On "The Jesus Dynasty" by James D. Tabor ****

James Tabor certainly lays out a lot to think about and ties a number of odd details together, some of which I hadn't known about; the work is well written and entertaining. That said, I came to this book looking for more information on Jesus's family but expecting not to glean too much, given that I knew that Tabor's book had a particular point of view that is shocking to anyone who is a believer. Tabor, after all, is a big fan of the work of S. G. Brandon, who himself espoused certain views that dismiss large chunks of the New Testament. In Brandon's view, the Christians were Zealots, and the Gospels do their best to hide that fact from the Romans. What's more, the idea that Christians fled Jerusalem before its 70 CE destruction is dismissed as fantasy by Brandon. So this is where I figured Tabor would be coming from, but that wasn't quite true.

For James Tabor, the Jesus Dynasty is one rooted in the ministry of John the Baptist. John was to be the priestly Messiah, while Jesus was to be the kingly one. Jesus's work was a largely family one, and Jesus himself was not the son of God but son of a Roman soldier (Pantera) who possibly raped Mary. I hadn't known about this accusation/theory, but shortly later came across it in some rabbinical writings from the fifth century. Anyway, Jesus's disciples were made up of largely of family members, including four of his brothers (who share the same names as four of the disciples). John's death came as a shock, and Jesus's also. The Messiahs were dead, but they lived on in the work of Jesus's brother James, who would unite the priestly and kingly Messiah and restore Israel. The Messiah is wholly physical in Tabor's view--except insofar as the Messiah was supposed to usher in the appearance of the Godly Son of Man in glory.

James, of course, died also, as did the other relatives of Jesus, but this was Christianity, real Christianity, for the first couple of centuries, as seen in the Ebionite sect, which accepted Jesus as a prophet but not divine. It was Paul, alas, who changed Christianity into a more spiritual dynamic, with Jesus as son of God. His work colors the entire New Testament, including the Gospels, which were all written after 70 CE and the death of James. Only in the books of James and Jude, Jesus's brothers, and in the book of Q do we see truly what Jesus's minsistry was really like and what it was really about. Tabor takes Q as very much authoritative, though Q (a sayings Gospel of Jesus from which Matthew and Luke drew their various accounts of Jesus's words) is a theory and has never been found in a manuscript form; it seems a bit much to base an entire theory around.

Some other issues with the work: Tabor claims the meal Jesus had with his disciples was on Wednesday night rather than Thursday, as most Christians do; thus, Jesus died on Thursday, not Friday. He bases this on the idea that there was an annual Sabbath--a double Sabbath--as denoted in Matthew if one interprets the wording in Matthew 28:1 that way, a possible translation I hadn't earlier been aware of but something that is possible. The issue with the double Sabbath, however, as Tabor interprets it, since he places the Passover as occurring at/after Jesus's death is that at least on the Jewish calendar that has come down to us, the beginning of the days of Unleavened Bread (i.e., what is often termed Passover, though Passover is actually the day before) never happens on a Friday. Thus, Jesus could not have died on Thursday evening, unless the calendar changed between the first century and now. As I've long understood it, the First Day was actually Thursday, so Jesus died on Wednesday and has his final supper on Tuesday.

In the end, Tabor comes to the conclusion that if Christians understood these wonderful new truths about Jesus's life, there would be harmony between the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and Christians would have a new appreciation of all that Jesus did. He's write that there would be more unity between the faiths insofar as their views of Jesus would be more similar--in Judaism, he would be accepted merely as a rabbi; in Islam, he is accepted as a prophet; and without the divine status, Christians could fit in with either of those. The problem, however, is that without that divine status, there isn't really any substance for Christianity to wrap itself around. If Jesus was merely seeking a physical kingdom that would bring about God's intervention in the world and if that Jesus died and was just a man, then he would be just another failed Jewish Messianic figure. Indeed, as Paul would write, if Jesus be not raised, then Christians are still in their sins and there is no hope of resurrection. We might as well just live for the day. Tabor's idea that somehow his claims enrich Christianity, therefore, don't and can't--were they true, they just rob Christianity of all substance.

On “The Black Muslims in America” by C. Eric Lincoln ****

Lincoln's work is one of sociology more than history. Not having that much knowledge of the Black Muslim movement, I found this work very interesting and informative. That it was written from a sociological perspective, however, had some drawbacks insofar as the book was organized around topics and themes rather than chronologically. This meant, for me, that at times the work was hard to follow—that is, it was hard to remember particular points because I didn't have a narrative to pin them on.

Of course, history still makes up a large section of the work. One does eventually learn about Wallace Fard, Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm X, and others. Fard was the founder of it all. I don't remember much about those sections of the book, but as the book moved into the 1960s, it becomes clear that Fard comes to be seen by later Muslims as a kind of Allah incarnate. Elijah Muhammed, in turn, becomes Fard's spokesperson and prophet. The movement, in other words, takes on a kind of cultism. Malcolm X was one of the converts (all converts apparently take on the X “surname”), an important one insofar as he was able to give effective voice to Elijah Muhammed's and the movement's ideas. But as becomes plain, very late in his short life, he abandoned certain givens that the movement believed in—possibly at the peril of his life, and certainly at the rejection of him from the movement—coming to see the brotherhood of all people at the Haj.

The cultishness was one of the main things I took from the book; others were the kind of reverse racism embedded in the movement, and the manner in which the movement actually changes people's lives for good. All these things sort of go together.

A major tenet seems to be that White people are essentially the devil. The world will one day change, and God's children, the colored people, will rule and Whites will be cast off to the dustbin (or at least confined to Europe, where they belong). The Muslim movement is not integrationist. And really, in some ways, it's understandable why some minorities would be skeptical of integration, the way that it has often led not to better living conditions for minorities but to simply another manner of oppression.

The Muslims encourage good behavior from their converts, and this has led in some cases to poorer people (to which the movement largely appeals) actually making changes that positively affect their lives (e.g., drug aversion, commitment to family and work). They also encourage self-defense, even as they discourage activist sort of activities. This is in part influenced by the eschatalogical utopian viewpoint—that one day, Allah will take care of everything and Whites will fall and Black people will rise to their natural position. The counterpoint to such beliefs, however, is that it seems as if the religion is a way that actually stifles meaningful interracial achievement and solutions and attempts at meaningful change; instead, it reinforces racial strife.

The sort of eschatological thinking actually reminds me a lot of some branches of Christianity and calls to mind the way that Marx would call religion the opium of the people. The focus of the Black Muslim movement seems in many ways to have been Elijah Muhammed. What he says/believes goes. Run counter to that, and you're out of the church. Don't create trouble, in other words, in or out of church surroundings so that the movement can keep growing.