Jesus and the Logic of History

Paul W. Barnett, D. A. Carson, D. A. Carson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9780830871247
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología sistemática y ética

At the heart of the Christian faith stands a man, Jesus of Nazareth.Few people seriously question whether Jesus existed in history. But many, influenced by the more skeptical scholars, doubt that the Christ of orthodox Christianity is the same as the Jesus of history.In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, historian Paul W. Barnett lays these doubts to rest. He uncovers the methodological weaknesses present in some forms of critical scholarship, demonstrating a failure to account for important early evidence about Jesus.Once the evidence is properly marshalled, a picture of Jesus emerges that fits well with orthodox belief in him.Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

Chapter One

Jesus and the practice of history

Introduction

Christianity is currently facing one of its most profound challenges, one that cuts to its heart. Between 1980 and 1992 there were published no fewer than 260 books, articles and reviews devoted to life-of-Jesus studies.1 The challenge is that for the most part, this volume of literature presents a Jesus who is unrecognizable to the Christian faith as expressed in the historic creeds and confessions of the church.

For the greater part of the twentieth century, scholars have been sceptical about the recoverability of the historical Jesus. In these last decades, however, the pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme. In 1971 Leander Keck could comment that ‘“the search for the real Jesus” is a dead-end street’. By 1988, however, Marcus Borg could refer to a ‘renaissance’ in Jesus studies, noting that ‘we can . . . know as much about Jesus as . . . about any figure in the ancient world’.2 (Such confidence stands in contrast with Bultmann’s famous remark of 1926 that ‘we can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus’.) ‘Renaissance’ is no exaggeration. The body of literature includes some very substantial texts, by such authors as Vermes (a trilogy), E. P. Sanders, Charlesworth, Crossan and Meier (a trilogy). Moreover, there have been ongoing specialist study groups such as the Society of Biblical Literature Historical Jesus Section and the widely publicized Jesus Seminar. Inevitably this flood of scholarly work has overflowed through the electronic and print media to the general public. Jesus has been the subject of cover stories in international journals, popular television programmes, and a number of best-selling pseudo-academic literary reconstructions.

What has emerged from this plethora of research? In the main, the scholars make a point of asserting Jesus’ Jewishness, as reflected in such tides as Jesus the Jew (Vermes), Jesus and Judaism (Sanders), Jesus’ Jewishness (Charlesworth) and A Marginal Jew (Meier), to take a few examples.3 A minority of the scholars, however, emphasize Jesus’ Hellenistic environment above the Judaic. Here Jesus emerges as a teacher in the Cynic tradition (Downing, Mack, Crossan). These scholars tend to be quite selective in their use of sources, preferring the so-called ‘Q’ source and the Gospel of Thomas to the four canonical gospels.

What kind of Jesus is to be found in these works? If the miracle tradition in the gospels is the focus, Jesus emerges as healer and exorcist (Vermes). Where the sayings are regarded as central, Jesus is seen as teacher. Depending on whether the sayings concentrated on are aphorisms, proverbs or apocalypticisms, Jesus is a sage (Downing), a subversive sage (Borg) or an eschatological prophet (Sanders, Charlesworth). Where the Son of man sayings are viewed as primary, Jesus is seen as a social prophet (Horsley). If a particular social context for Jesus is suggested, his profile is sharpened. A group, class or activity for Jesus is sought, or perhaps even a sub-class, adding to the plurality and complexity of the analyses. Where the Jewish rabbinic context is emphasized, Jesus emerges as a rabbi (Chilton) or, more specifically, a Pharisee (Falk). Where apocalyptic Judaism is seen as his milieu, he is, for example, a humane apocalyptist (Charlesworth) or a reasonable visionary (Sanders). The variations of definition arising from these methodologies have prompted the social commentator Paul Johnson, though not a specialist in the field, to observe shrewdly that ‘using the same texts and scholarly apparatus, dozens, perhaps hundreds of different Jesuses can be constructed’.4

It is an interesting coincidence that the closing decades of the nineteenth century also witnessed a spate of books on Jesus, many of them idealistic and romantic in character, reflecting the spirit of that age. The current Jesus reconstructions are also idealistic, but are shaped more by the values of late-second-millennium political correctness. The Jesus of the ‘third questers’, as they are called, often looks remarkably like the scholars who write about him: postmodern, ideologically reformist and eminently reasonable.

In the late nineteenth century, Martin Kähler wrote against the numerous ‘lives of Jesus’, making the famous distinction between the ‘so-called Jesus of history’ and the ‘Christ of faith’. Kahler’s book repays careful reading. The distinction he made, the issues he raised and the criticisms he offered come across with freshness and great power despite the intervening years. Kähler argued that modern scholars cannot create a ‘fifth’ gospel via their own biographical efforts; saving faith can arise only from the proclamation of the exalted Christ, who fulfils the prophets, and who is to be found in the whole New Testament. His sharp words for such biographers have application to those who engage in Jesus reconstructions now. ‘What is usually happening’, he wrote, ‘is that the image of Jesus is being refracted through the spirit of these gentlemen.’5

The argument of Kähler’s book, which is historically rather than theologically based, none the less has profound implications for theology, and for Christology in particular. The uniqueness of Christ is challenged implicitly or explicitly by the great majority of recent historical works devoted to Jesus. Note the words of E. P. Sanders: ‘I do not doubt that in some ways . . . Jesus was unique; in some ways everybody is unique . . . In fact we cannot say that a single one of the things known about Jesus was unique.’6 Sanders’s remark bears on the relationship between history and theology. The Christ of the church’s faith and proclamation rests on the Jesus of history, Jesus as he was, historically speaking. But if the historical Jesus is undercut and reduced in stature and being, so too, in consequence, is the Christ of faith. Thus the practice and method of history are not irrelevant to the practice and method of theology. Christ’s incarnation occurred in time and space, that is, in history. The practice and method of history are related to the practice and method of theology.

The practice and method of history

The work of life-of Jesus scholars purports to arise out of historical enquiry and so raises questions which go to the heart of the practice and method of history.

History defined

‘History’, wrote the Tudor historian G. R. Elton, ‘deals with events, not states; it investigates things that happen and not things that are.’ Its concern is for ‘the transformation of things (people, institutions, ideas and so on) from one state into another’.7 History, therefore, may be defined as ‘those human sayings, thoughts, deeds and sufferings which occurred in the past and have left a present deposit; and it deals with them from the point of view of happening, change and the particular’.8 In short, history so defined deals with phenomena, and, where possible, seeks to explain them.

This understanding of history appears to have informed the thinking of C. F. D. Moule in his important work, The Phenomenon of the New Testament.9 Moule referred to ‘the coming into existence of the Nazarenes’, that is, an event, which called for an explanation. His own explanation is that the phenomenon was brought about by ‘a most powerful and original mind and a tremendous confirmatory event’.10 According to Moule, the existence of the Nazarenes is accounted for by the ‘powerful and original mind’ of Jesus and the event of his resurrection from the dead. I find this logic compelling. The phenomenon of the coming into existence of early Christianity is well attested. Its sudden emergence is as historically secure as any event in Palestine in that century. So the historian asks: what plausible explanation or explanations can be found for this event?

The social sciences and history

Not all, however, share the view of history given by Elton and illustrated by Moule. Those who apply social science to historical studies place their emphasis on what was, on the way things were, rather than on particular events and why they occurred. It is not too much to say that in the last quarter of the twentieth century this discipline and its ancillaries have revolutionized the study of history, including the study of antiquity and of Christian origins. A discipline that was once peripheral is now central, and one that was once central is now peripheral. Notable benefits for the understanding of the historical Jesus are claimed for the approach.11 Social science figures prominently in current Jesus research.

Social science enquires into known groups of the time: for example, Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. An attempt is then made to understand Jesus in relation to such groups, whether belonging to the group, modifying it or opposing it. The methodology seeks to be ‘holistic’, that is, to paint a bigger canvas than the extant historical texts. Various background studies (such as Galilee studies) are also valued, even favoured, placing Jesus in a context in which to understand him. This approach asks, ‘What were Jesus’ overall aims?’ and ‘How does Jesus relate to Judaism or Galilee globally?’

But there are several problems with the method in regard to historical enquiry in general and into Christian origins in particular. First, dependence on social science rather than on the historical text tends to be speculative, with few controls. How can Jesus or any other historical figure from the period (for example, Herod the tetrarch or Pontius Pilate) be known apart from the texts which refer to him? Useful as background studies are in providing a social context for the person under review, they cannot portray the historical figure in the foreground. Only the specific texts, in this case the gospels, can do that.

Secondly, the method underestimates the influence of particular individuals upon the times in which they live. Social analysis can take us only so far in explaining the rise and impact of Herod the Great, for example. Certainly the emergence and influence of a Herod depended on the existence of propitious opportunities and, circumstances; and in his case these did exist in the form of the weakness of the tail-end of the Hasmonean dynasts just as the Romans were encroaching into the eastern Mediterranean region. Yet the qualities which made Herod the Idumean ‘great’ ultimately elude analysis. How can social analysis explain his seizure of power? Josephus’s portrayal of Herod as a prodigious athlete, fighter and leader12 must be taken into account. Similar questions must be applied to Jesus. There were other prophets and rabbis in his general era. Why were they forgotten while he is remembered? The problem with the sociological approach is that it tends to limit great people to the social pool in which they are deemed to belong. It does not adequately account for the special qualities by which a very small number of people leave their imprint in history.

A third and more particular difficulty is that of data and distance. The social sciences depend on elaborate statistical data relating to such matters as income, education, peer associates, location of domicile and family history. Little information of this kind is available from the times of Jesus, and in the absence of hard evidence confident analysis is not possible.

A fourth problem relates to source material for the major factions of Jesus’ time: the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, Josephus, the Mishnah, the Talmudim and so on. Daunting obstacles face the scholar in each set of sources. For example, there is a twofold related difficulty with the use of the Jewish sources, the Mishnah, Targumim and Talmudim. Not only are these texts much later than the era of Jesus, but significant changes occurred within the Judaism of the intervening years. By the time this literature was formulated the wars with Rome (AD 66-70 and 132-135) had been fought and lost. The world of the Mishnah (written c. AD 200) is very different from Jesus’ world almost two centuries earlier. When the Mishnah was written, the high priests, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Zealot-type revolutionaries no longer formed part of the landscape, as they had in Jesus’ day. Moreover, gone were the various factions of the Pharisees, as they had existed up to AD 70; the movement was homogenized, and it was the era of Rabbinic Judaism. The Judaism of Herodian times, which had been inseparably Hebraic and Hellenistic, became now overwhelmingly Hebraic. To be sure, the later literature echoes the era of Jesus, with some traditions from Jesus’ day surviving into the Mishnah, but it is a distant echo heard on the farther side of a wide cultural and historical chasm created by the wars throughout the period AD 66–135.

Certainly the texts of apocalyptic Judaism, the Qumran sectaries and Josephus, which are closer to Jesus, are valuable in recovering some aspects of the religious world of the first century. But there are problems of dating the apocalyptic texts and of establishing what connection Jesus himself may have had with these literatures. For example, the concept of the ‘kingdom of God’, which appears to have been so important in Jesus’ teaching, is scarcely to be found in these terms in the texts of apocalyptic Judaism. In addition, some scholars no longer associate the Qumran texts exclusively with the Qumran community. Indeed, not all scholars agree that the buildings at Qumran were a religious settlement;13 some suggest that the complex had a quite different purpo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title in this series
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Series preface
• Author’s preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. Jesus and the practice of history
• 2. Christ in history
• 3. Jesus in proclamation and tradition
• 4. Jesus in historical context
• 5. Jesus in the gospels
• 6. Jesus and the spread of early Christianity
• 7. From Jesus to gospel text
• 8. Jesus’ death: a defiance of biography
• 9. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index of authors
• Index of Bible references
• Notes
• Praise for Jesus and the logic of history
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright