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TRANSCRIPT OF LECTURE, DAY 2

DR. G. HOWARD MILLER

"JESUS IN AMERICAN CULTURE"

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

September 1, 2006

Folks, how may of you have ever read at least one of the Gospels about Jesus? If you haven't, do it. The easiest way, folks ‑‑ I mean, because they ‑‑ I don't know anything about Jesus. I know some of you don't know anything about Jesus.

But, folks, it's extraordinarily easy to learn all that we know about Jesus. You can read it all in an evening, actually.

So what if you don't have a Bible? Someone told me, I don't have a Bible. Folks, there's no excuse in the modern world for not having a Bible. There are ugly old men handing them out as we speak. Talk about giving meaning to their lives.

Get one. Read it. If you could just read one, which Gospel should you read in order to learn the most about the life and ministry of Jesus? Know Mark is the worst one. Which is the best one? Life and ministry of Jesus, history of Jesus. Luke. Did you know the answer to that question? How many of you didn't know the answer to that question? Come on, that means you are going to fail this course. No, it doesn't. That means everyone else thinks they know everything there is to know about Jesus. They're very often wrong ‑‑ don't worry about it.

Folks, read the Gospels. For one thing, unless you read the Gospels, you'll never know how different they are. We're going to talk about that. All right.

Do you have any questions from what we did last time? All right, we need to continue doing that. But before we do that, I'm going to do what I promised I was going to do. And if, Elizabeth, you will assist me here, I'm going to tell you who you are.

You look blank. What am I talking about? The surveys. Okay. I'm doing what I told you I was going to do. I have put you in my computer, and here you are.

If you'll look at the top, the first of these is in 1976. Folks, that's 30 years ago. I started taking these surveys in 1976, God help us. My students at the University of Texas in 1976 virtually all belonged to one of the historical denominations of Christianity and Judaism.

And every one of them, except for one, two, three, four, five, knew what they were. The biggest group was from ‑‑ is the Baptist. That's no longer true. Then the Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, look how many ‑‑ and Episcopalians.

There were 15 Jews in that class, Lutherans, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Unitarian, Pentecostal, and none was two also. And then there was one each agnostic, Protestant, secular orthodox, pseudo-Christian, and you name it.

Over the years ‑‑ don't turn the page, don't the turn the page ‑‑ over the years, in thee surveys, I have watched the denominational marketplace of America fall apart. The denominations are falling apart. They're probably dying. They're going to turn out probably to have been an historical accident.

And 50 years from now we may not have them, because now we're all making it up. Everyone is doing their own thing. The marketplace is taking it over. And you demonstrate that. Turn the page.

So what traditions were you raised in? Notice that the numbers for those ‑‑ for the numbers ‑‑ by the way, the other class had about 140 people in it. But notice how the numbers for those denominations has decreased. Now, for about the last 20 years, the largest group has always been the RCs, Roman Catholics.

So we have, in this class, 21 people admit to being RCs; 12 Baptist, that's up a little bit; 10 Methodist; seven none. This is what you were raised in. Seven Lutherans; seven Jews ‑‑ five Jews.

Four Pentecostal, that number is increasing every year as Pentecostalism becomes socially more acceptable, economically more acceptable or something. Well, Pentecostals used to be the church of the dispossessed in the United States. It's not anymore.

Episcopalian; two Presbyterians; nondenominational Protestant; one Church of Christ; and one just plan old Christian.

Then there were the ‑‑ what I called it the first time, Baptist combos. There was your basic Jewish-Baptist, one Jewish parent, one Baptist; two of them actually. I can't believe there were two of them.

One nondenominational-Baptist; one Assembly of God-Baptist; one was from the Christian Brethren, which she identified as an Indian denomination, that's a south Asian Indian denomination similar to Baptist. So the whole world is now being identified with reference to the Baptist. Think about it.

Then there were the other combos, Methodist-Presbyterian; Roman Catholic-Christian Science, that's very interesting; Atheist-non-practicing Episcopalian; nondenominational/none; Jewish-Catholic, that's really interesting; and the morals that stem from Catholic and Presbyterian parents who dislike organized religion.

That's what you were raised in. Folks, notice how varied that is. All right. Turn the page.

So who are you now? For about the last 10 years the biggest group has been "none." Almost 20 percent of the class don't have any religion, going to straight to hell.

And then the next largest group, for about 10 years, has been nondenominational, and the next group has always been Roman Catholic. Look how many Roman Catholics there used to be, and how many there are now. Whoooh. Whoooh. That's not good, folks. Tell the Pope.

Five Baptist, and here you come agnostics, four, and actually some of these Jews are not ‑‑ well, this gets a little strange, but my favorite this time was question mark. But then there was a two question mark, and then there was a three questions mark, the really confused one.

And then there were three Lutherans; three Methodist; three Christian; three Pentecostal; three Presbyterian; one Roman Catholic question mark, I like that; Protestant; pagan, two pagans; and Episcopalian.

Then there was one each of Christian, Methodist, Episcopal ‑‑ I'm sorry; that's Christian ‑‑ and then Methodist; Episcopalian; Church of England; one Friends-Episcopalian; one Roman Catholic-Church of Christ, I've never had that one before; Buddhist; atheist; monotheist; spiritual pluralist; charismatic; and free thought.

And then you guys were just wonderful, because for the first time ever, you just sort of went off on me, telling me everything. There was ‑‑ now here are the two Jewish kids that are left, but one now is theologically atheist/culturally Jewish, but one is culturally Jewish/religiously skeptical. I like that.

Protestant, but not sure if I fit into denomination; Lutheran with an emphasis on nondenominationalism; vaguely Episcopalian, but not really; Episcopalian but questioning my faith; the church, in the sense of the body of Christ, is the whole without regard to denominations. I know what you're talking about.

Still somewhat Catholic, if any. The Pope's not going to like that either. Non-practicing Catholic, no such thing; anti-organized religion, but pro-spiritual nondenominational [indiscernible] preaching; searching; I'll let you know when I figure it out. I count on that.

I love this one, I now attend a Baptist Church, but I do not consider myself a Baptist. It's okay. It's not a social disease. Or is it? I love this one, Pentecostal, but my boyfriend goes to a Baptist Church.

And then one of you finally reduced religious affiliation to a recipe, one tablespoon Methodist, one teaspoon Evangelical Protestant, a pinch of Catholic, and a dash of cynicism. And I knew who that was before I read it. And you know who you are.

Any questions ‑‑ oh, no, I'm not finished. Your survey. Last page. When Gallup asks people in the United States, how many people have their names on the church roll, what are the figures usually? It says, yes. Do you have any idea? Member of a church. You have any idea?

No, it's not quite that high. It's 60 percent. You're not up there. Only 50 percent. This is ‑‑ by the way, the ‑‑ 56 percent. That's the lowest average I've ‑‑ that's the lowest percentage I've ever had by the way.

Please ‑‑ 32 percent know; don't know 11 percent. And then this is really interesting, you are the least observant class I have ever had. I kind of like that.

Forty-eight point three percent said you had attended an organized religious service in the past month; 51 percent said, no. I've never had a class in which half the class had not been to some sort of church in the last year ‑‑ month. All right. That's who you are.

Yes, ma'am, your name is Katie. Thank you, Katie, I should have said that.

Katie's question is, what is the national response to church attendance? Do you know? Do you have any idea? What did you guess? What percentage of Americans say that they have ‑‑ tell the Gallup poll people that they went to church once in the last 30 days? It's about 40 percent

By the way, you know what, they lie and the truth is not in them. It is the least, it is the least trustworthy statistic in all of polling. So pollsters have finally wised up and they're beginning to figure out how to find out how many people go to church every Sunday.

Guess what they figured out how to do? Count them. Thank you very much. Just go count them. And guess what their percentage is? No. Guess what it is for England. About 5 percent, on a good day.

You ever been to a church in Europe? Who was there besides you and the Japanese tourists? Or the German tourists? Europe has entered a post-Christian stage, folks. All you have to do is walk off the plane to tell it. It's the reason why they don't really understand our prez, among other things.

But we are still pretty religiously observant. In fact, we are the most religiously observant of all the industrialized democracies. Butt the figure is only about 27 percent probably. But still that's incredibly high for the Western world.

Just go around Austin, see where people really are on Sunday. Where are they? Wal-Mart. Go to the Great Church of Wal-Mart and worship the real god of America, consumption. Any questions?

I need to tell you just a little bit more about the historian and religion. I made the most important point I need to make very ‑‑ too hurriedly last time. And that is, folks, you have simply got to get over the fact that yours is the only possible vision of what ‑‑ of who Jesus is.

Jesus is probably the most variously interpreted person who ever lived on the planet. The forms in which Jesus has taken form is best illustrated in this wonderful book by Jaroslav Pelikan, The Illustrated Jesus Through the Centuries.

Go to the library and check out this ‑‑ buy it, 25 bucks, and just look at the art, of the different ways in which Jesus has been represented throughout the ages. Now we're going to spend the entire semester looking at this.

But this is a very good sort of survey of that. What does John 3:16 say? Someone quote John 3:16 for me. You, quote it. I'm sorry. Someone help her out. Why did he give his only begotten son? Well, thank you. Now who? Whosoever. Folks, how many whosoevers have lived on the globe since our Lord died? Billions.

Now, the historian in me says, the only way that we can really think about Jesus in a history class is to sort of understand the complexity of the varied ways in which he has been received. The Christian in me says, that's wonderful. The great salvific gift of grace has been give to whosoever believes.

Folks, can you imagine that in the complexity of a human condition, everyone is going to receive that great gift of grace in the same way on every continent of God's creation?

So the Christian in me says to you Christians, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. It's part of God's plan. And don't bother me with saying, I know who Jesus is. You know who Jesus is for yourself. Can I get a witness? All righty.

Folks, I'm too old, fat, bald and tenured to mess with people who want to fuss with me about that. I just don't spend a minute of my life doing that. All righty.

Now I need to say officially and for the record, and by the way, since the course is being filmed, everything is for the record. It's kind of scary, isn't it?

So usually when people say I say things, I can just say to them, again, you lie and the truth is not in you. But if I'm ‑‑ yeah, on TV, right there, yeah. But I've agreed to do that.

Folks, I need to officially say that I don't really expect you to know anything about Jesus, about the history of Christianity.

So there's going to be a lot. I teach like the wind, and I give you all kinds of information. But I don't expect you to bring to this discussion any information of your own. In fact, I kind of wish that none of you did.

All righty. Now, at one point, someone in the New Testament ‑‑ sounds like Paul to me, but I don't remember ‑‑ said, Jesus must increase, and I must decrease. It is now time for Dr. Miller to say, Jesus must increase, and I must decrease. There's been way too much talk about Miller in this class thus far, let's talk about our man.

And the last thing I want to say about the historian and religion is really about the historian and Jesus. The best short introduction I know to the origins of Christianity is Paula Fredriksen's little book called, From Jesus to Christ. Paula Fredriksen.

It's really easy to read, it's available in paperback. I recommend it. Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ. A longer survey, of course, that many of you are much more familiar with, of course, is Dr. White's From Jesus to Christianity. I recommend both of them.

But I'm going to talk in Fredrickson terms. Paula Fredrickson makes the crucial distinction in her book between studying about that she calls the historical Jesus, the Jesus of history, and what she calls the Christ of faith. The historical Jesus as opposed to the Christ of faith.

She makes the central point that no student of Jesus has what she calls independent access to historical information about the Jesus of history. Reliable historical information means something that's written down and is confirmed by more than one person. Right?

Independent verification. What is the oldest Christian origin document that we have, documents that we have? The writings of whom? Paul. The oldest ‑‑ and Paul ‑‑ we're going to talk more about Paul and more about the Gospels, but here's kind of an intro.

The oldest letters, the oldest evidence about Jesus are the letters of Paul. But Paul was a man who did not know the historical Jesus. He knew only the risen Christ, who had appeared to him in a blinding vision. And he was converted. Paul did know some of the men who knew Jesus, but as some of you know, he also had very conflicted relationships with those men.

The men ‑‑ I assume they're men ‑‑ the men who wrote the four Gospels are later than the writings of Paul. We're going to talk about this. But these people are already self-consciously Christian. They have already separated themselves clearly, sometimes almost verbally violently in the case of John.

They have separated themselves from the Judaic Hebraic world that we find Jesus in, the world that the historian has to study Jesus in. Now as I think I told you last time, Anne Rice thinks that the Gospels are reliable historical guides to the life of Jesus. Almost all biblical scholars believe that that is not true.

The historian of the ancient world must always focus on the ancient context of the life of Jesus. But when we find Jesus in the ancient world, we find him facing, not us, but his own world. He is preaching not to us, but to his own world. He has his back to us.

He is trying to be intelligible to his own world. But for those of us who are Christian, we need Jesus to face us, don't we? And that's what we spend our time doing. We turn Jesus around so we can see him.

We engage then in what Paula Fredrickson calls ‑‑ I love this phrase ‑‑ we engage in what Paula Fredrickson calls the necessary work of creative interpretation. The necessary work of creative interpretation

But the work of creative interpretation is not history. The historian must go about the task of critically reconstructing an historical figure in his historical context.

This semester with Dr. Miller, you are going to study the history of what she calls the generation of contemporary meaning within a particular religious community.

We're going to study the way in which particular Christian communities, the Medieval world, the antebellum American South, the way in which those communities create meaning, contemporary meaning, out of the life of Jesus. How that changes.

Let me tell you the way that Dr. Miller wants you to look at the Gospels for this course. The Gospels are intended to be windows. They are not intended to be what? Finish my metaphor for me. Mirrors. The Gospels cannot reflect ourselves back to us. We must look through them to see the antique world of the man named Jesus Christ.

I told the few of you who were here at the beginning, about 10 till when I started the music for today, a little bit about it. I will tell all of you, and I suspect I'll be playing more of this music at the beginning next time.

I made the point the man named Jesus has generated more art and music than any person who's ever lived on the globe. Obviously. And one of the most remarkable pieces of Jesus' music, music generated by Jesus, is a remarkable composition called the Quartet for the End of Time, by the wonderful French composer organist, Olivier Messiaen.

In the late Second World War, Messiaen was incarcerated in a ‑‑ interned in a concentration camp. But he wrote music during the camp, and he wrote a piece of music for the four instruments that he had access to, violin, cello, piano, and clarinet. That's weird, folks. This is the only time, this is the only quartet written for violin, cello, clarinet and piano.

It's magnificent. It's very contemporary. It's meditation on various aspects of Jesus. And one of them is meditating on the eternity of Jesus. The forever existingness of Jesus. Where did Jesus come from, how did he come here, where's he going?

All righty. And I'll be playing that ‑‑ more of that for you next time. So here we go. This is the beginning, young people, of the lecture that never ends. I will probably be lecturing from this next Friday.

From Jesus of history, to the Christ of faith. At the center of Christianity are mysteries. Beliefs that cannot be explained rationally, but must be accepted by people of faith as a matter of faith.

The first mystery is that God became man. I'm going to be talking to you today about the problems that arise from the fact that Christianity is an incarnational religion. What is the root of the word "incarnation?" Come on. Carne. What is carne? Meat, flesh. Flesh.

The first mystery is that God became man. In the words of John, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. That John, whoever he was, had a way with words. Became flesh and dwelt among us.

The second mystery is even more confounding. It's not just that God became Man. God exists simultaneously, mysteriously as one and three, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. And we're going to talk more about both of these things. This is the introduction.

Now, modern Christians are not supposed to try to figure that out. We don't have to, they've done done that. We accept it as a matter of faith. But guess what? The first five centuries of Christians had to figure it out. And, kiddos, it took them five centuries to do it. And it was with these centuries that Dr. Miller's course starts.

John says, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Now how many of you saw The Passion of the Christ? Raise your hand. Interesting. How many of you did not see The Passion of the Christ? How many of you did not see The Passion of the Christ on principle? Okay.

The Passion of the Christ was very controversial. Why? Jordan? Probably the most controversial thing that got in the press was that it was anti-Semitic. Other reasons? Oh, probably most people didn't know much about the inaccuracies.

Yes, right here. The gore of it. How long does the beating of Jesus take in this movie? Way too long. About 16 minutes actually. All of a sudden Protestant America got to see the Catholic Jesus. Catholics have been talking about Jesus' body, and the bloody body of Jesus for 2,000 years. No problem. But the Protestants didn't know what to make of scenes like this.

(Pause.)

The fact that God was made man, the fact that he became flesh, may not have been a problem for ancient peoples. Why? Yes, sir? The gods ‑‑ what is your name ‑‑ Jason is absolutely right. Gods were popping up constantly. They'd take the form of a what? A bull, a swan, people, weird people, horny people. Right? It may not have been a problem.

In the Jewish context, the fact that the awesome God, Yahweh, might become flesh didn't compute at all. They could not imagine Yahweh taking human form and having a face. When Moses sees Yahweh, what does he see? All right. Actually he sees fire and smoke, and at one point there's this back thing. I never quite understood that.

No, you're not even supposed to say Yahweh's name. But I don't think of it as taking the form of flesh. It was forbidden to make his image.

In Jewish history and imagination, there was also no room for a god who might become flesh and then be degraded, and beaten, and finally die the most ignominious form of death imaginable, crucifixion. That's not the way gods die.

So Christians had to figure out how does ‑‑ what does it mean that a god becomes flesh, what does that mean? How does he become flesh? He could have simply appeared. Right? But no, he is born of humanity. Physically like everybody.

What are the implications of that? What are the implications especially for what human person of that belief, what human person? Mary, the vessel who is chosen to be the Mother of God. What are the implications for Mary of incarnation?

What kind of flesh did he have? That kind? What kind of flesh did he have? Is his material substance just like other mortals? Or is he maybe a hybrid? Is the top half divine and the bottom half human? Vice versa?

If he's human, is his flesh liable to ‑‑ finish the sentence. Temptation. Is it liable to temptation. Can you imagine Jesus having sex with Mary Magdalene? We'll see that. How does a god die? What kind of a god is it who dies?

Then after his life, the question of Jesus' flesh becomes even more complicated, because after he dies, what does he do? Come on. He rises from the dead. What kind of flesh does he have then? What does he tell Mary? Don't touch me. Why not? I'm not ready to be touched. Why kind of flesh does the risen Jesus have?

And, folks, then it gets even more complicated. What does the risen Jesus do? Come on. The next ‑‑ what does he do? He ascends to heaven. Who does he become up there? Does he have flesh? It's gets more complicated. Then what's he going to do? He's going to come back.

Questions upon questions upon questions. What is the form of Jesus' humanity? We're going to get to this. This is introduction.

Then there's the Trinity. God exists as a unit, singular. God exists also then as God the Father, God the Holy Spirit; God the Son. I should say God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There's no precedent for our belief in the Trinity in Judaism. Yahweh is most definitely a unitary being. But there is a venerable tradition in Judaism called the Messiah. The Messiah was to be the anointed one, a human who would be sent to save his people and lead them to temporal glory.

But what if here came a Messiah claiming not only to the be the Messiah, but also the Son, human, generation, flesh, son of whom? Son of God. Complications upon complications.

Jesus always spoke of the Father as separate from him, most of the time. That is, he never claimed to be God. He was the Son of God. God was always somewhere else. Jesus prayed to God, he taught his followers to pray to God. He tells them that he is returning to the Father, and that those who believe in him can spend eternity with him and his Father, in that other place.

Now it is true, and I want to get the record straight, that I know that at one point in John Jesus does say, I and the Father are one. It's the only time though. So there's God the Father and God the Holy Son.

Then there's a third. And the third is where it really complicated. The Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit? Jesus speaks of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. And he does things in the Gospels. He comes upon Mary in order that she might conceive.

This virgin birth, God coming upon Mary as the Holy Spirit has generated some remarkable art. And I want to take a minute to go through these wonderful slides. Here are beautiful artistic representations of the tension between flesh and spirit in the early Christian tradition.

Folks, conception is an extraordinarily physical act. Is it not? Can I get a witness? It's called sex. Right? Jesus was born though without sex apparently. Well, that's ‑‑ it's not just kinky, it's weird and it needs to be explained and then artists have a field day with it. And here we go.

How is the Holy Spirit often represented? Like a dove. And what else? What is it? Fire. We'll get to that. What else? Wind. It's hard to represent wind, isn't it? Whewwww. What else? Light, a shaft of light.

Here we go. The Renaissance loved Annunciation slides. Here is the annunciation, the angel ‑‑ there's always an angel, the Holy Spirit, and an amazed Mary. Where is she directing the light? Come on. Talk to me. To her eyes. This is ‑‑ what is it? Eyes take you where? The soul, to knowledge; gnosis, knowledge. Not her belly. Got it?

It's knowledge of God. Got it? Here we go. And here we get to see God. And you just love the way that they represent God. God is always, you know, very old. And here it comes, and you can't quite ‑‑ can you see where the shaft of light's going? Can you? Not ‑‑ well, I don't know.

But you can se where it's going here. It's not quite on the belly, but almost. But no God here, it's just coming through a stained glass window. Watch out for them.

And here's our first ‑‑ is that a dove, or not? Kind of [makes sound]: No God here. They just love to paint these angels. Who's the angel? Gabriel.

And I love this. This is a little creche, this is a ‑‑ carvings. And look up here's God and look at the little dove down in this little string. Isn't that cute? You never thought of annunciation as cute, did you?

And here we go, here comes the dove, and God is up there. And now it's got an audience. There's an audience up in heaven. Right? Just a few. But here's a lot of audience. And here comes the dove on a shaft of light. That's really wonderful. But look at all the angelic host. And look here, breaking the universe. Isn't that wonderful? Here comes the little dove on the shaft of light.

Folks, one of the things that happens when you study Jesus, you get so tired of damned doves you can't stand it. And look at this, David, late 18th century. Stoic Mary. Ah, the action in that picture. Look at the angelic hosts.

I love this Poussin: The dove is now on top of her. That's a big dove, too.

And here is Salvador Dali. Folks, can you say "body"? That's not a dove, is it? That is one naked man.

All righty. Then when do we next find ‑‑ that's actually a great picture ‑‑ when do we next find the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures? Baptism. Let's see what we can do.

Do you know Doré, engraver? The Baptism of Jesus, descends upon Jesus like a dove. Right? Then when do you hear from Him next? The Holy Spirit. Hmmm. I don't know. Besides, I don't have a picture.

Let's see what I got next. In John 14 John ‑‑ Jesus ‑‑ John has Jesus promising to send the Holy Spirit to His believers. This is so wonderful. If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter ‑‑ a/k/a the Holy Spirit ‑‑ that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth whom the world could not receive because it seeth him not, neither know of Him, but you know Him for he dwelleth with you and you shall be with ‑‑ and He shall ‑‑ and shall be with you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.

The great Tudor composer Thomas Tallis set this to glorious music. This is good for your soul.

[Music plays until recording ends.]