If you attended the lecture by Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong, you would know the answer to the question "What do Moses, Josuha, Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus have in common?" The lecture was based on the book "Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Gospels through Jewish Eyes" written by Bishop Spong.
The answer is that they are all Jewish heroes for whom God manifested power over water. The story of Jesus walking on water would have been experienced by its Jewish listeners as a familiar sequel to the parting of the Red Sea for Moses and the partings of the Jordan River for Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha. The power over water signals central moments in Jewish history. Each time it establishes that God is on the side of the Jewish people, that Jews are chosen, sacred, and live with a divine presence.
Asking if the story is true is like asking if the story about Rocky in the latest movie sequel is true. It misses the point. God's power over water is but one of many biblical formulas that were told and retold, not to chronicle history, but to evoke the presence of an eternal and unchanging God. This artistic construct of Jewish sacred literature is known as the Midrashic tradition.
Historical accuracy of the Bible was generally accepted during the first 1600 years after the death of Jesus. But profound changes in worldview, starting with Copernicus and extending to Stephen Hawking in our time, have made such acceptance untenable. Bishop Spong's thesis is that the question "Did it happen?" is simply the wrong question. Insisting on an answer only divides us into fundamentalist believers and what Bishop Spong calls "church alumni," including secular humanists. Although some scholars have estimated that about 15 percent of the Bible is historical, a precise reckoning is not simply relevant, according to Bishop Spong.
What is needed is a new dialog, based on the question "What was the experience of Matthew, Luke, John and Mark that led them to retell the stories of the Torah with Jesus as the central character?" The search for answers to this question offer hope of reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles.
Bishop Spong expanded on midrashic Biblical themes by pointing to parallels in stories about Jesus and stories about Moses. Three critical experiences of Moses are retold with Jesus in the lead role. There is the resolution of a food shortage (manna from heaven and bread from stones), the demand to perform a miracle (water from the rock and rescue from casting off the precipice), and temptations from false gods (the golden calf and bowing down). There are also parallels with the commandments at Mount Sinai and the beatitudes at the Sermon on the Mount. Note the evolution from the righteous acts of Moses to righteous motives of Jesus. Thus, Jesus teaches that killing starts when hatred enters the human heart. The wandering of Jesus for 40 days is a midrashic reference to Moses wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. Midrashic themes can also be found in the accounting of the tragic death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus is linked to the sacrificial blood of the lamb of Passover and the scapegoat of Yom Kippur.
The birth narrative of Jesus is also filled with midrashic themes. Foretold in Isaiah is that kings (a.k.a. wise men) would bear witness, travel on camels from Sheba, and bring gold and frankincense. Mir, described by Bishop Spong as Jewish deodorant, has different roots including an association with death due to its use with corpses. Midrashic themes account for the cameo appearance of Joseph in the birth narrative. Jesus has a de facto link with David and the Southern Kingdom of Judea. Joseph provides a link with the tribe of Joseph and the Northern Kingdom of Ephraim. Joseph is also linked with Joshua, a linguistic variation on Joseph. Note that Joseph's father is Jacob, that God speaks to Joseph in dreams, and that Egypt is the refuge for both a child and a people.
Bishop Spong explored the tragic consequences of the literary conversion of Judas into a sinister Antichrist and symbol of orthodox Jewry. This was clearly not Judas's role in earlier stories. The purported betrayal by Judas was a political expedience of Luke to both distance Christians Jews from orthodox Jews and to curry favor with Roman rulers. Incredibly, Pilot is absolved of guilt by simply washing his hands. The tragic link of Judas to the Jewish nation haunts us to this day.
The 320 seats in the auditorium were filled before Bishop Spong began his lecture. The aisles were still crowded when he finished. Rev. Anita Farber-Roberton, of Andover-Newton and Church of the Larger Fellowship, gave the welcome and invocation. The lecture was sponsored by both Unitarian Universalist Christians Association, represented by President Rev. Elizabeth Ellis, and Unitarian Universalists for Jewish Awareness, represented by President Rev. Lesley Phillips.
