mittelgaliläa, südwestlich vom See Gennesaret gelegene Ort wird als seine Vaterstadt (Mk 6,1), er selbst als „der Nazarener“ (Mk 1,24; 10,47) bezeichnet. Galiläa, der nördlichste Landesteil Palästinas, hatte eine ganz andere Geschichte durchlaufen als das jüdische Kernland Judäa. Nach dem Untergang des alten Königreichs Israel war die jüdische Bevölkerung stark dezimiert worden; fremdstämmige heidnische Menschen bildeten über mehrere Jahrhunderte die Mehrheit. Das steht auch hinter der alten hebräischen Bezeichnung „Heidengau“ (galil hagoijim Jes 8,23), die in das griechische Wort Galilaia eingegangen ist. Im Zeichen der von Judä ausgehenden Renaissance des Judentums wurde Galiläa durch die hasmonäischen Priesterkönige 104/103 v.Chr. erobert und anschließend planvoll rejudaisiert. Zugleich jedoch verstärkte sich die Präsenz der hellenistisch-römischen Kultur. Diese fand, gefördert vor allem durch Antipas, den Landesherrn zur Zeit Jesu, ihre Schwerpunkte in neu erbauten Städten wie Sepphoris und Tiberias, um von dort aus weithin auszustrahlen.

Historical data about the name and hometown of Jesus might seem to be mere historical trivia. After all, we certainly don’t need to know the linguistic details of German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew forms. As long as we know who “Jesus” is, that suffices.

Yet philological and geographical evidence are important reminders about the incarnational nature of God. Jesus isn’t merely a set of spiritual maxims. He is a flesh-and-blood man. He lives in a historically conditioned fashion as does every other human being. We can discuss this historical data about Him in the same way we can discuss historical data about anyone.

One tricky aspect (there are several) of the doctrine of the Incarnation is balance. Jesus is divine and He is human. He is truly God and truly man. He is fully 100% God and fully 100% man. This paradox requires careful placement of emphasis.

To fully emphasize His divinity, we recall His miracles, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His eternality, and His omnibenevolence.

To fully emphasize His humanity, we recall the mundane, physical, concrete, specific, historical and geographical facts of His corporeal existence - a corporeality which continues into the future, inasmuch as His Resurrection was a bodily one, raising the same form which walked the dusty roads of Galilee and ascending forty days later with it.

The German Catholic Church

Words are often the sources of misunderstandings and even of conflicts, and the word 'catholic' is no exception. One must always return to the primary meaning of this word; it is not primarily religious or spiritual in nature. The first part of the word is the Greek root cat- which we find in catalogue and cataract and catapult.

The second part of the word comes from the Greek root hol- which is manifested in words like holistic and hologram. The word 'catholic' means "with respect to everything" or "concerning everything" or "all-embracing" or "universal" - and we see this in nonreligious expressions like "he is a man of catholic tastes" which simply means that he has eclectic tastes.

So, then, when the church claims to be "catholic," it is merely expressing that it is a collection of all those who follow Jesus, regardless of where they live, which language they speak, or which culture informs their social context. That we have a "catholic" faith is simply saying that God loves all humans, that Jesus offers forgiveness to all humans, and that eternal life in heaven is made available to all humans.

The confusions begin to emerge because one particular institution is called the "Roman Catholic Church" - a paradox created by the words alone. The word "Roman" refers to a concrete specific place, and connotes certain traditional social structures which accompany it, while the word "catholic" denotes just the opposite, something which transcends a particular physical situation.

The phrase 'church universal' or 'invisible church' is often used to refer to the collection of all people who are followers of Jesus, regardless of which, if any, specific 'church' or denomination they embrace. The word 'church' generates ambiguity, as does the word 'catholic' - and the two of them together create a downright conceptual jungle.

Although we use words to attempt to clarify and articulate our concepts, they often risk doing just the opposite. It is at least a step toward clarity to distinguish the "Roman Catholic" church, which is a specific institution, from the invisible universal "catholic" church, which is a set of people with no regard to membership in a particular organization or denomination.

Mark Dever offers a historical insight into the development of this terminology. Going back in history, before the phrase "Roman Catholic" emerged, which it did after Luther's Reformation in the 1500s, we can see the word 'catholic' being used when there was less confusion or ambiguity surrounding it:

As far as we know, Ignatius of Antioch was the first person to use the word catholic in relation to the church. In his letter to the Smyrnaeans, written around A.D. 112, he wrote, "Where Jesus Christ is, there is the universal church." Early Christian writers believed in the catholic church — that Christians everywhere trusted in one God, confessed one faith, received one baptism, and shared one mission. In that sense, catholic meant "real" or "authentic."

The earliest institutional churches were geographically defined: the Chaldean Church, the Ethiopic Church, the Syrian Church, etc., and so the Roman Church was simply institutional Christianity as it occurred approximately within the boundaries of what was, or had been, the Roman Empire.

There were different varieties of Christianity, but each was a sort of monopoly within its geographic area. Only after the Reformation did a situation arise in which different variations of Christianity existed side-by-side within the same region. Despite the notion of "religious wars," they coexisted peacefully for the most part, and when so-called "religious wars" arose, they were often motivated by quite nonreligious political ambition, poorly disguised by a thin veneer of religious vocabulary.

A new vocabulary was needed for this situation, a situation of various flavors of Christianity heterogeneously occupying the same space. Thus arose a colorful spiritual landscape of Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics. Because 'catholic' is already three syllables, and 'Roman Catholic' is five, 'catholic' quickly became shorthand for 'Roman Catholic' - generating confusion. Generations of Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists have stated that they belong to the catholic church, but not to the Roman Catholic church.

In addition to meaning 'authentic', the word also came to denote 'orthodox' - or, simply put, 'true' or 'accurate' - in contrast to institutions which might promote specious or incorrect ideas. As we saw, above, from Ignatius of Antioch, who died around 110 A.D., his notion of the church's catholicity meant that it was actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact, and not something merely not imagined or supposed, and that it was genuine, and not an imitation or something artificial.

Clement of Alexandria, who was born around 150 A.D., exemplifies this added layer of meaning - orthodoxy on top of authenticity - in a passage cited by Mark Dever:

There is one true Church, the really ancient Church, into which are enrolled those who are righteous according to God's ordinance ... The one Church is violently split up by the heretics into many sects. In essence, in idea, in origin, in pre-eminence we say that the ancient Catholic Church is the only church. This Church brings together, by the will of the one God through the one Lord, into the unity of the one faith which is according to the respective covenants (or rather according to the one covenant established at various times), those who were already appointed; whom God fore-ordained, knowing before the world's foundation that they would be righteous. The preeminence of the church, just as the origin of its constitution, depends on its absolute unity: it excels all other things, and had no equal or rival.

Another translation of Clement's thorny syntax confirms his perception of the tension between the one and the many: centuries before the Great Schism of 1054 A.D., and centuries before Luther's Reformation, there were divisions of other kinds, and while those divisions may have been quite real in the concrete functioning of institutions, and in the specific points of doctrinal statement, there is still a notion of the church's oneness:

From what has been said, then, it is my opinion that the true Church, that which is really ancient, is one, and that in it those who according to God’s purpose are just, are enrolled. For from the very reason that God is one, and the Lord one, that which is in the highest degree honorable is lauded in consequence of its singleness, being an imitation of the one first principle. In the nature of the One, then, is associated in a joint heritage the one Church, which they strive to cut asunder into many sects. Therefore in substance and idea, in origin, in pre-eminence, we say that the ancient and Catholic Church is alone, collecting as it does into the unity of the one faith — which results from the peculiar Testaments, or rather the one Testament in different times by the will of the one God, through one Lord — those already ordained, whom God predestinated, knowing before the foundation of the world that they would be righteous. But the pre-eminence of the Church, as the principle of union, is, in its oneness, in this surpassing all things else, and having nothing like or equal to itself.

Around 350 A.D., Cyril of Jerusalem nudged the word 'catholic' a little closer to its modern meaning, while yet retaining its previous meanings. He spoke of geographical diversity and social class diversity; he spoke of a church which is universal because it addresses those things which are precisely human, those things which all humans face or need. Mark Dever cites this passage:

It is called Catholic then because it extends over all the world, from one end of the earth to the other; and because it teaches universally and completely one and all the doctrines which ought to come to men’s knowledge, concerning things both visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly; and because it brings into subjection to godliness the whole race of mankind, governors and governed, learned and unlearned; and because it universally treats and heals the whole class of sins, which are committed by soul or body, and possesses in itself every form of virtue which is named, both in deeds and words, and in every kind of spiritual gifts.

As the followers of Jesus are called to clarify their task again to each new generation - semper reformanda - Mark Dever sees four challenges to clarifying the catholicity of the church in the twenty-first century. The church must overcome, first, provincialism: we are inclined to project our social, cultural, and geographic specifics onto the universal church, rather than seeing the universal truth of Jesus weaving its way through various traditions, cultures, and places; second, sectarianism: which is not to minimize or deny the significance of doctrinal and dogmatic differences, but rather to see what might be maintained and achieved in spite of them, as we work together on those tasks which God has assigned to us; third, racism: while much has been improved concerning this topic, much remains to be done, and the challenge grows as immigrants and emigrants flow through the continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas; fourth, exclusivism: the Good News about Jesus is for all people, and no socio-demographic variable should exclude anyone from fellowship - marital status, income level, profession, etc.

A quick review of John's Gospel, chapter seventeen, or Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter four, will suffice as evidence from Scripture, despite the fact that the word 'catholic' or its Greek equivalent do not appear in the New Testament.

While millions of Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists are not members of the Roman Catholic church, they are members of the universal invisible catholic church - as are millions of Eastern Orthodox (Russian, Greek, etc.), millions of Copts, millions who belong to the Chaldean Church or to the Syrian Church or to the Ethiopic Church. And, of course, equally, members of the Roman Catholic church are also reminded to remember that they are part of this invisible universal church.

The Real Bonhoeffer. Really.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is appropriately considered one of the most significant Christians of all time. This consideration, to be sure, needs clarification in the light of a sense of spiritual equality in which God views all humans equally. Metaphysically, Bonhoeffer is no more important than any other human. Yet the role which he played in concrete, physical, specific history is a role with more significance than some others.

Yet those less significant, but equally important, roles were necessary to Bonhoeffer's role: Aaron holding up Moses' arms. Someone had to change Martin Luther's diaper, or there'd have been no Reformation. Someone had to teach Mother Theresa how to read and write, or there'd have been no world-changing mission in Calcutta.

Precisely because so much has been written about Bonhoeffer, the reader risks losing him. Bonhoeffer has been made and remade, into a liberal and into a conservative, into a Lutheran and into an ecumenist, into a German and into a global citizen, into a revolutionary and into a traditionalist. When a historic individual becomes an icon, the literary world can reduce him to two dimensions, and eventually to one. A pure symbol becomes subject whichever meanings are arbitrarily attached to it.

Consider JFK and MLK as quick examples. Which vote-seeking candidate will fail to praise both of them, and yet attach his own political agenda to both of them?

Thus we need to keep in touch with the specific and concrete details of Bonhoeffer's life, or we will lose him. He will become a symbol to be misinterpreted and exploited by successive ideologies.

To this end, biographies gain their value. Were it not for this danger, one might well dispense with biography. But the physical facts of the man's life act as anchors to keep texts, written by or about him, pegged to reality. One familiar with the daily routine of the Finkenwalde Seminary cannot seriously entertain Bonhoeffer as practical atheist. One versed in Bonhoeffer's academic life cannot embrace the view that, while he explored ecumenism, he abandoned traditional Lutheranism.

Recent biographies, notably one by Eric Metaxas, merit study as companions to Bonhoeffer's writings, and companions to the huge body of literature about Bonhoeffer. Writing about Charles Marsh's biography of Bonhoeffer, Timothy Larson muses about

the sheer unlikelihood of Bonhoeffer's emergence as the boldest opponent of efforts to Nazify the German church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was too young and too academic to offer serious resistance to the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler. He was a rich kid from an intellectual family. He enjoyed kicking around a soccer ball with seminary students. He had no real monetary income even to support himself.

But what power did Bonhoeffer wield in 1933? He was 27 years old, financially dependent on his parents, and virtually bereft of experience in the working world. His sole professional appointment was an unpaid, non-tenure-track position as a voluntary lecturer. Adjunct professors don't normally stand athwart emperors.

Yet Bonhoeffer was ahead of the curve, ahead of his peers, and ahead of the times. While many of his fellow clergymen and fellow theologians would take several years to learn exactly how evil Hitler was, Bonhoeffer seemed to sense it from the very first. And Bonhoeffer would resist it from the very first. Indeed, along with resisting Hitler, and eventually making plans to overthrow Hitler, Bonhoeffer would be faced with the task of alerting his fellow pastors to the evil and persuading them to oppose it.

Yet Bonhoeffer did. Within weeks of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Bonhoeffer declared in public that the Führer was offering a false path to salvation — and, in private, that Hitler was an antichrist. When the Nazis called for ethnically Jewish Christians to be expelled from the churches, he alone insisted that the gospel was at stake. (Initially even Karl Barth, like other anti-Nazi dissenters who founded the Confessing Church, claimed that this was merely a question of church order, not a theological issue.) Marsh, director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia, makes a convincing case that by 1933, Bonhoeffer was the most radical and outspoken opponent of Nazi church policy.

Bonhoeffer's sense of personal holiness and the strict ethical code by which he lived aided him in his opposition to evil - here again the daily routines at the Finkenwalde Seminary are worth noting: Bonhoeffer forbade seminary students from talking about anyone who was not in the room; this was Bonhoeffer's way of avoiding gossip and observing Luther's explanation of the eighth commandment. But Bonhoeffer also understood clearly that personal holiness earns nothing, and is in fact rubbish in God's sight. Yet personal ethical convictions prepare the soul for confrontation with evil.

Unlike the rumors that sometimes surround him, Larsen writes, Bonhoeffer was "so sexually innocent" that twenty-first century readers find it difficult to believe.

Even Bonhoeffer's physical relationship with his fiancée, Maria — whom Marsh says Bonhoeffer was "smitten" by — comprised only a solitary occasion when, as a prisoner, he kissed her on the cheek in the presence of the public prosecutor. In a late prison letter, Bonhoeffer observed that he had lived a full life even though he would die a virgin.

Connecting with Anglican, Reformed, and Roman Catholic teachers and friends, Bonhoeffer was willing to absorb ideas which passed his litmus test. Particularly interesting are his experiences with American Christianity: which aspects of it he rejected, and which ones he embraced. Larsen reflects on

how willingly Bonhoeffer learned from disparate ecclesial influences. He was a kind of theological hoarder. When he went to Rome, he did not react with disgust as Martin Luther had, but rather gained a new appreciation of the church's universal nature. One is supposed to have to choose between Adolf von Harnack and Barth, but Bonhoeffer managed to value them both. Indeed, to extrapolate, one might see Bonhoeffer's late musings on "religionless Christianity" as blending Barth's insight that "Jesus simply has nothing to do with religion" with Harnack's method of separating the kernel (of biblical truth) from the husk (of cultural and historical circumstance).

While wrestling with theology at the most rarified and abstract intellectual heights, Bonhoeffer was grounded by teaching confirmation classes to teenagers in gritty urban factory neighborhoods. One of his litmus tests for theological ideas was the reality of daily life for these ordinary people. Did any of those ideas help them, make a difference to them, or apply to their lives?

Bonhoeffer was disappointed by his encounters with seminary professors and students in New York in the 1930s. Dismissive of Biblical text and direct discourse about Jesus, these seminarians sought to be relevant but did so without intellectual or spiritual foundations.

Initially, Bonhoeffer was disgusted by American Christianity. He was bewildered and frustrated by theologians who did not care about doctrine and preachers who were not interested in the gospel. Everyone wanted to pontificate on social issues. In time, however, he came to learn that his fellow Germans were also half-wrong in refusing to recognize the ethical demands of the Christian faith. Moreover, Bonhoeffer found in the African American church a community committed to both gospel proclamation and social action. Why, at the tender age of 27, was Bonhoeffer the lone German minister who immediately saw the scandal of excluding Jewish Christians from the church? Precisely because his experience in America taught him to connect faith and practice.

Bonhoeffer also saw quite early on that he would probably die at the hands of the National Socialists. He absorbed this calmly and continued his work. He knew he was risking his life at least as early as 1938, when he took up contact with a broader circle of resisters in Germany, and 1939, when he chose to return to Germany from New York, aware that he was placing his life in danger.

Timothy Larsen argues that one of Bonhoeffer's main points "was that Christianity is not merely a matter of what one believes, but of how one lives." To which we might add, and how one dies.

As German Lutherans rested complacently in their commitment to faith alone, while turning a blind eye to suffering and injustice, Bonhoeffer pointedly preached a Reformation Day sermon on I Corinthians 13:13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." It turns out that even an unemployed 20-something can stand against the world when empowered by the Love that moves the sun and other stars.

While much has been made of "religionless Christianity," exactly what Bonhoeffer meant by that must be understood in light of his actions and in light of the way he lived his life. The eternal Jesus was so real for Bonhoeffer that religion, as a manmade institution, was often more a hindrance than a help. Bonhoeffer, like many Christians, had to overcome the church to get to Jesus.