Dr.

Mark Strauss
Historical Jesus
nt315-03
Historical Research
Lesson Transcript

In our last session, we talked about the significance of worldview in the quest
of the historical Jesus. Can naturalists and supernaturalists engage in the
same quest if they have very different worldviews? Obviously, if you don't
believe miracles are possible, you're not going to judge Jesus's miracles as
accurately recorded history. This raises the thorny question of whether it is
even possible to conduct "objective historical research." Through the years,
some have denied that such a quest is either possible or desirable.

In 1892, Martin Kähler wrote a short book with the title in English, The So-
called Historical Jesus and the Historic, Biblical Christ. Kahler's work was a
strong challenge to the rationalistic 19th-century attempts to reconstruct the
historical Jesus. Kahler's main point was that the historical figure of Jesus
constructed by these rationalistic scholars was not the real Jesus at all, but a
figment of scholarly imagination.

They were merely creating Jesus in their own image. The only real Jesus
today is the Christ of faith, proclaimed by the apostles and now worshiped in
the church. Fundamental to Kahler's view was to claim that it is impossible
through historical means to reconstruct a biography of Jesus. This is because
the kerygma, the Christian preaching about the risen and exalted Christ, is so
interwoven into the gospel narratives that there is no non-supernatural Jesus
of history to be found. Now for Kahler, this was not a problem or a loss, since
what is ultimately important for the church is not the historical events but the
faith experience of believers.

Kahler used two German words to draw this distinction. He said that the
gospels were not history, a German word meaning the events as they actually
happened in space and time. They were instead geschichte, another German
word meaning the theological impact or significance of what happened. For
true believers, geschichte is all that we have so that Jesus of history and the
Christ of faith are one and the same. While Kahler's work was meant to
recover the significance of Jesus for the church, it was used by scholars like
Rudolph Bultmann really to cut off Christianity from its historical roots by
drawing a strict dichotomy between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.
Bultmann claim that we can know virtually nothing about the historical Jesus
because the gospels are only geschichte, only theology.

Incidentally, Kahler's work has an interesting contemporary parallel in the

writings of Luke Timothy Johnson, a Roman Catholic scholar who offered a
scathing critique of the Jesus seminar. In his 1996 book, The Real Jesus: The
Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional
Gospels, Johnson rejected the possibility of discovering the so-called real
Jesus through critical historical inquiry. For Johnson, like for Kahler, the real
Jesus is the Christ of faith. This Jesus is not discovered through criteria of
authenticity or historical methodology but through an existential faith
encounter with the risen Lord.

A similar pessimistic perspective is found in the later work of Jesus scholar,

Dale Allison. In his 2009 book, The Historical Christ and the Theological
Jesus, Allison concedes, "After years of being in the quest business, I
reluctantly concluded that most of the gospel materials are not subject to
historical proof, or disprove, or even the accurate estimates of their
probability."

All right, those are the skeptics. On the other side, most Jesus scholars
consider it both possible and necessary to investigate the historical Jesus
using a rigorous historical method. On this side are scholars who reach more
conservative conclusions, scholars like N.T. Wright, Craig Keener, and Ben
Witherington, as well as those who reach more liberal conclusions like John
Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg.

Through the years, Jesus' scholars have developed and refined various
criteria of authenticity to judge the historicity of the words and deeds of Jesus.
In the rest of this session, we'll discuss and critique some of these criteria.
The most fundamental and widely accepted of the criteria is the criterion of
dissimilarity. This criterion says that a saying or an episode of Jesus in Jesus'
life is likely to be authentic if it is dissimilar or unlike the emphases of both
ancient Judaism and the early church. In other words, if it is unique, it is
unlikely to have been taken over from Judaism or invented by the early
church. An example of this criterion of dissimilarity would be Jesus's
identification of himself as the Son of man. It's likely true that Jesus used this
messianic title since it was not a common title for the "maschiach" in first-
century Judaism, nor was it a title widely adopted in the faith confessions of
the early church. The church commonly used titles like Christ, son of God, or
Lord, but seldom did they use Son of man.

One significant problem with this criterion is that while it may tell us what was
unique about Jesus, it does not necessarily tell us what was characteristic
about him. Jesus was born and raised as a Jew in first-century Palestine. To
ignore everything from this background will inevitably result in an incomplete
and distorted picture of Jesus, who was inextricably linked to the history of
Judaism and the biblical story. Furthermore, it's beyond dispute that Jesus
had a profound effect on His followers and that the early church was greatly
influenced by His teaching. To ignore anything about Jesus that was important
in the early church will no doubt result in a skewed perspective. So while the
criterion of dissimilarity may be legitimate in as far as it goes, it is insufficient
to get anything like a full or complete picture of the historical Jesus.

A second important criterion is the criterion of multiple attestation. This

criterion claims that a sane or story is more likely to be authentic if it appears
in a wide variety of gospel sources. How one uses this criterion will depend on
their conclusion concerning the sources behind our gospels. For example, as
we noted previously, most scholars believed that Mark was the first gospel
written and that Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source. They also
believed that Matthew and Luke independently used another common source,
designated as Q. In addition, there is the material that Luke alone presents,
called L material, and the material unique to Matthew, identified as M material.

Then there are sources proposed by scholars behind John's gospel, as we

mentioned, such as the sign source. We mentioned all of these in our last
session. The criterion of multiple attestation says that a particular saying of
Jesus or an event in his life is more likely to be authentic that appears in
multiple different sources. A good example of this is Jesus' highly counter-
cultural practice of eating or dining with sinners. We find this immaterial
originally in Mark, for example, the Call of Levi in Mark 2:15-17, where Jesus
goes to Levi's house. He's invited to eat a meal there. We find it in two
material, for example, when Jesus caught a friend of tax collectors and
sinners. That's in Matthew 11 and in Luke 7. We find it in Luke's unique
material. For example, in the introduction to the parables of lost things in Luke
15, and we find it in Matthew's unique material. For example, when Jesus tells
the religious leaders, "The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the
kingdom of God ahead of you," that's in Matthew 21:28-32. Something so
widely attested in the gospel tradition is almost certainly historically true.
Another example of Jesus' sayings affirmed by this criterion are his
predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which appear in
multiple layers of the gospel tradition, including both the synoptic gospels and
the Gospel of John. The criterion of multiple attestation also applies to literary
genres. A theme that appears in multiple genres, such as parables,
controversy stories, and miracle stories, is considered more likely to be
authentic. Of course, the legitimacy of this criterion depends on which sources
are given priority. Is John's gospel an early and independent source? And
what about the apocryphal gospels? For example, is priority given to a saying
attested in both the canonical gospels and the Gospel of Thomas? These two
criteria, dissimilarity, and multiple attestation are probably the most widely
utilized by historical Jesus scholars, but there are others.

The criterion of embarrassment claims that events or sayings that would have
been embarrassing or theologically difficult for the early church are more likely
to be authentic. The rationale is that the church is unlikely to have invented
things that created problems for itself. A classic example of this is the baptism
of Jesus by John the Baptist. The church would never have invented an
account where John baptizes Jesus since this might suggest that John was
superior to Jesus or that Jesus was John's disciple. John's reluctance to
baptize Jesus in Matthew 3:13-15 is viewed as evidence that the early church
was uncomfortable with this event.

Another example of possible embarrassment is the odd two-stage healing of a

blind man at Bethsaida in Mark 8:22-26. The church would surely never have
invented a story in which Jesus' first attempt to heal a blind man apparently
partially fails. Another example is Jesus' statement that not even the Son of
man knows the day or the hour of his return. Mark 13:32. It seems unlikely the
church would've created a saying that attributed such ignorance to the son.
One potential problem with this criterion is that what seems embarrassing to
us may or may not have seemed so to the early church. There may also be
theological or narrative reasons for the difficulty that may not be readily
apparent to the reader. For example, the two-stage healing in Mark 8 may be
a metaphor for the partial sight of the disciples. A theme that appears in the
following passage, "When Peter confesses that Jesus is the "mashiach" but
then is blind to the fact that Jesus must suffer and die."

A fourth criterion, the criterion of semitic flavor, states that traditions that have
a pronounced Jewish or Palestinian flavor are more likely to be authentic
since that was Jesus's original context. This includes sayings that contain
Aramaic words or word plays or that envision Palestinian social conditions.
For example, Jesus' use of the term abba, an Aramaic word meaning father,
in Mark 14:36 is most likely authentic since it goes back to Jesus' original
language, Aramaic.

Since the title Son of man is a distinctly Semitic expression, and so is unlikely
to have been first introduced in the Greek-speaking church. This criterion,
however, also has limited validity. Aramaisms take us back to the Aramaic-
speaking church, but not necessarily to Jesus himself. Aramaic continued to
be spoken in some context for many decades, and so Aramaic saints may
well have been created later on, nor does a Greek expression necessarily rule
out authenticity. This is true for two reasons. First, recent studies have
demonstrated the multilingual nature of first-century Palestine. Jesus may
even have taught in Greek at times. Second, an authentic saying could have
lost its semitic flavor through a fluent translation into Greek.

A fifth criterion, the criterion of divergent traditions, says that when authors
preserve traditions that do not necessarily serve their purpose, these texts are
more likely to be authentic. A good example of this is Jesus's command to His
disciples in Matthew 10:5-6, "Do not go to the Gentiles," which appears to be
at odds with the great commission to go to all nations in Matthew 28.

Well, this criterion certainly has some validity. It must be used cautiously since
it assumes full recognition of an author's intentions. Matthew 10:5-6 does not
contradict Matthew's theology if it's part of the author's purpose to show that
Jesus' first mission was to the Jews, who were then expected to be a light to
the Gentiles.

The same theological perspective is expressed by Paul in Romans 1:16, for

example. When he says the gospel is first for the Jews and then for the
Gentiles, in other words, statements that at first seem contradictory may, on
closer examination, be seen to be complimentary.

A sixth criterion, the criterion of coherence, is used in conjunction with other

criteria. Once characteristics of the teaching of Jesus are established by the
other criteria, these can be used to substantiate similar sayings that might not
themselves meet that test. For example, if the parable of the minas in Luke
19:11-27 is deemed to be authentic on other grounds, it could be argued that
Matthew's similar parable of the talents in Matthew 25 has a good claim to
authenticity. Well, these are some of the most widely utilized criteria.
In addition to the problems we have noted concerning individual criterion,
there are also more general concerns that have been expressed by scholars.
For example, the criteria can be used subjectively to contradict each other.
The criterion of Semitic influence can be used to support things that agree
with first-century Judaism. While a criterion of dissimilarity can rule these
same things out, too often the criteria are used selectively and arbitrarily to
prove whatever the investigator wants to prove. For example, in the synoptic
gospels, there are three kinds of Son of man sayings. There are those that
relate to Jesus's earthly ministry, Son of man's sayings that relate to his
suffering, and Son of man's sayings that relate to his return, his second
coming in glory. Using the criterion of similarity, we might conclude that the
suffering usage is certainly authentic since the early church did not take up
the title Son of man in his confession of Jesus.

And since there is little evidence that first-century Jews were expecting the
suffering "mashiach," Rudolph Bultmann, however, argued that only the
apocalyptic Son of man sayings, the ones relating to his return, were
authentic. This is because he believed Jesus was expecting the return of a
messianic figure called the Son of man, but that he could not have anticipated
his own suffering role. In other words, he ignored his own criterion when it
contradicted his notion about what Jesus could or could not have said.

While the six criteria we have mentioned have been the most widely used for
the years, recent scholars have proposed additional criteria that relate to
broader explanations of the gospel story. John P. Meyer, for example,
identifies as essential a "criterion of rejection and execution." This criterion
asks, "What historical words and deeds of Jesus best explain his trial and
crucifixion as King of the Jews?"

Gerard Tyson and Dagmar Winter proposed, instead of dissimilarity, a

criterion of historical plausibility which seeks to provide a plausible explanation
for the rise of Christianity within its first-century Jewish context. This criterion
is used not so much to examine and analyze the authenticity of individual
passages but to explain Jesus's message in mission as a whole in relation to
its antecedents. Those that came before first-century Palestinian Judaism and
its successors, the early Christian. N. T. Wright similarly seeks to overcome
the mostly negative results of the criteria of dissimilarity by proposing a
"double criterion of similarity and dissimilarity." By this, he means that "when
something can be seen to be credible within first century Judaism and credible
as the implied starting point of something in later Christianity, there is a strong
possibility of our being in touch with a genuine history of Jesus."
In conclusion, using these and other criteria, scholars sift through the data and
seek to make sense of the historical Jesus. Yet, as we have seen, they still
often come to vastly different conclusions. This is in part because of very
different starting points with reference to the historical value of the gospels.
Are the gospels generally reliable historical sources, or are they generally
unreliable, fictitious, and tendentious accounts?

In our next session, we'll examine the evidence for a generally reliable gospel
tradition.