Jesus the Healer

This is one of the most intriguing and insightful sources that I have found to date on the topic of spirit possession and trance. Using the stories of Jesus from the "Gospels" as a foundation, Davies Davies builds with knowledge that we have gained from modern anthropological and psychological studies to construct an incredible understanding of trances, spiritual possession, and healing in the ancient (and even modern) Middle East. What is more amazing is that he does it all without resorting to mystical mumbo-jumbo and spiritual claptrap. He brings these phenomena down to the human level where we can appreciate them for what they are: part of the human experience. Even more amazing is that the book is readable. Whether you are a wide-eyed religious fanatic needing a bit of grounding in the real world or a hard-core skeptic needing to understand that trances and "possessions" are real phenomena rooted in human psychology and brain chemistry this book will open your eyes to a very different view of the human world around you.

'Jesus of history as a spirit-possessed healer whose healing was effected by induction of spirit possession analogous to the psychotherapeutic techniques of Milton Erickson'The are only a handful of books dealing with evidence of the practice of hypnosis in the Ancient World. This is one of the best. Well-written, intelligent and orignal.

Given that alternate states of consciousness are associated with religions--whether examined cross-culturally or historically--it is somewhat surprising that the Jesus literature has ignored this fact. Until the publication of Davies's book, that is. Why this gaping hole in the literature? Either Jesus scholars have not read widely in the religion literature, or have themselves never experienced alternate states of consciousness--or both. I suspect that the second factor is the more important one--and reflects the fact that most Jesus scholars have come from a socio-economic class that precludes their having had much, if any, contact with contemporary pentecostalists. I read Davies's book several years ago (shortly after it was published), and the book sticks in my mind because I can't think of another book about Jesus that displays more creativity than Davies's book (not surprising given that creativity is not particularly welcomed in academia, "normal" research being what's prized, as Thomas S. Kuhn has argued). Granted that a creative book is not THEREBY a good book; but Davies's book IS a good book--and for two reasons. First, it makes a very plausible argument for a facet of Jesus's ministry that has been all but ignored by Jesus scholars. My main complaint is that Davies goes too far in arguing that he is presenting an ALTERNATE view of Jesus. I think, rather, that he should have stated that he was presenting a COMPLEMENTARY view--and then indicated how his particular puzzle piece fits into the larger picture of Jesus, as presented by critical scholars. Second, one of the problems of the dominant scholarly view of Jesus (that he was an apocalypic) is that it renders Jesus virtually irrelevant for the modern. For why should one today be interested in an individual who, 2000 years ago, (1) made a false prediction (i.e., that God's arrival was imminent), (2) offered an ethic that was premised on the assumption that God's arrival was imminent, and (3) whose ministry was a "bust" (given, e.g., that the "orthodox" Christianity that emerged to dominance had--and has--virtually no relationship with his ministry)? Insofar as Jesus attained alternate states of consciousness, and we can do the same today (also through "natural" means), we can emulate some aspects of Jesus's ministry. (Davies does not state this, but such a conclusion is implicit in his discussion.) Thus, Davies's thesis helps us arrive at a picture of Jesus that makes Jesus relevant for us moderns. Which picture is the only one that is of ultimate interest anyway.

When this book first came out it was attacked by some critics. I think this was for a couple of reasons. Davies denies the "Teacher" model as a primary explanation for who Jesus was and he posits that some of the Jesus sayings in the Gospel of John may stem from early sources and possibly Jesus himself. When I first read this book that latter contention rankled me. After all New Testament scholarship usually assumes all low christology to be early and high christology to be late. This works when we consider Mark the earliest gospel because Mark's Jesus is more human there than other gospel presentations of him. There is much good evidence that Mark is earlier than Matthew or Luke and that parts of John are late. The rub here is that Paul wrote before any of this and his christology is very high. It could be that parts of John come from a source or tradition that is early. Davies doesn't try to defend that here because that would be a book in itself and there is just not enough evidence, so far at least, to link pericopes from John to an earlier independent source or tradition. Davies view of the Historical Jesus as a spirit possessed healer brings to mind studies of primitive people and their various trance states. These trance like altered states of consciousness have been found in so many different primitive cultures even in modern times. Jesus's followers believed he had the spirit of god in him and later after his death they sought to have Jesus's spirit come into them and encouraged others to let Jesus's spirit enter them and dwell inside them. Historical Jesus books come and go and many,(most), are forgotten in a few years. I think perhaps this monograph by Davies just might be regarded as a classic some day.

Davies provides some answers to questions that have eluded the first two thousand years of Christianity. While Jesus spoke more about spirit and the Kingdom of God than anything else, traditional Christianity hardly addresses them. We have little chance of understanding Jesus without looking at these phenomena. I do tend to differ with Davies when he states that Jesus was not a teacher. I see no reason why he couldn't teach both verbally and experientially. I would recommend this book to any serious student of the real Jesus, and I am disappointed it is not more widely available. The Parables of Jesus by Richard Q. Ford is a good companion to this book. Ford, like Davies, makes the reader look at the parables in whole new ways.