David Instone-Brewer - The Jesus Scandals: Why he shocked his contemporaries (and still shocks today)

Id like to thank all those who have helped this book grow in particular, John Buckeridge and Ruth Dickinson at Christianity magazine and Tony Collins of Lion Hudson for their encouragement; Sheron Rice for her editorial work; the team at Lion Hudson including Jenny Ward, Roger Chouler, and Simon Cox for their specialist help; and last, but by no means least, my wife, Enid, and daughters, Alice and Joanne, for their support and for keeping me real.

Cambridge, 2011

I work at Tyndale House, a research institute in Cambridge which specializes in biblical studies. A huge number of scholars from all over the world come here for short or long visits, so Im forever hearing the latest discoveries and theories, and Im surrounded by all the books and facilities I need to research them further.

Some of these coffee-break-length chapters started life as articles in Christianity magazine and I have added many others in a similar style. During the research and writing process I have been at different times annoyed, amazed, dismayed, delighted and always surprised.

My personal presuppositions are that Jesus is who he claimed to be in the Gospels, and that these accounts represent what actually happened. But, of course, many people, including some of my academic colleagues, have different conclusions, so often I address more sceptical viewpoints.

To understand Jesus we have to know something about Jews of the time, and to understand the Gospels it helps a great deal if we read them with the mindset of a first-century Jew or Gentile the people for whom they were written. My specialist area of research is early rabbinic Judaism, but this book also delves into other forms of Judaism such as that of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and into Roman and Greek culture. When we look at the Gospels through the eyes of someone from these cultures, they appear very different problems in understanding the text are often solved and unexpected details take us unawares.

This book may challenge many traditional interpretations, but its aim is to find a foundation for historical facts about Jesus. Surprisingly, as the first chapter shows, scandals are a good place to look.

Scandals are our best guarantee of historical truth in the Gospels. When disgraceful, embarrassing and shocking details about Jesus are recorded by his friends and supporters, it is much harder to disbelieve them.

Jesus was accused of being a bastard, blaspheming, abusing alcohol, partying with prostitutes, being mad and working for Satan in other words, scandal followed him. And a huge part of his teaching and ministry tackled head-on the scandals that pervaded society and would therefore have been regarded as scandalous by his audience.

Scandals are the inconvenient truths which the Gospels could not omit without being dismissed as fiction by their first readers. If there had been no scandals, the Gospel writers wouldnt have invented them why create potential reasons for people to dismiss Jesus? And if there were scandals, the original readers would remember, so the Gospel writers had to mention them and make a reply.

These scandals supply inadvertent confirmation for Christian claims. The fact that Jesus was charged with blasphemy indicates that he did claim divinity. The fact that he was stigmatized as illegitimate gives at least some credence to the stories of a miraculous birth though sceptics would say it was a reason for inventing such stories. The fact that he spent time with prostitutes and gangsters indicates that he really did teach that anyone could have their life transformed. And the fact that he was charged with doing miracles by Satans power demonstrates that even his enemies believed his miracles were real.

The Gospels are a model of how not to win friends and influence people. Their primary audience consisted of Jews and those Gentiles who were friends of Jews, because most of the early converts came from these groups. And yet the Gospels regularly include criticisms of Jewish leaders and generally accepted Jewish beliefs and attitudes. From the financial scams of the Temple to the belief that God rejects all disabled people and that illness is due to sin, Jesus spoke against many Jewish teachings and practices in embarrassingly public ways.