Love the post, Joseph! So much to discuss. Lots of great hits on target that open up beautiful new questions. This is what I love so much about your writings!
It should be noted that while Paul gave much of the content for 1 Thessalonians, it was mostly penned by the Silas (Paul confirms it himself), who also penned 1 Peter for Shimon ha-Kefa. (As I posted yesterday, I suspect Silas also penned the Epistle to the Hebrews.)
Generally, it’s something a categorical mistake to pair anything from Paul’s letters to the gospels, especially Mark and Matthew, but especially when they’re not actually discussing the same experience or “event”.
I genuinely think a better translation of Mark is needed as I think that the Greek, the Latin, and the English have done horrible linguistic and conceptual violence to the Hebrew cosmological rendering here.
“Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”
This is a standard translation, very common - totally incorrect.
“I insist to you that some here today, standing among you, will not [have] taste[d] death by the time the Commonwealth of YHWH has arrived with full authority.”
This is how I would more faithfully render this text from within a Hebrew-Yahwistic cosmological milieu rather than a Greek eschatological one. Theos, Deus, “God” is never the same as YHWH. Theos is a Goyim approximation for YHWH, but they are not the same: conceptually, ontologically, expressively.
More, it might be worth remembering that there is no “end” to the world in ancient Yahwistic cosmological structures. Yehoshua never believed or claimed that *the world was ending*. His chroniclers in the gospels spoke often about the “age” ending, but that is not Greek eschatology, it’s prophetic pattern-recognition within Yahwistic cosmological framings.
YHWH’s power last for all time, “the fullness of the age” - so how can the world, where YHWH’s active force is moving eternally, end? This is never addressed in Christian eschatological investigations.
Only entropy wants the world to end. Only entropy wants us to focus on an eschaton, and in doing so we help it accomplish its own telos.
YHWH exists, as Genesis 1 and John 3 make so abundantly clear, to prevent the end. To restore to life. To renew the world, not to end it. To transition from scarcity into abundance, from adversarialism to collaboration, from strife to peace - all through the Covenant.
My read on John is that he wants us to see that YHWH is attempting not to Jubilee a nation, as Moshe did, or even the whole of humanity, as Yehoshua did, but the whole of the Kosmos - every atom of the known and unknown universe, rescued from “formlessness and void”, restored and resurrected into the life of the Kosmos, for whom YHWH has radical agape (a love so powerful that it fuses two things together such that new life and power is generated in the fusion, the integration, the “holy” and “perfected”).
His gospel, after chapter 3, is demonstration after demonstration of Yehoshua performing this Kosmic restoration at a microcosmic level: among individuated humans, restoring them to community, to Covenantal rhythms and protections, through “commandment-keeping” (fidelity to Torah).
It’s very, very clear (with a decent translation) that Yehoshua believed that a major shift in the world’s operating systems was about to occur, and he was confident (or Mark, Matthew, and John were confident) that the Commonwealth of YHWH was about to break through.
And, textually, this “event” he was prophesying about is explained at Pentecost: “the Commonwealth of YHWH arriving with authority.”
What happens after Pentecost? The official founding of the Jerusalem Kehilla (“assembly”), the purchase of land outside town, the formation of the first community-village, etc.: the Commonwealth of YHWH arriving (authority at Pentecost, with the Breath of Wholeness manifesting as tongues of the Flame; since the flames didn’t hurt the Apostles, I presume the image is meant to invoke the same Flame as at the Burning Bush, conferring Messianic authority to the Twelve from Yehoshua and Yohanan).
It’s always tempting to think about “the end of the world” and its very, very easy to project OUR beliefs about this, which have been shaped by bad translations and worse theology for nearly twenty centuries - a hundred lifetimes of distance between us and them.
We are focused about the end of the world. He was not. He was focused on helping the vulnerable survive the transition of operating systems and restoring the immune system response to the virus of empire: Covenant.
Interesting! I’m always intrigued by your perspective. How do you interpret other quotes like, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
For more on my hermeneutic reading of “shemitah” not as forgiveness of sins but as actual release of debts - small and large. “Seventy times seven times per day, you must shemitah.” “Provide shemitah to us in our debts as we provide shemitah for those who are indebted to us.”
You know why we don’t want to believe it was “this simple”?
Because it’s insane. It’s fucking insane, man.
It’s not practical. At all. It doesn’t even pretend to be.
“Surely he didn’t mean THIS. When he says to sell all of our possessions, he means the junk in our garage!”
“When he says to take up our cross (execution for insurgency), he means prepare to be cancelled by the ‘woke mob’.”
“When he says ‘follow me’, he totally just means that we have to say a magic incantation and he’ll cover the ontological bill for us.”
“When he says that you cannot achieve the justice of YHWH while also pursuing wealth and dominion, he just means that we can’t be buying too many Ferraris. Keep it humble, bro.”
Yeah, guys. Jesus was a fucking BUMMER! His policies suck for those of us Goyim who are so generationally conditioned to live like this - outside of the Covenant and the protections and social structures that exist therein.
They’re not fun. They’re hard. Impossibly hard. Incompatible with “normal life” hard. That was the literal, whole ass point.
They were supposed to make life in imperializing operating systems objectively impossible.
But what he promised was this: the “good news” for the poor is that the Covenant of YHWH is better. It’s fairer, more just, more merciful, more sustainable, more of a mutual care economy, less “cutthroat competition” and “greed is good”. The covenant offered better protections than wealth because the Commonwealth was distributed and sustainable. It was better than dominion because power was more durable when it was distributed and sustainable. An economy of abundance [aionios zoe, a life without borders or limitations] was better than scarcity because resources are more effective when they’re - say it with me - distributed and sustainable!
Anyway, there’s a whole speculative theology that follows from that line of thinking, around “I have become what will endure” as a translation for “eh-heh-yah asher eh-heh-yah”, but it requires a better venue than a comment. Haha.
Unsurprisingly, for me, those verses and how we understand them comes down to idiomatic translation and conceptual coherence.
“The Commonwealth of YHWH” and “the Heavenly Commonwealth” are always “at-hand” - close enough to touch, within reach.
Repentance isn’t about metaphysical debts to Theos (“God”), it’s about real and costly exit from the systems of harm (the real word for “sin” in Hebrew meaning “debts of imbalance” and “harms”) and into a Covenantal life, governed by literal implementation of Torah in all aspects of life as they lived it in their time. The immersion (tevilah for teshuva, not merely “baptism”) was an initiation rite into full-blown, radical Separatism (ha-Perushim) according to Carmelite-Nasorean and related Asaya-Tzaddoqiim instructions. John’s Wilderness Campaign at al-Maghtas was a forming rebellion.
He was universally accepted by his contemporaries (even among some Sadducees from the Temple establishment) as the Masch’yah Bnei Tzaddoq. There’s only one real purpose for a Masch’yah - restorative regime change and Temple “cleanse” (purge), as prescribed by Torah. We have to see the political implications here very clearly: could they do what ha-Makabiim tried to do before falling, like Gideon, to the lures of the golden-embroidered priesthood and, like the Elders under Samuel, to the desire for an imperial scepter? This was what the fractious coalition at the Jordan was waiting for: would someone from ben-David Beit Yehudah show up and try to restore a monarchy or a Covenantal confederation, as it was after Sinai. Not everyone agreed on what the would show up for, so we need to see how impressive it is that they all agreed on John’s Masch’yah authorization.
Believing in the “good news” or “the gospel” is idiomatic and prophetic: he wants people to understand that the authorization is certified: the Yovel campaign is underway, immanent relief for the poor and the vulnerable.
“The time is fulfilled”, or “now is our chance, the time is now” feels a bit self-explanatory, but that also carries a Covenantal posture toward renewal and reconciliation - a window of opportunity.
I am glad this resonated, Jack! It does seem like it’s a radical departure from what imperial theologies have had us focusing on for so long.
The Jubilee, the Yovel, is not a hard stop, it’s just a transition point at the end of one cycle towards the beginning of a new one. This cosmology is laid deeply into every single element of the Torah.
With Yehoshua being so adamant about sticking with the written Torah, it makes sense that this would be how he understood “the eschaton”.
It’s also worth remembering, that the term apocalypse, revelation, is not an inherently eschatological word. It does not imply or describe any form of ending.
Rather, the term expressly denotes a renewed vision, and an updated understanding. In other words, apocalyptic literature means to explain how these transitions are occurring behind what can be seen with human eyes.
Joseph has been generous in indulging me on his comment sections before about this very question: apocalyptic literature is iron and bronze age science fiction, writing. It functions within the same register, it uses spectacular imagery, it introduces beings from other worlds, it expands the scope to a more Zoroastrian dualism and cosmological orientation, etc.
Apocalyptic writing and speaking, like science fiction, is meant to be a reframing and a visual recoding of the politics and social questions being addressed in the present time.
Therefore, given that Yehoshua was so adamant about restoring the Torah and re-establishing a Commonwealth based on it, it should not surprise us at all that he engaged in apocalyptic genre speech. Yehoshua was a master communicator, of this I think everyone agrees. Parables, apocalypse, constitutional Torah, teachings, tradecraft, healing, logistical, organizing… this teacher knew how to speak in every language for his own audience. Every language they would have been receptive to.
Apocalyptic writing was just one of them, and should remain in its context rather than becoming the central mode of interpreting Yehoshua. But that’s just my opinion.
Joseph has been outstanding in defending his own opinion - in very compelling and beautifully written ways.
I am still puzzled how we narrowed and redefined the term "apocalyptic" to mean "about the end of the world" when it means "unveiling." Before I went to church (regularly) at 23, I had come to believe that all the "end of the world" preachings by Jesus were pointing to the cross and resurrection, and the "judgment" was the "setting into order" that happened there. I have returned to this interpretation now in my later years.
I am aware that this means that Paul and some other early writers already misinterpreted Jesus' teaching. Or didn't they? What if we saw their writings in that way and in that connotation?
You make a great point. Though I think "apocalyptic prophet" makes more sense when it's used in direct contrast with a more Jesus Seminar / Jefferson Bible view of things. Both views downplay the miracles and are looking for the man behind the myth, but for a long time, this quest was dominated by the view that Jesus was ackshully a warm fuzzy egalitarian. "Apocalyptic prophet" is in large part a repudiation of that view within the subset of folks who already dismissed the miracles. It says Jesus not only wasn't divine, he was also kind of a loon. It makes the warm fuzzy bits the parts that were added later and brings the ranty religion to the forefront. But you're right that there's more to Jesus than either if those views capture.
Love the post, Joseph! So much to discuss. Lots of great hits on target that open up beautiful new questions. This is what I love so much about your writings!
It should be noted that while Paul gave much of the content for 1 Thessalonians, it was mostly penned by the Silas (Paul confirms it himself), who also penned 1 Peter for Shimon ha-Kefa. (As I posted yesterday, I suspect Silas also penned the Epistle to the Hebrews.)
Generally, it’s something a categorical mistake to pair anything from Paul’s letters to the gospels, especially Mark and Matthew, but especially when they’re not actually discussing the same experience or “event”.
I genuinely think a better translation of Mark is needed as I think that the Greek, the Latin, and the English have done horrible linguistic and conceptual violence to the Hebrew cosmological rendering here.
“Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”
This is a standard translation, very common - totally incorrect.
“I insist to you that some here today, standing among you, will not [have] taste[d] death by the time the Commonwealth of YHWH has arrived with full authority.”
This is how I would more faithfully render this text from within a Hebrew-Yahwistic cosmological milieu rather than a Greek eschatological one. Theos, Deus, “God” is never the same as YHWH. Theos is a Goyim approximation for YHWH, but they are not the same: conceptually, ontologically, expressively.
More, it might be worth remembering that there is no “end” to the world in ancient Yahwistic cosmological structures. Yehoshua never believed or claimed that *the world was ending*. His chroniclers in the gospels spoke often about the “age” ending, but that is not Greek eschatology, it’s prophetic pattern-recognition within Yahwistic cosmological framings.
YHWH’s power last for all time, “the fullness of the age” - so how can the world, where YHWH’s active force is moving eternally, end? This is never addressed in Christian eschatological investigations.
Only entropy wants the world to end. Only entropy wants us to focus on an eschaton, and in doing so we help it accomplish its own telos.
YHWH exists, as Genesis 1 and John 3 make so abundantly clear, to prevent the end. To restore to life. To renew the world, not to end it. To transition from scarcity into abundance, from adversarialism to collaboration, from strife to peace - all through the Covenant.
My read on John is that he wants us to see that YHWH is attempting not to Jubilee a nation, as Moshe did, or even the whole of humanity, as Yehoshua did, but the whole of the Kosmos - every atom of the known and unknown universe, rescued from “formlessness and void”, restored and resurrected into the life of the Kosmos, for whom YHWH has radical agape (a love so powerful that it fuses two things together such that new life and power is generated in the fusion, the integration, the “holy” and “perfected”).
His gospel, after chapter 3, is demonstration after demonstration of Yehoshua performing this Kosmic restoration at a microcosmic level: among individuated humans, restoring them to community, to Covenantal rhythms and protections, through “commandment-keeping” (fidelity to Torah).
It’s very, very clear (with a decent translation) that Yehoshua believed that a major shift in the world’s operating systems was about to occur, and he was confident (or Mark, Matthew, and John were confident) that the Commonwealth of YHWH was about to break through.
And, textually, this “event” he was prophesying about is explained at Pentecost: “the Commonwealth of YHWH arriving with authority.”
What happens after Pentecost? The official founding of the Jerusalem Kehilla (“assembly”), the purchase of land outside town, the formation of the first community-village, etc.: the Commonwealth of YHWH arriving (authority at Pentecost, with the Breath of Wholeness manifesting as tongues of the Flame; since the flames didn’t hurt the Apostles, I presume the image is meant to invoke the same Flame as at the Burning Bush, conferring Messianic authority to the Twelve from Yehoshua and Yohanan).
It’s always tempting to think about “the end of the world” and its very, very easy to project OUR beliefs about this, which have been shaped by bad translations and worse theology for nearly twenty centuries - a hundred lifetimes of distance between us and them.
We are focused about the end of the world. He was not. He was focused on helping the vulnerable survive the transition of operating systems and restoring the immune system response to the virus of empire: Covenant.
Interesting! I’m always intrigued by your perspective. How do you interpret other quotes like, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
https://ebyonim.substack.com/p/sin
For more on my hermeneutic reading of “sin” as harm, debt.
https://ebyonim.substack.com/p/shmita
For more on my hermeneutic reading of “shemitah” not as forgiveness of sins but as actual release of debts - small and large. “Seventy times seven times per day, you must shemitah.” “Provide shemitah to us in our debts as we provide shemitah for those who are indebted to us.”
You know why we don’t want to believe it was “this simple”?
Because it’s insane. It’s fucking insane, man.
It’s not practical. At all. It doesn’t even pretend to be.
“Surely he didn’t mean THIS. When he says to sell all of our possessions, he means the junk in our garage!”
“When he says to take up our cross (execution for insurgency), he means prepare to be cancelled by the ‘woke mob’.”
“When he says ‘follow me’, he totally just means that we have to say a magic incantation and he’ll cover the ontological bill for us.”
“When he says that you cannot achieve the justice of YHWH while also pursuing wealth and dominion, he just means that we can’t be buying too many Ferraris. Keep it humble, bro.”
Yeah, guys. Jesus was a fucking BUMMER! His policies suck for those of us Goyim who are so generationally conditioned to live like this - outside of the Covenant and the protections and social structures that exist therein.
They’re not fun. They’re hard. Impossibly hard. Incompatible with “normal life” hard. That was the literal, whole ass point.
They were supposed to make life in imperializing operating systems objectively impossible.
But what he promised was this: the “good news” for the poor is that the Covenant of YHWH is better. It’s fairer, more just, more merciful, more sustainable, more of a mutual care economy, less “cutthroat competition” and “greed is good”. The covenant offered better protections than wealth because the Commonwealth was distributed and sustainable. It was better than dominion because power was more durable when it was distributed and sustainable. An economy of abundance [aionios zoe, a life without borders or limitations] was better than scarcity because resources are more effective when they’re - say it with me - distributed and sustainable!
Anyway, there’s a whole speculative theology that follows from that line of thinking, around “I have become what will endure” as a translation for “eh-heh-yah asher eh-heh-yah”, but it requires a better venue than a comment. Haha.
Thanks for asking thoughtful questions!
Unsurprisingly, for me, those verses and how we understand them comes down to idiomatic translation and conceptual coherence.
“The Commonwealth of YHWH” and “the Heavenly Commonwealth” are always “at-hand” - close enough to touch, within reach.
Repentance isn’t about metaphysical debts to Theos (“God”), it’s about real and costly exit from the systems of harm (the real word for “sin” in Hebrew meaning “debts of imbalance” and “harms”) and into a Covenantal life, governed by literal implementation of Torah in all aspects of life as they lived it in their time. The immersion (tevilah for teshuva, not merely “baptism”) was an initiation rite into full-blown, radical Separatism (ha-Perushim) according to Carmelite-Nasorean and related Asaya-Tzaddoqiim instructions. John’s Wilderness Campaign at al-Maghtas was a forming rebellion.
He was universally accepted by his contemporaries (even among some Sadducees from the Temple establishment) as the Masch’yah Bnei Tzaddoq. There’s only one real purpose for a Masch’yah - restorative regime change and Temple “cleanse” (purge), as prescribed by Torah. We have to see the political implications here very clearly: could they do what ha-Makabiim tried to do before falling, like Gideon, to the lures of the golden-embroidered priesthood and, like the Elders under Samuel, to the desire for an imperial scepter? This was what the fractious coalition at the Jordan was waiting for: would someone from ben-David Beit Yehudah show up and try to restore a monarchy or a Covenantal confederation, as it was after Sinai. Not everyone agreed on what the would show up for, so we need to see how impressive it is that they all agreed on John’s Masch’yah authorization.
Believing in the “good news” or “the gospel” is idiomatic and prophetic: he wants people to understand that the authorization is certified: the Yovel campaign is underway, immanent relief for the poor and the vulnerable.
“The time is fulfilled”, or “now is our chance, the time is now” feels a bit self-explanatory, but that also carries a Covenantal posture toward renewal and reconciliation - a window of opportunity.
"YHWH exists...to prevent the end."
This wins today's award for things I already basically believed but had never heard put so succinctly before. Thanks!
I am glad this resonated, Jack! It does seem like it’s a radical departure from what imperial theologies have had us focusing on for so long.
The Jubilee, the Yovel, is not a hard stop, it’s just a transition point at the end of one cycle towards the beginning of a new one. This cosmology is laid deeply into every single element of the Torah.
With Yehoshua being so adamant about sticking with the written Torah, it makes sense that this would be how he understood “the eschaton”.
It’s also worth remembering, that the term apocalypse, revelation, is not an inherently eschatological word. It does not imply or describe any form of ending.
Rather, the term expressly denotes a renewed vision, and an updated understanding. In other words, apocalyptic literature means to explain how these transitions are occurring behind what can be seen with human eyes.
Joseph has been generous in indulging me on his comment sections before about this very question: apocalyptic literature is iron and bronze age science fiction, writing. It functions within the same register, it uses spectacular imagery, it introduces beings from other worlds, it expands the scope to a more Zoroastrian dualism and cosmological orientation, etc.
Apocalyptic writing and speaking, like science fiction, is meant to be a reframing and a visual recoding of the politics and social questions being addressed in the present time.
Therefore, given that Yehoshua was so adamant about restoring the Torah and re-establishing a Commonwealth based on it, it should not surprise us at all that he engaged in apocalyptic genre speech. Yehoshua was a master communicator, of this I think everyone agrees. Parables, apocalypse, constitutional Torah, teachings, tradecraft, healing, logistical, organizing… this teacher knew how to speak in every language for his own audience. Every language they would have been receptive to.
Apocalyptic writing was just one of them, and should remain in its context rather than becoming the central mode of interpreting Yehoshua. But that’s just my opinion.
Joseph has been outstanding in defending his own opinion - in very compelling and beautifully written ways.
I am still puzzled how we narrowed and redefined the term "apocalyptic" to mean "about the end of the world" when it means "unveiling." Before I went to church (regularly) at 23, I had come to believe that all the "end of the world" preachings by Jesus were pointing to the cross and resurrection, and the "judgment" was the "setting into order" that happened there. I have returned to this interpretation now in my later years.
I am aware that this means that Paul and some other early writers already misinterpreted Jesus' teaching. Or didn't they? What if we saw their writings in that way and in that connotation?
You make a great point. Though I think "apocalyptic prophet" makes more sense when it's used in direct contrast with a more Jesus Seminar / Jefferson Bible view of things. Both views downplay the miracles and are looking for the man behind the myth, but for a long time, this quest was dominated by the view that Jesus was ackshully a warm fuzzy egalitarian. "Apocalyptic prophet" is in large part a repudiation of that view within the subset of folks who already dismissed the miracles. It says Jesus not only wasn't divine, he was also kind of a loon. It makes the warm fuzzy bits the parts that were added later and brings the ranty religion to the forefront. But you're right that there's more to Jesus than either if those views capture.
This is so good
Thanks!
Interesting and good catch. So from that perspective, God sent Christ to both spread the good news of the coming kingdom and to heal.