Jesus of Nazareth: Poking the Hornets' Nest: Jesus Develops His Mission Statement and an Action Plan

By Rev. Peter D. Snow

"Poking the Hornets' Nest" is the first of two volumes describing the complicated challenges Jesus faced. Both are narrative theology rather than purely academic analysis. They are dependent on the gospels and other contemporary sources. We easily assume Jesus had everything figured out, but no job description came with the job offer. Was he rea

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter D. Snow
• Release date: May 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890213013

Rev. Peter D. Snow

Peter Snow grew up in England during WWII. As a member of St. John's College, Cambridge, he studied academic theology and graduated with both a bachelor's and a master's degree in the subject. He was ordained a priest of the Church of England in Birmingham, where he served as a parish priest.Snow moved to the United States with his family in 1967 and has subsequently served churches in Santa Barbara, California; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and Redmond and Mukilteo, Washington. While in Southern California, the author experienced the full force of the Cultural Revolution during the early seventies and subsequently helped develop alcohol treatment programs, battered women's protection and assistance programs, and posttraumatic stress studies. He also worked on minority youth issues and youth ministries. He presently resides with his wife in Seattle, Washington.

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JESUS OF

NAZARETH

Part One:

POKING THE HORNETS’ NEST

Jesus Develops His Mission Statement and an Action Plan

JESUS OF

NAZARETH

Part One:

POKING THE HORNETS’ NEST

Peter D. Snow

Jesus Develops His Mission Statement and an Action Plan

Jesus of Nazareth: Poking the Hornets’ Nest

© 2024 by Peter D. Snow All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 979-8-89021-300-6 [Paperback]

ISBN: 979-8-89021-303-7 [Hardback]

ISBN: 979-8-89021-301-3 [eBook]

Editor: Elizabeth S Robertson

Cover Designer: Peter D. Snow,

DEDICATED TO

Lisa, my wife

Hilary, my daughter

Howard and Julian, my sons

The four people who give the most meaning and purpose to my life.

The time is coming — indeed, it is already here — when worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

John 4:23

CONTENTS

Introduction ix

Acknowledgements xv

Chapter One: Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress 1

Chapter Two: John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth 11

Chapter Three: Temptations 24

Chapter Four: A Wedding at Cana and the Woman at the Well 37

Chapter Five: Visitors 51

Chapter Six: His Mission Statement 66

Chapter Seven: Interlude 78

Chapter Eight: Nicodemus 89

Chapter Nine: Dinner Talk 99

Chapter Ten: Dreams and Terrors 112

Chapter Eleven: The Pool of Bethesda 122

Chapter Twelve: Tensions, Reflections and Confrontations 137

Chapter Thirteen: Confrontation 150

Chapter Fourteen: The Law and The New Way 160

Chapter Fifteen: Healing the Blind Man 168

Chapter Sixteen: Raising of Lazarus and the Way North 183

Chapter Seventeen: The Official Response 193

Excerpt from Part 2: A 21st Century Re-examination of the

Murder of Jesus of Nazareth 201

Introduction

When I read the gospels, I am always amazed at the way Jesus of Nazareth gazes back at me from their pages. I so wish they had videos back then or, at least, someone with a good quality audio recorder. There is not quite enough of the written words to satisfy my desire to know just what he was like, what he felt, and what he thought. I have laid out for you, the reader, a picture of Jesus of Nazareth that gives expression to what it was like to be him. I am sure I fall far short of the real Jesus of Nazareth, but none of us has enough information to do much better. However, by thinking through the implications of what he said and from his conversations with others, we can build up a likely picture of what moved him so mightily in those encounters.

I must own up to a lot of curious ideas. For example, I have never thought Jesus did sermon preparation. He got into discussions with people, listened to them and then after a time of discussion, clinched what he was trying to get across with a parable. He never messed with people’s heads, did not play games, never manipulated others, and was understood by farm laborers, fishermen and lawyers. The only people who could not understand him were some of the clergy of the day. They could not argue with his parables because each one made self-evident points which no one could challenge. These men didn’t want to see or hear what Jesus had to say. They had eyes but would not see, and ears to hear, but did not want to understand.

I imagine the conversations that went on between Jesus and those around him. I derive my sense of what went on from the text we have. Consistent with my drive to remain realistic, I leave out of the story religious and doctrinal intrusions from later periods. However, sometimes I had to choose between the accounts we have of the same stories. Jesus’ baptism is an example. Was the Spirit that alighted on him God in the form of a dove, (Matthew) the Holy Spirit, (Luke) or just the spirit, (Mark and John)? Was Jesus even baptized? John does not say so, but the synoptic gospels all copy their original source in this matter.

I try to reflect in my story of this event the drama we find in John’s account.

I believe the gospel texts are very good. They are made up of written sources or documents that were eventually consolidated, and additional material was included from the oral tradition that existed in the various communities throughout the Mediterranean basin. These communities were very different from each other, and so each emphasized different aspects of Jesus of Nazareth’s ministry. I have tried my best to eliminate those special perspectives, so that I can connect the dots and draw a consistent picture of a person. I found this difficult, because not everything that was put in Jesus’ mouth was consistent. I concluded that some things got put in Jesus’ mouth years later to help the church teach the new converts coming into the church. That is another book. I struggled to just pay attention to the words of the parable or teaching moment and set aside for another time the interpretive teaching that the disciples had to provide for all the new members who had never met Jesus.

This works well for the three synoptic gospels but not for the fourth. John’s gospel, by contrast, puts into Jesus of Nazareth’s mouth words which did not belong. Such teaching as, ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father,’ or ‘I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly,’ belong rather to the Risen Christ in whose presence the writer of John’s gospel had spent fifty years. What he put in Jesus of Nazareth’s mouth was the truth he had heard, and lived with over those fifty years, and had taught those who followed him. You can identify these passages because in the three other gospels, Jesus always uses the simile to convey an illustration, for example, The Kingdom of Heaven is like a Sower,. John never uses simile but expresses in metaphor Jesus’ teaching about himself. I am the vine, you are the branches, Or I am the good shepherd, are two examples of John’s use of metaphor. The synoptic gospels are about the Good News and the Kingdom of God, but John’s gospel is about Jesus and who he is. Jesus avoids talking directly about himself in the Synoptic Gospels and he is careful to make no claims that he is the Messiah till he reveals it to his disciples.

To make the story work, I had to be inventive, but, as far as I could, I stayed within historical bounds. I introduce Annas, father-in-law to Caiaphas the High Priest. He had been fired in 15 CE by Valerius Gatus, Pilate’s predecessor, but continued to control the politics of the Temple. That is history and can be found in the writings of Josephus, a contemporary Jewish historian. In my book, Annas plotted the death of Jesus. This is somewhat supported by the text, but for the sake of the story I had to create in Annas a counterbalance to Jesus.

This I did by inventing a very convenient Diary in which Annas wrote all his thoughts. That is all fiction.

Recently there has been an effort to rewrite history and steer the blame for Jesus’ death away from the Jewish people and onto Pilate. The Jewish people who welcomed Jesus a week before and the rest of the citizens of Jerusalem did not fill the courtyard before Pilate nor did they demand Jesus’ death. The trial before Pilate happened early in the morning. Word had not got out and people were only beginning to wake up to what was happening. (Jesus was on the cross by noon. A lot had to happen between the trial and execution.) Those who planned, carried out the arrest, handed him over to Caesar and filled that courtyard were the clergy of the Temple and their retainers. In every religion it is the clergy who point the finger, light the fires under the martyrs and then wring their hands in lament such things are necessary.

It is Christian Clergy who have for 2,000 years got their people to cry, Crucify him, at every Palm Sunday’s reading of the Passion and stirred up persecution and pogroms of innocent Jewish citizens. So no, it was not the Jewish people but a very special group of Temple clergy of the Sadducees to whom John refers in his gospel.

Members of the Essene community figure peripherally in the story. There is no evidence Jesus was ever at Qumran or even associated with them in any way. However, there are a lot of ideas and vocabulary Jesus shared with the Essenes, and therefore I introduce them as a factor in the early stages of Jesus’ ministry. Their expectations of the Messiah did not coincide with Jesus’ view of his role at all. I therefore draw a distinction between their expectations and the mission statement he develops for himself.

Sorting out what we know of Jesus of Nazareth and defining his teaching is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle from a box that’s missing twenty percent of its pieces and has pieces from other puzzles tossed in too. Theologians have done a good job of sorting the pieces into piles, but putting the puzzle together is problematic. There is just not enough information to satisfy modern requirements of proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. Therefore, we have to pose questions, speculate about possible answers, and test how well those answers fit into the whole. This process demands scrutiny of the text, imagination, raising of alternative possibilities and an open mind.

Here are a few other questions I wrestled with as I wrote the story.

What was Jesus’ mission statement? I chose to see Jesus’ mission statement as his intent to destroy not the physical Temple building but the Temple’s system of sacrifices, the priesthood it supported, and the notional beliefs that maintained people’s superstitions. There was no way the changes that Jesus ushered in could ever be grafted onto the old sacrificial system.

Jesus had to define the Messiah, but was the Messiah to be a Davidic Kingin the here and now, or ‘Son of Man,’ a heavenly messiah that was far more?

What was the nature of God? This was one piece of information Jesus was intent on getting out there. His understanding on this subject was bound to conflict with the superstition and theology followed by the contemporary system.

If the sacrificial system of the Temple was to be overthrown, with what did Jesus intend to replace it? Jesus developed a cohesive view of the Kingdom of Heaven and offered it to his people as an alternative to the traditional Jewish sacrificial practices.

What were the dates of Jesus’ ministry, i.e., how long did he lead a public life? We have conflicting information. Gospel stories (Luke and John) describe Jesus’ ministry as beginning as early as 26 CE and lasting as long as seven years until Jesus’ death in 32 or 33 CE. At least half of this time he spends in the Jerusalem area. However, other gospels (Matthew and Mark) tell of his ministry as lasting only a year, with him confined to Galilee except for the last week of his life, which he spent in Jerusalem. I join these two traditions, accepting both as part of the story.

Why should John, the Beloved Disciple, be reporting the dialogue? John’s gospel, despite its editorial material, contains several very convincing eyewitness accounts. Its author is traditionally thought to be the Beloved Disciple and the person closest to Jesus during the story’s time frame. The authorship of John’s gospel is as complicated as any of the other gospels. I prefer, at this stage, to adopt John, a young man from Jerusalem, as the beloved disciple who kept Jesus company through the years of his ministry. He is, by tradition, the oldest surviving disciple by the eighties or nineties and had spent those fifty years in the presence of the Risen Christ, drawing ever closer in that relationship. This may be why he is thought of as the beloved disciple, rather than having a special relationship with Jesus of Nazareth that is not referred to anywhere but in one verse of John’s gospel.

What is the nature of evil? Evil figures prominently throughout the gospels, but how can we relate to it today. Is there an Evil One? At one level Jesus fights ignorance and superstition, but at another level he struggles with an ancient enemy that eludes modern definition.

Who wanted Jesus dead so badly they were prepared to have him crucified? This was not about healing on the Sabbath or not adhering to the Pharisee’s exacting standards. There was far more at stake for those in power if Jesus’ proposed ‘Way’ was followed to its ultimate conclusion. I make the case for the Sadducees being responsible for his death.

How Jewish was Jesus, and did he keep kosher? We must remember Jesus was Jewish, thought as a Jew, and saw the world through Jewish eyes. His view of the coming kingdom was within the bounds of Jewish thought, for Daniel and others had given voice to the idea of the Messiah. None of what Jesus taught can be divorced from the Hebrew scriptures.

Occasionally my descriptions of healings and the encounters people had with Jesus are taken from my own experiences. The words I quote and the actions I describe are sometimes those of people I have been privileged to work with during my ministry.

I wrote these books, Part One and Part Two, for all those who demanded of me believable answers to their thoughtful and intelligent questions. With or without me, these people so often found themselves in the presence of the Risen Christ and subsequently had even more questions about Jesus of Nazareth. He was and is to them the man Jesus, before the transformation wrought by the resurrection. Our subsequent myths have bred confusion, making Jesus of Nazareth remote and incomprehensible and the Risen Christ an unrelated magical figure.

Acknowledgements

I so value the help my wife Lisa has given me over the long period of time these two books have grown from an idea to a published fact. The two previous attempts under the titles Jesus, Man Not Myth and Jesus, The God App were steps in the process of following my questioning through to its conclusion in this final edition. Lisa copyedited it and exhaustively worked over the manuscript to produce a polished text.

I would like to thank the many theological researchers and writers who have challenged me over the last fifty years. They are too numerous to mention. These include translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls, researchers into the provenance of the Turin Shroud and a host of textual critics that have, over the past fifty years, scrutinized the texts we have. Without their work we would not have the opportunity to reconstruct our understanding of the gospels and thereby draw closer to the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Much of what I have written references teachings, miracles and happenings within the gospel stories as we find them in the New Testament. I use events found in other contemporary sources to support the historicity of Jesus’ story.

As you read this book, you will also find descriptions of a few miracles I invented. I did so to provide a reason for a discussion around a particular question. I urge you not to accept these as facts but to speculate about the issues they raise.

Peter D. Snow

Chapter One

Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress

Rev. 12:4-6 & 13:16 ff.

I couldn’t sleep again. I awoke, startled, from a nightmare with the screams of my people ringing in my ears. In vivid colors, I had seen them again, dying, as they were butchered in the town square or standing before their executioners, awaiting the sword, the garrote, or worse.

I am John. I used to be known as the beloved disciple, but now I am an old man full of despair. I was the closest person to Jesus back then, but now I am far from his love and grace. I want to die, but I cannot. I want to join those I came to love. Why should I be the only one left of all those who walked with him?

Drenched in sweat and trembling throughout my body, I put my hands over my ears to block out the screams, and I closed my eyes so I could not see the blood… but sight of the blood and sound of the screams were on the inside of my head.

They are sights and sounds I could not rid myself of, even as they happened; I could not look away. Since that terrible time, there has been no escape; the gruesome memories return unbidden, and often when I least expect it. Twenty-nine days have passed since my worst fears came true.

Yet my mind, unbidden, returns time after time to those terrible scenes. I don’t want to stop those sights and sounds because they are all I have left of those I saw die in the persecution in Ephesus. They feed my outrage.

Early this morning I stood outside on the cool patio tiles, staring out over the sea towards the mainland, just discernible on the horizon. The coastal mountain range was nearly hidden by low morning mist, and I could only see its summits. I looked where Ephesus had to be and saw in my mind’s eye—as clear as day—the city forum and the rows of columns marching on either side of the street towards the square where that monstrous effigy of the Emperor Domitian stood.

At the thought of that blind, deaf, staring mass of marble, I trembled all over again. I remembered Marcius as he was dragged before the effigy and asked to worship the image. He stood there, bloody, cut, and beaten and refused. Three times he was asked, and three times he refused. Finally, he was condemned to die in the theatre. Onlookers slavered as they anticipated the spectacle of his slow death.

As the scene again unfolded before my eyes, a scream rose in my throat. No! I shook my head to force the images away. Then, as if the whole scene were a fragile pot, it shattered into pieces and dropped away.

I was still standing, alone, in a home not my own, looking at the sea from my perch on the island of Patmos.

Collapsing on the low stone wall separating the patio from the steep slope leading to the valley below and the sea beyond, I wept afresh in the chill gray light of dawn. As I rocked back and forth, arms wrapped around myself in a futile attempt to contain my grief, I slowly chanted the names of all those who had died.

They had been mine. My people.

They had obeyed the law and were loyal to the Emperor. They prayed for him and the authorities daily as Jesus, the Master, taught us. Yet they were desecrated, tortured, and inhumanely put to death to satisfy the lusts of the people in that cursed city.

I cursed the goddess Diana and her bloody temple. I hurled curses at the horizon on all who entered that cold mausoleum of man’s depravity.

Dear Lord, help me. I could not forget, I could not forgive, I could not hope for this world or for the people in it. I wanted to see it smashed. I wanted to see this world and the people in it utterly destroyed and our people avenged. I couldn’t help myself. In spite of all Jesus had taught us, I wanted violent vindication.

I covered my face with my hands, and through my tears screamed aloud, Lord, help me to pray.

I had another nightmare last night. The memories of my people’s murders at Ephesus have evolved into a nightmare which repeats itself over and over.

I know it’s a vision of my hatred and rage visited upon the world, and the world is destroyed as punishment for the terrible persecution of us here and in Rome. The methods of this destruction and the forces involved change from one dream to the next.

The first dream of this sort occurred a week ago. Seven seals were holding back the punishment awaiting all those who had persecuted my friends and the faithful everywhere. The seals were broken one at a time, and disaster was visited upon the world. Four horsemen, representing the wrath of God, poured forth from the seals to battle against this savage world. The last seals were my cry for vindication, mixed with the voices of all the slaughtered faithful.

The very next night, I had the dream again, but this time there were seven trumpets, and they heralded, in turn, the destruction of the sky, sea, rivers, and earth. Everything was in flames, which consumed this wretched world. Then, out of the abyss, huge locusts came, sought out men and stung them, and then stung them again.

In my sleep, I screamed my approval. I wanted the destruction to go on and on, but I awoke to the silence of the night. My waking dream, in which I relive my friends’ death, began again to flicker before my eyes. There was no escape in sleep or in wakefulness.

Three nights ago, I experienced the same conflict. The powers of this world were waiting to devour anything good, anything that the Almighty sought to bring about. In my dream, a child was to be born, and a dragon representing the seven empires of the world waited to devour it as soon as it was born. The child was whisked up to heaven before the dragon could snatch it. Yes! I wanted to scream in triumph. I wanted to shout out loud, He will be back to rule the earth and conquer Satan. All the powers of evil and their henchmen will be obliterated, and there will be no hiding from Him. Nero’s name will be printed on all their foreheads. No one will be able to deny their complicity. They will all get what they deserve!

Last night my dream was once more of seven great chapters of destruction, but this time it was seven bowls from the altar. One by one they were emptied on the earth. I saw the people afflicted, and I screamed my approval. I saw the sea and rivers turned to blood. The sun exploded and burned people up.

Total darkness fell, the rivers dried up, and the air was destroyed. All the Kings of the earth had joined together at Megiddo to war against God and His anointed one, but it wasn’t going to do them any good. I even saw Rome picked up by a great angel and thrown into the sea, as easily as you might skip a stone.

I awoke and lay imagining what tortures they all deserved: kings, all their officers, their citizens and the lustful crowds baying like mad dogs eager to see innocent blood flow. All deserved the suffering they had inflicted on the innocent.

The innocent… the innocent in my nightmares reminded me of my friends. Their deaths were no dream, and, to forestall the images of their last hours I quickly forced myself up and onto my feet. Yet I still felt the scream rise in my throat again, and I held my head in my hands in hopelessness.

When I could move again, I sought the open air and the gray light of early morning and labored to get control of my mind. I was consumed by impotent rage. The evil I so opposed was obliterating everything Jesus had ever taught me.

My attempt at prayer was fruitless; I could only form enough