How the Jews Invented Hollywood: Somewhere Over the Rainbow Dreams Do Come True

Posted on by

At the 2014 Oscars, they celebrated the 75th anniversary of the release of the “Wizard of Oz” by having Pink sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, with highlights from the film in the background. But what few people realized, while listening to that incredible performer singing that unforgettable song, is that the music is deeply embedded in the Jewish experience.

Wizard DorothyA remarkable essay by Simcha Jacobovici “Pink, the Oscars, and the Rebirth of Israel?” in the Times of Israel this week.  How Jewish dreams, American films, and three visions of the future of the Jewish people–Communism, Zionism, and Americanism, are all related.

The Destruction of Pompeii: Why Jews and Christians Rejoiced!

Posted on by

Paul W. S. Anderson’s $100 million big budget film “Pompeii” opened in US theaters last weekend with less than blockbuster sales–falling third behind “The Lego Movie” and Kevin Costner’s “Three Days to Kill” with receipts of “only” $10.3 million. The German company Constantin, that produced the film, was prepared for the possibility that the film would not do as well in the US and the film was fully financed by international pre-sales before its production.

I have not seen the film but as a historian of ancient Judaism and early Christianity I believe the destruction of Pompeii in the summer of 79 CE was of vital interest to Jews and Christians scattered throughout the Roman world who interpreted it as a fulfillment of prophecy and a sign of God’s imminent apocalyptic vengeance on the Roman empire, whom they viewed as the “Beast” of Daniel 7 and Revelation 17. The Romans had not only destroyed Jerusalem and exiled the Jews from their homeland in 70 CE, but Nero (54-68 CE), who was given the number 666 as the “Mark of the Beast” had slaughtered thousands of Christians in Rome in the summer of 64 CE–including most likely the apostles Peter and Paul.[1]

Nine years, almost to the day, after Roman legionaries destroyed God’s house in Jerusalem, God destroyed the luxurious watering holes of the Roman elite. Was this God’s revenge? That’s not exactly the question I want to raise, however. Rather, did anyone at the time see it that way? Did anyone connect the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70? Hershel Shanks, “The Destruction of Pompeii–God’s Revenge?”[2]

mount-vesuvius-eruption-pompeiiEditor Hershel Shanks raises a most provocative question in this 2010 feature cover article in Biblical Archaeology Review. Did Jews living in the Roman empire associate the sudden volcanic incineration of the Naples port city of Pompeii in 79 CE with God’s payback punishment upon Rome for destroying Jerusalem? As Shanks shows, there is good evidence that such is the case. He points to some amazing archaeological remains, such as a charcoal graffiti that seems to reference “Sodom and Gomorrah,” as well as a Christian apocalyptic text, book 4 of the Sibylline Oracles, that parallels the two events and refers to the latter as “the wrath of the heavenly God.”

photo-1I have become convinced there is much more. In 2010 I spent several months studying the archaeological records related to ancient Pompeii, including significant time at the site working with Simcha Jacobovici and his research team who were filming his international television special, “Vesuvius and the Fear of God.” The film documents some of the major discoveries we made including some “behind-the-scenes” interviews with several Italian experts and curators who presented evidence that had never appeared on camera before. I came away convinced, based on the material/archaeological evidence, that Jews as well as Jewish and non-Jewish Christians understood Pompeii’s destruction as divine retribution. The thesis of the film is a bold one–not only that Jews and Christians saw the destruction of Pompeii as a sign of God’s apocalyptic wrath but that the utter destruction of the city served as a huge boon to the spread of Christianity in the Roman world:

Long ignored archaeological evidence – found beneath the ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum – seems to suggest that what put the fear of God into pagan Romans was not Jesus, Peter or Paul. It now seems that the event most responsible for Christianity’s conquest of the Roman Empire was…the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

The film is an impressive piece of work and you can watch it free of charge, courtesy of Simchajtv.com here.

IMG_0914 2

However, in the course of my own textual research I made another discovery–one that was new for me at least. I became convinced that chapter 18 of the New Testament book of Revelation is an eyewitness account, very much parallel to that of Pliny the Younger, of the August 79 CE destruction of Pompeii–but understood by the writer as signaling the fall of Babylon the Great–namely, the demise of the Roman Empire itself! Most scholars agree that the prophecies of the book of Revelation can be dated variously  from the end of the reign of Nero through the Flavians (68-80s CE). The author of chapter 18 of Revelation provides us with a poetic oracle against the “great city” pictured as a “whore” riding the seven-headed beast of the Roman Empire–drunk with the blood of the martyrs and the saints. Her destruction comes with fire–in one hour–while those in ships watch her burning from afar, lamenting the loss of her wealth and the splendor of her trade and commerce. The Naples/Pompeii port was the gateway to ancient Rome. As such its destruction signaled that of the expected apocalyptic FALL of Rome itself–both as a city and an empire.

Whore BabylonHere is a translation (Revised Standard Version) of the oracle itself without commentary. I think my readers will agree that one could hardly imagine a more accurate description of the destruction of Pompeii/Rome down to its every detail:

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor. 2 And he called out with a mighty voice,

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
It has become a dwelling place of demons,
a haunt of every foul spirit,
a haunt of every foul and hateful bird;
3 For all nations have drunkthe wine of her impure passion,
and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich with the wealth of her wantonness.”

4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,

“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Render to her as she herself has rendered,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed.
7 As she glorified herself and played the wanton,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning.
Since in her heart she says, ‘A queen I sit,
I am no widow, mourning I shall never see,’
8 so shall her plagues come in a single day,
pestilence and mourning and famine,
and she shall be burned with fire;
for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”

9 And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and were wanton with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning; 10 they will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say,

“Alas! alas! thou great city,
thou mighty city, Babylon!
In one hour has thy judgment come.”

11 And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, 12 cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble,13 cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.

14 “The fruit for which thy soul longed has gone from thee,
and all thy dainties and thy splendor are lost to thee, never to be found again!”

15 The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud,

16 “Alas, alas, for the great city
that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet,
bedecked with gold, with jewels, and with pearls!
17 In one hour all this wealth has been laid waste.”

And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off18 and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning,

“What city was like the great city?”

19 And they threw dust on their heads, as they wept and mourned, crying out,

“Alas, alas, for the great city
where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth!
In one hour she has been laid waste.
20 Rejoice over her, O heaven,
O saints and apostles and prophets,
for God has given judgment for you against her!”

21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,

“So shall Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence,
and shall be found no more;
22 and the sound of harpers and minstrels, of flute players and trumpeters,
shall be heard in thee no more;
and a craftsman of any craft
shall be found in thee no more;
and the sound of the millstone
shall be heard in thee no more;
23 and the light of a lamp
shall shine in thee no more;
and the voice of bridegroom and bride
shall be heard in thee no more;
for thy merchants were the great men of the earth,
and all nations were deceived by thy sorcery.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints,
and of all who have been slain on earth.”

Although the New Testament book of Revelation is now clearly a “Christian” book I have argued elsewhere that at its core is a thoroughly Jewish apocalyptic prophetic work that was subsequently “Christianized,” very possibly in reaction to the horrors of the reign of Nero. See my article, “Can A Pre-Christian Version of the Book of Revelation Be Recovered?”

  1. I analyze this period in several publications that are on-line for those who want to delve a bit deeper into this topic. Most recently see my article “Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Millennialism,” In Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, ed., Cathy Wessinger. At the turn of the millennium–remember the Y2K panic?–I published Why 2K?: The Biblical Roots of Millennialism in Bible Review, which offers an overview of Christian apocalypticism through the ages. There is also “Apocayptic Schemes and Dreams: How An Ancient Jewish Vision of the Future Came to Dominate the Modern World,” in The End of Days?: Millennialism from the Hebrew Bible to the Present, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon and Ronald A. Simkins (Omaha: Creighton University Press, 2003), pp. 49-61. [↩]
  2. Shanks, Hershel. “The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Jul/Aug 2010, 60-67, 77. Available on-line to BAS Library members who have access to this and the entire archive of BAS for a modest annual fee:  http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=4&ArticleID=6 [↩]

Resurrection of the Dead is Not the Resuscitation of a Corpse

Posted on by

Perhaps you read about the Mississippi man who recently was pronounced “dead,” put in a body bag and even taken to a funeral home for embalming–when he suddenly revived, just as the procedure was beginning. You can read the Reuters story here, which is understandably being picked up by newspapers and media outlets all of the country this morning. It is just that human interest kind of story that all of us find fascinating. Technically this kind of “revivial” of a corpse is called resuscitation.

Light BeingFear of being “buried alive” is as ancient as human burial culture. In the 17th and 18th centuries bells were sometimes attached to coffins by a string so the deceased could sound an alarm and thus to be “saved by the bell” in case the deceased revived.[1] Some also trace the origin of the “wake” to this idea–with the living sitting around the corpse through the night to make sure the person did not come back to life having been pronounced dead. George Washington supposedly asked that his body not be put in a vault until at least two days had passed. In antiquity and until more recent times lead poisoning was common from drinking alchohol from lead or pewter cups–and such poisoning can include catatonic symptoms that could be mistaken for death.

I have argued that the earliest view of Jesus’ followers of resurrection of the dead was not corpse revival or resuscitation but rather the “re-clothing” of the spirit or soul of with a new “spiritual” body. This is clearly Paul’s view as he contrasts the “body of dust” that decays and is left behind with the “life-giving spirit” that is immortal and glorious–though nonetheless embodied (1 Corinthians 15:42-54). Paul’s analogy of putting off the old clothing of the physical body, entering a “naked” state, but then being “reclothed” with a transformed but embodied existence at the “resurrection” of the dead makes his view quite clear. This is in contrast then to Greek idea of the “immortality” in which the soul is merely released “naked” from the body–which is seen also as a prison–and “flies away.”

That is why finding the decayed bones of Jesus in an ossuary, as might well be the case Talpiot tomb in Jerusalem, as I have argued here on this blog and extensively in our book, The Jesus Discovery, does not contradict the earliest faith in Jesus’ resurrection by his first followers. What has happened is that people have conflated the later accounts in the Gospels, especially in Luke and John, where Jesus clearly appears as a “revived corpse” and even asks for food to eat–declaring himself to be “flesh and blood,” with the much earlier views the gospel of Mark (with no appearances of Jesus), the fragment ending of the Gospel of Peter, and Matthew–that are much more compatible with Paul’s earlier view (50s CE) of “seeing” Jesus’ spiritual body. The idea those who “sleep in the dust” awakening, or the sea “giving up” the dead that are in it, makes it crystal clear that resurrection of the dead has to do with a transformed “heavenly” existence, not a revival of the scant remains of those long ago turned to “dust and ashes” as the phrase goes (Daniel 12:2-3; Revelation 20:13). One might also recall that, according to Jesus, those who experience the “age to come” and the resurrection of the dead, are transformed into an “angelic” state, no longer male or female with physical bodies (Luke 20:34-38).

I have laid out all the arguments in detail with all the relevant texts in chronological order in my post titled “Why People are Confused about the Earliest Christian View of Resurrection of the Dead.” I invite you to review the evidence and see if you agree that this major area of confusion has led to a completely irrational defense of faith in Jesus’ physical or bodily resurrection–that is, the revival of his male corpse intact with its functioning organs–as the cornerstone of early Christian resurrection faith. Millions of Christians who find such a view untenable have been made to feel that their “resurrection faith” is somehow deficient because they have no “proof” without the physical corpse being resuscitated, that Jesus really rose from the dead.

  1. Some have argued that the phrase “saved by the bell” is a boxing term and has nothing to do with this practice of burial, but we do know that such “safety” coffins were manufactured into the 19th century. [↩]

Snake Handling and a Forged Ending of the Gospel of Mark

Posted on by

The recent death of Jamie Coots, the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, KY, while handling a rattle snake during a church service, has been well covered by the national media, including ABC’s “Nightline.”

Snake Bitten PastorCoots had been bitten previously in such demonstrations of faith, refusing medical treatment, but this particular bite became his last. He had even appeared on the National Geographic television reality show Snake Salvation. “Snake-handling” Pentecostals have been the butt of many jokes in our culture but their motivation goes back to a passage at the close of the Gospel of Mark where Jesus sends his apostles out to evangelize the world declaring:

And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. (Mark 16:17-18).

Although there are two other New Testament passages that might give credence to this practice, it is this ending of Mark that has clearly become the hallmark.[1] It is hard to blame sincere folks with faith in Jesus, up against a scoffing public, who just want to demonstrate to others that the promises Jesus made here are true to this day. After all, these are the signs that are to demonstrate to non-believers the truth of the Gospel! Those who believe such things now face a dilemma–is Coots a fool or a martyr–and have the promises of Jesus failed? But there is a another more serious problem here.

Based on our best manuscript evidence the longer ending of Mark (16:9-20), which appears in the King James Version and many other evangelical Christian translations, is a forgery and we have no idea who wrote it–much less whether Jesus ever said it! Of course among most conservative Pentecostals that makes little difference since questioning the King James Version of the Bible is akin to doubting there is a God! But there is much more at stake here than “snake handling” since the way Mark ends his gospel is critical to an understanding not only of Mark–our earliest Gospel, but of the ways in which the earliest Christian resurrection faith developed. I have written previously about this recommend this post to my readers who want to go a bit beyond the headlines on the snake handling tragedy:

The Strange Ending of Mark and Why It Makes All the Difference

Finally, I might point out that this is hardly a neutral subject with many passionate defenders of what they imagine to be true Christian faith. After all copies of the New Testament Revised Standard Version, which properly printed the three bogus endings of Mark in smaller print with notes indicating they were later “additions,” were burned in bonfires as the “Devils” translation in 1946 when it was first released. Here is a comment I recently received from an irate reader of the post above, ready to condemn me to the first of hell. Of course everyone who works on this material knows Burgon’s work, which is out of date and not considered of consequence on this matter by most academic scholars.

What is PATENTLY FALSE is not the Ending of Mark but all the ignorance and lies used to reject it, like this dumb article demonstrates.  All anyone has to do is read John William Burgon’s THE LAST TWELVE VERSES OF MARK, written over 130 years ago.  This textual scholar extraordinaire vindicated the reading factually from all the apostates who were trying to remove it from the Scripture.  Nothing since has come that overturns Burgon’s evidence.  Burgon was a REAL CHRISTIAN, born of the Spirit, and who knew the Scripture needed to be defended from all the unregenerate children of Hell, the wolves in sheep’s clothing who were attacking it.

  1. The book of Acts records a case in which Paul shakes a viper off his hand into a camp fire and is unharmed (Acts 28:3-5) and according to the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus sends out 70 disciples to preach his “Kingdom of God has drawn near” message he assures them: “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you” (Luke 10: 19). [↩]

A Mysterious Missing Link in the Ancient Hebraic Alphabet?

Posted on by

I somehow missed this absolutely fascinating contribution to the discussion of the origins of the Western “Alphabet” by Brian E. Colless posted on the ASOR Blog here. The proposal goes way “over my head” and beyond my expertise, but I find the overall proposal simply brilliant and I am wondering what others with expertise in this area might say about this.

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERAThis also caused me to wonder about our inability so far to decipher the inscribed stone cup found at our Mt Zion excavation site in 2009, see Pfann’s preliminary work report here. I realize there are parallels at Qumran in terms of cryptic “Hebrew Hieratic scripts” of the late 2nd Temple period but Colless’s article, so clearly “thinking outside the box,” got me to thinking something akin to that might be at work with our text.

Close-up of the mysterious cryptic Hebrew script on the stone cup

Close-up of the mysterious cryptic Hebrew script on the stone cup

On the Qeiyafa ostracon more generally see the lovely pictures and report here. What is truly amazing is that this precious artifact was found by a 17-year-old volunteer, Oded Yair, who uncovered a large potsherd on the floor of a room. It was placed in a black plastic bucket with all the other finds unearthed that morning in the same room. Those of us who participate in excavations know this happens quite often–what we least expect to find can be right under our noses–or trowels! Such was the case with our inscribed stone vessel.