Matching the Message to the Market

                                                                                              

            I just got my hands on a copy of The Heliand.   Some of you may be familiar with this work.  It’s also known as the Saxon Gospels.  In about 820 AD, King Louis the Pius, the son and immediate successor of Charlemagne, commissioned a Saxon poet to translate the New Testament into the Saxon language.  He felt that the long and bloody struggle to convert the Saxons to Christianity might be easier if the Saxons could hear the stories of the gospel read to them in their own language.   

            But the poet tinkered with the message to match the market.  Instead of a “word for word” transliteration, he produced an imaginative fiction--loosely inspired by the gospels. It is a heroic epic poem in which Jesus is depicted as a warrior chieftain of a band of bold thanes.  Of course, that is exactly the kind of story that these people could relate to.  The Saxons are the original “Klingons.” For the gospel to be at all attractive to them, the poet had to add a little “Saxon violence.”  In the early nineteenth century, this work was re-constructed and translated into modern German and modern English.  I’m using an English translation from the Old Saxon done by Mariana Scott, published in 1966 by the University of North Carolina press. Let me share a brief excerpt.  This is the account of the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Olives.  I’ll pick up the story just after Judas has betrayed Jesus with a kiss, and the mob of angry Jews is about to seize Jesus:

           

They surrounded Christ Savior.            There stood the wise men

Grieving greatly--            Christ’s goodly disciples,

Before this most dreadful deed;            and to their Dear Lord they did speak:

“Were it now Thy will,” quoth they,                “My Wielder, My Liege,

That they shall slay us                        with the spear-point here,

Shall wound us with weapons,            then would naught be one whit as good,

But that we might die                        here for our Dear Lord,

Pale in expiring.              Then plenteously wroth grew he,

The swift swordsman,                        Simon Peter.

It welled up with his heart,             so that not a word could he speak,

So sorrowed his soul,                        since they were about to enchain

His Beloved Lord there.            Bloated with anger, the bold-minded

Thane strode ahead,                        stood before his Liege,

Hard by his Lord;                        nor was his heart e’er in doubt,

Fearful within his breast,            but he drew his bill,

The sword at his side,             and with the strength of his arm

He struck the first of the foe                        standing before him,

So that Malchus            was marked by the knife

On his right side,                        slashed by the sword’s edge.

His hearing had been hewn:                        sore was the hurt  ‘round his head,

So that sword-gory,                        cheek and ear in mortal wound

Burst sunder,                         and blood did spring forth,

Welling up from the wound.                        Then was the cheek indeed scarred

Of the enemy’s leader.            Those around stood away,

Dreading the bite of the bill.                         Then spake  God’s Bairn

Himself to Simon Peter, said                        that he should put his sword,

The sharp one, back in its scabbard.              “If I truly cared,” said He,

"To wage conflict            against this crowd of the warriors,

Then I would remind Him,  the Glorious,            the Almighty God,

The Holy Father            in the Kingdom of Heaven,

That He send hither to Me            a host of His angels,

Wise in warfaring;                        these men could not indeed withstand

Their weapon-strength ever.                        Nor could such a host of warriors

Stand against them, though gathered            together in groups.

Still they could not save their lives.                        But the All-Wielding Lord,

The Father Almighty,                         hath marked it otherwise:

We are to bear all the bitterness,             whatsoever these

                        People bring unto us…”            

            If this strikes you as radically different from any biblical account of this event you’ve ever read, you’re absolutely right.  Jesus was not a warrior chieftain—He was a spiritual leader.  The disciples were not a band of bold thanes—they were Jewish fishermen, and the Jews were not a clan. Peter did own a sword, and he did attempt to defend Jesus.  And yes, he did draw that sword and smite the servant of the High Priest, severing his ear.  But in no way was he any kind of berserker.  In fact, the whole point of the original story—that Jesus had deliberately surrendered himself to be crucified—is eclipsed by this emphasis on the boldness and courage of the disciples.  But the idea of meekly surrendering was totally foreign to the Saxons.  They were, in effect, the original “Klingons.”  So the story had to be altered to make the message match the market.

            I’ve shown you a portion of the Heliand to make a simple point, which is that throughout history, all Christian scriptures, and for that matter, scriptures of all religions have been regularly and systematically re-interpreted make the message match the market.  You can’t sell buggy whips to sky-divers, or snowmobiles to Bedouins.   A church that refused to re-interpret its message to meet the challenge of changing expectations of the faithful would be like a used car dealer that refused to roll back the odometers.  There might actually be a few such dealers, but that’s not how you stay in business.   Any scriptural text is subject to a variety of interpretations.