Give Unto Caesar: Interpretation and Belief #2

A while back, I used the passage about a camel going through a needle's eye to illustrate the principle, taught to me in seminary, that believers have a disadvantage when it comes to interpreting the Bible.

A second example of this phenomenon is found in the famous passage where Jesus says, "give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and give unto God that which is God's".

Growing up in the church, I heard multiple interpretations of this text from the pulpit—each of them determined, not by a careful analysis of the passage, but by the preacher's worldview.

During the Vietnam war, I heard more than one preacher use the passage to defend the draft. Caesar (in this case the US government) has a right to draft people, and consequently Christians have a duty to "give unto Caesar that which was Caesar's".

Another pastor, sometime later, used the same passage to justify tithing to the church (giving the church 1/10 of a one's income)—based on the second half of the sentence.

Needless to say, neither of these reflects the meaning in the text itself.

The story there is that Jesus is approached by a group of Pharisees who have laid a neat trap for him. They ask him, publicly, whether Jews are permitted to pay taxes to the Roman government. If Jesus answers, "yes", he will discredit himself with the Jewish community. On the other hand, if he answers "no" he will get himself in trouble with the Romans.

Jesus asks the Pharisees his own question. "Whose image is on this coin?" They answer, "Caesars."

At this point, Jesus utters the famous sentence, confounding his enemies: "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and give unto God that which is God's".

Why did that sentence have that effect? Hadn't he, by uttering it, fallen neatly into their trap, by endorsing the paying of taxes?

In order to understand just how clever, but also just how heretical, Jesus was being in this story, we need a little background on two points.

First, it's very important when reading the Bible to understand that the primary mode of thought, both in ancient Israel and in first century Judaism, was parallelism. It's easy to see this in the Jewish Scriptures: "A good beating purges the mind, and blows chasten the inmost being," or "A king's guards are loyalty and good faith, his throne is upheld by righteousness." (Two examples, from a page I just turned to at random.)

Forgetting for the moment whether you agree or not with the sentiments expressed (a helpful prerogative of the unbeliever), notice the pattern in both of those examples. An idea is repeated twice (sometimes it's more) in different words. Sometimes this is merely a poetic device, but often the repeated pattern contrasts two versions of an idea, or two slightly different ideas, leading the reader to some conclusion.

In the passage we're talking about, Jesus uses parallel structure to put an unspoken idea across. Modern westerners can see this pattern better in chart form:

By his use of parallelism, Jesus is posing a question for the Pharisees. What idea completes this pattern, and what are the implications?

What has God's image stamped on it?

The answer, in the Hebrew scriptures, was well known. Humans were made in the image of God—specifically, the Pharisees themselves. Jesus has answered the Pharisees by reminding them that the important issue, in their own tradition, is not their money, but themselves.

Jesus: 2, Pharisees: Zip.

It's a very clever, and amusing story when properly understood—and insofar as anyone could twist it to apply to the draft or tithing, it would come out on the "wrong" side of the issue. (Money goes to Caesar, not the church, and it's the money that Caesar has a right to, not the person.)

More importantly, it raises all kinds questions about Jesus' view of humanity. By endorsing the idea that humans are images of God, he ties into a whole line of thought which the average preacher would rather not touch: the divinity of humanity.

The link between "image" and humans in the tradition is related to children, who are "in the image" of their parents. Adam (who was created in the image of God) "begot a son in his likeness and image". When Joseph's lineage is traced in the book of Luke, it goes all the way back to "Enosh, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God."

This, combined with the fact that Jesus taught his followers to call God "Father", throws an interesting light on Jesus' attitude toward his own divinity; did he see himself as any more divine than any other human?

All things most believers (particularly fundamentalists) would rather not think about.

At least, that's what I think today.