SM: People have put a message in his mouth that's antithetical to
what he felt with all his heart. He talks about the kingdom of God being
here and now. Yet at the end of Mark the risen savior says, "If you
believe in me you'll be saved, if you don't believe in me you'll be
damned." This verse has been responsible for more human suffering than
any single verse in history That ending is not in the earliest
manuscripts. It only appears a few hundred years later. As Thomas
Jefferson said, these later teachings simply cannot come from the same
mind that gave us the authentic teachings.
The central message of Jesus is a very attractive one, and
something that many people feel they need personally So much of what's
been written about Jesus, however, is fictional biography. For political
and theological reasons, the Church had to show that this great teacher
whom they all adored didn't die in vain.
PT: And yet what you are doing is also potentially dangerous. Just
like the biographers of Jesus, you as a translator have an enormous
responsibility.
SM: It was tremendously fulfilling to be able to collect the best
of the teachings and paint a portrait of a person I was deeply in love
with. I tried to view this great Jewish teacher in relation to his peers,
spiritual masters such as the Buddha, Lao-tzu, and Ramana Maharshi. Many
scholars of the gospels see him only within the Christian tradition,
which means seeing him in relation to people who are very much his
inferiors, starting with St. Paul, who was a brilliant but deeply
neurotic and intolerant man.
PT: What is the gospel according to Jesus?
SM: Simply this: that the love we all long for in our innermost
heart is already present. Jesus left us the essence of himself in his
teachings, which are all we need to know. We want to know much more about
him, of course. What did he look like? Was he married? Was he ever in
love? Why is the emotion that informs Jesus' teaching about forgiveness
so intense, so filled with the exhilaration of forgiving and being
forgiven? I feel it must have come from a profound personal
experience.
PT: How have people reacted to your assertion that Jesus was an
illegitimate child, and this caused him very human pain and anger?
SM: A lot of people have found his anger enormously liberating. I
don't think that we can fully appreciate who Jesus became unless we
realize the overwhelming difficulties he must have had as an illegitimate
child in a small provincial town. This teacher is much more effective
than the superhuman figure who bears the sins of the world. And people
don't feel so damn guilty about being human and flawed themselves.
PT: If you had to recommend one Genesis story for our readers, what
would it be?
SM: The most beautiful story of all is "Joseph and His Brothers." I
didn't expect Genesis to contain a story of this greatness--which in the
Bible is now almost mined by the additions of later scribes. This is the
only story in Genesis, besides Job's, where a character undergoes a
profound spiritual transformation. As the story begins, Joseph is
described as a gifted and beloved child, but also as a spoiled brat. And
so it feels cruel but appropriate when his brothers decide to wring his
neck. Through Joseph's suffering, and years of slavery and imprisonment,
he becomes truly wise, a shaman, an interpreter of dreams, a great
political leader, a man who can open his heart to the brothers who almost
killed him and forgive them completely. A story this large-hearted
reveals God not as a character but within Joseph himself, who has come to
fully trust the intelligence of the universe. It's the most moving story
in the entire Bible.
PHOTO (COLOR)
PHOTO (COLOR): Masterpieces of Interpretation: Adam and Eve being
driven from the Garden of Eden In The Expulsion from Paradise by Charles
Joseph Natoire (page 28) and the middle panel from the Sistine Chapel's
Original Sin by Michelangelo (above).
PHOTO (COLOR): The Fall of Man, by Raphael, is yet another
translation of the story of the first man and woman. This one hangs in
the Vatican.
SELECTED WORKS BY STEPHEN MITCHELL
A Book of Psalms
Tao Te Ching
The Book of Job
The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai
The Enlightened Mind: An Anthology of Sacred Prose
The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teachings of Zen Master Seung
Sahn
The Gospel According to Jesus
Genesis
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