The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief

I have been excited about having the chance to review Peter Rollins' most recent book, "The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards A Church Beyond Belief (Paraclete Press, 2008), so I figured I would jump right in and offer a bit summary, along with some reflective questions after reading the first chapter of the book. I am actually a bit torn; I was encouraged and impressed that Dr. Rollins seems to take the biblical text itself seriously. At the same time, I have some reservations about how Dr. Rollins develops his reading of the gospels.

For example, Dr. Rollins suggests a few different scenarios as potentially valid ways to read the gospels and their recounting of Jesus' relationship to Judas. In one scenario he presents Judas as the one subject to betrayal by Jesus himself, who used Judas as a 'cosmic pawn' in the outworking of his plan. In the second scenario, Rollins suggests that Judas handed Jesus over to the religious authorities in order to force a confrontation that would simultaneously destroy the political and religious status quo, while establishing the messianic kingdom. Finally, Rollins suggests a reading where Judas was actually following a command by Jesus to betray him in order to fulfill the divine course of events. Ultimately, Rollins supports these readings by highlighting alleged differences in the gospel accounts, while also reconstructing history by offering suppositions about what might have happened between the scenes recorded in the gospel narratives. Rollins conludes that these the supposed differences in the text highlight the fact that deciphering them is an act of interpretive creativity and imagination,

"Indeed the polymorphous nature of the text itself ensures that a single interpretation of Judas and his motives lies beyond the realm of biblical theology and finds its true home in the wide expanse of the artistic imagination."

Now, if one chooses to approach the task of interpreting the gospels in the way that Rollins does, then each of the scenarios he presents are possibilites for understanding Judas' actions. Despite this, I would say that there is a better explanation of the events. Ultimately, I think the problem for Rollins' thesis is that while he is sensitive to the contours of the gospel texts, he makes no mention of extra-biblical Jewish literature or the Old Testament as evidence of the cultural milieu that would have shaped the perspective of the disciples and 1st century Judaism. This is particularly important when one considers the Jewish eschatology.

Extra-biblical Jewish literature and the Old Testament suggest that their was a relatively crystallized expectation among 1st century Jews regarding the messiah. Basically, this literature seems to indicate that Jews expected a sudden in-breaking of the kingdom of God, on earth, in which the messiah would usher in a new-age for Israel by ending the long history of foreign oppression via political and military means. It seems certain, based on the gospel accounts, that the disciples themselves seemed to reflect this expectation, as they were often confused about Jesus' actions. Indeed, the gospels seem to reflect a period where Jesus takes the disciples through a period of worldview reconstruction about the kingdom of God and the messianic identity. This is a reading that can be reasonably substantiated by a variety of Jewish texts, and is not one of simple artistic creativity brought to bear one the task of interpretation. It is considered a legitimate view by many in academic community simply because it is a reasonable accounting of the available primary source material from that era of history.

If one, armed this array of written evidences, attempts to account for Judas' betrayal, it might look something like this; Judas, along with the other disciples, initially followed Jesus before having a comprehensive understanding of Jesus or the way in which he represented the in-breaking of the kingdom of God. While they did recognize something special about Jesus' identity, they were still expecting an in-breaking of the kingdom that would be characterized by the restoration of Israel, lead by a messiah who was oriented toward political and military action. Thus, as the disciples came to understand Jesus' portrayal of the kingdom of God, which was not political or violent, and Jesus' subsequent messianic identity, which was not characterized by military and political might, they were forced to choose whether or not they would accept this reorientation. Consequently, Judas, as one of the twelve, became disenchanted with Jesus' message and questioned his identity all together. Once Judas came to see that things would not end in the way he originally thought and expected, he ultimately decided it best to turn Jesus over to the religious authorities.

In my view, this is a more reasonable explanation of the relationship between Jesus and Judas. I say this not because of a commitment to traditional construals of Christian history, but because it seems to make the best use of the available evidence that New Testament scholarship considers when examining the contuors of ancient Jewish culture. Thus, I can't help but question Rollins appropriation of Judas as an example of fidelity to Christ, and I am left to wonder for a bit longer about the viability of his thesis until I look at the additional examples he provides in later chapters of his book.