Christ and Canon

The Historical Jesus

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Five Views Introduction

  1. Introduction
  • The interest in Jesus has not waned since the time of his life.
  • Everyone wants Jesus.
  • The question is what piece do they want.
  • The quest for the historical Jesus.
  • This comes out of the enlightenment. For many before this, it would be an odd sounding question.
  • You should simply go to the New Testament.

The World of the Gospels:

Miracles happen—Jesus walks on water, turns water into wine, raises the dead

The Modern World

People don’t walk on water, turn water into wine, raise the dead.

What should we do with this fact? How do we reconcile the world of Jesus with the modern world?

If you do not take the New Testament picture, then we need to dig into the New Testament as well as the first century Roman/Palestinian culture and find the Jesus of history.

And: the three ground rules of enlightenment thinking when it comes to historical research (understanding events of the past) are:

  • Continuity = suggests that the world in which Jesus lived is the same one as ours and operates by the same rules.
  • Causality = tells us that all events in history are related. One even caused another, etc.
  • Correction = reminds us that no conclusions are final. All analysis and reconstructions are subject to further revision.

Who is the Jesus of history? Two challenges for the rationalist:

  1. What to do with miracles? How can we, they ask, find the real Jesus behind the clearly embellished picture of Jesus (as miraculous)?
  2. The idea is that we need to shift the focus away from the miracles, Jesus is to be followed, not because he is a miracle worker, but because his is a great moral teacher.
  3. While the “miracle” no longer remains, the spiritual truth behind the miracle persists (this idea would be dismissed as the movement progressed into the 19th and 20th century).
  4. Feeding of the 5,000—Jesus public example of a little boy sharing his small lunch stirred the selfish hearts of the crowd (who had brought their own food), and so they quietly began to share their provisions as well. The miracle, it is argued, was the miracle of turning selfish misers into gracious givers—a spiritual miracle indeed.
  1. How do we understand Jesus’ actions?The second challenge for the enlightened historian attempting to discover the historical Jesus is that the historian needs to find a better way to understand the actions of Jesus.
  2. The need is to explain a comprehensive motive for his actions, what was he up to?
  3. Karl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741-1792)-one of the first attempts to offer an explanation: Jesus was an Essence trying to free the Jewish nation from oppression.
  1. The Four Stages of the Quest for the Historical Jesus
  • Prior to the Enlightenment, it was widely assumed that the Jesus presented in the Bible was the man who lived and died and rose in Palestine in the first century. Thus, to study Jesus was to study what the Bible had to say about Jesus.
  • What has come to be known as the “quest for the historical Jesus” is the child of the 18th century and the European Enlightenment.” (P. 10, 5 Views). There are four stages:
  1. The “Old Quest” or the First Quest for the Historical Jesus (1778-1906)
  • Begins with the publication of the work of Hermann Reimarus in 1778.
  • Reimarus (1694-1768) was a German professor of Semitic languages
  • Has become “the Father” of the quest.
  • His book disputed the connection between the “Jesus of history” and the “Christ of faith.”
  • Situated Jewish apocalyptic thought at its center—and was one of the first to argue for a clear distinction between the actual Jesus of history and the Gospels’ presentation of him.
  • Conclusion: the real Jesus of history was a would-be Messaih figure who hoped to establish an earthly kingdom through revolutionary force.
  • Christian faith arose because the disciples stole the body, fabricated the resurrection story and eventually concocted the story that Jesus was the savior of the world. (p. 12-13)
  • David Strauss: Jesus and ‘myth’
  • 1808-1874, his book The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835) became one of the most controversial Jesus books ever written.
  • Methodological naturalism (ask what this is) resulted in a core of bare facts about Jesus and his ethical teachings.
  • Applied the lens of “myth” to the gospels (p. 16) – gospels are sacred legends.
  • Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) – its publication now marks the end of the Old Quest.
  • Argued that the proper context for understanding Jesus was a failed Jewish apocalyptic eschatology.
  • Jesus was an end-times enthusiast, even though he was ultimately a failed apocalyptic prophet.

One Conservative Response: In the face of such skepticism, efforts to shore up the historical credibility of the gospels were made. The result:

  • Discipline of modern source criticism of the Gospels.
  • During this time, the “two source” theory of Gospel relations came to prominence—the view that Mark was written first and that, along with an early written collection of Jesus’ sayings labeled “Q” (from German word “Quelle”, meaning source), was used by both Mathew and Luke in the composition of their Gospels.

One of the problems with the first quest (and a problem for the various quests moving) forward is the tendency to find a Jesus in our making. (Tyrrell: we look into the deep well of history in search of Jesus, we tend to see our own reflection)

  1. The “No Quest” period (1906-1953)

According to these scholars, many of whom were existentialists, virtually nothing of the Jesus of history could be known. This is not a worry since it is the “Christ of faith” who has impacted the world.

During this period, the quest for the historical Jesus was hampered by some new developments in the field:

  1. The common criticism of Schweitzer regarding those questers who had come before him that they inevitably found in their sources a Jesus created in their own image (this fostered skepticism).
  2. Schweitzer’s own conclusions about Jesus—that he was ultimately something like a wild-eyed and ultimately mistaken prophet of doom—left little for modern Europeans to embrace.
  3. The development of Form Criticism – which focuses on the question of the pre-Gospel oral Jesus tradition, bringing with it several methodological assumptions that served to further amplify skeptical attitudes towards the Gospels as historical sources.
  4. The conviction that the Gospels were a mixture of historically rooted tradition and early Christian myth—Result: form criticism served to reveal that a largely impenetrable veil of myth separated the modern scholar from the Jesus of history. (read the quote by Bultmann on p. 22).
  1. A theological objection to the Old Questers: the quest is unnecessary – even illegitimate- a journey down a blind alley—since the “historical Jesus of modern authors conceals from us the living Christ (of faith).
  1. The New Quest (second Quest) 1953-1970s

Two ironies of the New Quest:

#1 – It was launched in Bultmann’s very presence by one of his former students. (Ernest Kasemann and his lecture “The problem of the Historical Jesus” given on October 20, 1953.

#2: Kasemann’s objection to the “No questers” was theological too: he argued that there must be a renewed quest for the historical Jesus to avoid the heresy of Docetism (the denial of Jesus’ true humanity). So, the need for a renewed quest was inspired by the necessity of demonstrating continuity between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith (which is ironic because this distinction is what generated the first quest).

Many of the 2nd questers had seen the results of a Christ separated from his historical moorings as pre-World War II Nazi Germany created a “largely unJewish Christ.”

Three new developments from this stage:

  1. Rise of redaction criticism (in the 1950s) – driven by the conviction that the authors of the Gospels did not function as mere collectors of earlier traditions, but allowed their own literary and theological tendencies to shape the gospel texts. This added a new layer of editorial fabrication that separates the reader of the Gospels and the historical Jesus.
  2. The Q document took on new importance in this era as many within the Bultmannian wing came to see it not merely as a supplementary sayings list, but rather a full-blown “Gospel” in its own right.
  3. During this time criteria were designated to determine the potential historical authenticity of the Gospel material. (such as the criteria of double dissimiliarty – p. 27 – discuss).

A hallmark of 2nd questers is a movement away from the canonical gospel and a higher value on other ancient sources such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of the Hebrews and other non-canonical fragments.

The Jesus seminar is really a continuation of the 2nd quest.

  • The Jesus Seminar – Jefferson’s legacy
  • Jefferson’s influence on the religious life of American can be felt in two ways:
  • His contribution to the rise of “Golden Rule Christians”—who believe that the essence of true religion lies in right living rather than right thinking. (p. 33)
  • His inspiration for the Jesus Seminar – Founding NT scholar Robert Funk. The group first met in Berkeley, CA in March of 1985.
  • Jesus seminar tried to “free the “Jesus of history” from the fetters of traditional Christianity and the “Christ of faith.”
  • They determined by voting, on what they thought were the true saying of Jesus (red), probably true sayings of Jesus (pink), the ideas, but not saying of Jesus (grey) and things Jesus did not say (black).
  • Jesus seminar is a continuation of the disenchanted view of the world: Funk’s “Twenty One Theses” begins with “The God of the metaphysical age is dead.” –NB: this is essentially Jefferson, a deny of the supernatural, the transcendent.
  • See also #6: “Jesus should be given a demotion” – he is no longer to be thought of as divine.
  1. The Third Quest (1980-present)

This quest is characterized by a desire to place Jesus in the context of first-century, Second Temple Judaism.

  • The investigation is conducted separately from the question of Christology; that is, it is conducted apart from traditional confessions regarding Jesus.
  • Instead the goal of the historical research in the third quest is to locate Jesus as an actual historical Figure.
  • NT Wright is an active advocate of the third quest.

See chart from p. 130 of The Cradle, The Cross, and the Crown. – Nice summary—discuss.

  1. Current State of the Third Quest (and things to watch for)
  • The Question of “Faith” – the Jesus of history doesn’t matter if faith is merely trust in the Christ of Faith. But, if faith is trust + belief in facts, then the historical Jesus is important. So, there is a debate about the nature of faith (reasonable faith vs. fidism)
  • Read list of important issues on p. 35.
  • The Question of miracles and methodological naturalism – there is a decidedly anti-supernatural bias among Jesus seminar folks, and many 3rd questers.
  • The role of presuppositions in historical studies—some admit they have them, some don’t. But—it is a myth that all are neutral. We will do well to look at the presuppositions that are operative with each scholar.

The current consensus on Jesus:

  1. The Jewishness of Jesus – a Jesus divorced from first-century Palestinian Judaism cannot be the Jesus of history. There is consensus on this fact today.
  2. There is no consensus on whether Jesus was apocalyptic –
  3. There is value in understanding Jesus’ own self-understanding, his aims and motives.

After this (meager picture): Anything goes…

Here are some of the contemporary challengers to the NT portrayal of Jesus:

  1. The Traveling Cynic Philosopher. (J D. Crossan). Crossan argues that Jesus preached and practiced a radical egalitarianism that abolished all social hierarchies and distinctions.
  2. All people have equal access to God.
  3. Jesus’ agenda was a social rather than a spiritual one.
  1. The Charismatic Faith Healer (Marcus Borg) – Jesus is a charismatic figure who had visionary or mystical experiences of God and somehow functioned as a channel of God’s power for others.
  1. The apocalyptic Prophet (EP Sanders) –Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who expected the climax of human history during his lifetime or shortly thereafter.
  1. The Social Reformer (G. Theissen) –Jesus is a social reformer that embraced a lifestyle that renounced possessions and family ties and was devoted to homelessness, peace, and egalitarianism.
  1. The Feminist Jesus (E. S. Fiorenza) –Jesus is a radical reformer who wished to liberate women and other marginalized people from the male-dominated social structures and Roman imperialism. Jesus envisioned and worship God as Sophia (and not abba), Sophia is a feminine portrayal of deity.
  1. The Sage (B. Witherington) –Jesus is a teacher of wisdom or a sage who regarded himself as the embodiment or incarnation of God’s wisdom. (Wisdom as personified in ancient texts such as Proverbs 8).
  1. A Marginal Jew (J. P. Meier) –Jesus was seen as marginal for at least three reasons (1) Jesus marginalized himself by abandoning his livelihood as a carpenter and undertaking an itinerant prophetic ministry; (2) Jesus teachings and practices were marginal because they did not comport well with the views and practices of the major Jewish sects of his time; (3) Jesus’ shameful and brutal execution shows he had been pushed to the margins of society by the political and religious establishment in Palestine.
  1. The Risen Messiah (N. T. Wright, C. Keener) –Jesus is a divine messianic figure who rose from the dead.

Show chart from p. 139, The Cradle, The Cross, and the Crown.