The Cross: A Discourse with KRS-One
A Stream of Consciousness on the Symbol of the Cross, Reading Holy Scripture, and Examples of Good and Bad Polemics
The great South Bronx MC KRS-One (that’s ‘Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everybody’, by the way) has since the beginning of his career been prolific for lyrics that lift you up or make you think, sometimes provocatively, sometimes constructively, sometimes mainly just for fun. But whatever the case, he was one of a few MCs that rapped quite a lot about religion and history, and not so much about guns and drugs. In fact he had quite a lot of so-called beef with other MCs, both ones he felt promoted the wrong kinds of things, like materialism and lacking self-respect, or idolizing violence and pimps, selling drugs, drinking Moët and Cristal, I mean, I don’t think I have to mention names, but KRS, like other ‘conscious rappers/MCs’ of the era, was taking shots at a few big names in the 90ies. If you don’t know what I mean by “conscious rapper/MC”, I recommend checking my very first piece on this Substack, here!
But KRS took other shots too, for example in his intriguing piece ‘The Truth’, from his self-titled second album from 1995. I recommend giving it a listen, either via the above Spotify link, or this Youtube-link, with lyrics if necessary. This track conjures some very interesting Biblical criticisms, analyses, and polemics, and I would love to engage with a few of them here. I will not quote the entire text in order to discuss it, but it can be found here! In the following, I quote small sections from these lyrics and discuss / talk about them, and whether KRS raises what in my opinion - and that’s important to stress, this is all my own opinion - are interesting, good, or fun critiques and polemics, or if they may need more sharpening.
Now, this piece here is not a hit-piece on KRS. He is one of my favorite MCs, I generally find his contributions to Hip-hop to have been a mixture of rousing and hilarious, and spiritually he’s one of the more interesting MCs and lyricists out there. Rather this has come into being mainly because I thought it would be fun. And since the one-year anniversary of this blog’s life is coming up, and since the first thing I posted on here was about Hip-hop and religion, it seems right to end this first year in that vein as well!
I always wanted to have a discussion around this track, as it is both thought provoking and quite fun, as well as being a relatively fresh (in the modern mainstream) take on a Biblical dogma: It critiques the use of the cross, but almost from an “inside” point of view. This, due to the way the argument is presented, the frequent use of “we” when referring to Christian believers, and KRS’ insistence on God, and not going against God, makes him occupy a position more akin to a Christian arguing, for example, that the fish (which has its own range meanings) is a much better symbol for Christianity that the cross, than to a disinterested polemic with no relationship to the faith itself - and in fact, he would be far from the first to raise this critique of the cross, also from within Christianity. This gives the whole critique / polemic an interesting twist.
However, importantly, one of the main weaknesses of KRS’ tafsīr (interpretation), a weakness shared, in my opinion, by many modern humans, both believers and non-believers, is that he reads and understands the Bible, and perhaps text more generally, quite literally. I hope both to debate his points with him in the following, but I hope my reading his lyrics and interpreting them will simultaneously serve as a living example of how many ways you can read a text that “seems simple enough to understand”. So, without further ado…
Now Separate Jesus from the Cross and you will see // The truth about the cross, and the cross is history (KRS-One 10: 11-12)
KRS fairly quickly tells us what his mission is in this rap, he wants to change our minds and perspectives when it comes to the cross, and he claims that he can do that by separating Jesus from the Cross, which KRS specifies “is history”. This is interesting, as he could imply several things here. Jesus Christ could be “not history”, but this itself can be understood in many ways: it could mean that we should understand the person of Jesus as not having really existed, but being more symbolic for a community, but it could just as well be read as a core Christian principle, that is that Jesus Christ is “outside of time”, in that He, Jesus, the Word incarnate, in most of even the oldest decidedly Christian theology, was considered to have been there with God since the beginning.
But what I think was meant by KRS in this context was not really about Jesus, and more about how you can find out about the truth of the cross as a Christian symbol by studying history. Now, while I as much as KRS encourage the study of history, in the following, I also hope to show you why, in fact, the study of history is not that simple, almost never provides “truth” in a factual, verifiable sense, and that interpretation is happening even when the most self-proclaimed literalist claims to read something “as it is written”. Okay, let’s get to the meat, the main course in our KRS discourse.
The Cross was created by the Roman government // It’s only purpose and use is capital punishment // But Jesus Christ was all about the revolution // But the cross was used at Jesus Christ’s execution // See what if Jesus Christ was hung upon a tree // Upon every church wall that’s exactly what you’d see // If Jesus Christ was shot in the head with no respect // We’d all have little gold guns around our necks // If Jesus Christ was killed in an electric chair - now get it? - you’d be kneeling to the electric chair with Jesus still in it // You gaze upon the cross, and you see the execution // You yell “stop the violence” but the cross is still used (KRS-One 10: 13-24)
Before we get into the very interesting and fun points here, first a slight nitpick, we did (seemingly) have crucifixion in use in Persia, Carthage, and some places in Hellas (Greece) before it became widespread in the Roman empire, so the Roman government did not really “create” the cross (everything about this is still being debated in scholarship, but the Roman empire seems to have used T as well as X-shaped crosses with no particular system, and there wasn’t really one super standardized methodology that appears to us in the sources, so it seems to have been more of a “nail a guy to a thing so he suffers” kind of situation). Further, the corresponding Greek and Latin terms for “crucifixion” early on could just as well have described impalement and other forms of being stuck to/suspended from something for the purpose of torture. And impalement of course was also very popular in ancient Mesopotamia, it certainly remained so (shout out to Vlad), and likely also was so before the Babylonian and Assyrian empires and kingdoms.
But apart from that, in terms of the cross’ adoption as a Christian symbol, the sentiment KRS conveys here is quite interesting, and could be accurate, but it depends on this question: Who cemented the cross as a symbol of Christianity? Who are we talking about, when we talk about “Christians” in the first half of the first millennium CE? The people who were prosecuted by Roman emperors before Christianity became a/the state cult? Gentile Jews? Jewish Jesus-followers? The Christian Roman emperors? Can we consider these people part of “the same group”?
According to a popular legend, emperor Constantine, who converted to Christianity late in his life, had a dream before the battle of Milvian bridge in 312 CE, where he saw the cross in the sky, and as a result decided to have his soldiers paint crosses on their shields on the day of the battle, which they won. 312-313 CE is typically also considered to be around the time Constantine converted (it’s debated, could also have been on his deathbed), but in reality, we have no clear indication either as to why or exactly when he did, it could have been a political move as much as a religiously motivated one (or both).
The edict of Milan in 313 CE decriminalized Christianity in the empire, and in the late 4th century emperor Theodosius I / the Great was making strides towards solidifying Nicene Christianity as the imperial cult - to such a degree that in the Middle East, particularly after the 4th Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon (451 CE), imperial Christianity before the schism of 1054 was often referred to as such - “Melkite” Christianity, from the Semitic root M L K, associated with royalty, ruling, and power. “The Christianity of the kings” or “of the empire”, so to speak.
However, already before Constantine, it seems the cross had begun being associated with Christians. This appears for example to have been the case in our earliest depiction of what is presumably Jesus on the cross (picture above), but it is also mentioned in several pre-Constantinian sources such as the Epistle of Barnabas, Justin’s Apologia, the Dialogue of Trypho and others. It appears that more extensive use of the cross in Christian iconography began increasing in the 4th century, and the cross with Jesus on it (not as a donkey) appears only to come into quite a bit later, at some point around the 5th-6th centuries. So one thing that remains clear so far is this: The “who” in charge of adopting the cross to Christianity can at most be considered a very abstracted, multiplied, often faceless “who” that likely spans a few centuries.
But there is something interesting and maybe more poignant about KRS’ point here: Jesus Christ was all about the revolution. Now, I doubt Jesus read Marx, and I don’t think that’s entirely the type of revolution KRS is referring to here. But something I’ve often considered myself, is that being “Son of God”, whether Jesus called himself this, or if it was a moniker that was granted to him (that’s a longer discussion too), it certainly could be considered a challenge to the Roman emperors who often referred to themselves as such - including on coins distributed in the Levant during the time of Jesus, with emperor Augustus as Divi Filius “Son of God”, the god in question here specifically being Jupiter.
As for KRS’ critique: Of course, one element here is that it’s just a fun thought exercise to imagine “what if Jesus had been executed instead by X, Y, Z”. But further, if the Roman empire cemented the cross as a symbol of Christianity, we only have Constantine’s dream to go off, but in this case, KRS’ critique does not really land, because in this case it is not like the victim adopting the symbol of the murderer, it’s more like the murderer taking over the entire victim’s family, and convincing them that they were actually their true family all along.
However, alternately, we could interpret KRS’ critique more simply: It is contradictory to worship the thing that killed your savior/”ancestor”. And in this case, we actually can get into a quite interesting double-layer in KRS’ commentary: KRS was certainly more on the conscious side of things in Hip-Hop, and one thing many MCs in that group criticized their fellow, slightly more gangster/player-leaning MCs for at the time was wearing gold chains - chains that in their view symbolize, in one way or another, the chains of slavery. Seeing KRS’ critique in this light, suddenly we realize a few things: Maybe this point isn’t as much about Christians wearing the cross as it’s about MCs wearing “the robe and chain”, as these gold chains are sometimes referred to? Maybe it’s about both, but regardless it’s an interesting analogy to draw, and it is also a perfect example of how analogy is used in holy scripture!
And this is where my biggest criticism of KRS’ otherwise engaging, fun, provocative tafsīr/midrash/interpretation comes in: KRS-One, if we interpret his point as above, just used an analogy inspired by the Bible to make a point about his own time. Now listen to what he says next:
Listen up, God is intelligent, reading up the Bible is irrelevant // You gotta look within yourself not a scripture // KRS-One comes to rearrange the God-picture // If you sit and believe, you can achieve // If you sit and accept you don’t know what’s correct and incorrect (KRS-One 10: 29-36)
Now, even the historian in me understands this sentiment, but I must say I believe that here, KRS actually contradicts himself and disproves his own point when he begins expanding on it - by reading the Bible. But before we get to that, a more spiritual point: Plotinus considered the inwards search to be a search upwards as well, familiarizing yourself with the divine is very much part of familiarizing yourself with yourself - a logic that within many kinds of Christianity, amongst varieties of many other religions, has very much translated to the idea that a huge part of Biblical reading also involves introspection, rumination on the verses, and finding a personal truth in scripture that, if done intensively and with purpose, is likely to be something different from most every other person who does the same. Regardless, I often find that if we look solely to scripture, and not within ourselves, or look solely within ourselves, and not also to scripture - and here, when I say “scripture”, I also mean history books and scripture outside the religion one may associate with - our perspective will always be left the poorer for it.
This brings us to what is KRS’ reason for stating that you should not read scripture, but this reason, as I mentioned, serves as the downfall of the point itself. What follows now, in my estimation, is fun and provocative, but I think it falls flat, in the end being an example of fairly poor polemics, and it makes the argument unconvincing.
KRS explains:
According to the story, according to what you believe // There was only Cain, Abel, Adam, and Eve // On the whole planet, now use your intellect // And tell me, what did Cain and Abel do for sex? // Upon the whole planet there was not another // Could it be for sex, heh, they were looking at each other? // Hold up I thought the church wasn't into that // But wait, still yet, there is another fact // How did the world get populated? // Now tell me if I'm wrong, but obviously Eve had it goin on (KRS-One 10: 41-50)
So, of course, I understand the reason for making this point is likely both to display the Bible’s “unrealistic” elements, and the tone is obviously more pointed here, most likely an effort to provoke Christians who aren’t big on homosexuality can be presumed? But this particular section is definitely the weakest point in KRS’ otherwise fun and intriguing argument: This is an attempt at reading the Bible very literally, which is often what conservatives and literalists also want/claim to do, at least in theory.
Personally, I think “reading literally” is a false concept: Firstly, it’s a practice that falls flat as soon as you’re not reading in the original language, but further than that, even reading in the original language, as you have hopefully also seen here in my treatment of KRS’ lyrics, can lead you to a myriad of interpretations, even if the language is simple and the sentence is short. Now imagine if we had tried to read KRS’ lyrics 2000 years in the future, without knowing if it was originally accompanying music, what half the words referred to, and also reading it translated through 3 languages, some of which are dead.
And you could argue that reading the story of Adam, Eva, and then Cain and Abel, it could look like there would have only been these four people alive - but it’s obviously not the case, Cain marries, and even though the Bible is vague, even the most ancient rabbinic traditions will insist that you have to read it with some degree of interpretation or allegory in order to understand it!
This, for example is the case in very stirring rabbinic interpretations (Tanhuma Bereshit 9, and even more so Midrash Rabbah Bereshit 22: 9) that deals with the murder in Genesis of Abel by Cain, because God appears to favor Abel, and God not stopping that murder, and how to deal with that. Was God being unfair, was Abel’s death God’s fault in any sense? This is, in fact, with a precautionary “this is difficult to say”, what Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai concludes in Midrash Rabbah Bereshit 22:9.
As such, KRS’ very literal reading falls flat in the end. Particularly considering how long the literalism of this particular part of the Bible has been called into question, read analogically, and interpreted in a myriad of ways that take it very far from what appears to be the “original text”.
If you remember my papers on solving scriptural interpretation in both Judaism and Islam, you will know that the idea of literal reading of holy scripture is something which has in fact not ever really been a hegemonic, interpretation has been at the core of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, since their very earliest days, but streams and traditions have grown out of them, that value or devalue interpretation more or less than others, take for example the rather highly interpretative Catholicism, versus the much more text-oriented attitude of Lutheranism. This kind of subdivision we also see between liberal and reformist versus orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jews, or between the Hanbali and Hanafi law schools in Islam (more on those schools in an upcoming paper!).
What this means is that even though this particular polemic around Cain and Abel is a fun reading that would certainly get a rise out of a few conservatives here and there, it’s based on a pretty “flat” and partially uninformed reading, which, while the notion that “huh, how did Cain and Able procreate” is widespread, it is also one that has been noted, debated, and largely negated via interpretation in all the religious traditions many hundreds of years ago. As such, this polemic only works in a vacuum that does not account for the existence of any religious interpretative tradition, but only accounts for the existence of the text in a void and treats the text as a modern history book. This, in my opinion, just does not lend itself to effective critique or polemic, as it misses the nature of the text.
Mistaking religion for an extremely literalist version of a religion is a mistake I think many modern “atheist” or religion-critics often make - it is one I used to make all the time as well. However, I think, and I hope to have shown here, that for both believers and non-believers, literalism is far from “orthodox”, at least it’s not any more orthodox than analogy and interpretation in any sense, in fact, based on the intellectual traditions of the Bible, or the Qur’an, or any other holy scripture, I’d argue the opposite.
And I think, in reality, even though this piece started with a critique of this point, if we separate Jesus from the cross, that is, if we understand the value in religion, that makes it much easier to talk about and deal with the things we enjoy less about it, for example stagnant rules or concepts that may need re-evaluation or discussion, either because they have lost meaning, because the context for them has changed, or because the sentiments of believers have changed. All these are and have historically been legitimate reasons for scholars, regardless of creed, to interpret holy scripture, and debate their interpretations.
There are many other super interesting points I could have discussed and critiqued here, such as referring to God as “her”, or the bar “So I say listen, listen open up your third-eye-vision // God is not down with religion”, but I think this has been enough text interpretation for all our brains today! As I said in the beginning, this was more than anything just meant to be a fun thought-exercise, in pseudo-celebration of the almost-anniversary of this Substack. I hope you found it interesting, fun, thought stimulating, or at the very least entertaining!
As always, thank you for your time, dear reader. And thank you for celebrating this milestone with me! Until next time.