More Christian Parallels in the Gospel of John to the Jewish festival of Sukkoth

We are once again approaching Sukkoth. In a former post (dated October 8, 2012), I noted why it was important not to rely entirely on the witness of the New Testament since it seems to mix up its Jewish holidays, namely Sukkoth and Pesach (Passover).

Something I neglected to mention, but is particularly important to the argument that Palm Sunday happened during Sukkoth September-October and not on Easter March-April-May (as is commemorated in the Christian calendar) is again from the historic ritualism associated with Sukkoth and the Gospel of John.

Orthodox Jews commemorating Sukkoth with Lulav and Etrog.

In John 12:13-14, Jesus is depicted as riding into Jerusalem on a donkey six days before Passover (John 12:1). The gospel reads:

“They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the king of Israel!"

To take the palm branches (lambanō) only means to carry them out. There is nothing too interesting going on in the Greek here, just the act of carrying (non-violently, it should be mentioned).

Now in the Jewish ritualism of Sukkoth, there is a very specific idea associated with the holiday.  Four species of plants are identified, one of them being palms (lulav).  This, we are told by the Talmudists, is based primarily on Leviticus 23:40

“And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.”

Would palms have been readily available on Sukkoth during Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem? You bet! Even the Talmud mentions the waving ceremony known as na'anu'im – נענועים in which participants waved the branches in the Temple. Myrtle and willow were also used, but the bundle was often referred to collectively as lulav. A possible reason why the church retained only the palm branch in its ritualism without the collective meaning implied by lulav was that the reference was most like not Talmudically sourced and was biblically sourced, e.g., temarin used in the Jewish Bible was the Hebrew for palm trees. Because this was also an agricultural festival, there is a sense that the selection of fruits and trees had to do with honoring God’s power over creation. There are movements involved with the Jewish festival. Not so much with Palm Sunday. Had the author of John added that those who went out to see Jesus were waving their branches at him, Jesus might have been stoned on the spot, given the implication. But the crowd does say something just as controversial, and the author of John is no amateur to creating drama in his gospel.

Like John, the tradition of Sukkoth also kept the word Hosanah. Jews today still walk around the synagogue reciting “Save us.” In John, Hosanna is left untranslated as Ὡσαννά. Most Christians read it as a name, and not as an action “save us.” Now you see why the author of John goes far, but not far enough as to be specific, to create the circumstances that will increasing rile the powers-that-be against him.

Like the chicken and the egg quandary, it is unclear if Christians are borrowing from Jewish lore or Jews are taking something from the Christians, namely the word Hosanah and adding it to their own ritual. It is interesting that Tractate Sanhedrin (see my previous post in October 2012) does in fact try to answer the gospel directly on the charge that Jesus was tried and sentenced in one day. Learned Jews were mostly likely not unfamiliar with the stories being told, and so it is not unthinkable that one who heard the word Hosanah incorporated it into the larger holiday. At best, what we can say is that the parallels do not seem coincidental or forced.

Incidentally, Sukkoth’s last day of celebration is traditionally called Hosanah Rabbah (or perhaps best translated as the “Great Salvation” – some translate it as “Great Supplication,” but this doesn’t fully grasp what the word implies).

Hosanah Rabbah is not placed here coincidental to what comes next. On the tail end of this great salvation is the holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Why is this so important to Christians? Because John’s writer understands that Jesus enters for both the salvation of the people and as atonement for their sins. Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is the time of self-judgment. How perfectly all this fits into the Christian theological narrative of death and life! To have Easter occur at any time other than Sukkoth would be strange, except that this is precisely what the author of John tells us happens! Despite all the ritualism and intrinsic meaning of these three holidays, Jesus is said to enter at Passover. Passover? Perhaps John was just trying to cram as many Jewish festivals into one time frame to hint at how Jesus is the fulfillment of them all, or at least the ones dealing with themes of salvation. In any event, the festival of Passover is likely misplaced. And scholars of this gospel since modern times have faulted John for his problematic timelines as well as the number of times Jesus’ visits Jerusalem. If this is all true, John most likely wasn’t the best timekeeping historian, and the theological, not historical, information was more important. As you think on Sukkoth this year, it might not be a stretch for Christians to do their Easter celebrating a little earlier this year.

Ancient Astronaut Theory, Theology, and the Work of Creative Imagining

As our knowledge expands into ever-greater areas of scientific discovery and as we take our search for the elemental foundations of life to the stars, pop philosophies like the ancient astronaut theory (AAT) have gradually prevailed over our popular imagination. While there are some who would hold that AAT is the byproduct of a media generation out of control, it is worth considering how the philosophical musing that bring us to think on the supposed origins (Ursprung) of our religions according to our sacred stories come very close to the way ancient peoples carried on oral traditions, sat around campfires, told stories of anthropomorphic gods coming down to earth.

The sophistication of theological scholarship through which one imagines the person of Jesus, his work, and his life's mission may push to the back the mythologies of ancient humanity in an effort to keep us free from charges of rank superstition, yet at its root, discovering someone like Jesus means discovering the culture of this period, even if theologians like to pretend that the prevailing culture is a transitory or ephemeral backdrop to some greater truth. As an example of this, I remember how William Lane Craig in a speech given to students in England scoffed at the “fantastic and bizarre interpretations of the Church Fathers.” The motivation behind his clarification was an attempt to get at a truth buried by myth. And so in our present day efforts, theology tends to clean up its act much better than the world that first claims to have inherited Jesus’ words. Yet, that backdrop, however whitewashed it has become teases us with a story in which a god come-down-from-heaven inhabits the life of a man. The full force of this fact is difficult to fully subdue in our present secular and scientific age. And so some elements must be retained.

What is left to those in certain circles is to give science the license to explain it all. And that’s where AAT comes in. While the sciences have attempted to illumine the biblical world for us in the last century’s worth of work, whether it be through medical explanations for the blood-turned-water miracle in Jesus’ body, the parting of the Red Sea as explained through tidal and evaporative explanations, etc., a philosophy of science as a narration of the past has unfortunately only taken hold in more popular media. This is primarily because the question of a "truth behind" the narratives or the reality of G-d is not as important, or perhaps credible subject matter, as is the origin of Paul's letters. The goal of science is to give us physical explanations using the tools it has available. Yet a "philosophy of science" stays within the parameters of debunking super-naturalistic explanations with possible natural alternatives.  This should not be confused with the academic discipline, which generally asks questions of ethics or epistemology. So perhaps calling it “philosophy of science” is not wholly accurate. But nevertheless, it adopts meaningful approaches that are built into the scientific language of our day to approach religion. Gods become ancient alien travelers. Temples become shrines not to unseen gods but testaments to the visitation of other-world explorers. Human origins are explained not by the breath of God but by the seeding of asteroids or meteors (a theory known as panspermia). Traveling to another planet, once thought an impossibility (primarily because planets and stars made up the literal heavens) is now, according to the scientific community, within reach. Probe and satellite launches are only a beginning.  

 

Salvador Dali, “Sacrament of the Last Supper” (1955)

Scholarly theology of course attempts to chase out science suggesting that miracle stories, mythologies have to do with the social sciences. Genre issues are important, for example, because a proper reading somehow carries our inquiry to its truer meaning. True scientists, however, do not give ancient people that benefit of the doubt. It is after all, hard to sophisticate a knowledge of God held, for example, by Paul, while many theologians (like our Church Fathers) fell victim to the base superstitions of their day. One such view, held by Augustine, was that the faraway stars and planets were actually demons. Augustine came three hundred years after Christ.  Even Paul, perhaps reading from Enoch, a popular piece of apocryphal literature during his time, though angels might be tempted to have sex with women, and so the latter must cover their heads to repel such predatory indiscretions.

AAT looks at the response of ancient peoples to perceived supernatural, or even paranormal , events.  One such reaction, as mentioned above, was to build temples to commemorate some grand visitation.  Some ancient astronaut theorists assert that Hindus built stupas after seeing the ancient space crafts that transported aliens around the skies. The Vimana in the Mahabharata, for example, are depicted as spaceships that transported the gods around the skies. As further evidence, these theorists point to paintings with strange objects that resemble the kind of witness testimonials given support today. Further, they point to testimony given by actual people. Reports that the Indians of South America thought the white men to be gods are thought to be references to previous encounters with beings coming from far away.  A newer area of interest for AAT is in the capacity of weapons of mass destruction to destroy the world. Mentions to the Brahmastra, a weapon described in the Mahabharata of great destructive force is considered one such example of supposed modern technological efficiency known to the ancient Indus River Valley civilization that should not have been known to them given what we know of ancient people. Interestingly, as a precursor to AAT, the Christian prophetic movement since at least the 1970s has attempted to marry the social situations of our day with biblical verses - and not just political views, but technology that would have the manifest capacity to fulfill the kinds of  world-encompassing events found in Revelation, such as the establishing of a one-world government, a system of applying a "666" number to each individual throughout the world, or even the destruction of the earth by fire as pictured in 2 Peter 3:10, an event thought impossible except for divine intervention, except that today, we now know that a nuclear holocaust has such power.

And what of the building of temples? One such reaction might be in the New Testament. When the Apostles see Jesus transfigured, they want to build three tabernacles in Matthew 17. Jesus rebukes them for it. While theologians might point to the building of the golden calf as a sign of disobedience that may loosely tie this event to the giving of the Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai, ancient astronaut theorists, who summon the mechanics of a historical-critical approach into their own philosophy believe that the meta-story behind each of these can be found in the type of event itself. A supernatural visitation, thus, requires the building of something. If Jesus was being visited upon by God so that his true glory was made manifest, a tabernacle or physical structure seems appropriate.  

Late in my graduate studies program in Theology, I did an independent study on the question of the Incarnation and other possible worlds, and found a wealth of material. I read C.S. Lewis, but also other established theologians like Brian Hebblethwaite  (Queens College, UK) and Thomas Morris (Notre Dame, USA). As I continue to see television shows on science fiction and religion or AAT and religion, I think we will find in the days ahead how these areas of concern continue to amaze us with their parallels.