Charles Victor on Religion

The feasts of Easter and Christmas invariably excite news magazines to bring forward an article or two on Jesus. This Paschaltide, Maclean’s, Canada’s preeminent weekly, featured an article by Brian Bethune on two recent works: Bart Ehrman’s Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Saviour, and Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. It is not my intention to critique the offerings of professors Erhman and Carrier. However, on their topics of investigation I offer my own following reflections.

History is always a selective remembering, a choice of certain “facts” from amongst others not only toward building an understanding of events past and present, but of defining oneself or one’s community. A simple list can be made of all the political, diplomatic, military, and social manoeuvers constitutive of the War of 1812, but Canada, Britain, and the United States will continue to hold differing perspectives and evaluations of those events, varying interpretations of their importance and ramifications. While history is a selective remembering, memory is itself selective. We, at least we of a certain age, may adeptly recall our multiplication tables, but in larger part, our memories constitute merely a private history, something coloured not only with the recall of concrete events but of our emotive valuations and accentuations of those events. Thus, neither memory nor history are infallible realities. They are ways in which we as pragmatic and emotive beings function within our social networks. They may inform in great depth about our personal and communal perceptivity and values, but they do not, cannot, constitute the material of scientific, incontestable, mathematically certain knowledge. They may not be fictions, but they are fabrications. Continue reading →

I—A Gospel

There took place at Cana in Galilee a wedding. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited.  When the supply of wine was nearly depleted, Jesus’ mother said to him: “They have no wine.”  Jesus responded: “Woman, what has your concern to do with me? This is not the time for me to be glorified.”  His mother told the staff: “Whatsoever he tells you, do.”  To provide for the Jewish rites of purification, there were six stone water jars each of which could hold about twenty gallons. Jesus ordered the staff: “Fill these jars with water”, and they filled them to the brim. “Now” said Jesus “draw some out and take it to the head-waiter.”  As soon as the head-waiter tasted the water now become wine, not knowing (although the staff did) whence it had come, he called the groom and marked: “Everyone serves the best wine first, and then, after the guests have drunk well, offers the lesser. You, however, have kept the best for last.”   (Gospel according to John, 2:1-10, translation my own)

In these few lines are the core of Johannine theology. Themes, images, and subliminal references to Hebrew sacred script present here are present everywhere. They run throughout the work in a hundred directions like threads making up a fine lace. It is possible to enjoy the richness of one aspect, one pericope, but the power of the work resides in its totality, a vision that pulses out light layer upon layer, a sounding out of an intricate and sustained polyphony.

Perhaps the most important introductory point to be made is that this gospel stands as a repudiation of Judaism inspired by one who obviously knew it well, loved it well, and found it to have rejected its entire purpose and meaning by rejecting to see in Jesus the Messiah of God.[i] Heartbreak and passion in equal measure define its tone. Continue reading →

Regarding the virginity of Mary, there are some who argue that this is a latter day notion, the result of a gospel reference to the prophet Isaiah wherein he claims a “young woman” in the royal household will give birth, and that her child will save the royal line and power. Continue reading →

I once noted that there seems to be no part of holy writ so well defended from the pulpit as the story of the wandering Magi and the Christmas star. It seems also that every year my Christmas reflections are subject to complaint or condemnation. This year I seemingly went too far in naming the narratives of Jesus’ birth as found in Luke and Matthew as “fabled tales”. Continue reading →

“Christmas comes again”—so begins one of my favourite songs of this festive season, perhaps the most convivial of times reserved for celebration, for gathering together in high-minded good will and good cheer. Yet, there are some who are perturbed by any locking of the “holiday” season onto Jesus or the religion that claims him. To that mind-set I am compelled to play apologist.

Whether one looks upon Jesus “called the Christ” as a religious reformer, a prophet, a divine being, or simply an ordinary man caught up in social histrionics and made into something more than he was, it must be acknowledged that this Jesus set in motion an ideal that has made the Western world we so value. If he is not the creator of our world, he is its inspiration. Continue reading →