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Erik Erikson identifies adolescence as the stage in human development which involves the emotional crises of “Identity and Role Confusion.” Physically, the body is going through profound changes. The process of genital maturation results in the ability to reproduce. Mentally, the brain develops the ability to deal with more complex problems in greater depth. Socially, the individuals prepare to leave home. New possibilities and new freedoms await them as do new responsibilities and new fears. Emotional crises arise from the pressure and confusion of the many changes. This confusion is expected and normal. Adolescents must experience the extremes of these emotional crises as they learn to understand both the positive and negative components of the crises. In this way they learn what they feel, how to deal with their feelings and how to make decisions based on this knowledge. Schools need to help in this process of self-realization.
The options for adolescents have broadened radically over the last eighty years. This process will probably continue. I think that it would be helpful for students to read how adolescents in other times and places experienced changes and dealt with the emotional demands of their adolescence. In small towns people had relatively few options. Roles were stable and rigid. While kids could dream, they had a whole community maintaining expectations. The move to the city and away from traditions opened a whole new range of life styles. There is a wealth of short stories and novels which deal with these themes. By giving students an historical understanding of the changing opportunities for adolescents in America, I hope to give them new insights into their emotional themes and show them that literature and history are rich resources for understanding their lives and struggles.
This unit has been organized for students with a high school reading level and the ability to express themselves in writing. It will be used in an inner city alternative high school, the High School in the Community. The class is interdisciplinary, English and American History, and it meets daily for three hours. The course lasts eight weeks. The unit will be used as half of the daily period. I have focused on the historical and psychological issues which students have raised with me most frequently over the last ten years. Although I do have a particular student body in mind as I organize this curriculum, I do feel that the approach and much of the content would be useful in many different settings.
The second objective is to give students a broad outline of the major changes in American life in the last eighty years. In addition to learning the significant dates and events, I want them to understand how these events changed people’s views of life.
The third objective is to teach students to identify the emotional issues of adolescence. Reading about the lives and experiences of other people can often help students understand and deal with their own.
The fourth objective is to teach certain academic skills in reading and writing. These will be described in the strategies section of the unit.
The stories I have chosen are about how people experience their lives and deal with their personal issues. These experiences will be discussed and analysed from an historical and psychological perspective. From this work I want students to learn that their life experiences can also be understood from different perspectives and that developing an understanding for these perspectives can help them make their life choices. There is real power in being able to describe and understand one’s own experiences and feelings.
The stories I chose for this unit meet two requirements: 1) they give a feeling for an historical period; 2) they speak to a significant issue in adolescent behavior. They are organized in chronological order. Each week we will work with a different story, studying it in depth through understanding the historical and psychological contexts.
By historical context I mean the major historical developments which shaped the issues raised by the story being studied. The historical issues of the 20th century are vast. I feel that the most significant issues for my students are industrialization; urbanization and class differentiation; wars; the depression and the creation of the welfare state; the Civil Rights Movement; the changing roles for men and women; and the growth of a critical spirit. These changes grew with the development of American capitalism and have influenced the students’ lives directly.
I will give weekly lectures on these topics, Students will be expected to take notes. Reading assignments from an American history text book will also be required. I will use These United States by James P. Shenton, Judith R. Benson and Robert E. Jakoubek (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1978). There will be weekly quizzes on the historical information.
The psychological context is the identity development of adolescents. These too are vast. For urban youth, however, there seem to be certain overshadowing concerns: the cost of survival and upward mobility; family relations; sexual and racial identity; the control of intense feelings; and the drive for social change.
These issues are raised in the stories I have chosen. In class discussions students will be asked to talk about their reactions to the stories. From these discussions the class will identify specific psychological issues that are meaningful for them. They will then be given a writing assignment based on these ideas. These assignments will be structured to allow for creative writing. The following day the assignments will be read out loud in class. This sharing of thoughts and feelings will allow for further identification of the common issues for adolescents.
The skill development in this unit will involve reading, writing, and discussion. There will be vocabulary development based on words from the stories and the use of historical and psychological concepts in class discussions. Students will have weekly writing assignments from which they will learn to write summaries, essays, and creative stories. They will be expected to take notes on the lectures and pass quizzes on the information from the lectures and the textbook. Students will also be expected to read each story twice, once at the begining of the week and again at the end. This will encourage them to see that studying a piece of writing carefully from different perspectives adds to the understanding and appreciation of the story.
The week will look like this:
|Monday :||Vocabulary Work||Write sentences for vocabulary|
|Introduce story||Read story|
|Tuesday :||Class discussion:||Writing assignment:|
|Draw out students reaction||Answer questions on content|
|Psychological context||Write summary of story|
|Wednesday:||Lecture:||Creative writing on a theme|
|Thursday :||Read creative writing in||Reread Story|
|Friday :||Quiz :||Rewrite, correct and organize|
|Vocabulary||week’s unit to be handed in|
|History||on Monday for final review.|
Summary : This segment of Jews Without Money contains a series of descriptions of characters living on the Lower East Side of New York City at the turn of the century when the author was living there. He describes Kid Louis, the local tough who specializes in seducing young virgins; Harry, the Pimp, the assimilated Jew who takes care of “his girls” during the day and returns home to his respectable family at night. He is a Tammany Hall supporter. Suzie, the suffering prostitute; Ida, the “Madame”; Mr. Zunzer, the Jewish slum landlord. I included a section that describes the author’s reaction to school as a threat to his ethnic identity. The street gang leader, Nigger, acts out these feelings for his friends.
Historical Content : Ghetto life and ghetto ways of survival are significant aspects of modern American life. Minorities, other migrants and immigrants have all lived through slight variations of these themes. The process of industrialization shaped the urbanization and the life styles at the turn of the century. As big business flourished, the large influx of immigrants and other cheap labor enabled immense capital accumulation and great class divisions. It is important to understand who came to the ghettos and why.
Psychological Context : Life in the ghetto has two distinct and contradictory functions. It was both protective and destructive. People were thrown together in poverty and desperation. They learned to survive together. However, survival often forced people to be brutal. Desperation often determined values. Most emotional issues and life choices were determined by the immediacy of survival. The only way out, assimilation into the mainstream, required rejection of both the good and the bad aspects. Assimilation was costly and often created hard, cold people.
2. Kate Chopin, Desirée’s Baby
Summary : Armand Aubigny marries Desirée after falling in love with her when he sees her sleeping in the sun. They have a child, a son. As the child grows, it is clear that he has black blood. She had been an orphan, deserted as an infant. The husband accuses Desirée of being part black. She accepts her fate and disappears with the child. But the story ends with a twist—Armand too has a hidden past.
Historical Context : Racial issues are a crucial part of American life. Racial mixing has not been overtly accepted though it has occurred frequently. Though this is a particularly stark story, it does present a view of the more victorian views of women. Women were possessions of their husbands. Once rejected in her society, she had no place to go. Money could not compensate for social values and standing.
Psychological Context : Passion can drive people to take chances in life. Passion is often played off against the search for stability. Security appears more constant; passion more erratic. But often this is more apparent than real. Armand and Desirée are passionate people. They act with extreme feelings in love and in rejection. Racial identity is a confusing issue. Is it determined by internal values or external skin color? Marriage and intimacy involve learning about and accepting others. Race has a particular power in our culture but there are many other hidden secrets which become known only after people have been together for a while. What can be known between individuals? How does this knowledge develop? What is the cost of intimacy?
3. Toni Morrison, Sula
Summary : Shadrack, as a young man of 20, went off to war in France. During the war he saw much violence and death. He was shot in the foot, went into shock, and returned to his hometown in Ohio. He was a deeply changed person. At 22 he was a person who no longer knew who he was. Once home he established a new identity for himself. He instituted National Suicide Day and it became his reason for living. Every January 3, he would walk through town with a cowbell and a hangman’s rope telling the people that this was their only chance to kill themselves or each other. There is a poignant description of his sense of powerlessness and fear of loss of control.
Historical Context : Wars are not just dates but have real profound effects on individuals. Soldiers leave home and fight for their country. Then they return having survived their experiences essentially alone because the other people around them have had such different lives. This is a universal issue whether after the two World Wars, the Vietnam War and the Korean War. For that matter, when individuals have experiences that are different from those of the people around them, they often lose a sense of cohesion and belonging.
Psychological Context : Shadrack left for the war a young man and returned consumed by the fear of death and the loss of control. He dealt with this fear by making a place for these feelings in his scheme of life. Could he have done otherwise—run from these fears or deny them? National Suicide Day was a way for him to take control of his fear by focusing on one day a year.
4. Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing
Summary : In this short story the author reminisces about her life as she struggled to raise her eldest daughter, Emily. She describes the desperation after being deserted by her husband and being left with four small children. She went to work. Emily is left with relatives, then in a day care center, and then finally in a home for children. When her mother could afford to take her back, she is a stiff lonely child. The mother and Emily try to reestablish a relationship, but it is very difficult. Emily has trouble in school until she finds recognition in acting. There is a constant sense of helplessness as the mother remembers lost moments, unspoken feelings, and the growth of their separation.
Historical Context : Family Life has been seen as the backbone of American life. But often it is disturbed or altered by desertion death or changing economic circumstances. The depression of the 30’s saw 1/3 of the American population unemployed. Women who had traditionally stayed home to raise children were forced to work. There was no social welfare or other forms of state assistance. The subsequent development of the welfare state was important. The welfare state maintains a reserve work force which can be called in for emergencies and helps keeps the cost of labor down. This is an important concept for the students to understand. Another issue touched upon is the new consciousness of the effects of the Atomic Bomb. The vision of Hiroshima and Nagasaki introduced the sense that maybe people should live for the moment since mankind could now totally destroy itself with but a few bombs. Survival from want was replaced with a sense of living for the moment.
Psychological Context : What is the relationship between a mother and a daughter but a series of experiences seen differently by the two participants? Each is captive of their circumstance, both physically and mentally. The mother can look back on her mistakes. Nevertheless the child has developed into a person in its own right. How and when does a child bloom? Who determines her success or failure? How much of her is determined by her age and social environment? As Olsen suggests, maybe all one can do for children is to give them a sense of themselves so that they can believe in themselves. Separation from parents and friends is a crucial aspect of adolescent growth.
5. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Summary : In this segment of Miller’s play Biff and Happy, Willie’s two sons, are discussing and comparing their lives. Both are over thirty and feel lost and discontent, though for different reasons and in different ways. Biff is 34. He has wandered around the USA and has tried many different kinds of jobs but feels restless whenever he tries to settle down. He is now coming home to try and settle down. He doesn’t know what he wants but he continues to dream the dreams of his adolescence. Happy has suceeded in business. He has a stable, respectable job, earns good money and has many fancy women. He still feels that something is missing. He always goes after what other people have but only feels successful in competition rather than because he knows what he wants. He feels lonely and empty. As they compare their choices they dream together of getting away and/or settling down. They live for the future.
Historical Context : The Second World War had established America as the most powerful country in the world. The expansive economic development due to the Cold War and the defense industry had brought a general sense of prosperity and purpose. We had saved the world from Fascism and Communism. Now we were ready to show the world a real solid middle class capitalistic society.
Psychological Context : Neither Biff nor Happy can find “happiness and meaning” in their lives. They represent the conflicts that arise when external need for survival no longer determines choices in life. How then does one decide what will make them happy or satisfied? Happy strives to have what his colleagues have but is not satisfied with his success. Biff rejects the accepted norms but feels detached. Both toy with the idea that marriage will force them to settle down—again an external motivation. But is that who they are and what they want? What is success—an internal or external goal?
6. Ernest Gaines, Bloodline
Summary : This is an incredibly powerful story about a mulatto man who returns to the plantation he was born on. Cooper is the son of a Black field worker and the white plantation owner, Frank Laurent, a mean dominating person. Both parents are dead and Cooper has returned to claim his birthright. His mother died a few years after she was forced off the plantation with her son and husband. Since the age of 14 Cooper had wandered the United States and experienced and witnessed incredible suffering. He now returned to the plantation as a conquering general (lacking an army). The confrontation is between Cooper and his uncle, who explains that he will abide by the rules of the racist society though he doesn’t necessarily feel in agreement with them. The plot centers around the fact that the uncle wants to meet Cooper but Cooper refuses to enter the plantation house through the back door. The uncle sends larger and larger groups of Black plantation residents to get Cooper but each group gets severely beaten. Finally the uncle, old, sick and weak, goes to where Cooper is staying in the Black quarters. The story includes wonderful character descriptions.
Historical Context : Even after the slaves were freed, plantation life and customs survived. This story takes place in the 1930s in Louisiana. The values and the ways of behvior of the Old South are maintained since neither Blacks nor whites know any other way. Oppression is both violent and subtle. People developed many different ways to cope though these ways were different for Blacks and whites. The old ways were dying with the older people; the young were moving North. New ways were not being developed. They were still in the form of fantasies and theories. The North had different rules but it is just as brutal and racist. These dynamics were brillantly represented in this story.
Psychological Context : The question of birthright focuses the issues in this story. Is a mulatto half Black or half white? Is Cooper his father’s son or his mother’s son? Having been forced from his home and family, is he freed from his slave heritage or is he a slave to it? Can one fight back and change the rules of society? At what cost? Is there real choice in life?
7. Alice Walker, Everyday Use
Summaay : Dee has received a scholarship to a school in the big city. She returns home to her mother and sister, Maggie, for a visit. This story is told by her mother who is comparing Dee, the successful daughter to Maggie, the daughter who stayed home. Dee returns filled with the new African nationalistic ideas. She has changed her name, no longer eats her mother’s cooking because it contains pork, and views her family’s life and possessions as quaint. Finally the mother realizes that Maggie is more of her even though she is withdrawn and ugly. Maggie can still respect and feel her roots with self-respect and does not need to romanticize them.
Historical Context : Racial identity has been a constant issue in America. At various times, different movements have grown up. There have been two major tendencies: integration and separation. Though they share a common background and a common anger, they have different interpretations of the cause of American racism. Was the oppression caused by economics of the innate hatred between the races? It is important to understand these issues and know the names of the major movements and their proponants: Garvey and the Back to Africa Movement, The Black Muslims, Malcolm X and Pan-Africanism, W.E.B. DuBois, Dr. M.L. King, SNCC and the NAACP.
Psychological Context : The roots of most Black Americans are in the rural South. This heritage was often hard and brutal and ugly. It has also created beautiful and warm traditions. How does one deal with these issues as one works at developing self-respect and pride in an alien (white) culture? Does one romanticize the traditions? Can one move up in America without rejecting one’s past? What is the cost of upward mobility, assimilation and success?
- I. Vocabulary Worksheet: Fill in the appropriate words for the following definitions.
- ___ v. To laugh in a controlled way.
- ___ n. A house often divided into apartments which barely meets standards of safety and comfort.
- ___ n. The desire to fight.
- ___ v. To walk with a swing (often to boast or brag).
- ___ adj. Unrestrained joy.
- ___ adj. Being like a beast.
- ___ v. To thrive, grow, develop.
- ___ adj. With good will, the desire to be helpful.
- ___ n. One who believes in traditional views.
- ___ n. Slippery substance.
- ___ n. Ditches.
- ___ adj. Of strong feelings.
- ___ adj. Uncontrollable fear or emotion.
- ___ v. Squirming.
- ___ n. A point of honor.
- ___ n. Small petitioned spaces.
- ___ n. A plan for doing something.
- ___ n. A shop or factory where workers work long hours at low wages.
- ___ n. A slang word for Jews.
- ___ adj. Having been affected by Tuberculosis.
- ___ n. A break or tearing apart.
- ___ n. A series of raids and executions in Tzarist Russia against the Jews.
- ___ n. A private club for members of the Democratic Party in New York City around 1900. They ruled the city.
tubercular pugnacity slime snicker scheme Tammany Hall rupture kike conservative tenement sweatshop brutal scruples trenches flourish cubicles writhing philanthropic Russian Pogrom swagger hysterical passionate exuberant
Choose one assignment:
- a. Write a sentence for each word. Use the word correctly and in such a way that its meaning is clear.
- b. Write a story using 20 of these words correctly.
- II.Writing Assignment: Writing a summary: Answer the following questions.
- Use full sentences.
- 1. Who is Nigger?
- 2. Who is susie?
- 3. Describe Kid Louie.
- 4. What information do you have about Harry, the Pimp?
- 5. Who is telling the story?
- 6. Describe Ida.
- 7. Who is Mr. Zunzer?
- 8. Why did Mr. Zunzer keep the whores in his house?
- 9. What did the author think of school as a child?
- 10. What role did gangs play for the young Jews in the ghettos?
- Now write a brief summary of the story.
- III. Writing Assignment : Writing on a Theme.
- These are sample questions. The real ones should be developed from the class discussion about the story. A minimum of one page of writing.
- a. We all live in neighborhoods. Describe your neighborhood. Include the major characters that influenced you as you grew up in that neighborhood.
- b. One of the major themes in this excerpt is the cost of survival in a brutal environment. Write a story about someone who was forced to act in someway because of serious need of money.
- c. Gangs give their members a sense of belonging and a feeling of security. Write a diary of a member of a gang.
- d. What ways could a ghetto resident leave the ghetto? Write the story of a person who leaves the ghetto for a “better” neighborhood. Remember there are usually both benefits and costs.
- e. After viewing a series of slides of ghetto life, pick one slide and write a story about it.
Collection of essays from a Marxist perspective. They discuss art and literature from social and historical viewpoints as well as literary ones.
Berger, John, Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 19771.
Wonderful photoessays on the relationship between seeing and words.
Erikson, Erik, Childhood and Society. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1963.
Presentation of Erikson’s theory of the eight stages of human development and how culture and life experiences influence development.
Erikson, Erik, Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: W.W. Norton Company, 1968.
Erikson analyses his view of the growth of identity and role differentiation. Thoughtful way to present and discuss psychological issues of adolescents.
Vygotsky, Lev S., Thought and Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962.
Interesting presentation of two different views of human development: Vygotsky’s interaction approach and Piaget’s stages approach.
Williams, Raymond, Marxism and Literature. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Williams analyses different aspects of modern culture from and extremely interesting Marxist perspective. Many new ideas to work with.
Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1980.
American History seen from the perspective of the minorities and the oppressed. An interesting approach to seeing history from “the other side.”
Short stories which deal with individuals in small towns in America and their dreams. Great stuff for the kids.
Anderson, Sherwood, Winnesberg, Ohio. New York: The Viking Press, 1919.
Stories about life in a small American town of the early 20th century. The author is very sensitive to how people feel and how they tend to show their feelings.
Angelou, Maya, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. New York: Bantam
The first of a three part autobiography. In this segment she talks about her childhood and adolescence in the rural south and then in California.
Arnow, Harriet, The Dollmaker. New York: Avon Books, 1972.
The story of a woman and her family when they are forced to move from the southern mountains to Chicago during the Second World War. Wonderful feeling for life in the housing projects and the struggle for survival among these southern whites.
Baldwin, James, Go Tell It On The Mountain. New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1953.
A powerful story of the dynamics and feelings in a black family that moves to New York from the rural south. The focus is the development of Black consciousness in an adolescent boys as his family holds on to the traditional religion of southern Blacks.
Childress, Alice, A Short Walk. New York: Avon Book, 1979.
An interesting story of a Black woman’s life in a rural southern town and then in New York. She gives a vivd description of life in Harlem in the forties, fifties and sixties.
Chopin, Kate, The Awakening and Other Stories. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970.
Short, emotionally intense stories about life on the plantations of southern Louisiana around the turn of the century. She is particularly interested in racial and sexual issues.
Fitzgerald F. Scott, The Short Stories of Fitzgerald. New York: Charles Scribner, Sons, 1957.
Assorted stories about life among the rich and those aspiring to become rich in the 20s and 30s. Difficult reading for some students though many are about adolescents.
Gaines, Ernest, Bloodline. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1968.
Collection of Short stories which are powerful descriptions of the changing nature of rural southern life. He is particularly interested in the psychological impact of America’s racial heritage.
Gold, Micheal, Jews Without Money. New York: Horace Livewright, 1930.
Wonderful description of life in the Jewish ghetto in the Lower East Side of New York at the turn of the century.
Hemminway, Ernest, The Short Stories of Ernest Hemmingway. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927.
Exciting and interesting stories but tend to be too sophisticated or on distant subjects for my students.
Hughes, Langston, The Langston Hughes Reader. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1958.
A collection of poems, short stories, plays and excerpts from larger pieces which deal with many facits of American life. He is particularly interested in how Blacks and whites see each other.
Hurston, Zora Neal, Rust Tracks on the Road. New York: Phillip Lippincott, 1971.
An autobiography of a young Black woman growing up in rural Mississippi in the 20s.
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1966.
Life story of an important leader. Great description of his growth as a thinker.
Miller, Arthur, Collected Plays. New York: Viking Press, 1961.
Contains both “Death of a Salesman” and “A View from The Bridge.” Both raise important issues for adolescents.
Morrison, Toni, Sula. New York: A Bantam Book, 1973.
Life in a small town in Ohio as seen through the eyes of a few generations of one family made up mostly of strong, powerful Black women.
Morrison, Toni, Song of Soloman. New York: Signet, 1977.
Story of a young man’s journey from a northern city to rural southern town to find his roots. Wonderful descriptions and feeling for people.
Olsen, Tillie, Tell Me A Riddle. New York: A Delta Book, 1960.
Contains “I Stand Here Ironing.” Collection of stories about women coming to terms with their lives.
Poole, Ernest, The Harbor. New York: MacMillan Company, 1925.
Young boy grows up on the docks of New York. Warm sensitive description of his learning to leave home and search for new adventure near and on the sea. Life in the 20s.
Thomas, Piri, Down These Mean Streets. New York: Knopf, 1977.
The story of a Puerto Rican Boy growing up in New York in the 60s.
Toomer, Jean, Cane. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1923.
A collection of stories, poems and vignettes about people, places and scenes from the south of the 20s.
Twian, Mark, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, New York: Bantam Books, 1965.
Huck leaves home with Jim, the runaway slave, and finds adventure along the Mississippi River.
Walker, Alice, In Love and Trouble. New York: Harcourt Brace Javenovich, 1967.
A collection of short stroies about Black women as they deal with changes in their lives as they become more conscious of themselves as women and Blacks.
Washington, Mary Helen, Midnight Birds. Garden City, New York:. Anchor Books, 1980.
Wonderful collection of short stories by Black women writers about deal with their new sense of self-consciousness and power.
Wright, Richard, Black Boy. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1966.
Autobiography of young boy growing up in the Jim Crow south.
Contents of 1981 Volume I | Directory of Volumes | Index | Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - View original article
The Book of Esther, also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll" (Megillah), is a book in the third section (Ketuvim, "Writings") of the Jewish Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) and in the Christian Old Testament. It relates the story of a Jewish girl in Persia, born as Hadassah but known as Esther, who becomes queen of Persia and thwarts a genocide of her people. The story forms the core of the Jewish festival of Purim, during which it is read aloud twice: once in the evening and again the following morning. Other than the Song of Songs, Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not explicitly mention God.
Traditionally, unlike other Tanakh scrolls, a scroll of Esther is given only one roller, fixed to its left-hand side, rather than the customary two rollers (one fixed to the right-hand side as well as the one fixed to the left-hand side).[why?]
The biblical Book of Esther is set in the third year of Ahasuerus, a king of Persia. The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Khshayārsha, thus Ahasuerus is usually identified as Xerxes I (486–465 BCE), though Ahasuerus is identified as Artaxerxes in the later Greek version of Esther (as well as by Josephus, the Jewish commentary Esther Rabbah, the Ethiopic translation and the Christian theologian Bar-Hebraeus who identified him more precisely as Artaxerxes II ).
Ahasuerus, ruler of a massive Persian empire, holds a lavish party, initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of the capital city Shushan. Ahasuerus orders the queen Vashti to display her beauty before the guests. She refuses. Worried all women will learn from this, Ahasuerus removes her as queen and has a royal decree sent across the empire that men should be the ruler of their households and should speak their own native tongue. Ahasuerus then orders all beautiful young girls to be presented to him, so he can choose a new queen to replace Vashti. One of these is the orphan Esther, whose Jewish name is Hadassah. After the death of her parents, she is being fostered by her cousin Mordecai. She finds favor in the king's eyes, and is made his new queen. Esther does not reveal that she is Jewish. Shortly afterwards, Mordecai discovers a plot by courtiers Bigthan and Teresh to assassinate Ahasuerus. The conspirators are apprehended and hanged, and Mordecai's service to the king is recorded.
Ahasuerus appoints Haman as his prime minister. Mordecai, who sits at the palace gates, falls into Haman's disfavor as he refuses to bow down to him. Having found out that Mordecai is Jewish, Haman plans to kill not just Mordecai but all the Jews in the empire. He obtains Ahasuerus' permission to execute this plan, against payment of ten thousand talents of silver (which the King declines to accept and rather allows him to execute his plan on principle), and he casts lots to choose the date on which to do this—the thirteenth of the month of Adar. On that day, everyone in the empire is free to massacre the Jews and despoil their property. When Mordecai finds out about the plans he and all Jews mourn and fast. Mordecai informs Esther what has happened and tells her to intercede with the King. She is afraid to break the law and go to the King unsummoned. This action would incur the death penalty. Mordecai tells her that she must. She orders Mordecai to have all Jews fast for three days together with her, and on the third day she goes to Ahasuerus, who stretches out his sceptre to her which shows that she is not to be punished. She invites him to a feast in the company of Haman. During the feast, she asks them to attend a further feast the next evening. Meanwhile, Haman is again offended by Mordecai and consults with his friends. At his wife's suggestion, he builds a gallows for Mordecai.
That night, Ahasuerus suffers from insomnia, and when the court records are read to him to help him sleep, he learns of the services rendered by Mordecai in the previous plot against his life. Ahasuerus is told that Mordecai has not received any recognition for saving the king's life. Just then, Haman appears, to ask the King to hang Mordecai, but before he can make this request, King Ahasuerus asks Haman what should be done for the man that the king wishes to honor. Thinking that the man that the king is referring to is himself, Haman says that the man should be dressed in the king's royal robes and led around on the king's royal horse, while a herald calls: "See how the king honours a man he wishes to reward!" To his horror and surprise, the king instructs Haman to do so to Mordecai. After leading Mordecai's parade, he returns in mourning to his wife and friends, who suggest his downfall has begun.
Immediately after, Ahasuerus and Haman attend Esther's second banquet, at which she reveals that she is Jewish and that Haman is planning to exterminate her people, including her. Overcome by rage, Ahasuerus leaves the room; meanwhile Haman stays behind and begs Esther for his life, falling upon her in desperation. The king comes back in at this moment and thinks Haman is assaulting the queen; this makes him angrier than before and he orders Haman hanged on the gallows that Haman had prepared for Mordecai. The previous decree against the Jews cannot be annulled, but the king allows the Jews to defend themselves during attacks. As a result, on 13 Adar, 500 attackers and Haman's ten sons are killed in Shushan, followed by a Jewish slaughter of 75,000 Persians, although they took no plunder. Esther sends a letter instituting an annual commemoration of the Jewish people's redemption, in a holiday called Purim (lots). Ahasuerus remains very powerful and continues reigning, with Mordecai assuming a prominent position in his court.
Esther is usually dated to the 3rd or 4th century BCE. Shemaryahu Talmon, however, suggests that "the traditional setting of the book in the days of Xerxes I [(485–465 BC[E])] cannot be wide off the mark." Jewish tradition regards it as a redaction by the Great Assembly of an original text written by Mordecai.
The Greek additions to the Septuagint version of Esther (which do not appear in original Jewish/Hebrew version; see "Additions to Esther" below) are dated to around the late 2nd century or early 1st BCE.
The book of Esther falls under the category of Ketuvim, one of three parts of the Jewish canon. According to some sources, it is a historical novella, written to explain the origin of the Jewish holiday of Purim.
As noted by biblical scholar Michael D. Coogan, the book contains specific details regarding certain subject matter (for example, Persian rule) which are historically inaccurate. For example, Coogan discusses an apparent inaccuracy regarding the age of Esther's cousin (or, according to others, uncle) Mordecai. In Esther 2:5–6, either Mordecai or his great-grandfather Kish is identified as having been exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE: "Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, among those taken captive with Jeconiah king of Judah." If this refers to Mordecai, he would have had to live over a century to have witnessed the events described in the Book of Esther. However, the verse may be read as referring not to Mordecai's exile to Babylon, but to his great-grandfather Kish's exile.
In her article “The Book of Esther and Ancient Storytelling,” biblical scholar Adele Berlin discusses the reasoning behind scholarly concern about the historicity of Esther. Much of this debate relates to the importance of distinguishing history and fiction within biblical texts, as Berlin argues, in order to gain a more accurate understanding of the history of the Israelite people. Berlin quotes a series of scholars who suggest that the author of Esther did not mean for the book to be considered as a historical writing, but intentionally wrote it to be a historical novella. The genre of novellas under which Esther falls was common during both the Persian and Hellenistic periods to which scholars have dated the book of Esther.
There are certain elements of the book of Esther that are historically accurate. The story told in the book of Esther takes place during the rule of Ahasuerus, who has been identified as the 5th-century Persian king Xerxes (486–465). The author also displays an accurate knowledge of Persian customs and palaces. However, according to Coogan, considerable historical inaccuracies remain throughout the text, supporting the view that the book of Esther is to be read as a historical novella which tells a story describing historical events but is not necessarily historical fact. Edwin M. Yamauchi has questioned the reliability of other historical sources, such as Herodotus, to which Esther has been compared. Yamauchi wrote, “[Herodotus] was, however, the victim of unreliable informants and was not infallible.”  The reason for questioning the historical accuracy of such ancient writers as Herodotus is that he is one of the primary sources of knowledge for this time period, and it has been frequently assumed that his account may be more accurate than Esther's account.
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Those arguing in favour of an historical reading of Esther, most commonly identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes II (ruled 405–359 BCE) although in the past it was often assumed that he was Xerxes I (ruled 486–465 BCE). The Hebrew Ahasuerus is most likely derived from Persian Khshayarsha, the origin of the Greek Xerxes. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Xerxes sought his harem after being defeated in the Greco-Persian Wars. He makes no reference to individual members of the harem except for a domineering Queen consort named Amestris, whose father, Otanes, was one of Xerxes's generals. (In contrast, the Greek historian Ctesias refers to a similar father-in-law/general figure named Onaphas.) Amestris has often been identified with Vashti, but this identification is problematic, as Amestris remained a powerful figure well into the reign of her son, Artaxerxes I, whereas Vashti is portrayed as dismissed in the early part of Xerxes's reign. Alternative attempts have been made to identify her with Esther, although Esther is an orphan whose father was a Jew named Abihail.
As for the identity of Mordecai, the similar names Marduka and Marduku have been found as the name of officials in the Persian court in over thirty texts from the period of Xerxes I and his father Darius, and may refer to up to four individuals, one of which might after all be Mordecai.
The "Old Greek" Septuagint version of Esther translates the name Ahasuerus as Artaxerxes, a Greek name derived from the Persian Artakhshatra. Josephus too relates that this was the name by which he was known to the Greeks, and the Midrashic text, Esther Rabba also makes the identification. Bar-Hebraeus identified Ahasuerus explicitly as Artaxerxes II; however, the names are not necessarily equivalent: Hebrew has a form of the name Artaxerxes distinct from Ahasuerus, and a direct Greek rendering of Ahasuerus is used by both Josephus and the Septuagint for occurrences of the name outside the Book of Esther. Instead, the Hebrew name Ahasuerus accords with an inscription of the time that notes that Artaxerxes II was named also Arshu, understood as a shortening of Achshiyarshu the Babylonian rendering of the Persian Khshayarsha (Xerxes), through which the Hebrew Achashverosh (Ahasuerus) is derived. Ctesias related that Artaxerxes II was also called Arsicas which is understood as a similar shortening with the Persian suffix -ke that is applied to shortened names. Deinon related that Artaxerxes II was also called Oarses which is also understood to be derived from Khshayarsha.
Another view attempts to identify him instead with Artaxerxes I (ruled 465–424 BCE), whose Babylonian concubine, Kosmartydene, was the mother of his son Darius II (ruled 424–405 BCE). Jewish tradition relates that Esther was the mother of a King Darius and so some try to identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes I and Esther with Kosmartydene.
Based on the view that the Ahasuerus of the Book of Tobit is identical with that of the Book of Esther, some have also identified him as Nebuchadnezzar's ally Cyaxares (ruled 625–585 BCE). In certain manuscripts of Tobit, the former is called Achiachar, which, like the Greek Cyaxares, is thought to be derived from Persian Akhuwakhshatra. Depending on the interpretation of Esther 2:5–6, Mordecai or his great-grandfather Kish was carried away from Jerusalem with Jeconiah by Nebuchadnezzar, in 597 BCE. The view that it was Mordecai would be consistent with the identification of Ahasuerus with Cyaxares. Identifications with other Persian monarchs have also been suggested.
Jacob Hoschander has argued that evidence of the historicity of Haman and his father Hamedatha is seen in Omanus and Anadatus mentioned by Strabo as being honoured with Anahita in the city of Zela. Hoschander argues that these were not deities as Strabo supposed but garbled forms of "Haman" and "Hamedatha" who were being worshipped as martyrs. The names are indeed unattested in Persian texts as gods, however the Talmud (Sanhedrin 61b) and Rashi both record a practice of deifying Haman and Josephus speaks of him being worshipped. Attempts have been made to connect both "Omanus" and "Haman" with the Zoroastrian term Vohu Mana; however this denotes the principle of "Good Thoughts" and is not the name of a deity.)
Whenever the book was written and whatever the historicity of the events recounted in it, clearly by the time it was written the term "Yehudim" (יהודים – Jews) already gained a meaning quite close to what it means up to the present—i.e. an ethnic-religious group, scattered in many countries, organised in autonomous communities and a target of hatred.
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There are many classical Jewish readings of allegories into the book of Esther, mostly from Hasidic sources. They say that the literal meaning is true but that hidden behind this historical account are many allegories.
Though God is never explicitly mentioned in the Book of Esther, some Christians believe that his influence during the story is implied.
Some Christian readers consider this story to contain an allegory, representing the interaction between the church as 'bride' and God. This reading is related to the allegorical reading of the Song of Solomon and to the theme of the Bride of God, which in Jewish tradition manifests as the Shekinah.
Esther is the only book of the Tanakh that is not represented among the Dead Sea scrolls. It has often been compared to the first half of the Book of Daniel and to the deuterocanonical Books of Tobit and Judith for its subject matter.
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An additional six chapters appear interspersed in Esther in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the bible. This was noted by Jerome in compiling the Latin Vulgate. Additionally, the Greek text contains many small changes in the meaning of the main text. Jerome recognized them as additions not present in the Hebrew Text and placed them at the end of his Latin translation as chapters 10:4–16:24. However, some modern Catholic English Bibles restore the Septuagint order, such as Esther in the NAB.
These additions include:
By the time Esther was written, the foreign power visible on the horizon as a future threat to Judah was the Macedonians of Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian empire about 150 years after the time of the story of Esther; the Septuagint version noticeably calls Haman a "Bougaion" (βουγαῖον) where the Hebrew text describes him as an Agagite.
The canonicity of these Greek additions has been a subject of scholarly disagreement practically since their first appearance in the Septuagint— Martin Luther, being perhaps the most vocal Reformation-era critic of the work, considered even the original Hebrew version to be of very doubtful value. Luther's complaints against the book carried past the point of scholarly critique and may reflect Luther's antisemitism, which is disputed, such as in the biography of Luther by Derek Wilson, which points out that Luther's anger at the Jews was not at their race but at their theology.
The Council of Trent, the summation of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, accepted the entire book, both Hebrew text and Greek additions, as canonical. While modern Roman Catholic scholars openly recognize the Greek additions as clearly being additions to the text, the Book of Esther is used twice in commonly used sections of the Catholic Lectionary. In both cases, the text used is not only taken from a Greek addition, the readings also are the prayer of Mordecai, and nothing of Esther's own words is ever used. The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint version of Esther, as it does for all of the Old Testament. The additions are specifically listed in the Thirty-Nine Articles, Article VI, of the Church of England: "The rest of the Book of Esther".
Esther Rabbah includes all of Additions to Esther save the "letter texts". It is these "letter texts" that contain the ahistorical assertions that Haman was a Greek.
In 1992, a 30-minute, fully animated video, twelfth in Hanna-Barbera's The Greatest Adventure series, titled Queen Esther features the voices of Helen Slater as Queen Esther, Dean Jones as King Ahasuerus, Werner Klemperer as Haman, and Ron Rifkin as Mordecai.
The 1999 TV movie Esther starred Louise Lombard as Esther and F. Murray Abraham as Mordecai.
The 2006 film One Night with the King is a reenactment of the biblical story of Esther.
There are several paintings depicting Esther, including one by Millais.
A half-hour musical adaptation "Esther's Destiny" with Book, Music and Lyrics by Bill Yuval Burnett has been performed at numerous synagogues and special events around Los Angeles and is currently part of the repertoire of the Jubilation Musical Society, an organization that provides Musical Theater and Songs for Jewish Holidays, services and special events.
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|Contexts and Comparisons||Chapter 2 - Sacred Texts|
This chapter will avoid the designations "New Testament" and "Old Testament" since these terms create the false impression that one body of writings supersedes the other. Instead, the terms employed here will be "Greek Testament" and "Hebrew Testament," which both indicate a distinction based on original language of composition.
The Greek Testament is a collection of twenty-seven books reflecting the influence of a Jewish religious teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, who died around the year 30 of the common era. Four of the Greek Testament books, called gospels, bear the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These writings present an account of Jesus' public teaching and deeds. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, referred to as "synoptic," share a common view, as well as common vocabulary, sentence structure, and narrative order, all based on the use of common sources. The fourth gospel, John, often renders variant views or traditions.
All four accounts are anonymous since they offer no internal identification of the writers. Luke, for example, states clearly at the outset that he found it necessary to do research in order to write his account, one of the many then circulating. Although the 2lst chapter of John does speak of eye-witness testimony, that chapter is a later addition, the gospel itself coming to a full stop with the 20th chapter.
Besides the four gospels, the Greek Testament collection includes the Acts of the Apostles, a narrative that relates the early history of Jesus' followers immediately after his death. Twenty-one of the writings within the collection are epistles (1) written after Jesus' death and addressed to communities of his followers: fourteen of these have been attributed to Paul while the others are variously attributed to James, Peter, John, and Jude. The last work within the collection is a prophetic book of visions called the Apocalypse or Book of Revelations, which offers a vision of the future, of the end of the physical world.
The centrality of Jesus among those influenced by accounts of his personality, teaching, and deeds, is the common element binding these books into some kind of unity. Otherwise the works sometimes represent differing interpretations of his life and thought. Since Jesus himself never left a written document, the twenty-seven books, composed years after his death, attempt to interpret his life and significance for his followers. These efforts, which are not always harmonious, reflect the beliefs of the communities for which they were written rather than the actual words and deeds of Jesus himself. Therefore, some scholars of scripture draw a distinction between the Jesus of faith and the Jesus of history. The former refers to the words and deeds of Jesus as filtered through, and interpreted by and for, the believers within the early Christian communities. The latter concerns Jesus as he actually lived and taught. What the twenty-seven books of the Greek Testament convey is the Jesus of faith, a subject which will be explored later in this section.
These books of the Greek Testament, which evolved individually, took centuries to be gathered together into a collection. Since communication between scattered communities in the first and second centuries was limited at best, and since a unified network of religious leaders capable of creating a commonly accepted pool of information emerged only gradually, one religious community possessing a gospel or letter was often unaware of other communities in possession of similar documents. Hence each one of the original books was known mainly to the particular person or community to which it was addressed. Indeed, some writing of Paul seems to have been lost (Col. 4:l6). Gradually, and only with a great deal of debate, canons (or lists) were formed, enumerating the books to be included within the collection, as well as those to be excluded. Among those excluded are gospels, now called apocryphal, bearing such distinguished names as Peter, Thomas, and Nicodemus. The canon or list of books of the Greek Testament was finally fixed in the 4th century, more than 300 years after Jesus' death.
The individual books themselves represent a wide diversity of meaning. Chronologically, the first book to be written is Paul's initial letter to the Thessalonians, composed around the year 5l, or approximately twenty-one years after Jesus' death. That letter contrasts sharply with the letters to Timothy and Titus, probably written around the year l25, or about a century after Jesus' death. In between are the gospels of Mark (65-70), Matthew and Luke (80-85), and John (90-95). Therefore, the writing itself occurred over a period of about 75 years, during which the Christian movement underwent significant development and change.
Geographically, the life of Jesus unfolded and terminated mainly in the two provinces of Galilee and Judea. In the synoptic gospels, the public ministry of Jesus lasts only one year, begins in the northern province of Galilee, and terminates with only one journey to the southern province of Judea. In John, however, the public ministry lasts about three years and includes movement back and forth between the two provinces.
After his death, Jesus' followers began to spread northward to Antioch in Syria, and westward to Greece and Rome. With geographical change came ethnic and linguistic change. Jesus himself directed his teaching to his fellow Jews, and that teaching was in turn absorbed by Hellenized Jews (2) and passed on to the wider Gentile world of Greece and Rome. Jesus spoke Aramaic while the collection of documents is written in Greek, the common language of the day. Given these geographic, ethnic, and linguistic changes effected across a broad time span, and a continuously evolving tradition of oral teaching, it is not surprising that diverse interpretations of Jesus' message, and of Jesus himself, emerged.
One portrayal of Jesus, as given in the synoptic gospels, is that of the itinerant healing prophet announcing the advent of God's kingdom. At the outset, Jesus' mission appears to be similar to that of his predecessor prophet (3) John the Baptist, whose message about the Kingdom Jesus echoes. After John the Baptist's imprisonment, Jesus continues the mission of John. In this representation, rather than call attention to himself, Jesus focuses on the rule of God in the lives of people. This is the portrait of Jesus that emerges strongly in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
To understand Jesus within this synoptic context, one must understand the notion of the kingdom of God prevalent among Jesus' fellow Jews. Throughout the Hebrew Testament there are references to the Kingship of God, described as everlasting (Ps. l45) and intimately linked with the people of Israel (Is. 44:6). The Kingdom or rule of God over the lives of all people was, in addition, perceived as something that would come to full realization sometime in the future: "And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people" (Dan 2:44). At his own services, Jesus probably would have heard a version of the following prayer, still recited in synagogues today: "Magnified and sanctified be his great name in the world which he hath created according to his will. May he establish his kingdom during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel, even speedily and at a near time; and say you, Amen."
It is in light of this expectation of God's dominion over the lives of people that one must read Mark's summary of Jesus' teaching, which declares, "After John had been arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: 'The time has come; the kingdom of God is upon you; repent, and believe the Gospel'" (l:l4). Here "gospel" (4) refers to a joyous announcement rather than any written document, since no Greek Testament books were yet in existence. According to one interpretation, Jesus' announcement indicates that the establishment of this spiritual, God-centered kingdom would coincide with the end of the world as it was known then. Jesus proclaimed the fatherhood of God who exercised sovereignty over the lives of people in a new spiritual world, and he saw himself not as the focus of the kingdom, but as its herald. Although his notion of the kingdom was spiritual and non-political, some passages still indicate that he viewed himself and his apostles as holding positions of authority within that kingdom. This point will be reviewed later in reference to the question of Jesus' death.
Scholars debate whether this kingdom, as envisioned by Jesus, was to be something purely internal, or something external and visible, and if the latter, whether it was something to be established immediately in its complete form, or whether it was to evolve gradually. The Greek Testament documents allow a range of possible interpretations about these questions.
This notion of the kingdom is important in the development of Western civilization. Beginning with the Middle Ages, theologians tended to equate the kingdom with the church. They identified the apostles of Jesus, those whom he had sent to spread his teaching on the kingdom, as the predecessors of bishops and popes, the very men who eventually began to exercise not only spiritual but political authority as well.
To be a part of this kingdom, Jesus exhorted people to practice behavior suggested by the Beatitudes, the Our Father prayer, and the Sermon on the Mount. The literary form of the Beatitudes clearly derives from Jewish poetry, evident in the opening line of the first Hebrew psalm which begins, "Happy is the man . . . ." Similarly, the Beatitudes begin, "Happy are the poor . . . ."
The content of the Beatitudes also is anchored in Jewish religious thinking. For example, the reference to the meek inheriting the earth comes directly from Psalm 37:ll. That the merciful receive mercy reflects the Talmudic saying, "He who has mercy on his fellow creatures obtains mercy from heaven." Furthermore, the prayer beginning "Our Father," a phrase common in Jewish liturgy, follows a Semitic pattern of development: opening praise, petition, and closing praise. Such a structure is evident, for example, in the synagogue service of morning and evening.
The insistence on love in the Sermon on the Mount, and in other passages of the Greek testament, erroneously thought by some writers to be a uniquely Christian contribution, also has antecedents in Jewish theology. For example, when Jesus says, "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them, for this is the law and the prophets" (Mt 7:12), he echoes a tradition stated also by Rabbi Hillel: "Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the entire Torah." Jesus' thinking and preaching, rooted in their native Judaism, constituted a call for spiritual perfection to prepare for the establishment of the Kingdom of God. The hearer's obligation was to listen attentively and receptively to this preaching and abide by it.
What if those attempting to enter the kingdom failed to live up to its lofty expectations through human weakness? Were they condemned to some permanent expulsion? In the thinking of Jesus, the God ruling over the kingdom was a loving and forgiving father, a fact implicit in his use of the word "Abba," one of a handful of Aramaic words attributed to Jesus in the gospels. Usually translated as "father," the word means "daddy" and implies a secure, trusting relationship. Perhaps the story of the prodigal son, the most perfect and moving parable attributed to Jesus, exemplifies the kind of parental concern and forgiveness that Jesus envisioned God as exercising over the kingdom.
Readers may question whether the synoptic narratives portray Jesus, the itinerant and healing herald of the kingdom, as human or more than human. Typically, the text emphasizes Jesus' human side, presenting him in reverential but non-divine terms. Called the Son of God, a title that could be applied to a king of Israel seen as a representative of God (II Sam. 7:l4), or to Israel viewed as a corporate entity (Exodus 4:2l), Jesus also was referred to as "lord," which simply means "master." The terms "messiah" and "christ," both used to describe Jesus, mean nothing more than "anointed," the former being a Hebrew term and the latter its Greek equivalent.
Those with a special spiritual responsibility such as a priest (Lev. 8:l2) or a king (l Sam. l0:l) were anointed. Indeed, Isaiah refers to the Persian--and therefore pagan-- king Cyrus as "a messiah of the Lord" (45:l). The words "savior" and "redeemer" indicate one capable of rescuing the people from a perilous situation, either spiritual or political, and of the latter, Israel had known quite a few. In short, the titles applied to Jesus in the synoptic gospels do not of themselves indicate divinity, but rather extreme reverence, acknowledgment of high spiritual responsibility, and intimacy with God.
Markedly human as the synoptics' portrayal of Jesus is, Matthew and Luke nevertheless give clues of an idealizing process at work. Mark, the earliest and most unadorned of the gospel writers, does not hesitate to speak of Jesus in the most human terms possible. Ascribing to Jesus such an ordinary emotion as anger (10:14), he mentions that some people considered Jesus insane (3:21). He describes circumstances in which Jesus "could not" work any miracles (6:5) or in which Jesus cured only "many" of the afflicted present (l:34). He also identifies Jesus through his maternal descent (6:5) and never mentions a father.
In parallel passages, the other synoptics tend to gloss over the human emotions, the accusation of insanity, and the limitations of power. The texts also adjust Jesus' identity to reflect paternal descent, thereby eliminating any possible implication of illegitimacy. Matthew and Luke reveal a stage in the idealization process, an intermediate phase in which Jesus begins to assume better-than-human dimensions. That evolution climaxes in the gospel of John which equates Jesus with Divinity itself.
The gospel and three epistles bearing the name of John suggest another early Christian school of thought, together with a dramatically different portrait of Jesus. So different is this Johannine tradition that it uses neither the word "apostle" nor a single parable. If the controlling metaphor in the synoptics is that of the kingdom and the kingdom's herald, in John the controlling metaphor is that of the divine Logos (or Word) made flesh. This shift describes a Jesus pre-existing with God and one with God. Although the term logos appears only at the beginning of the gospel, the notion of descent from heaven, and the subsequent companion notion of return to heaven, provide a narrative framework for the entire gospel. Mention of the kingdom, evident on nearly every page of the synoptics, barely receives three references in the entire gospel of John. Whereas the synoptics emphasize God and his kingdom on earth, John stresses Jesus himself. The fourth gospel uses the term logos in a distinct way and equates Jesus with the logos.
Although the term logos as used by John does not appear in the other synoptic gospels, the word was quite commonplace among Hellenized thinkers, and even among some Hellenized Jews. Philosophically it connoted the spiritual agent responsible for the creation and orderly running of the universe. At the end of the 6th century B. C., Heraclitus adopted the term in his philosophical system; Zeno (c. 335-263), the founder of the Stoic school of thought, speaks of "The general law, which is right reason (logos) pervading everything." Religiously, logos might be used as the masculine equivalent of "sophia" or wisdom and imply the guiding hand of God in creation.
No Hellenized philosoher, however, had ever envisioned the logos as having taken on flesh and become incarnate. John takes this bold step with Jesus. By identifying Jesus with the logos, John reveals a faith in Jesus that raises the latter above the purely human and identifies him with God and the creative process itself. Futhermore, John attempts to exalt and interpret Jesus to a Hellenized audience in terms familiar to both author and audience.
Certainly the explanation of Jesus as divine--known as high Christology--was more likely to find acceptance among Hellenized people, since many of these lacked the monotheistic tradition of orthodox Judaism. For example, when Paul and Barnabas are described as having performed a miracle at Lystra in Asia Minor, the people exclaim, "The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men" (Acts l4:ll). The rigor of the commandment forbidding the worship of strange gods makes it impossible to imagine such a reaction among the Aramaic-speaking Jews listening to Jesus or witnessing his deeds. The relatively low, albeit evolving and idealizing, Christology of the Synoptics moved toward the higher Christology found in John. That movement eventually caused the unbridgeable chasm between the originating Jewish, and subsequent Christian, communities.
Which portrait of Jesus is correct? That of the charismatic and human preacher and healer announcing the kingdom, or that of the divine logos made flesh? Whether an individual reconciles and accepts both, or separates them and accepts only one, or none, remains an intensely personal choice. Regardless, students may well ask about the historical character of the gospels which render us these portraits.
The beginning of this chapter speaks about the Jesus of faith and the Jesus of history. The gospel books seem to present Jesus in the former manner rather than the latter, and readers cannot regard these books as undiluted historical narrative. Historical accounts always involve interpretation of the events they represent, of course. In depicting Jesus, the authors resorted to writing techniques such as verbal attribution and narrative shaping. In the first style, the writers assign words to Jesus which he did not speak, while in the latter, they describe circumstances and events that may not have taken place. Consequently, in discussing gospel events, one is best advised to distinguish between the narrative Jesus and the historical Jesus.
Writing practices like verbal attribution and narrative shaping were not meant to deceive, nor would modern Western historians, who value documentable and verifiable facts, use them today. The gospel writers reflect a different emphasis, an emphasis on the significance of Jesus's life, in an effort to interpret Jesus for the emerging Christian communities. For example, Mark quotes Jesus as saying, "If she [a woman] divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery" (Mk l0:l2). Jesus could not possibly have spoken these words since Jewish law did not permit a woman to divorce her husband. Mark is simply applying what he considered to be Jesus' thinking to the needs and circumstances of the Gentiles within his community. Matthew describes Jesus preaching on a mountain (Mt 5:l), whereas the parallel passage in Luke shows him teaching on a plain (Lk 6:l2). Writing for a Jewish audience, Matthew undoubtedly tries to draw an implicit parallel between Jesus and Moses. Such examples of verbal attribution and narrative shaping abound. That is what we would expect in an age lacking tape recorders, shorthand, typewriters, and mass dissemination of information. Thucydides, writing about the Peloponnesian War, stated the methodology employed by him and by the gospel writers as well: "My habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions."
Besides these scribal liberties and the idealization mentioned earlier, other problems make it difficult to distinguish between what Jesus actually said and did from what the early Christian communities attributed to him. Jesus spoke in Aramaic and his words were reported in Greek, from thirty-five to sixty years later. Who assumed the notoriously difficult task of translating and who vouched for the accuracy of that translation? In addition, one must consider how much distortion inevitably inheres in oral transmission.
Consequently, some scholars view the gospels as interpreted history, as idealized biography in which the Jesus of history evolved into the Jesus of faith within the emerging Christian communities. However, the Jesus of faith known through the gospels and engendered by the hopes and aspirations of these communities inevitably is linked to the Jesus of history, who actually did exist.
The death of Jesus leaves many unanswered questions. For one thing, the gospel accounts are inconsistent in some important details. For example, Matthew describes the last supper as the passover meal (26:18) while John describes the event as taking place the night before the passover (18:28). Moreover, in chapter l4 of his gospel, Mark describes an appearance of Jesus before the Sanhedrin, a judicial council. John mentions nothing of this; instead he has Jesus come before Annas and Caiaphas (18:12). Perhaps one answer is to be found in the assertion that the Romans alone could render judgment on capital offenses (Jn 18:31). Another is that the claim to being a spiritual messiah was simply not an indictable offense.
Quite probably, the explanation for the death of Jesus lies in a Roman misunderstanding of the kind of kingdom Jesus advocated. Sometimes the gospel documents refer to that kingdom as God's (Mk l4:25), and sometimes as Jesus' (Lk 2l:27). The latter simply may indicate that Jesus considered himself to hold a position of authority, a fact supported by the account of a quarrel among the disciples concerning their place of honor within the kingdom (Mt 20:2l). However, nothing in the documents suggests that Jesus preached a political kingdom to be achieved by force of arms. Nevertheless, John describes Jesus as entering Jerusalem welcomed by a large crowd shouting, "King of Israel!"
Mark, on the other hand, mentions a recent insurrection (15:7). The combination of a shouting crowd and the cries of "King" would excite the suspicions of any Roman garrison keeping watch over a populace unhappy with Roman rule, particularly if the shouts were directed at one already known for his belief in the impending establishment of a kingdom. And it was as king, as a perceived threat to Roman rule, that Jesus was executed after the Romans had placed a sign on his cross alluding to kingship (Jn l9:l9).
The death of Jesus established a link between suffering and spirituality by not only placing an official seal on that link, but also by giving subsequent generations of Christians in the Middle Ages and beyond a sacred destination--the city of Jerusalem--for their pilgrimages. Jesus' association with that same city, in addition, gave medieval Christians a strong proprietary sense toward it, that even prompted them to shed blood in the Crusades rather than yield it to the Muslims.
Furthermore, suffering for the sake of the kingdom, whether stemming from self-denial, human hardship, or persecution, was seen as having a redemptive quality. This association perpetuated an ascetical ideal in the Middle Ages that glorified abnegation in life, self-denial in the monastery, and martyrdom in the Crusade. In his infancy narrative, for example, Matthew paints a picture of the slaughter of children, and that became notable for its wider, mythic dimensions.
We speak of myth in the Greek Testament in a special way. As previously discussed, the word myth derives from the Greek word "mythos," which simply means "story." But a myth has come to mean a story of a very special kind, one that imaginatively explores some fundamental truth about spiritual life and values. Lacking our modern complex and technical vocabulary, the ancients relied not so much on abstract analysis as on narrative suggestion in order to explore ideas basic to human existence. The Oedipus myth of antiquity, contrasted with the highly technical and detailed Oedipal theory of Freud, provides a case in point. Similarly, the gospel writers used myths or stories precisely in this sense. If, as the Passages for Study show, the parable is a short story with one moral lesson, and the allegory a more complex story with diverse elements standing for hidden equivalents, then the myth is a story that explores the deepest truths about the inner life of human beings and their relationship to the world and God. Moveover, because its content deals with such fundamental and universal truths, the myth lent itself to evocative recitation and ritual re-enactment.
The infancy narrative of Matthew, contrasted with that of Luke, provides a good example of the use of myth, or, to preserve the appropriate context here, midrash, the Hebrew word for the oral commentary on biblical texts that Jewish teachers (like Jesus himself) practiced. Both accounts relate Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, and both conclude with a journey to Nazareth. But between these two events, the stories differ markedly. Luke describes the apparition of angels and shepherds, the circumcision of the child after eight days, the purification of the child's mother in the temple according to Jewish custom, and the prayers of thanksgiving uttered by some by-standers. Thus according to Luke, between Bethlehem and Nazareth, there occurred a handful of events which could not have taken very long.
Matthew, on the other hand, presents a different and more time-consuming set of events between the birth in Bethlehem and the journey to Nazareth. He describes wise men following a star, conversing with King Herod, offering gifts to the child, and departing surreptitiously. His purpose here is to emphasize the acknowledgement of the Messiah by the Gentiles, represented by the three kings who bear gifts. He further delineates the flight of Jesus and his family to Egypt, the slaughter of children two years of age and younger by Herod, the eventual death of Herod, and finally the return of Jesus from Egypt to the Holy Land. Then he tells of the settlement in Nazareth.
As recounted in Matthew and Luke, the events between the birth in Bethlehem and the settlement in Nazareth are totally different and impossible to reconcile chronologically. The difference probably may be explained by the use of myth, or purposeful commentary, at the very least in Matthew. The story of the wise men and the star suggests that the wisdom of the world will be guided by, and subservient to, divine wisdom. The story of Herod's slaughter of children--a momentous event mentioned only in Matthew and nowhere else--prepares the followers of Jesus for suffering. The return from Egypt parallels the account in Exodus for the benefit of Matthew's Jewish audience. Matthew's infancy story, then, presents a narrative construct of mythic dimensions intended to suggest ideas about the Christian faith and its relationship to human wisdom, about personal suffering, and about religious parallels.
What is the relationship between such a myth and the historical Jesus? Perhaps Matthew's infancy narrative does not represent a myth replacing history, but rather a myth in history. Readers might view such a narrative as similar to an historical novel: the text is an imaginative and probing elaboration with an ultimate foundation in an historical event.
No introduction to the Greek Testament, however brief, would be complete without a reference to Paul. More than any other missionary, Paul established Christianity by his tireless work with the Gentiles, among whom alone Christianity took hold and eventually flourished. A convert who never saw Jesus in the flesh, Paul focused his teaching on the meaning of Jesus in the spiritual lives of his listeners rather than on the events of Jesus' life. Perhaps Paul's most lasting contribution was his insistence on justification by faith, evident in the pessimistic tone which sometimes appears in his writings. In the introductory chapters of his letter to the Romans, for example, Paul speaks of all people being in sin. He understood sin in the Jewish sense as being failure to live up to a spiritual ideal. He believed, therefore, that attaining acceptance before God, which he calls justification, could not be achieved by observing religious rules, which people would inevitably break, but rather through faith. He cites as the exemplar of faith the figure of Abraham, who trusted totally and unquestioningly in God. For Paul, that same sense of trust, channeled through Jesus, provides access to God and fsmakes one a spiritual heir of Abraham.
One legacy that Paul left behind was a restrictive, almost repressive, sexual ethic. Perhaps, however, the repression resulted more from subsequent interpretation than Pauline intention. Paul restated in Christian terms the view that woman was subordinate to man (Ephesians 5:22). In his first letter to the Corinthians, he clearly conveys that he considers marriage a concession to human weakness: "It is good for man not to touch woman, yet for fear of fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband" (7:ll). In verse 8, he repeats the same idea: "But if they do not have self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn." He obviously prefers the unmarried state: "I would have you free from care. He who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please God. Whereas he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and he is divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin thinks about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and in spirit" (v. 32). The net effect of this teaching was to make virginity an ideal, and to contain all sexual activity in marriage, a religiously inferior condition necessitated by human weakness. The severity of this teaching probably reflects Paul's expectation that the kingdom of God was shortly to be ushered in, and that it would be best to prepare oneself in anticipation of its arrival.
In the developing Middle Ages, in addition to the economic and social distinction between classes, this Pauline thinking added the further distinction between the unmarried priests, nuns, monks, and friars, all presumably free to think about "the things of the Lord," and the morally weaker masses "concerned about the things of the world." Moveover, the view of virginity as a spiritually superior state inevitably raised the question of sex and its morality.
The development of priestly celibacy had its roots in several biblical directives, one forbidding second marriages to church leaders (1 Tim 3:2), and another encouraging occasional sexual abstinence as an aid to prayer (1 Cor 7:5). But the celibacy ideal had an economic side too. A Justinian law of 529 forbade the ordination of married bishops in order to prevent church property and wealth from going to the bishop's children. Mandatory celibacy gradually extended to all priests, and penalties for infractions could be harsh. Concubines, wives, and children of offending clergy could be reduced to the status of slaves of the Church. Still, priests resisted celibacy, as is evident from the strenuous efforts at reform made by Pope Gregory VII in the eleventh century. In reaction, the bishops at the Synod of Paris called these new Gregorian celibacy rules "irrational" and threw an abbot into jail for defending them. Tensions between a mandating Church administration on the one hand, and a recalcitrant clergy on the other, continued, as is evident from many passages in Dante, Chaucer, and medieval writers. They reached a breaking point in the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation, when Protestants rejected mandatory celibacy altogether.
All medieval writers, from Augustine (d. 430) and Gregory (d. 604) onwards, saw sex as tainted by evil and justified only by the intention to procreate. Only after one thousand long years of this thinking did a theologian by the name of Martin Le Maistre (d. 1481) finally evaluate sex as something good in itself in addition to being a means for child-bearing.
The Greek Testament transformed the world of antiquity. Written in the language
of one ancient culture, describing events that occurred under the rule of
another, and growing out of the religion of a third, this set of books drew
in the currents of Judaic and classical civilization and then released them
altered and recharged to reshape the cultural landscape of the Mediterranean
world and to create an entirely new civilization, that of medieval Europe.
2. People influenced by Greek language and culture.
3. The word "prophet," derived from a Greek word meaning "to speak in place of someone," indicates one who brings a message or teaching from the Almighty.
4.The word "gospel" literally means good news.