Yes, I'd heard this argument a few years ago, and it does make the courtyard scene make more sense.

As well as bring to mind the choice "Jesus or Che?"

Because my mind is evil that way, that's why...

Ooooooh, you is evil! Ha ha...

Benedict treats the story as if it's a work of fiction rather than a real event.

The Gospels say it was customary to release a prisoner during Passover, but would Pilate release someone he considered a threat to Roman authority? Were there only two prisoners in the entire Roman jail?

The one civil disturbance mentioned in the Gospels is when Jesus overturned the moneylenders' tables and drove them out of the Temple. Was that a small incident or did it ignite a riot? It took place only a day or two before Jesus was arrested, and may have been the proximate cause for the Romans to take action. Until then, Jesus had been non-violent.

Was Jesus Son-of-the-Father arrested at the same time for the same incident? And even though his designation as 'bandit' identifies him as a 'resistance fighter', the same is true of Judas Iscariot and Simon the Zealot (St Peter).

The Barabbas incident is the most frustrating moment in the Passion narrative. It's the last moment when Jesus could have been set free. But it's almost impossible to tell what really happened or what it really meant.

Pontius Pilate was not an idiot. It simply isn't plausible that he would offer the crowd their choice of a notorious anti-Roman resistance leader versus a man he considered harmless, and then abide by their choice.

"Benedict treats the story as if it's a work of fiction rather than a real event."

You have got to be kidding me.

Now I've heard everything: the Pope isn't showing sufficient belief.

Andrea,

Yeah, I'm pretty disappointed in the old guy.

I meant that he treats the Gospel as a scholar treats a poetic or mythical text. In art, people can act for magical reasons that create lovely metaphors. In real life, people act like people.

A playwright can invent a scene where the military governor offers to set free either a vicious messianic criminal or harmless holy man. In a work of art, the artist has a point to make.

But Pontius Pilate didn't rise to become the military governor in an outpost of a brutal empire by acting like a character in a self-indulgent post-modern play. He got there by acting ruthlessly in the service of his office.

The struggle for the freedom of the Church, the struggle to avoid identifying Jesus' Kingdom with any political structure, is one that has to be fought century after century.

...I've not read much pre-US history yet, but after spending a little time with the Holy Roman Empire, and with the Papal states, and even in light of European politics up through nearly the present time, you'll pardon me if this line just reeks of irony...yeah, the Church has sure had a long, long struggle to free itself from the servitude of political power...it brings to mind the noble struggle of Clement VII to separate church and state...

...I realize, of course, that one can be a pope himself, and still recognize the corruption the popes of yore brought to the church through their embrace and of politics - but still, you'll pardon me an ironic snort!

{snort!}

Here's another example of what I mean:

'Barabbas figures here as a sort of alter ego of Jesus, who makes the same claim but understands it in a completely different way...'

That's a literary interpretation. In real life, one man does not figure as an alter ego of another. They are simply different men.

'...So the choice is between a Messiah who leads an armed struggle, promises freedom and a kingdom of one's own, and this mysterious Jesus who proclaims that losing oneself is the way to life. Is it any wonder that the crowds prefer Barabbas?....'

Did a real crowd in an actual courtyard on that day in Jerusalem knowingly make such a choice? Of course not. Or maybe the Gospels left out the part where Pilate monitored a debate between the two prisoners. Again, Benedict treats it as a literary contrivance rather than a real event, as if he can't tell the difference.

Well, if the story is viewed as God working out our salvation through real events, then there truly is an author, complete with his own style, metaphors, and literary allusions...in the case of Jesus's story, those allusions are primarily to Old Testament prophecies (AKA "foreshadowing")...and the style is often pretty ironical...but I wouldn't fault Benedict for trying to read the author's hand in the factual story...

Assuming, of course, that a) the story is factual, and b) the author exists - neither of which I'd agree with - but given those two assumptions, Benedict's reading is perfectly plausible...

Actually, real life often assumes forms or strange ironies that resemble something that might be in a play. And sometimes more-so than any playwright would dare to use. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died within hours of each other, on July 4, 1826, precisely 50 years after July 4th, 1776! And you could easily write a book about how they personified different aspects of America and the Revolution that still exist. Or how they were "alter-egos," with long lists of similarities and yet many more dissimilarities. At various times close friends or keen enemies, with their lives oddly inter-twined.

Benedict's piece is obviously conjectural, but not unreasonably so. (Even the release of the hypothetical resistance leader might have happened if his movement had been crushed, and he perhaps already badly wounded or battered by the Romans. And if, say, the city had been seething with the enormous Passover crowds, and Pilate was worried about uprisings.)

The Church teaches that the universe tends to arrange itself in signs and symbols and lessons. That the little things around us often point to greater ones. (This is called the scaramental imagination or worldview.) If you believe in God, and that he created the whole cosmos, then believing in that is hardly an unreasonable leap to make.

lyle, I was laughing at you, not with you.

Andrea,

Yes, I know. But it's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of process.

Our first aim in understanding the Gospels should be to discover what really happened. Interpretation should follow our most disciplined, best informed guess. I believe Benedict falls into a common trap of academics, failing to distinguish between the world on paper and world of real events.

When you approach the Gospels as texts independent from the events they chronicle, you might as well use the Lord of the Rings as scripture. The fact that life sometimes imitates art should not mean that you can't tell the difference.

Why did Pilate offer the crowd a choice that seems at odds with his character and professional responsibilities, that defies common sense, and was unnecessary? Why did the actual crowd in that courtyard actually choose Barabbas? Frustratingly, the Gospel account doesn't tell us enough to determine what really happened. But that doesn't mean we are free to extrapolate implausible scenarios, for the sake of theologically convenient metaphors.

Lyle, your statements are determined by your faith, just as much as Benedict's. The difference is, he's aware of it, and you aren't.

"Our first aim in understanding the Gospels should be to discover what really happened. Interpretation should follow our most disciplined, best informed guess..." This is the method of the historian, as currently practiced. (Ignoring Post-Modernism.) When you say that Benedict should be using it, you are saying that other approaches are illegitimate. And in so doing you are guided by faith (presumably of a secularist sort), since there is no way that your methods can prove that approaches outside themselves do not exist.

This is analogous to a Richard Dawkins saying that only things that can be seen by natural science exist. It's purely a matter of faith, since science itself can't show that it is true. (And Mr Dawkins has, in fact, a religion, since he holds beliefs about the deep nature of the universe that can't be proved by science or other forms of investigation.)

I'm not criticizing your points; I love the study of history. (And discovering N.T. Wright's works on the New Testament was one of the high points of my recent years. The awesomest.) Within that context they are proper.

But I would tend to criticize your lack of self-awareness. (Especially when writing about a scholar of Benedict's caliber. They didn't elect Joseph Ratzinger to the Académie for nothing.)

I'm saying that we should try to determine historical facts using the methods of historians; and that we should interpret parables, aphorisms, and other literary forms using literary methods. All tools are not equally useful for all tasks.

Imagine a police detective who tries to solve a murder by methods appropriate to a literary scholar. He might choose a suspect that provides the greatest irony or the cleverest metaphor. 'Naw, he can't be the killer, he's the alter ego of the character in Chapter Six.'

In real life, nobody is the alter ego of anybody else, Jefferson and Adams notwithstanding.

I can see that I have failed to make my point. But next time, John, build a cabinet based on literary theory, and use philosophy instead of sandpaper.

I see your point perfectly well. I have not the slightest quarrel with "determining historical facts using the methods of historians".

You refuse to take my point, which is about the deeper level of deciding that a particular case should be decided using the tools of the historian. That is a problem that the historian's tools can't solve.

You are deciding it by saying, "Oh, it's obvious." Well, sorry, but philosophically it is NOT obvious. And in fact you have no way to show that it is obvious. You are making statements based on your "common sense" as if they are universally accepted truths. That's naive.

I don't use philosophy to build cabinets, but nothing in my cabinetmakers mental toolbox will prove that I can't, or give me any help in deciding between that possibility and others. I use my "common sense" but that's just based on faith that the world operates as it appears to. It is in fact part of my "religion" (in a broad sense), that is, deep assumptions about the universe that I hold on faith, but can't prove.

You are flaunting your religion, but refusing to be aware of it.

"Imagine a police detective who tries to solve a murder by methods appropriate to a literary scholar."

Oh, wow, that's a great idea for a book...

(The trick is making it work.)

No, John. You do not understand my objections.

The term 'alter ego' has a well-established meaning. It applies exclusively to art and literature. On film, Jimmy Stewart was Hitchcock's alter ego. Sherlock Holmes was Conan Doyles' alter ego, and so was Watson. When I paint a rooster or a rock or a flower, it can be my alter ego.

I can never be another person's alter ego. Another person can never be my alter ego. Two fictional characters can be each others' alter egos. It's a matter of definition.

Benedict can only apply the term appropriately if he believes the Barabbas incident is fabricated. Otherwise, he is engaging in a logical fallacy.

And look at the results of that misstep. Suddenly Barabbas - necessarily, because he's Jesus' alter ego - is elevated to the status of a 'Messiah who leads an armed struggle, promises freedom and a kingdom of one's own'. (That's an actual quote from Benedict. Please don't manufacture quotes for me. I can speak for myself.)

Benedict's worldly Messiah Barabbas now has a platform. Huh? Check your Gospels. Do you see any basis for that whatsoever?

And 'the crowds prefer Barabbas', the newly-minted Messiah, and his platform to 'this mysterious Jesus who proclaims that losing oneself is the way to life.' Do we have any reason to believe that the crowd even knew who Jesus was? Or that they understood his mission in the same way that a twentieth-century German theologian does?

This is all because he deems Barabbas to be Jesus' alter ego because they shared a variation of the same name.

And now John, why don't you write your first comment actually defending Benedict's version, intstead of assigning me prejudices I don't have, impugning my intelligence, appealing to authority, and reinventing well-established definitions?

Also, I'd like to reply to the observation that Benedict is using tools which are not in my toolbox - in this case, the analytical concept of alter ego.

I understand the term. I know how and when to use it. I know how and when not to use it. From this passage, Benedict does not.

If that's the only meaning of "alter ego," then your comment has a lot of force. However, my dictionary (American Heritage) does not agree. And my experience has been that the term is used much more loosely in common discourse. For instance, in saying that Crazy Horse was an alter ego of Custer, because of the interesting parallels in their lives.

My point had nothing to do with your prejudices or intelligence. Nor was it an appeal to authority. It's just a very basic metaphysical concept, one that's not even controversial. That is, that no system of thought can validate itself. It can't stand outside itself, and decide whether it is producing truth, nor whether it is the correct tool to apply in a particular case.

But I should probably drop the subject. It's been my experience through several long ding-dong back-and-forth comments battles, that some people are just not going to go there. It's a scary and vertiginous realm.

"I've been reading you for years, but never commented before..."

I just found your posting of my "Number of the beast" post (and the excellent addition of "333-Eric the Half-a-Beast") and thought I would have a look around and leave a comment.

I have just gotten hold of a copy of Benny's book this morning (there has been a delay in its arrival here in Oz), and so thought I would enter this conversation.

I am also a history buff and a great fan of N.T. Wright's stuff (though it is heavy going for bed-time reading). But as an exegete, I have to say that your interlocutor misunderstands the role of biblical exegesis by putting the emphasis on what historically happened. That's important, but as a method for interpreting the text, it will lead nowhere. In fact that is why Papa Benny has written the book in the first place. In the last hundred years there has been a divide between the "Christ of faith" and the "historical Jesus". The fact is that they are one and the same (again, N.T. Wright is tops in this area).

When it comes to interpreting the text of the Gospels, we have to remember that what we have in front of us ARE "stories". "True stories", as Tolkien emphasised to C.S.Lewis, but stories none-the-less. The authors wrote what they wrote for a purpose, and the purpose wasn't simply to record "what happened"--it was to infuse "what happened" with meaning--or rather, to discern the meaning in "what happened".

So Papa Benny is quite within his rights as an exegete to read the text in its own terms and to ask: What is the author of the text trying to convey by relating this event--when he could have left it out as he did a million other things that happened to Jesus (cf. John 20:30)? And what is he trying to tell us by writing the story of "what happened" in just this way?

By the way, I like the idea of a novel in which a detective tries to solve a murder using literary techniques--but I think it has already been done. I can't recall the title right now... Its not the one I'm thinking of, but Douglas Adams wrote the Dirk Gently "Holistic Detective Agency" novels in this vein.

Thanks, David, that sounds just right to me.

Wright is extra important to me because I long had the (vague and unscrutinized) idea in my head that probing the history of Jesus and the early Christians would "debunk" Christianity. I thought that, to have faith, the little historian inside me would have to be fenced-off from the First Century.

I found Wright and the Church (or rather, they found me) at the same time, and the combination was electrifying.

As for literary detective techniques, just wait 'till everybody sees the furniture I build using the tools of philosophy!