Assuming identification with the good guys

While reading the New Testament stories, when was the last time you identified with the Jewish leaders: the priests, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Scribes? When was the last time you pictured yourself as belonging to a group set to discredit Jesus and his apostles?

Through preaching, teaching, and reading we are conditioned to identify with the disciples and the apostles. With Jesus, too, though maybe not quite so explicitly as with the disciples. We are conditioned to view the Jewish leadership personas as the Evil Empire out to destroy Good. We are conditioned to assume that we are the persecuted and never the persecutor. Which is why, I believe, there is hardly ever a sermon or discussion where Christians are challenged to view themselves as ones who may be working against God’s will, who may be persecuting his true followers (who certainly don’t belong to my particular branch of Christianity or may not even go by the name “Christian”).

We are conditioned to believe that the Jewish leadership should have known better in regards to Jesus, the gospel message, and the apostles that taught the gospel. We are conditioned to assume the Jewish leaders realized and knew that their positions were all wrong and that Jesus and the apostles were right. We have been taught that the leadership were in knowing rebellion against the truth. But what if our assumptions are inaccurate and wrong?

But doesn’t the New Testament portray the Jewish leadership in opposition to Jesus and the truth? Yes. But the New Testament is not history – at least not history in the modern, academic sense of the word. It is more catechism, Christian propaganda, and at best a biased recollection of events flavored with strong overt purposes and agendas. As with any ideological movement, the early material that is produced must strongly differentiate between us vs. them (see any early writings of denominations to see this effect). These materials have to exaggerate the differences and keep silent where the opposition might gain sympathy.

Actual historical work paints a far more nuanced picture of the New Testament stories. The Jewish leadership believed they were right, and the holders and defenders of truth. They believed they had the correct picture of God. They believed that relationship with God was through their understandings, their doctrines, their traditions, their beliefs.

And then a splinter group comes along and beings telling them that their understanding is wrong, that God is far bigger and accepting than they had assumed and taught.

They are not fighting for their honor, but for God’s. They honestly believe that the splinter group is teaching lies about God. The splinter group is too liberal. This group is out to destroy the moral fabric of society with its new teachings. The TRUTH must be defended at all costs. Phinehas of the Old Testament (Numbers 25:10ff) was commended by God for personally going out and executing those who would bring lies, falsehood, and immorality into God’s community of Israel. Why shouldn’t the Jewish leaders do the same in regards to the splinter group who appear to be having the same effect in their contemporary Jewish society? God would be pleased, they believe.

So they seek to destroy Jesus and the apostles. All in the name of God, in the name of defending his name, his honor, his laws, his will, his morality.

Do you see any parallels with Christians – with us – today?