GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (29) Jeremiah & Jesus, part I: Pagan empires & the people of Yahweh
“Jesus came to Caesarea Philippi. There he put this
question to his disciples: “Who do people say that the son of man is?” “John
the Baptist,” they replied. “Others say Elijah. Others say Jeremiah, or
one of the prophets.” (Gospel of Matthew 16.13-14)
It’s
striking to note that when people looked at Jesus, one of the figures from
Israel’s past that came to mind was the prophet Jeremiah. Obviously, there was something about the way
that Jesus spoke and acted that reminded people of one of the prophets they
heard about when the Scriptures were read in the synagogues. Was this a mistake on the part of Jesus’
contemporaries? Perhaps they simply
lacked the appropriate category through which to understand Jesus? Indeed, Jesus could not be contained within
any single category from the Jewish thought world; however, it seems clear from
the Gospels that Jesus did indeed play the part of a prophet. As the New Testament Evangelists tell the
story of Jesus, they make it clear that Jesus was actually much more than a
prophet; however, they are also clear that the carpenter’s son from Nazareth
was not less than a prophet. The
closer we look at Jeremiah and Jesus in parallel, the more obvious it becomes
that Jesus’ public activity possessed a thoroughly prophetic character;
furthermore, Jeremiah can help us understand how Jesus came to embrace his
identity as the very embodiment of Yahweh (i.e., incarnation).
Let’s begin
by looking at the historical context of both Jeremiah & Jesus. Though the lives of these two prophets are separated
by roughly six centuries, the situation of the people of God was remarkably
similar in the 6th century B.C. and the first century AD. In fact, ever since the conquest of the city
of Samaria (capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel) by the Assyrians in 722
B.C., the people of God would be subject to a series of pagan empires, the only
exception being the century-long Hasmonean dynasty, beginning with the
Maccabean revolt against the Seleucids (Hellenic Syrians) in 167 and ending
with the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans in 63 B.C. (not for the last
time). Both Jeremiah and Jesus sought to
speak for God in times of international upheaval which had immediate and
disastrous consequences for their own nation, times during which the people of
God had to live their faith in the context of both internal controversy (how best
to express their identity) and external pressures (threats of pagan cultural
assimilation and oppression). Both
Jeremiah and Jesus lived and died in religious/political contexts fraught with
controversy, treachery and violence…in a word, powder-kegs. Sound familiar?
For a
detailed discussion of the life and times of Jeremiah, please refer to the
posts dated 17-25 of September 2023. Long
after Jeremiah’s death in Egypt, and while most of Judah’s population was in
exile (Jerusalem having been destroyed in 587), Babylonia was conquered by the
Persians in 539 B.C. The Persian
emperor, Cyrus the Great, allowed those Jews who wished to do so to return to
Judah and rebuild the Temple and the City of Jerusalem. A minority of the exiles took up the challenge
to rebuild their nation on their ancestral land. The second Jerusalem Temple was dedicated in
515 B.C. In the fourth century, Alexander
the Great would conquer the vast Persian empire as well as Egypt. Upon Alexander’s death in Babylon in 323
B.C., his empire was divided into 4 parts, with Judah finding itself uncomfortably
situated between two warring Hellenic dynasties – the Ptolemies in Egypt to the
South and the Seleucids in Syria to the North (cf. Dn. 11). The Seleucid king Antiochus IV infamously banned
the practice of Judaism (i.e., the circumcision of male children, as well as observance
of the Sabbath and the kosher laws). In
167 B.C., Judas “Maccabeus” and his family began a successful revolt against Antiochus
which culminated in the rededication of the Temple (and the inauguration of the
Festival of Hanukkah). The resulting
Hasmonean dynasty eventually degenerated into a sibling rivalry for the throne
of Judah, and both sides appealed to the Roman legions, under the command of Pompey,
to intervene. Pompey was only too happy
to oblige and, following a 3-month siege, captured Jerusalem in 63 B.C. and brought
Judah under the hegemony of the ever-expanding Roman empire. When the Parthians captured Jerusalem, the Romans
backed an Idumean warlord by the name of Herod (“the Great”) who, with the help
of the legions of Mark Antony, recaptured Jerusalem for Rome in 37 B.C. (Herod
was granted the title “King of the Jews”). Towards the end of Herod’s reign, in the
Jerusalem suburb of Bethlehem, a son would be born to a certain Miriam from
Nazareth. Indeed, Herod’s megalomaniacal
attempt to suppress all rival claimants to his throne led Yeshua’s parents to
seek safety in Egypt…
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