Category: The Historical Jesus

How Do We Know What Jesus Actually Said and Did?

(This is the fourth in a series of brief articles on the historical Jesus. Together the pieces are intended to assist those who wish to “dig deeper” into the scholarly foundations of postmodern faith and to understand the methodology behind the postings on the blog site.)

Last week we considered seven conclusions drawn from the biblical scholarship that has emerged since the “Enlightenment” of the eighteenth century. As far as the Christian Testament is concerned, one of the most important discernments of that scholarship is the difference between the pre-resurrection “Jesus of history” and the post-resurrection “Jesus of faith.” How do scholars tell the difference?  For example, how do participants in “the Jesus Seminar” decide what Jesus actually said as opposed to words put in Jesus’ mouth by the early church? They do so by applying the following half dozen criteria.

a)      Multiple attestation from independent sources: If a saying or event is supported not only by the canonical gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, but also by newly discovered texts like the Gospel of Thomas, or of Mary Magdalene, then the saying or event  probably belongs to the historical Jesus.

b)      Dissimilarity: If words or deeds attributed to Jesus would be embarrassing to the early church, they were probably included because the words were actually said or the deeds performed. An example of such inclusion would be Jesus’ baptism at the hands of John.  This event diverges from the underlying and evident intentions of the Gospel authors. That intent was to present Jesus as the fullest revelation of God (and eventually as God himself). But being baptized by John suggests that Jesus was John’s disciple. It implies John’s superiority to Jesus. So having Jesus baptized by John is counterproductive – or “dissimilar” from the authors’ purposes. The Gospel authors, however, point it out anyway, indicating that the baptism actually took place; that everyone knew about it; and that it had to be explained away. The rationalizing explanations take the form of having John say, “I am not worthy to loose the sandals of this man” (Mk. 1:7). Or “I should be baptized by you. How is it that you come to me for baptism?” (Mt. 3:14). Dissimilarity also applies to the radical nature of Jesus’ teaching. When Jesus is presented as doing or saying something that radically departs from accepted rabbinical teaching (dissimilar to it), that’s probably the historical Jesus surfacing. For instance, when Jesus pardons the woman caught in adultery, and says, “Neither do I condemn you,” that’s probably Jesus’ voice. The immediate addition, “Now go and sin no more,” is probably the voice of the author who is still influenced by conventional rabbinical teaching and is scandalized by Jesus’ “liberalism” (Jn. 8:11).

c)       Semitisms: The Gospels were written in Greek. When Aramaic words (the language of Jesus) are included in the text (and immediately translated by the Gospel author), that’s good reason to believe that the Aramaic words were remembered as actually spoken by Jesus. For instance, in the cure of the daughter of Jairus, Jesus is remembered as saying “Talitha cumi” (Mk. 5:41).

d)      Context reflecting the circumstances of the early church rather than of Jesus: This is a negative criterion. It means that words and/or deeds that reflect the circumstances of the early church [e.g. about church leadership (Mt. 16:13-20); about resolution of disputes within it (Mt. 18:15); about divorce and remarriage (Lk. 16:18)] were probably not spoken by Jesus. Similarly, words and/ or deeds attributed to Jesus that do not accord with his historical context or with the overall thrust of his teaching are to be identified as inauthentic. For example if God is presented as punishing and vengeful, the presentation probably represents the voice of the authors who still could not break away from the traditional way of thinking that Jesus himself revised and rejected.

e)      Vividness of description. Inclusion of vivid details indicates a memory closely associated with Jesus’ actual words and deeds. For instance when Jesus is described as spitting on dirt and making a paste to cure a man’s blindness (Jn. 9:6), that’s probably what happened.

f)       Coherence with acts or statements otherwise identified as authentically attributable to Jesus: Words or deeds that accord with those established as authentic through application of the previously mentioned criteria qualify as probably belonging to the historical Jesus.

Next Week: The Five Stages in the Development of New Testament Tradition

Lessons Drawn from Modern Scripture Scholarship: (Part 3 in a Series on the Historical Jesus)

(This is the third in a series of Monday “classes” for those wishing to deepen their understanding of the historical Jesus and the biblical sources of their faith.) 

Last week we reviewed the history of modern scripture scholarship. The significant events recorded there have made a difference. For instance, since the seventeenth century, scientific method has greatly influenced biblical studies. New fields of study developed over the last 300 years and applied to the Bible have yielded unprecedented insight. These academic disciplines include archeology, linguistics, political science, economics, sociology, psychology, comparative religion . . . New literary discoveries (including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic documents of Nag Hamadi) have provided previously unknown versions of canonical texts as well as alternative gospel narratives suppressed since the fourth century. Obviously then we have more information about the Bible than any generation before us. This information has changed the way scholars view Sacred Scripture. It has led them to draw important conclusions that they didn’t tell you about in Sunday school, and still haven’t shared from the pulpit.

Let me name just a few of the conclusions I personally have drawn from my reading, studying, and teaching the sources I’m referring to. I’ll try to do so in the most direct unvarnished way I can. Obviously chapters might be written on each point:

1.       The Bible is not the inerrant or inspired Word of God valid for all time. Rather, the Bible represents the word of men (sic) who were trying to make sense of life in the light of their religious faith and the knowledge that was available to them at the time. The Bible is conditioned by history. It is full of historical and geographical errors, as well as understandings of God that are contradictory, primitive, repulsive, and not in line with the teachings of Jesus. Nonetheless many parts of the Bible can be considered “inspired” – just as parts of Shakespeare might be so considered.

2.       The Bible is not a single book with chapters, but a library of books. Literary types in the Bible include myth, legend, debate, fiction, law, parable, allegory, miracle stories, letters, gospel, apocalypse, and prophecy to name a few.  These entries were written and revised by many authors in many drastically different historical contexts. Moreover to mistake the literary form of any text is to mistake the meaning.  For example to read the myths contained in the Book of Genesis as though they were history is to miss the profound truths those myths contain. To read the fictional story of Jonah and to focus discussion on whether a human can live for days in the belly of a whale is to similarly miss the story’s powerful point about receptivity to prophecy.

3.       The ancient idea of history was different from our modern idea. Ancient history did not have the benefit of digital recorders or phone cameras. Words and accounts of events were published long after the fact. So speeches and events often had to be “reconstructed” according to what historians imagined took place or thought appropriate. Moreover, unlike their modern counterparts, ancient historians were more interested in the meaning of the events they reported than in accurately recording what happened. Hence we should not be surprised when events are exaggerated or otherwise enhanced to bring out the authors’ “lessons.”

4. The Bible should not be read a-historically, but contextually. The Bible was not written for us. Hence it is a mistake to read it “a-historically” (i.e. as it were written in a historical vacuum by writers who had us in mind). Rather, biblical entries were composed for the communities their various authors were addressing over a period of more than a thousand years.  The books should therefore be read “contextually,” i.e. with their historical circumstances and the intentions of their authors in mind. Of course, biblical inclusions do contain meaning for us. However discovering that meaning in circumstances vastly different from those characterizing their original composition is risky business, and must be done with caution and humility.

5.       Biblical content should be judged according to the “Principle of Analogy.” This principle states that “We should not ordinarily expect to have happened in the past what is presumed or proven to be impossible in the present.” Application of this principle causes scholars to “demythologize” miraculous events such as the Crossing of the Red Sea or the Feeding of the 5000. Doing so doesn’t mean that believers can’t or shouldn’t take at face value the accounts in question. However it does make it possible for skeptics in a secular society to honor such accounts without having to take them literally.

6.       The Jesus of history is different from the Christ of faith. Examination of Gospel sources shows that faith about Jesus of Nazareth developed and deepened over time. During his life Jesus made prophetic proclamations about the Kingdom of God – what the world would be like if God were king instead of Caesar. That was the Gospel of Jesus: “Repent the Kingdom of God is at hand.” After his death and the experience of “resurrection,” the Gospel of Jesus was replaced with the Church’s Gospel about Jesus: “Jesus is Lord.” Moreover, following the resurrection experience, faith in Jesus “real presence” in the community had church members believing that he continued addressing those communities’ problems through Christians endowed with the gift of prophecy. And so, gospel writers had no trouble placing those post-resurrection prophetic words into the mouth of the pre-resurrection Jesus.

7. Criteria are available to discover the Jesus of history. The difference between the Jesus of History and the Jesus of Faith has made scholars (for example in the “Jesus Seminar”) wonder just what it was that the historical Jesus said and did. They have developed criteria for separating the words and deeds of the pre-resurrection Jesus from those of the post-resurrection Christ. Those criteria will be the focus of next week’s “class.”

Modern Scripture Scholarship and Its Search for the Jesus of History

What I call “modern scripture scholarship” refers to the essentially inter-disciplinary approach to the Bible that has developed over the last 400 years. To me it seems nearly criminal that the nature and results of this intense and fruitful study has been kept secret and not shared with the “faithful in the pews” who are perfectly capable of understanding its processes and conclusions.

In fact, not sharing this secret has driven many thinking people away from the church as they reject as fantastic and unbelievable the understandings of faith they accepted as children, but which seem incompatible with what they know about science and the world in general.

As our inroad to understanding this topic, let’s examine the distinction it makes between the Jesus of history and Jesus the Christ. “Jesus of history” refers to the prophet who was directly experienced by his community in Palestine for a short period around 30 C.E. (Common Era). “Jesus the Christ” refers to the identity Jesus assumed in the faith of the early Christian community, especially between the time of Jesus’ death (between 31 and 33) and the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.), when Jesus’ identity as the unique Son of God was defined. As we will see, the Jesus of history is quite different from the Jesus of faith. (By the way, there is a wonderful PBS film series on this topic that I highly recommend, “From Jesus to Christ:” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/)

For starters, let’s try to understand how modern scholars got to the distinction between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith. It all began with the 17th century’s initiation of the Scientific Revolution. Galileo Galilei’s “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” set the tone. The letter responded to criticisms from the Vatican’s Holy Office of the Inquisition advanced in 1616 charging that Galileo’s theory of a heliocentric universe was “absurd in philosophy, formally heretical, and expressly contrary to scripture.”

In his response, the great astronomer argued that God is revealed in two ways, in Sacred Scripture and in nature. Sacred Scripture was written for simple folk, he said. Its statements are often ambiguous and metaphorical. They cannot be taken literally in every case. Even St. Jerome, Thomas Aquinas, and other master theologians, Galileo said, had recognized such truisms centuries earlier; they were not literalists. Galileo further reasoned that since it is frequently so difficult to ascertain the exact meaning of biblical passages, one must often resort to God’s revelation in nature to determine the truth. When God’s written word conflicts with natural revelation, the latter is to prevail, because it is clearer and less ambiguous.

Key milestones in subsequent biblical studies include the following (If some of the historical references are unclear, don’t worry, it’s not necessary to “get” them all; they are included here only for the sake of completeness):

–          17th century: Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, and Richard Simon question the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Jewish Testament).

–          18th century: The “higher criticism” movement emerges. “Higher” biblical criticism dealt with issues of authorship and original intent, and with literary forms and their meaning. It is contrasted with “lower criticism” which confined itself to close examination and comparison of texts.

–          18th century: Herman Samuel Reimarus applies critical methodology to the Christian Testament. He concludes that very little is incontrovertibly factual.

–          1870s: Julius Wellhausen examines the Bible as a human document.

–          19th century: Albert Schweitzer, David Strauss, Ernest Renan, Johannes Weiss and others embark on the “Quest of the Historical Jesus.”

–          1893: Pope Leo XIII condemns higher criticism in “Providentissimus Deus.” He establishes the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

–          1940s: Joachim Jeremias and C.H. Dodd identify layers in the Christian Testament attributable to (1) Jesus, (2) the gospel authors, and (3) the early church.

–          1943: Pope Pius XII endorses the new biblical scholarship (“textual criticism”) in “Divino Afflante Spiritu.”

–          1st half of 20th Century: Protestant theological giants, Karl Barth and Rudolph Bultmann conclude that the quest of the historical Jesus had reached a dead end. Almost nothing can be known of the historical Jesus, they claimed. They and their followers concentrate their analysis and theology on 1st century post-resurrection proclamations about Jesus (kerygma).

–           1945: Apocryphal gospels (i.e. gospels other than Mark, Matthew, Luke and John) are discovered at Nag Hammadi (Upper Egypt).

–          1948-1956: Discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls in Palestine.

–          1970s: Discovery of Gnostic Gospels in a cave in Egypt. The texts date from the 2nd century.

–          1965: Second Vatican Council publishes its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (“Dei Verbum”) embracing interpretations of Scripture that centralize the original author’s context and intent.

–          1968: The Latin American Bishops’ Conference meeting in Medellin, Colombia adopts liberation theology’s “preferential option for the poor” as a central tool for interpreting Sacred Scripture and as a guiding commitment for church practice.

–          1990s: Robert Funk, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and other members of “The Jesus Seminar” develop criteria for identifying the actual words of Jesus as opposed to the inventions of the gospel authors and/or the early church including: (1) multiple attestation from independent sources;  (2) dissimilarity i.e. words or deeds attributed to Jesus that would be embarrassing to the early church [e.g. Jesus’ baptism at the hands of John and (especially) the crucifixion]; (3) coherence with acts or statements otherwise identified as authentically attributable to Jesus; (4) Semitisms; (5) sitz im leben (context) reflecting the circumstances of Jesus rather than of the early church, and (6) vividness of description.

Next Week: the significance of the events in the above timeline (P.S. I would love it if readers would submit questions concerning any of this. It would give me direction for future posts on this topic.)

Who Was the Historical Jesus? Introduction

Let’s face it: there is no God “up there.” “Up there” is simply a metaphor for the transcendence of the divine, which is found within, around, above and below all of us. What St. Paul said is true:  God the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Moreover, that God did not “send” some pre-existing Second Person of the Blessed Trinity to die on our behalf. Like all of us, Jesus was not anxious to die; nor did the God of life want him sacrificed. Rather, the Romans killed Jesus because as colonial occupiers of his homeland, Palestine, they (correctly) perceived his words and deeds as a political threat. Those words and deeds centered neither on himself, nor on life after death but on the Kingdom of God – a very this worldly reality, that would change the condition of the poor, who are God’s chosen people.

The point of Jesus’ “miracles” was to demonstrate that choice; they were basically either faith-healings or entirely symbolic creations of the early church.

In fact symbolism and metaphor are so central to the fundamental message of the Bible and to human thought itself that it would be more accurate to treat most of Sacred Scripture metaphorically rather than as factual. This includes any references to hell, angels, and devils, which turn out to be poetic inventions. Over the history of the church those inventions have been cynically manipulated as tools of “conscience control” (especially of women) by a basically Caucasian, rich and patriarchal religious establishment that in practice has come to regard Jesus’ actual teaching (about the kingdom, poverty and wealth) as “heretical.”

To get back to the authentic teaching of the historical Jesus, believers need to acquaint themselves not only with another Jesus. They need another God to replace the one before whom they are called to be atheists. Despite formidable obstacles placed in our way by our pastors and others, meeting and embracing that other God is entirely possible. It is indispensable to save our species, our world and ourselves.

These are basically the findings of modern scripture scholarship and the theologies based on that research. And, of course, they can be shocking to conservative Christians encountering it for the first time. However, for those truly interested in developing an adult faith, the shock must somehow be absorbed.

In an attempt to assist in that process of absorption, the Monday series to be posted here will attempt to organize and unify the disparate concepts in question and to re-present them as an aid to understanding and disciplined discussion. Next week’s posting will review key events in the history of biblical interpretation.