How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation

by John Dominic Crossan

did some people, most of them, or all of them across the Roman Empire take Rome’s imperial theology literally or metaphorically? They knew that distinction, of course, but seldom confused—as we so often do—the literal/metaphorical divide with the real/unreal one.

You might, far example, have lived if you told Augustus his divinity was metaphorical but probably not if you told him it was unreal.

Regardless of how literally those titles of Augustus were taken, we know that they were taken seriously, practically, functionally, programmatically—and really. That is also, by the way, how...

THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK WE have seen again and again how the matrix of time, place, and situation slowly but surely subverts assertions of divine radicality back into claims of human normalcy.

emphasizing the matrix of time, place, and situation to understand once again that biblical rhythm of affirmation-and-negation as we move from Pauline assertion in Chapter 13 to post-Pauline subversion in Chapter 14.

the historical Jesus in Chapters 9–11 and will see again with the historical Paul in Chapters 12–14, beneath that seismic conflict of Christian Judaism and Roman imperialism was the grinding collision of history’s two great tectonic plates: the normalcy of civilization’s program of peace through victory against the radicality of God’s program of peace through justice.

PAUL’S LETTER TO THE Romans turned out to be his last will and testament, a magnificent summary of who he was, what he was about, and how his Christian Judaism envisaged the destiny of the world.

Paul writes to living Christians and tells them they have already died and risen with Christ by baptism. It is not a future and imminent happening, but a past and ongoing one.

Jesus was therefore dead to Rome and alive to God. Similarly, in baptism, the followers of Jesus had died to the basic values of Rome’s empire and been reborn to those of God’s Kingdom.

Paul was saying that just as Christ was executed and was thereby dead by Rome, so Christians were baptized and thereby dead to Rome. They were dead, specifically, to Rome’s four supreme values of patriarchy, slavery, hierarchy, and victory—especially violent victory on which those other three values depended.

Patriarchy: “There Is No Longer Male and Female” PAUL TAKES IT FOR granted that after baptism, women and men, wives and husbands are equal in the family, the community, and the apostolate.

Notice, above and before all else, that Paul presumes that both sexes exercise communal leadership in prayer and prophecy: “Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved” (11:4–5). Still, what is the problem, and why so much sound and fury over head-covering?

My guess is that some Corinthian wives were leading communal assembly with unveiled hair as a statement that they were now temporary or even permanent “virgins.” That could lead, of course, to serious misunderstandings about them (available for marriage!) or serious consequences for them (divorce!). In

First, the letter carrier is a woman, “our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well” (16:1–2).

of the twenty-seven individuals Paul mentions specially to “greet,” ten are women and seventeen are men. In terms of those singled out for special comment, five are women

Paul takes it for granted that a woman could be an apostle, that is, a person sent (from the Greek apostellein, “to send”) by God or Christ to found a new Christian community. If you do not like that, Paul would have said, get over it, or take it up with God.

It is clear, then, that the baptismal commitment of “no longer slave or free” is neither hyperbole nor hypocrisy but program and platform.

The subject, for both Jesus and Paul, is to love your enemies and practice nonviolence toward them no matter what they do to you.

For Rome, and indeed for the normalcy of civilization, what underlies and justifies all other hierarchies is that of victor over vanquished, conqueror over conquered, empire over colony.

But while negating all human violence is certainly a magnificent injunction, presuming its replacement by divine violence rather than locating its source in divine nonviolence is not the vision of the historical Jesus. That is an unfortunate and unusual subversion by Paul of an assertion by Jesus.

Biblical Heartbeat of expansion-and-contraction, affirmation-and-negation, assertion-and-subversion.

We saw there how the post-Pauline letter to the Colossians subverted and denied the Pauline letter to Philemon on slavery. That was an early warning of how Pauline radicality on certain basic values would be de-radicalized back into Roman normalcy. Still,

There is, however, a strong scholarly consensus about those thirteen letters, as we saw in Chapter 2: seven were certainly written by Paul; three were probably not written by him; and three were certainly not written by him.

Those six letters not written by him are not just post-Pauline and pseudo-Pauline letters but are actually anti-Pauline letters.

The seven authentic letters (1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans) represent the radical Paul.

The three “probably not” letters (2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians) represent an initial de-radicalization into a conservative “Paul.”

And the three “certainly not” letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) represent a final de-radicalizati...

AS FOR SLAVERY, SO for patriarchy: real-Paul is flatly contradicted by post-Paul.

Paul imagines actual, factual, living Christians as the physical eyes and ears, hands and feet, hearts and minds of Christ, still and always operational on earth,

if Adam were actually in charge of Eve, he should simply have refused her temptation. The one in charge is the one most responsible for what happens.

You notice the similarities: silence not speech for women; submission/subordination for women (the same Greek root is used); home not church for women. But you also notice that the NRSV puts that whole paragraph in parentheses—as does the official Greek New Testament. Why?

The best explanation for this discrepancy is that it was not originally part of the letter; that a copyist wrote it in the margin as his own version of 1 Timothy 14:33b–36, and later copyists inserted it from the margin into the text at two different places.

anything spoken or written must first be understood within its own time and place.

The cross-haired coordinates of matrix are communal tradition and individual vision as well as specific time and particular place.

The alternative to matrix meaning is Rorschach reading or inkblot interpretation, which is when an ancient text means whatever your modern mind decides it means.

You will recall these two examples: Torah’s assertion that land cannot be acquired permanently by buying and selling begets the subversion that it can be obtained by loans and foreclosures. Paul’s assertion that Christians cannot own Christian slaves generates the subversion that they can do so, but with kindness.

the debate is whether the historical Jesus, whether accepted or rejected as Christ and Messianic Son of God, was or was not invoking nonviolent or violent resistance against Rome—that is a matter of history.

Whether Jesus accepted, advocated, or used nonviolent or violent resistance against the violence of oppression and injustice determines how we Christians are to imagine the very character of our God.

that third metaphor Biblical Iconic Focus, and thereby apply the experience of visual narrative to verbal narrative.

here is the way to Read the Christian Bible and Still Be a Christian: Do not just read it as a book and expect the meaning at its end, but view it as an image and expect the climax in the center. Read it verbally, but picture it visually.

suggest you look at that diagram as simply the clash between a radical and a normal vision for the future of human life on earth. The radicality of nonviolent resistance versus the normalcy of violent oppression, and the radicality of peace through distributive justice versus the normalcy of peace through victorious force seem to apply equally to the first century then, our twenty-first century now, and all the centuries in between.

how exactly do justice and love correlate with one another?

Justice is the body of love, and love is the soul of justice. Separate them and you do not get both—you get neither;

Love empowers justice, and justice embodies love. Keep both, or get neither.