Things are often not what they seem.
Before I could even read, my (very Catholic) mother taught me to say a bedtime prayer that included the words "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild / look on me, a little child." She might have been shocked to learn that it was based on a Protestant hymn/prayer by the eighteenth-century churchman Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. But who could object to a prayer about the gentle, meek, and mild Jesus? Except, well, Jesus?
I had a hard time reconciling this image with that of the Jesus who drove the money-changers out of the Temple. Where did Charles Wesley get this "meek and mild" imagery? The best place to start, as usual, is the Bible. Paul of Tarsus, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter 10, Verse 1, said (KJV): "Now I Paul myself beseech you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:"
Paul's word for "meekness" comes from the Greek word πραος, which can mean meek, mild, gentle, placid, quiet, biddable, benign, or bland. Which is correct? A clue is furnished by the contrast "base/bold" in the last part of the verse. In King James English, "base" could easily mean "humble." But how much weight should we give to this characterization of Jesus by a man who never met him or heard him? I would say that we should give it very little weight, since Paul consistently calls Jesus "Christ," an equivalency that Jesus himself never made, and clearly misunderstood Rabbi Yeshua's mission.
But doesn't Jesus characterize himself in this way in Mt. 11;29? Here is the cited verse (KJV):
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest rest unto your souls.
In Hebrew Matthew, it goes like this (George Howard's translation):
(Take) my yoke as your yoke and learn of me that I am humble and good and pure of heart and you shall find rest for your souls . . ."
Because meanings have shifted in English since the time of the KJV ("meek" now has connotations such as "submissive" and "lacking in spirit," modern translations usually have something like "gentle and lowly in heart" (RSV). But the KJV did say "meek." The translators of the KJV claimed to be translating from the original languages, and I've given the constellation of meanings of the Greek πραος above. It is known that they were also heavily influenced by the Vulgate, which says "quia mitis sum et humilis corde." "Mitis" can mean gentle, meek, mild, mellow, ripe, mature, peaceful, peaceable, kindly, charitable, tender, or unanxious. So we still don't know which meaning was intended.
But would a "humble" person describe him- or herself as "humble and good and pure of heart?"
And there is a still greater problem.
Matthew 11:29 has no parallel in either Luke or Mark. Verses 11:2 through 11:27 (John the Baptist's Question to Jesus; Jesus' Words About John; Woes on the Cities of Galilee; and Jesus' Thanksgiving to the Father) are reported by Matthew and by Luke. But Mt. 11:28, 29 appear only in Matthew. We already know (from analysis of the Beatitudes, for example) that Luke used a version of Matthew that was even older than the version reflected in Shem Tob's Hebrew Matthew. [See my Layered Matthew Hypothesis.] Why would Luke not have included the beautiful Mt. 11:29? The most likely answer is that Mt. 11:29 is a latecomer, and Jesus never described himself in that way-
So, the concept of "meekness" is suspect. But what about us? Aren't we supposed to be meek? What about the Beatitudes? Well, "Blessed are the meek" comes from Psalm 37.11: "But the meek shall possess the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity." The evidence of Hebrew Matthew, and of Luke, is that "Blessed are the meek" was not originally present in the Beatitudes.
Why is any of this important? It is significant, first of all, because Jesus (Rabbi Yeshua) was one of the most influential humans who ever lived. He was, at the very least, a reformer, and may have been a true revolutionary. I don't think "meek" is a word that fits him, or ever did.
It seems to me possible that the concept of "meekness" as something to be emulated may have been foisted on us by authorities of the institutional Church, and of the State. It is clear, at least, that persons in power (mostly old, powerful, white males) did a lot of "steering" of the people (the rest of us). Being "meek" is probably not the right response.
Text © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
