brother Volknotions.
Those brethren who are from the Dunkard line well know of what you are speaking: the back-hand of fellowship, shunning of venial sins, public confession of sin, all those old standard and standby hymns and everything else done in lower saxon dialect. Well might descriptions such as “hollow-out legalism”, “legalism of ‘humility’”, “oppressive legalism”, “paying lip-service” suit the Old Faith of our Anabaptist forefathers.

But I wonder if all those “evils” are causing a distorted view of first cent. Pharisees. Are you looking at the Pharisees through the “lens” of your ossified and institutionalized anabaptist experience. Be careful of following centuries of Christians projecting on the Pharisees and first cent. Judaism something that was never there. Let us be careful and not fall into the same mistakes the Church Fathers, the Roman Church and the Reformers did. That is, stereotyping and caricaturizing first cent. Judaism led on by those casuistrical Pharisees (blast them!) Let me attempt a “clarification of thought”.

I will deal with the ’social justice’ prophets later. But at least for now, you are absolutely right, they were not in the least anti-Jewish or anti-semitic — they were, at times (and when they would get all hot and flustered), racist and anti-goeim: “Damn the Gentiles! God’s wrath will strike them down!” Ah yes, “social justice”. It all depends where your social justicing is standing. (Let us all remember that when we get all lathered up against the “bad guys”.

Back to “the Pharisees”…that is, the “bad guys”. I must ask you, what are you reading? Who are you listening to? Why are you doing the same old thing, and dragging out the same old Christian party line that stereotypes the Pharisees and thus as well first cent. Judaism. Again, I must say, please read the work of the consensus of the most noted biblical scholars and historians of the past fifty years. Read those who the the consensus of the academy most acknowledges . Please, put down (at least for a while) J. Yoder, Menno Simmons, Muentzer, Grebel, Humaier; put on the shelf Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Tolstoy, St. Francis (unless you are preapared to follow his early and later Rules, his Testament, and the eremitical life he lived — then see what you have to say), and Jim Wallis. Take a rest from Segundo, Boff, Guiterezz and the liberation theology gang. And do, pick up and become a student of — at least familiarize yourself with — biblical studies and those who can teach you well. Learn about Judaism.

Here, let me ask you, what do you truly know about Judaism? What do you know about Second Temple Judaism? About the early nascent Rabbinic movement, or about the intertestamental and pseudopigraphal literature? Have you read the Jewish apocalyptic corpus and the merkavah and Helakot mystical tracts? This is what you do: go to Synagogue, to friday night Shabbos, attend a Seder, study with a Rabbi, visit a yeshiva — and tell them that the first cent. Pharisees and by implication, Palestinian Judaism was oppressive, legalistic and “paying lip service to God” — and they’ll look at you quizzically and than take great offence at your religious hubris. The Rabbi, if he is in a very good mood (which they usually are) will just laugh.

Wake up, the Pharisees were not any of those things. That belief is an age-old ignorant rant that smacks of Christian religious bigotism. And the Christian social justicers continue and are complicit with it.

Next: the composition and demographics of the Pharisees’ party in first cent. Palestinian society and their use and purpose of “purity” and “holiness” codes and pracitices. The gospel writers and their communities inhouse wrangles with the nascent Rabbinic movement in the post-Temple situation; their family feuding, polemics and vitriol.

And, underlying all of this, what was the real issue of contention between Jesus and (at least some of) the Pharisees. How all this fits in with radical Anabaptism, radical Biblical exegesis, radical questions as to peace, pacificsm and who and what Jesus was all about, and its relationship to the new emphasis on activism, activation, actionizing and “social justice” of the “young and the restless”.

I have much appreciation for the energy, honesty, courage and openess to address anabaptism past, presence and future. A question on “radical” Anabaptism has not been raised though — or raised sufficiently enough. For this takes much courage and honest. In all actuality, it takes the greatest amount possible — because it will hurt, and for some, it will be excruciating. Because if we desire to be “radical” we must address a radical understanding of the Bible. We must get at the root (’radix’) of what the Bible is. This is scary stuff! As Anabaptists we must be radical about the nature and character of the Bible. Every issue, every question, every statement that is being talked about here on the Radical Anabaptist blog is rooted (’radix’) in the Bible. The scriptures are the foundation for all of this. Thus, we must get to the root (’radix’) of the Bible itself. We cannot stay our hand, we must — for truth’s sake — (for God is spirit and truth ) take the scalpel and dig deep. We must exise to the very root of the matter. And this is the matter: increasingly, through the ever-expanding and developing research of biblical studies, we are discovering that the Bible, the Scriptures, are ultimately shaped and determined by its historical, social, cultural and literary context. Again, CONTEXT. It is increasingly being acknowledged in biblical research that the scriptures are not literal transcriptions from God but rather are very much the product of historical, cultural, social and literary factors. In other words, much of what is in the Bible is contigent and relative and very much conditioned by these very human historical-cultural factors. One must face up with this. The biblical authors were not puppets in which God pulled the strings. The biblical writers were not made senseless by the Spirit and taken over in a ventrilaquist manner. We cannot literally interpret the Bible as truth. The authors were human — all too human. And thus, the Bible itself, in its very nature, is HUMAN. In fact, one does not need to be a biblical scholar to see this. IF one is absolutely honest, then one has to face up to the fact and admit that the scriptures are full of human foibles, inconsistencies, mistakes, prejudices, ignorance, bigotry, hate and racism and violence. It is a very flawed work coming from flawed human beings just like you and me. Thus,the bible is not inerrant. The scriptures are not literally or verbally inspired. And, if we want to be people of truth, we must face up with that fact. We must be courageous and honest and confront the rigid, oppressive and suffocating dogma about the natrue of the Bible.This issue must be addressed before we address those rigid, oppressive and suffocating elements within our Anabaptist past and tradition.
We say that the Bible is “inspired”, but what does that mean? “Inspriation” is something of an entirely different nature and phenomenon in the bible than we have traditionally habitually and unthoughtfully believed. There is inspiration in the bible, and this is absolutely true. “Inspiration” is immanent though, that is to say, it come from within the heart, the spirit of the human being — it does not come from without. More specifically, what is reckoned as “inspiration” in the scriptures are those things that point to themes such as compassion, mercy, forgiveness, peace, lovingkindness, humility and the like. We as Christians acknowledge that it is these things which come from God. It are these that are of the character and nature of God. Thus, God is the author and “inspirer” of these qualities. They are “transcedent” in nature because they are eternal and everlasting. But they don’t come from the outside and go inside. They are innately and inherent within the human being — from birth — because we have been made in the image and likeness of God. Hence we can speak of “divine inspiration” in this way. Knowing all the long that this divine inspriation is mixed up with very flawed, broken, ignorant and limited human beings — persons, biblical authors who happened to get in touch with and become aware of those divine qualities, those God-given qualities that reside within us by nature and from the get-go..
So, we must come to grips with the fact that what is divinely inspired, what is ultimately true in the bible, and from God who is spirit and truth, is found within a heap of refuse. What we are able to discern to be from God in the bible, is like looking for diamonds in a dumpster, or nuggets of gold in a pile of cow dung. This is how we need to look at the scriptures and we should come to them and understand them in this way. This is the radicalization of scripture. It is a radical surgery, done by truthful, honest and courageous exising exegesis of the bible. And, in order to be “radical Anabaptists” is to not hold back and dogmatically protect the bible from our radical faith perspective. In this way we can address the various issues, questions and concerns that radically engage our radical anabaptism. The radical questioning of the Bible is fundamental to the radical questioning of our anabaptist faith and tradition, and promises and problems therein. Thus we must radically confront the bible for what it is and isn’t and from there we can radically confront our anabaptist and Christian faith and practice.