The Gospel Anthem in Four Part Harmony

At least four different voices can be heard in the Gospel anthems. These works are richly orchestrated masterpieces! Their interwoven lyrics and melodies, sung in/by many voices, each with its own unique cadence, form gloriously polyphonic anthems. Our Gospels are multi-layered; they beg to be “turned and turned, for everything is contained therein”.

Most of us are familiar with the overall ‘plain text’; but if we stop there, we will be unable to appreciate the distinctive melody lines of the voices that make up the whole... I therefore invite you to start listening for the sounds of the following voices in the Gospel anthems. Shema… Hear…

The first voice is the voice of the rabbi. The Gospels were first preserved by means of the Hebrew oral tradition. A rabbi’s talmidim committed his words to memory… And the words of any rabbi were always deeply anchored in the Torah and Hebraic tradition. His teachings were always rooted, in the Semitic fashion, in familiar Hebraic symbols, images and texts. Rabbis thus taught by means of inferences, allusions, hints and clues; this was the ‘poetic’ Semitic manner of teaching and learning. Talmidim learned to ‘read between the lines’ of their rabbi’s teachings in order to grasp ‘the pearls of great price’, in order to understand the true meaning of what was being taught; for, in the Semitic manner, the most precious wisdom was always hidden from plain view. The way in which Yeshua taught his talmidim, by means of allusions and parables, was no different...

The second voice is a Greek voice. When the good news concerning Messiah was finally written down, it was in Koine Greek; the Greek of the marketplace. Classical Greek and Semitic Hebrew are inherently very different from each other. The Hebrew language may have fewer words, but the cadences of each word are far more complex, variegated, subtle and far-reaching than they are in Greek. Thus, by definition, in committing the oral tradition to parchment, much of the meaning was lost as soon as the translators chose one meaning of a word over other possible Hebraic meanings. Much of the dynamism, even meaning, of Yeshua’s words could have been lost in the process. Still, our Greek Gospels must be read as Semitic documents and an attempt should be made to identify their Hebraic idioms. For example, any Hebrew scholar would understand that the phrase “He turned his face toward Jerusalem” meant that he set out for Jerusalem… Another example is this phrase: “(Joseph) took her (Miryam) into his home”. Anyone familiar with the Talmud would immediately understand that this tells us that Joseph married Miryam.

The third ‘voice’ is the voice of censorship. The Gospels were recorded during a time of oppression and persecution, therefore some of the oral tradition concerning Yeshua was assuredly omitted, and what was selected to be recorded was tailored to appear acceptable to Roman censors. At that time, what was written could get an author, and those mentioned in his writings, into serious trouble with the authorities. Thus we find that the Gospels are very ‘Rome-friendly’. Extra-biblical texts show clearly, however, that the Romans were brutal overlords and that the land of Palestine was denuded of her forests which were felled by the Romans to construct their war machines and crucifixes. Pilate, for example was eventually recalled to Rome to face charges of cruelty and murder… Yet at the trial of Yeshua he is rendered as noble and benevolent. In fact all Romans who feature in the Gospels are portrayed as eminently civilized…. It is their enemies ‘the Jews’ who are depicted as aggressive, cruel, despicable… Because Rome was the enemy of the Jews, and visa-versa, and Rome had to be appeased, it was ‘the Jews’ who were made out to be ‘the enemies of Messiah’. I believe that the Judeans (consistently mistranslated as ‘the Jews’)  were grossly misrepresented and that it is the skewed rendering of God’s people in the Gospels that has resulted in over two thousand years of cruel persecution.

The fourth voice is a muffled one, but it can still be heard if one listens very carefully... This is the voice of the Samaritans; a remnant of the original Ephraimite leadership of the united nation of Israel. It is the voice of Joseph and of Joshua, and of the inhabitants of Joshua’s capital city of Shechem (in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, called ‘Sychar’). Something of a very old narrative can be heard in the voice of the woman at the well, seen in her city in the distance that lies in the saddle between Mt Gerizim and Mt Ebal; that city of Jacob’s well and Joseph’s bones; that city of Joseph’s double portion, the double portion of the Bechor, the firstborn… This city is associated with Jonah, Hosea and the Assyrian exile of the northern tribes… It is a place associated with a much older, simpler tradition with its own version of the Torah, with its own ancient Hebrew script and calendar. This city and its people were ostracised in the first century AD, yet Yeshua reached out to them... Indeed, he spent two days with this ancient remnant of Israel… Think of the time that Yeshua was accused of being a Samaritan, and did not deny it. I muse about the parable of the ‘good Samaritan’… Was that ‘good’ Samaritan the exception which proved the ‘rule’; that all other Samaritans were bad? Probably not… And what of the Samaritan leper who was the only one of ten such lepers who returned to thank the Lord for his healing… Why was this so pointedly recorded? What does this voice of first century Samaria whisper to our hearts…?

To be continued.