Jesus as the Anti-Hero?

With everything that we've read about traditional heroes, I find myself agreeing with Megan S. that Jesus is certainly not traditional; I would actually take that argument one step further, however, to say that Jesus was, in many ways, the anti-hero.

We talked a lot about rationality and reason as heroic qualities in the GrecoRoman tradition, and consistently throughout the gospel of John, Jesus not only speaks in an irrational manner, but also behaves in a way that completely contradicts the traditional Jewish way of life. He seemed to speak in riddles, talking of water that will "never thirst…[but spring] up into everlasting life" (John 4:14) and being "born again" in order to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). How can plain water give you eternal life? And "how can a man be born when he is old?" (John 3:4) It may be easy for scholars to look back now and point out all the symbolism and metaphors, but for the people in Jesus' time, the words sounded like fantasy.

Jesus did not stop at mysterious phrases and stories, however; he also took the rule book that the Jewish people had spent generations following and practically threw it out the window. The Pharisees and other religious leaders had built their reputations and lives around reducing the commandments and will of God into countless rules and regulations that they prided themselves on, much as the modern world has reduced the passion and wisdom of Jesus' story into bite-sized chunks and self-help phrases, as Brad and Chetna both mentioned. But Jesus knew the difference between the "divine" and "human" knowledge that Socrates talked about (Anthology 58); he knew that true faith and obedience to God was not about following a list of rules, but about having a loving heart, modeled after God's. The Pharisees in their human knowledge may have "sought to slay him" for healing a man on the Sabbath, the day of rest, but divine knowledge sees the will of God in the act, and so it is not a sin.

The great controversy over Jesus lies in the fact that he was such an anti-hero; he was not at all what the Jewish people or the rest of the world expected. We can see through literary examples that the Greeks and Romans defined their heroes as having such characteristics as strength and valor in battle. Hercules, the epitome of the Greek hero, possessed unnatural strength, and went around clubbing monsters to death all of his life; it doesn't seem to matter that a majority of his time as a mortal was spent trying to atone for all the people he had accidentally or purposefully killed out of anger. The Jewish people, though valuing compassion in their heroes, seemed to expect a very Hercules-like messiah to come rescue them from the oppression of the Roman Empire; they expected a general and a king, but they got a man who "hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2). He is certainly not "Super Jesus," and he never claims to be. To use Brad's idea of commercialization, the Jews expected an epic blockbuster with swords and fire and glory, but instead they got a low-budget documentary, or at least what seemed that way.

Jesus rarely got angry, he never fought back, he spent his time with the dregs of society, and worst of all…he died. What kind of a hero just ups and dies? Why didn't he rip himself off of the cross and storm the castle gates surrounded by lightning and angels and all God's glory? That would be human knowledge, though. Jesus taught that humility was the real answer. He taught that you must "love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for the happiness of those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other cheek" (Luke 6:27-29). And when asked to defend himself to Pilate under pain of death, he "gave him no answer" (John 19:9).