2002 - christopher j. decicco - jesus and his cast of characters. constructions of archetype

8/14/2019 2002 - Christopher J. DeCicco - Jesus and his Cast of Characters. Constructions of Archetype

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Jesus and his Cast of Characters:

Constructions of Archetype

Christopher J. DeCicco

NES 321 Heretics

Prof. Haines-Eitzen

Due May 6th

, 2002


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Heroes always emerge in a time of dying - of self, of social sanctions, of societys

forms, of standard-brand religions, governments, economics, psychologies and relationships. In

answering the call of the eternal, they discover the courage to perform the first great task of the

hero or heroine - to undergo the gestations, growth, and trauma required for a new birth. This

occurs so that they can then serve as midwife in the larger society for the continuum of births

necessary to redeem both the time and the society in which they live and bring them to a higher

level of functioning.

-Jean Huston1

Introduction: Categorization of Character

In his work The Historical Figure of Jesus, E.P. Sanders makes a short innocent

statement which speaks volumes about the human race: People like neat categories2. In its

context, this statement refers to New Testament scholars who have continuously attempted to

classify the historical Jesus as a specific kind of person, with specific kinds of beliefs, activities,

methods and philosophies. But since the information about Jesus is so diverse, and very often

contradictory, the task is a daunting one, and even the best and most thorough scholars

occasionally fall into the trappings of categorization, for the sake of simplicity and/or argument.

But the above statement is relevant outside of New Testament studies as well; in a broader

context it applies to the transmission of ideas through narratives, both ancient and modern, and

the methods by which authors (storytellers, writers, filmmakers, et cetera) convey their ideas,

and the ways audiences react. Narratives are always more easily digestible and repeatable when

the characters are clearly defined and pigeonholed, and the goals and obstacles of both

protagonists and antagonists are presented simply and concisely. Real life is never as neat or tidy

as storytelling is, but it is human nature to prefer simpler narrative structure and categorization,

and to dismiss or ignore irrelevant and extraneous data.

It is this very nature of the human psyche, and of storytelling itself, which makes the

work of New Testament scholars all the more difficult: the categorization of events and

characters in the gospels has already been applied to historical events, and unfortunately by

different people, who had different ideas, beliefs and goals when they constructed their

1Houston, The Hero and the Goddess, (New York, 1992), 73.

2Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, (London, 1993), 153.


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narratives. Although there has been much progress made in the process of honing in on the

characters and events in the life of the historical Jesus, the methods by which information is

extracted is not infallible, because the reliability of data is inherently questionable.

It is this aspect of New Testament studies the reliability of data which is my prime

focus in this paper. To what extent can we trust certain information as provided in the Gospel

narratives? Where do we draw the line between historical fact and fabricated narrative? This

figurative line will be drawn in different places for different readers. Those who consider

themselves Christians might consider none or almost none of the information to be fabricated,

and all to be true. Those with a more scientific and critical approach will be more conservative

with what they label as factual. Although this is not a comprehensive study of reliability of data,

it is certainly an argument that, in certain aspects of their detective-work, some scholars are not

being conservative enoughregarding what they are willing to accept as historically accurate.

Despite the high level of scrutiny that scholars apply in their studies, some of the most respected

among them contradict themselves by admitting uncertainty in some places and then boldly

claiming certainty elsewhere3.

Regarding the dating of Jesus birth, Sanders makes a statement (in the course of his

discussion) which I find unsettling: ...We should trust this information unless we have good

reason not to do so4. This innocent until proven guilty method of logic might seem perfectly

acceptable within the context of our modern democratic sense of justice, but is too liberal and

forgiving of an approach when studying documents which already give us noticeable reason to

distrust their reliability in other portions of text. While scholars might dismiss by default certain

events in the gospels as being implausible because of scientific impossibility (e.g. healings,

exorcisms, transfiguration, resurrection), they are reluctant to dismiss other events as implausible

(e.g. meetings between famous characters, as will be discussed later) because they could be

technicallypossible. But we are dealing with narrative fabricated reality, used to construct

historical fiction a medium which thrives onpossibilitiesin order to legitimize the stories

inherent implausibilities in the real world.Therefore accepting possibility as plausibility is not

enough. In George Lucass Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series, the protagonist

meets a different historical celebrity in each episode Sigmund Freud, Mata Hari, Theodore

3Ibid. compare p. 183 We may be confident that... to xiii Confidence... has soared, and recent scholarly literature

contains what I regard as rash and unfounded assertions...

4Ibid. 54.


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Roosevelt, T.E. Lawrence, Prince Feisal, Charles DeGaul, to name a few. As the viewer, we are

drawn to the stories because they are possible within the context of the story, even though we

know how historically implausible it would be for a single person to have met all of those

historical celebrities, and especially within a short amount of time. As one who has become more

intimately familiar with storytelling and the thought processes associated with creating fiction, I

am suggesting that it is safest to reverse the method of logic to guilty until proven innocent;

that is, we should assume that the gospel writers are guilty of fabricating or tailoring their

information solely for the sake of the narrative (and especiallywhen it serves the narrative), until

other historical information can corroborate. This method might leave us with fewer answers, but

having no conclusions is better than having faulty ones.

By making these statements, I am automatically playing on someone elses turf, namely

those who are far more steeped in the literature than I, and I must abide by their rules. Sanders

above statement asks for a good reason to distrust the reliability of gospels, and this paper is

about providing that very thing. Below I will argue that the Jesus narratives in the Gospels each

follow the same basic form and structure of heroic journey used by virtually all cultures

throughout human history, and that the more a text exhibits conspicuous adherence to this

structure, the more suspicious we should be that the information has been fabricated for the sake

of the narrative. This not only refers to events in Jesus life,as will be discussed first, but also to

charactersthat enter into the narrative, which will be discussed in the following two sections.

I: The Journey of the Archetypal Hero

During a time when some scholars were only studying foreign cultures in order to

understand differencesbetween peoples, enforcing an us versus them world view,

anthropologist Joseph Campbell focused on the vastsimilaritiesbetween cultures, particularly in

regard to storytelling, and the transmission of ideas through narrative. Now, decades after his

most famous work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, many people see his conclusions as being

self-evident, forgetting the profundity of his legacy.

In the above-mentioned work, Campbell studies in detail what he refers to as the

cosmogonic cycle5or the monomyth6, upon which many (if not most) of the worlds hero

5Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, (New York, 1949) 38-39, see especially 39: ...for now it appears that

the perilous journey was a labor not of attainment but of reattainment, not discovery but rediscovery whichreinforces the idea that this is a never-ending, repeating cycle for humanity.6Ibid. 30. He borrows this term from James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, (New York, 1939), 581.


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narratives draw their structure. The cycle is a simple one, divided into three basic sections:

separation, initiation, return7. Separationrefers to the departure from the normal life, or from

ones roots, into the call of adventure. Initiation is the dark period, sometimes taking place in the

supernatural world or an unfamiliar setting, where the hero undergoes various tasks, or endures

trials or temptations. Returnis marked by the completion of the task(s), whereby the hero is

brought back into normal life, but now as a transformed person, able to bestow gifts to his/her

fellow humans, whether this be in the form of a boon (i.e. a material object) or abstract gifts such

as wisdom or freedom8.

This narrative form is utilized, in rather unique ways, in all four of the canonical gospels.

Before I elaborate, it is important to provide a context for this form by way of comparison to

other narratives. The scope of this work is too small to incorporate the myriad examples of this

hero cycle in the worlds cultures, so for the sake of brevity, I will be emphasizing (both here and

later) examples from three different categories. The first two categories, Pagan (Greek, Roman,

and Egyptian) narratives, and Jewish (Old Testament) narratives, are essential because they were

familiar to early Christian writers and audiences, and have a direct bearing upon how the gospels

were formulated and experienced in their earliest form. The third category is modern narratives

in film and literature, which I provide purely for the emphasis that these methods and devices of

narrative structure are still readily employed, and not unique to antiquity.

Modern fiction is self-conscious of the hero cycle (in part because of Joseph Campbell),

to such an extent that many of the how to books in the market designed to help new and

aspiring writers and filmmakers specifically call upon the cycle as the classic model to follow9.

There are countless incarnations of this in modern culture, perhaps the most famous being

Dorothy Gale from Frank Baums Wizard of Oz, Frodo Baggins from Tolkeins Lord of the

Rings and Luke Skywalker from Lucass Star Wars saga. Interestingly, the latter two of these

stories were consciously born out of research in ancient mythology.

In Mediterranean antiquity, the story of Osiris is ancient Egypts most famous example of

the hero cycle, as he is killed by his enemies, dismembered and scattered through the land, then

reborn through a tree, and his divine energy is transformed into a new existence. But this version

of the hero cycle is highly metaphorical, relates less to human frailties or goals, and one could

7Ibid. 30.

8Ibid. See diagram on 245.

9See especially Trottier, The Screenwriters Bible, (Los Angeles, 1998) 35, 79, index on 298.


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argue is that the real adventure is carried out by his wife Isis, who attempts to find and save her

husband, and restore his divine status. Certain Greek characters have their beginnings with

divinity - Achilles and Herakles are both born of one divine parent and one human parent10

- in

order to emphasize their uniqueness, but they still must endure challenges which are relevant to

the human realm, and their weaknesses are often human ones. In one way or another, the stories

of Jason, Aeneas and Theseus utilize the hero cycle, even if it is only as part of the heros

adventure (Jason passes the clashing rocks, sneaks past the dragon to take the Golden Fleece;

Aeneas enters the underworld, passes Cerberus to gain knowledge of the future; Theseus enters

the labyrinth, slays the minotaur and takes Ariadne as his wife)11

. All three of these narratives

depict more human main characters, while the plot is still under the influence of divine

characters. Homers Odyssey follows this pattern too, as Athena assists Odysseus through his

journeys. What makes the Odyssey interesting regarding the hero cycle is that a disproportional

bulk of the story takes place during the initiation phase, within which several miniature sub-

cycles of the monomyth are completed (e.g. visits to various islands, other tangential adventures)

before the final return is complete (even when Odysseus returns to Ithaka, he still faces the

final daunting task of regaining his wife)12

.

Utilizing multiple miniature sub-cycles is not unique to Greek tradition; in the Jewish

tradition, the Genesis story of Joseph employs this method to an even greater extreme, with each

section of the story mirroring/imitating the other sections as well as the whole story13. The story

of the prophet Jonah is perhaps the most famous of Biblical narratives to follow the cosmogonic

cycle, so much so that when Campbell elaborates on the initiation phase, one of his chapter

section titles is in the Belly of the Whale14

. Daniels lions den and Noahs ark also both

serve as the initiation phase in their respective narratives, and are a testament to the fact that a

hero is often remembered most for what is encountered in this middle phase, the trials and

tribulations that must be endured in order to rise to the status of hero. The Exodus narrative is

essential to mention here because of how it uniquely employs the hero cycle twice: first Moses

follows the journey (exile from Egypt, living among the Midianites, the burning bush, return as

10For more, see Galinsky, The Herakles Theme, (Totowa, 1972) 14.

11For more, see Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, (New York, 1949) 23-24, 30.

12For more about the structure of these sub-cycles, see Smith, The Heros Journey, (Lanham, 1997) 33.

13Genesis 37-50

14Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, (New York, 1949) 90.


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the new prophet), and then Moses draws the entire people of Israel into the cycle (escape from

Egypt, wandering in the desert, entering and conquering Canaan).

This double utilization of the hero cycle is critical in examining the Jesus narrative. In

this case, the gospel of Mark serves as our prime example, since it is not only considered our

earliest extant Jesus narrative (upon which two others are based), but is also the simplest and

most straight forward in its application of the hero cycle. As Sanders and co-writer Margaret

Davies point out, the bulk of the Mark text (1:21-14:50) is a three-fold discourse: evangelization,

instruction (i.e. wisdom), and apology (offense/defense of Christian philosophy and cult)15

. But

the discourse is neatly and conveniently book-ended by the two hero cycles of Jesus: the human

hero cycle (Baptism; wandering in the desert, temptation by the devil; return as an authority

figure), and then the divine one (admission of messiah status; trial, suffering & execution, later

embelished by the creeds he descended into hell; resurrection).

Why is it so important to view the Jesus narrative in the context of the archetypal hero

cycle? There are many reasons, but first and foremost is that it seems to be no accidentthat this

classic formula appears in the narrative. The writers were clearly familiar both Pagan and Jewish

stories, and recognized, either consciously or unconsciously, what made a good story - what

qualities and characteristics made a narrative appealing and attractive to the largest possible

audience. They also clearly knew how to allude to other stories - particularly Jewish narratives -

in order to support their agenda. Our most obvious example is that the author of Matthew

conspicuously modeled and sculpted his Jesus as the new Moses16

. What better way to

emphasize this similarity in character and mission than to have Jesus narrative follow the same

general path? The first hero cycle, one of personal and individual growth and a rise to special

status, is placed at the beginning of the story. Then, the second cycle at the end of the story

shows that the hero uses his special status to bring the entire group through the same set of

changes (in Moses case, delivering the Israelites into the promised land; in Jesus case,

delivering the Christians in to salvation and redemption - the promised land of paradise after

death.)17

15Sanders & Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels, (Philadelphia, 1989) 43.

16Matthew 2:16, also 5:1 ...up the mountain, and 8:1 ...came down from the mountain. See Ehrman, The New

Testament, (New York, 1997) 83.

17See also notes inNew Oxford Annotated Bible, (New York, 1994) NT2 name of Jesus loosely translated as

Savior.


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How should the archetypal hero cycle affect our pursuit of the historical Jesus? It can

serve as a great divining rod, giving us a greater indication of which elements of the Jesus

narratives could be based upon historical events and which might have been concocted in order

to give greater weight to the thrust of the narrative. Yes, it seems that Jesus was indeed a

historical figure, and through evidence from Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny18, we can gather that

Jesus was a man who attracted attention, spoke in public, and was executed because he appeared

to be in some way a threat to the status quo. But there are plenty of other details of Jesus life,

drawn solely from the gospels, which many readers and scholars still tend to accept at face value.

The problem with accepting this latter catergory as reliable evidence is that some of these details

and events fit so perfectly - so conveniently- into the phases of the hero cycle. These details

should then serve as a red flag, making us perk up and ask: are we really supposed to believe that

life imitates art with such precision? Or, to be more exact in this case, are we supposed to believe

that history precisely imitates classic narrative structure and form? In short, my answer is no.

Certain phases of the archetypal cycle are more easily dismissed as being fabricated (or

not entirely factual) because they coincide with scientific impossibility on some level. The

resurrection is a prime example: we can see that the resurrection represents the final phase of

Jesus second (divine) cycle, and is a nice way to round out the narrative, providing a sense of

purpose for, and optimism after, the physical suffering of crucifixion which was the second

phase. Even in the gospel of Mark, in which the resurrection is merely implied, or described in

more enigmatic terms than the other texts19

, this final phase is still essential, and serves as a

message of hope and the speculation of future vindication, particularly for audiences

contemporaneous to the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple (which is the

approximate time this text is considered to have been written). But there are other phases of the

hero cycle that might not present supernatural challenges to us, which still deserve just as much

scrutiny as the above example.

If we examine the use of the double hero cycle utilized in the gospel of Mark, we can see

the authors mind at work when creating the first (human) cycle for Jesus. For instance, if one

knows that one is about to construct a document with narrative elements, the bulk of which is

discourse and apologetics, what better way to establish great credibility and authority in the main

18Standard References: Josephus,Antiquities of the Jews, 18.3.3; Tacitus,Annales, 15.44; Pliny,Epistola, 10.69

19The most ancient ending does not reveal the resurrected Christ; ends with Mk 16:8 and they were afraid.


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character than to provide a short, compact, Readers Digest version of the hero cycle at the

very beginning? This is precisely what the first chapter of Mark supplies; it is a formula which

gives a reason for the audience to trust the story, listen and pay attention to the rambling

discourse to follow.

With this in mind, we need to question the historical legitimacy of anything which occurs

in this short hero cycle that introduces the character. While, the conversations with the devil20

are

dismissed as being merely folk tradition, due to the supernatural bent of this scene (similar to the

resurrection phase discussed above), I am going out on a limb by stating that, because of the

specific role that the first cycle plays in the narrative, we should similarly entertain the

possibility that the baptism itself (the first phase of Jesus first cycle) should not necessarily be

accepted as historical fact either.

This statement opens up a rather large can of worms, as the expression goes, and requires

far more discussion and investigation in order to refute the widely-accepted belief among

scholars that the baptism was a historical event. Before I begin such an arduous task - perhaps an

uphill battle? - it is necessary first to discuss the use of famous characters in narratives. This

second section will have more obvious relevance to the above argument later in the paper.

II: Celebrity Inclusion and its Implications

As scarce as the evidence might be, there areoccasional references to Jesus and other

gospel characters within some Roman records, but these rare examples are our only information

relevant to the historical Jesus which are independent from the Christian texts themselves. When

the first New Testament scholars of the modern era began their quest for the historical Jesus,

their initial reaction to these Roman records might have been one of relief: the existence of such

records might indicate that within the gospels are layers of historical truth. Because the gospels

include connections to, or interactions with, characters such as Herod the Great, John the Baptist,

Joseph Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate, and because these characters appear in non-Christian

records, this evidence might at first glance seem to support some of the gospels claims. But

there are two factors which might cast doubt upon such a first glance reaction: 1) there are plenty

of other instances in the gospels which scholars view as having been a fabrication, and 2) the

20Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13 both present much more elaborate temptation scenes than Mark.


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gospels are considered to post-date Jesus by forty to sixty years at least, allowing greater

possibility for traditions to stray from truth.

Again, I feel it necessary to apply the guilty until proven innocent approach when

examining the inclusion of these four characters in the gospels. Why? Because although the

Jesus movement grew to unprecedented size, its beginnings were undoubtedly far humbler. A

small fledgling movement trying to bring new people into the fold would have much to gain and

little to lose by inventing stories that include characters with which the general public is already

familiar.

For an author deciding to include a famous celebrity figure in his or her work, the

advantages are numerous. Firstly, it means that less character development is necessary for the

celebrity; the audience is already acquainted with that characters background, personality,

agenda, et cetera, and the author can devote less time in filling in such information that is

normally necessary with other characters. More time can therefore be devoted to other elements

in the story. Secondly, it relates the authors new story to a broader tapestry of otherstories,

giving the audience a greater sense that this story connects to others, the way that people relate to

other people. And thirdly and most importantly, the use of a historical celebrity grounds the

story in a specific historical setting, a familiar backdrop, providing an authenticity to the storys

place and time, and sometimes implying a greater importance to the narrative if it is connected to

figures already deemed important in other contexts.

This occurs in modern literature and film wherever there is historical fiction. Robert

Zemeckis Forrest Gump is modern films most excessive example of this. In period pieces,

royalty is a common device: Richard the Lionhearted appears in the Robin Hood stories, Queen

Elizabeth is featured in both Virginia Woolfs Orlando and in the more recent Shakespeare in

Love. Celebrity figures are often sought out for the role of villains, such as Richelieu in Dumas

Three Musketeers, or Al Capone in Brian DePalmas the Untouchables. Sometimes celebrity

villains are used to show a main characters associations, such as a brief clip of Kane with Hitler

in Welles Citizen Kane, or merely for comic effect as Hitler is used in a completely differenct

context in Spielbergs Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Even in childrens films, whose

audience might not be familiar with history, this device is employed: FDR appears in the film

version of Annie, and Rasputin is the main villain in Anastasia.21

21An important note about which examples I chose: I did not include historical fiction where the protagonist is the

prime historical celebrity itself. The only exception is Shakespeare in Love, but Elizabeth is a reinforcing character,


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The Greeks were well aware of this narrative device, although it was not used necessarily

to ground the story historically, for most of the celebrity inclusions in Greek stories were gods,

and therefore timeless. But it was nevertheless effective in conveying the importance of certain

human heroes because of their connection to, or favor bestowed by, the gods. Even in Homers

Odyssey, the hero at one point meets other famous Greek heroes and celebrities, such as King

Minos, Orion, Theseus, and Herakles22

. By having his protagonist interact with other heroes,

Homer gained much advantage, connecting his own epic with other famous legends.

Jewish storytelling is not immune to such plot device either. Nebuchadnezzars presence

in the book of Daniel serves the same purpose; Jews and non-Jews alike would have known who

Nebuchadnezzar was, and his infamous reputation fit so perfectly and conveniently into the

Daniel narrative. The names of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes appear in the books of Ezra and

Nehemiah, marking the end of the exile, and although scholars bicker as to which Darius or

which Artaxerxes these books might specifically be referring (pick a Roman numeral...), each of

these leaders provide a celebrity presence in the narrative to both establish historical legitimacy

and bolster the perceived importance of Nehemiah as he had interacted with the Persian kings23.

The use of the term Pharaoh in Exodus takes on the same role. Although the text never

specifically points out whichpharaoh (and, again, scholars bicker about the historical specifics),

the celebrity presence of the Egyptian leader provides the same authenticity to the story, and

Jews in the earliest audience of the Exodus narrative would have had a very clear preconception

of who a pharaoh was and what his personality and character might have been.

As mentioned earlier, the author of the gospel of Matthew exerts tremendous effort to

insure that his audience recognizes direct parallels between Jesus and Moses. His first and most

effective means of doing this is in the beginning of the narrative, where Herod the Great decrees

that infant males are to be slaughtered to prevent the rise of a new leader among the Jews24

.

Scholars and theologians alike have been aware of this having been a plot device borrowed quite

blatantly from Exodus, where Pharaoh does the same after the birth of Moses. In the gospel of

Matthew, Herod the Great is the perfect contemporary celebrity to take on the role of the new

Pharaoh. This literary allusion works brilliantly, because it matches so consistently with

and thus fits the list of examples. I also purposefully avoided time travel fantasies such as Time Banditsand theBilland Tedfilms, because these deal with contemporary characters moving into a historical scenario.22

Homer, Book 11. See also Galinsky, The Herakles Theme, (Totowa, 1972) 12.23

See especially Nehemiah 2:1-8, where he speaks face to face with Artaxerxes.24

Matthew 2:16.


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Herods actual reputation in the first century BCE. As Eric M. Meyers describes, he was the

guy you love to hate.25

But despite the slaying of the infant males being somewhat consistent

with other gruesome acts that we can safely attribute to Herod the Great26

, there is no evidence

that a decree of this specific nature was historical, nor does it seem logistically plausible for such

a degree to be enforced. It is therefore safer to presume that Herod was included in Matthew

because he was a historical celebrity figure and fit well into the literary allusion incorporated into

the narrative. Although the character of Herod the Great was definitely not fictitious, his

connectionto the Jesus narrative certainly seems to be.

How does this affect our data for the reconstruction of the historical Jesus? Despite how

aware scholars are of the Matthew birth narrative being an appropriation of the Moses narrative,

some of themstillattempt to calculate the birth year of Jesus by using the death of Herod (4

BCE) as a benchmark figure27

. I find this to be absurd. To be recognizing the fictional devices of

a text and simultaneously trusting it for hard data is an incredibly unscientific approach. Are we

to believe that the author of Matthew, writing a full nine decades after the death of Herod, would

have even known or cared whether or not Jesus birth actually lined up with the last years of

Herods reign? Furthermore, Brown wastes his time compiling an eight page appendix28

on

dating the birth of Jesus by trying to reconcile the death of Herod with dates related to the reigns

of Quirinius and Augustus, mentioned in Luke 1 and 2 (these two pieces of data seem to conflict

with each other as well). But it is highly unlikely that the author of Luke would have had access

to the hard data of Roman records as we do, nor would he have been able to cross-check his

information the way current scholars can do. Again, the author of Luke was writing a full eight

to nine decades after the events he was describing, basing the rest of his document on

fragmentary oral and written traditions, passed down like a game of telephone. Are we then to

accept unquestioningly Lukes data as reliable enough to utilize in the calculation of the birth of

Jesus?

It seems more logical to view the inclusion of historical celebrities such as Herod (in

Matthews case) and Quirinius and Augustus (in Lukes case) as literary ornamentation and

allusion in order to bolster the perceived authenticity of the narrative. Perceived authenticity

for a late first century audience should not be translated into historical reliability in the twenty-

25

Mellowes, prod. From Jesus to Christ: the First Christians, (Boston, 1998) part one.26

Josephus,Antiquities of the Jews, 15.6-7.27

Sanders,Historical Figure, (London, 1993) 52-53; Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, (New York, 1977) 166.28

Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, (New York, 1977) 547-555.


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first century. Dismissing this data from Matthew and Luke is a frustrating but necessary action; it

leaves us without an ability to reliably date the birth of Jesus, but a lack of conclusion is better

than conclusions based on faulty evidence.

Dating the death of Jesus can be nearly as tricky a task, because the data used for this

calculation also relies on reconciling gospel passages to the more reliable Roman data of the

reigns of Pontius Pilate (as the Prefect of Judea) and Caiaphas (as the High Priest of the Temple).

Yes, the death of Jesus was far closer to the period when the gospels were written, and yes, oral

traditions from the twenties and thirties are perhaps more reliable than the birth narratives, but

we must entertain the possibility that Pilate and Caiaphas were included in the traditions

surrounding Jesus death because they - like Herod - had well-established reputations as being

ruthless characters, and were easy celebrities to include into the narrative. They were already

viewed as bad guys both during and after their periods of control29

, and their inclusion in the

passion narratives, particularly regarding their responsibility for Jesus death, seems particularly

tidy and convenient - too convenient, in fact, to accept blindly.

The reign of Caiaphas is particularly questionable here, since Luke mentions that the

events of Jesus trial occur during the times of Caiaphas and Annas30

. But as Sanders wisely

points out, there was only onehigh Priest at a time; the two of them could not have shared the

position simultaneously31

. Because of this, it is safer to conclude that the author of Luke did not

truly know who specifically was in power during the time of Jesus death, and provided this

verse, again, to allude to a period of infamy in the Temples past, as ornamentation forperceived

authenticity. Caiaphas becomes even less of an essential character for helping to calculate Jesus

death when one considers also that in the eighties and nineties when the gospels of Luke and

John were being composed, there was already pressure among Christian communities to draw

responsibility of Jesus death away from the Romans and toward the Jews. In this context,

Caiaphas becomes an easy villain to include in the narrative - he was well-known, had a

conveniently bad reputation, and even the Romans eventually removed him from position.

Therefore, his presence in the Jesus narrative seems to be contrived, for a specific response from

the audience, and consequently, historically unreliable.

29See especially Josephus,Antiquities, 18.3.1-2, 18.4.2; Wars of the Jews, 2.9.1-4)

30Luke 3:2

31Sanders,Historical Figure, (London, 1993) 52.


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Conversely, the general movement away from Roman responsibility of Jesus death

makes Pilates involvement more of an embarrassment to the Christian movement, requiring the

gospel writers to redraw Pilates character, depicting him as less of a villain than he was

generally perceived during and after his reign. According to scholars, then, the embarrassment of

Pilates involvement in Jesus death indicates that his involvement was based on historical fact.

But the tradition of Pilates involvement could still have been based on earlier oral transmission,

long before this political pressure to remove Roman responsibility was present within Christian

communities. Pilate could have been blamed by earlier Christians in the thirties through the

sixties, even if he was not directly involved with Jesus' execution. During this pre-Markan

period, he would have made the perfect celebrity villain, and an easy target to insert into the

narratives of oral tradition.

Even if one were to dismiss this possibility and assume that Jesus execution didoccur

during Pilates reign (making Pilates dates valid for dating Jesus death), the extent to which

Pilate is present in the Jesus narratives - even in Mark - should be questioned. The authors would

have much to gain by including a Roman figure of such infamy into the narrative, even if his

character were to be reversed, because he was a character familiar to the earliest audiences. In

fact, to have a notoriously evil Roman trying to helpJesus out of his predicament could even

serve to persuade the audience of Jesus overwhelming innocence, and the malevolence of the

Jews. There is also the possibility that Jesus was executed on account of a decree from Pilate

(i.e. enforced by Pilates underlings), but without requiring Pilate and Jesus to meet face to face

for a trial or judgement, as is suggested by all four gospel narratives. Pilates role as a literary

device, then, is still visible.

III: Literary Convenience of the Voice in the Desert

Of the four main historical celebrities discussed in this paper, the first three were easily

incorporated into the same category because they were all viewed during the first century as

villains of one kind or another. However, the fourth figure, John the Baptist, takes on a very

different role in the gospel narratives - a role that perhaps fits even more snuggly into the hero

cycle, but presents us with different - and thornier - issues than those discussed with Herod,

Pilate or Caiaphas. The implications of these issues will also require us to re-examine several

conclusions shared among New Testament scholars.


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In the cosmogonic cycle, there is always a catalyst provided in the narrative which places

the hero onto his/her path - an impetus to begin the cycle. Occasionally this impetus is an object

(Jacks magic beans) or an event (the end of the Trojan war, a chance for Odysseus to return

home), but more often it is another characterwho initiates the journey. This initiator character,

referred to by Campbell as the helper, protective figure, or Supernatural Aid,32comes in

many different forms, and shows up for sometimes different reasons, but this role is nevertheless

extremely significant in many narratives.

In many cases, the initiator is already established as being unique, or having unique

abilities. Whether human or divine, the initiator has previously gone through his/her own hero

journey, is often depicted as old, has had his/her own adventures, and is now passing the torch

to the next chosen figure. This transfer of energy can come in the form of a supernatural warning

(the ghost of Hamlets Father in Hamlet, the ghost of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol), a tool

or special object (Bilbo passes the ring to his nephew Frodo in Lord of the Rings, the Lady of the

Lake gives Excalibur to Arthur), a special ability (sentience bestowed upon Pinocchio,

knowledge of good and evil given to Adam and Eve by the serpent), or teaching and wisdom

from a specific tradition (Obi-Wan Kenobi trains young Luke in the ways of the Force in Star

Wars, Morpheus trains Neo in the Matrix). Whether or not the initiator is somehow able or

allowed to help the hero after the point where the initiation phase has been entered, it is always

clear that it is notthe initiators journey, and that this characters time for personal glory has

passed; it is time for a new hero (Odysseus meeting in the underworld with Minos, Orion and

especially Herakles, as mentioned before, also fits this model).

The Jewish scriptures are loaded with initiators passing their former glory to the next

generation of hero. Although, the story of Joseph receiving the coat of many colors from Israel

(Jacob) is our clearest, most structured example, this general pattern is used for the previous

three generations as well (the patriarchs: Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob). It is used again to pass on

political rule after the departure from Egypt (Moses to Joshua), during the United Kingdom

(Samuel anointing David, then David to Solomon), and to a lesser extent (but with numerous

examples) during the Divided Kingdom. But in addition to patriarchy and politics, the Jewish

prophets had their own stories and their own methods of initiation as well. Perhaps the most

32Campbell, ...Thousand Faces, (New York, 1949) helper, 245; protective figure, 69; Supernatural Aid, 36.


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famous of these is the transfer of spirit from Elijah to Elisha, when Elijah is taken up in a fiery

chariot33

.

This example is of utmost importance here, because not only does John the Baptist

completely fit the profile of the initiator in Jesus first cycle, but the gospel authors purposefully

depict John as a prophet from the old tradition, and compare him directly to Elijah34. Although

John receives a decapitation rather than a flaming chariot for his ending, there is still an implied

transfer of divine power being implied by the gospel authors when they flesh out their respective

baptism scenes.

John the Baptist also fits our profile of a famous historical figure whose popularity and

reputation would have brought more familiarity and legitimacy to the earliest Jesus stories. Some

scholars feel that the inclusion of John the Baptist in the gospels appears as an embarrassment

to the early Christian movement (the fact that the Messiah is being anointed by someone lower

in status than himself), that this event is dissimilar enough to the thrust of the gospel ideologies

that it is probably based on an actual historical event35. I, on the other hand, suggest a very

different model for interpreting this data.

The Christian movement had already grown to large size by the time the gospel texts

were written. In conjunction with this, the Christology of Jesus (i.e. the perceived status as

unique or divine) was also growing at an alarming rate, even within the period that these texts

were written (from the human Jesus in Mark, to the divine, pre-existent Jesus of John). But, as

mentioned before, the beginnings of the early Jesus movement were far humbler than the gospel

writers would want to admit. Thus, a small fledgling movement made up of enthusiastic and

zealous proselytizers would have had much to gain by receiving - or perhaps creating- what

would be the modern equivalent of a political endorsement from an already-established,

prominent public figure such as John the Baptist. (It is all the more convenient that this de facto

political endorsement is coming from another martyr, one who is not around to disprove the

fabrication). Having Jesus be initiated into special status by someone as famous as John would

have helped to legitimize the earliest stories which circulated about Jesus. It would only be later,

after the Christology of Jesus grew to such extreme proportions, and after the movement

33 2 Kings 2:9-12

34compare Matthew 3:4 to 2 Kng 1:8.

35Sanders,Historical Figure, (London, 1993) 94, 119; see also the Criterion of Dissimilarity Ehrman, The New

Testament, (New York, 1997) 193-95.


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expanded, that the presence of John the Baptist would have been an embarrassment to the

Christian movement(s) during the times that the four gospels were committed to writing.

Evidence that further supports this interpretation can be found in the Antiquities of the

Jews by Flavius Josephus. Although the extant version of Josephus which describes Jesus is

substantial, (approximately 125-130 words in English)36, most scholars feel that this version is

highly Christianized - more biased towards Christian ideology than Josephus ever exhibits in the

rest of his works. The passages which are believed to be genuine (i.e. not tampered with by

Christian monks) add up to a far shorter length (approximately 90 words in English37

, or if one

considered the Josephan passage as transmitted by 10thCentury Agapius, approximately 100

words in English38). But the amount of text that Josephus dedicates to John the Baptist (his

teachings and the plot surrounding his death), is far more extensive than the Jesus passage (about

225 words in English39

). This is a significant discrepancy, and cannot be overlooked. Although it

might seem petty to equate word count with popularity, at the very least this could imply that

John the Baptist was a more significant and prominent public figure during the early first century

than Jesus was, and possibly had a greater impact on the psyche of the general public than Jesus

did - even as viewed from the nineties (when Josephus was writing), after the Christian

movement was already on firmer ground. Furthermore, Sanders shrewdly points out that if, as

Josephus describes, the people viewed Antipass military defeat as punishment for executing

John, the public indeed must have held John in great esteem.40. Neither Jesus nor his execution

garnered the kind of immediate public outcry that was associated with John. This further

supports the argument that John the Baptist achieved far greater celebrity during his time than

Jesus did, despite the fact that the latter had inspired more written text and general popularity

decades and centuries later. Thus, at the beginning of the Jesus movement, a fabricated

connection to a Jewish celebrity such as John the Baptist would have been a great benefit to the

earliest transmitters of the Jesus narrative.

What are the implications of suggesting that Jesus connection to John the Baptist was

fabricated for the narrative? This alleged connection has been used by some New Testament

36Josephus,Antiquities, 18.3.3. Whiston translation (Philadelphia, 1957) 535.

37Meier,A Marginal Jew, (New York, 1991) 61.

38Maier,Josephus: the Essential Writings, (Grand Rapids, 1988) 264-5, see note on 265.

39Josephus,Antiquities, 18.5.2; Whiston translation (Philadelphia, 1957) 540.

40Sanders,Historical Figure, (New York, 1993) 92.


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scholars to establish that the historical Jesus presented an apocalyptic message to the public. In

short, the line of logic follows that since John the Baptist spoke apocalyptically (the beginnings

of Jesus ministry), Paul wrote apocalyptically (our first writings after Jesus, approximately 50-

60 CE), and the author of Mark wrote apocalyptically (our first extant narrative, ca. 70 CE), we

should conclude that Jesus - in the middle of all this - did the same41. I find this argument

unconvincing for several reasons. First, if we are to understand the gospel of Mark as having

been written some time during or after the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, then that is

clearly a time when apocalyptic ideas and philosophies were raging high among the Jewish

people, and the specifically apocalyptic language within Mark could very well be anachronistic,

and inserted into the text for the sake of contemporaneous relevance. (Also, the apocalyptic

language in Mark is inconsistently placed through the text, indicating that those specifically

apocalyptic passages, especially chapter 13, were based on previous written text, similar to the

literary seams within the gospel of John.) Second, Paul was clearly proselytizing his own

agenda throughout his ministries, inserting his own world views (and placing Jesus within them).

He seems to have had little knowledge of the actual life of Jesus, and did not explicitly allude to

certain Jesus events familiar to us42

even when they could have supported his argument. In

addition, the book of Galatians describes his ministry as separate from the earliest Christian

movement and then later in oppositionto Peter and his movement43

, making Pauls connection to

the early Jesus movement a tenuous one. And thirdly, we do not have any clear evidence outside

of the gospels themselves that John the Baptist spoke in an explicitly apocalyptic manner.

Josephus claims only that John spoke of virtue, righteousness, piety and purification44

. His text

does not mention John speaking of divine intervention or the coming of a new age, as would be

expected from apocalyptic discourse.

When discussing the historical Jesus, Sanders accuses modern scholarship of seiz[ing]

on one point to say that it is determinative, and then beat[ing] the other pieces of evidence into

necessary shape45

. But when arguing that Jesus had an eschatological message, Sanders does

the same thing: he implies that we should trust Marks eschatological depiction of Jesus because

it is consistent with John the Baptists message as attested by Josephus, and then claims that

41Ehrman, The New Testament, (New York, 1997) 218-19.

42Ibid. 312. Ehrman points out the similarities between Rom 13:7 & Mk 12:17, and Gal 5:14 &Mt 22:39-40.

43Gal 1:16-17, 2:11-14.

44Josephus,Antiquities, 18.5.2

45Sanders,Historical Figure,(London, 1993) 55.


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Josephus depiction of John is insufficient, and we should look to Mark for the details of Johns

ideologies (But for the contents of the Baptists message we must rely on the gospels, since

Josephus summary tells us nothing...46

). This is circular reasoning! It is neither effective in

persuading that Jesus message was eschatological, nor that Johns was. This is not to say that

their messages were noteschatological, but that the evidence is insufficient to conclude one way

or the other, because our primary sources are too biased to be reliable. The only conclusion that

I feel this data truly indicates is that the writer of what we now know as the gospel of Mark had

apocalypticism on his/her mind; any eschatological message ascribed to Jesus and John is very

likely to be the writer displacing his/her own opinions, problems, and world views into a

constructed past, to create a text that was more relevant to his/her present.

Even so, the above arguments presented by Sanders (and Ehrman) still hinge on the

presumption that Jesus connection to John the Baptist was historically accurate. Because Johns

presence in the text (and presumably in the earlier oral traditions) comes in the form of a

standard plot device (the initiator) in a standard archetypal hero cycle, how can we legitimately

trust these sources for historical truth? In my opinion, we cannot rely on these texts for anything

more than what they are: narrative constructions. Paula Fredriksen warns that modern

scholarship might lead us to project what is meaningful to us back onto and into our subject of

inquiry.47

But the New Testament writers received no such warning, nor would they have

heeded it. Their very purpose was to thrust their own ideologies into a construction of the past.

Jesus was the ultimate blank slate upon which this ideological appropriation of the past could

occur.

Conclusion: the Man and the Metaphor

In the introduction to Joseph Campbells posthumously-released The Heros Journey,

Phil Cousineau described the well-known anthropologist as ...the ecstatic scholar, a breed of

thinker thought long extinct since the age of scientific rationalism.48

In an academic world

where other scholars were dismissing the myths and narratives of other cultures as childs play,

Campbell turned his own personal and spiritual pursuits towards revealing to the world the vast

similarities that all story-telling exhibits throughout human existence. Now that these similarities

46Ibid. 93, 183.

47Fredriksen,Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, (New York, 1999) 39.

48Campbell, The Heros Journey, (New York, 1990) xiii.


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are apparent, and indeed transparent to us, they can no longer be ignored when we examine

either the past or the present.

Campbell was known to occasionally be critical of modern Christianity for not

recognizing the metaphors within its own storytelling: Every religion is true in one way or

another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck to its own metaphors,

interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.49

Although he spoke in terms of Christian

theology, this statement applies to a certain extent to modern New Testament academics as well.

Modern scholarship may recognizethe metaphors in the texts, the literary allusions, the parallels,

the origins, perhaps with a more critical eye than those with a theological approach. But to

recognize such features, and then simultaneously trustthe metaphor for reliable historical data

seems nothing less than sheer folly.

In many ways this guilty until proven innocent approach that I have implemented here

can be a very unsettling one, because it leaves us with fewer answers, and fewer solid

conclusions. As Sanders wrote, People like neat categories, and none of us are exceptions to

this. The lack of nice, neat, perfect answers is always an uncomfortable experience, for historians

or anyone else. But coming up with answers for the sake of havinganswers (and basing such

answers on shaky evidence) only leaves me unconvinced of some of the most widely-accepted

conclusions among New Testament scholars.

I realize that I have attempted here to challenge the works and ideas of men and women

who are far more learned in the subject matter than myself. It is worth noting that I

simultaneously hold great admiration for this group of men and women; their works and ideas

are a continual source of inspiration and invigoration. This has also not been an attempt to

systematically negate their conclusions; some of the most popular arguments in the field I find to

be incredibly persuasive. But as a person who has also become steeped in the processes of

creating fiction, I cannot help but to recognize familiar and conspicuous storytelling devices in

the gospels. In refusing, or ignoring the opportunity, to examine these texts through a

storytellers eyes, one might proverbially miss the forest for the trees.

I also realize that a paper as short as this cannot possibly include all the details and

intricacies which would be necessary for a full study of the reliability of texts utilizing this

method of criticism. I am acutely aware that I have glossed over some issues with a mere

49Campbell, The Power of Myth, (New York, 1988) 56.


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Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Bollingen Foundation Inc.,1949.

Campbell, Joseph, with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

Ehrman, Bart D. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Fredriksen, Paula. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.

Galinsky, G. Karl. The Herakles Theme. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1972.

Houston, Jean. The Hero and the Goddess. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.

Josephus, Flavius. The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus. Trans, William Whiston.Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1957.

Maier, Paul L. Josephus: The Essential Writings. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, Inc., 1988.

Meier, John. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. New York: Doubleday, 1991.

Mellowes, Marylin, Producer. From Jesus to Christ: the First Christians. Boston: WGBH

Educational Foundation, 1998.

Metzger, Bruce M. and Roland E. Murphy, Eds. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: NewRevised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Sanders, E.P. The Historical Figure of Jesus. London: Penguine Press, 1993.

Sanders, E.P. and Margaret Davies. Studying the Synoptic Gospels. Philadelphia: Trinity PressInternational, 1989.

Smith, Evans Lansing. The Hero Journey in Literature. Lanham, MD: University Press ofAmerica, 1997.

Thundy, Zacharias P. Buddha and Christ: Nativity Stories and Indian Traditions. New York: E.J.Brill, 1993.

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2002 - christopher j. decicco - jesus and his cast of characters. constructions of archetype

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