Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 04-09-2010, 03:22 PM

The Jesus We'll Never Know

Read it and weep (or chuckle, depending) - a faith based rejection of historical Jesus studies.

The article is useful in emphasizing that historical Jesus studies are generally not carried out by orthodox believers, however much they have been used and abused by evangelical preachers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scot McKnight

... The neon-light days for the historical Jesus are now over.

***

...The essential criterion used in most historical Jesus studies is called "double dissimilarity." Even though it is riddled with holes, this method is still used by many historical Jesus scholars.

...

Historical Jesus scholars reconstruct Jesus in conscious contrast with the categories of the evangelists and the beliefs of the church. Wright is the most orthodox of the well-known historical Jesus scholars; I can count on one hand the number of historical Jesus scholars who hold orthodox beliefs. The inspiration for historical Jesus scholarship is that the Gospels overdid it, and that the church more or less absorbed the Galilean prophet into Greek philosophical categories. The quest for the historical Jesus is an attempt to get behind the theology and the established faith to the Jesus who was—I must say it this way—much more like the Jesus we would like him to be.

McKnight is the author of Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory (or via: amazon.co.uk) (also on google books)

NT Wright responds by invoking Godwin's Law and then going off the deep end.

Quote:

… when German scholars gave up historical Jesus research in the 1920s, they left a vacuum into which the "German Christians" inserted their non-Jewish Jesus, with appalling results. That was why New Testament scholar Ernst K?semann insisted that, despite difficulties, we had to study Jesus historically. How will we ward off the next generation's dangerous follies (not just Dan Brown, though he matters too) if we don't do history?

…

Back to Reformation theologian Philip Melanchthon: It isn't enough to know that Jesus is the Savior; I must know that he is the Savior for me. History cannot tell me that. But it can reconstruct the framework within which it makes sense—the biblical framework that Jesus and his followers took for granted. If Jesus didn't really exist, or was really a revolutionary Zealot, or a proto-Buddhist mystic, or an Egyptian freemason, the "for me" floats like a detached helium balloon on the thin, vulnerable air of subjectivism. It is when we put Jesus in his proper historical context that the Resurrection proposes that he was the Messiah, that the Messiah is Lord of the world, and that he died and was raised for me. History is challenging, but also reassuring.

David Deas · 04-09-2010, 03:29 PM

The mere suggestion of a 'historical Jesus' is simply remythologizing Jesus, same as they did 2000 years ago. Everybody knows that. Everybody understands that. Despite the picture that is often painted regarding these 'historical Jesus' scholars, they are well aware of the speculative nature of their work.

rlogan · 04-09-2010, 05:21 PM

From the article:

Quote:

Most historical Jesus scholars assume that the Gospels are historically unreliable

You don't say...

mountainman · 04-09-2010, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Deas

The mere suggestion of a 'historical Jesus' is simply remythologizing Jesus, same as they did 2000 years ago. Everybody knows that. Everybody understands that. Despite the picture that is often painted regarding these 'historical Jesus' scholars, they are well aware of the speculative nature of their work.

Please be very much aware that the very first 'historical Jesus' scholar did not in fact write 2000 years ago, but rather a little over 1600 years ago. In fact scholars are in good agreement that the very first 'historical Jesus' scholar actually wrote between the years of 312 and 324 CE, a period which is precisely in line with the rise to absolute military supremacy of the emperor Constantine.

hjalti · 04-09-2010, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NT Wright

To say that "we can't go behind that faith perspective" so that "the past is hard to recover" capitulates to a reductive modernist epistemology.

Yes, pre-modernist epistemology allows you to believe whatever you want.

rlogan · 04-09-2010, 06:47 PM

Actually, Toto that article was interesting for pointing out what the author says is a core method in the Historical Jesus religion.

Quote:

According to the criterion of double dissimilarity, the only sayings or actions of Jesus that can be trusted are those that are dissimilar to both Judaism at the time of Jesus and to the beliefs of the earliest Christians immediately after Jesus.

...snippitty for brevvitty...

Most historical Jesus scholars assume that the Gospels have overcooked their portrait of Jesus, and that the church's Trinitarian theology wildly exceeds anything Jesus thought about himself and anything the evangelists believed. These scholars pursue a Jesus who is less than or different from or more primitive than what the Gospels teach and the church believes. There is no reason to do historical Jesus studies—to probe "what Jesus was really like"—if the Gospels are accurate and the church's beliefs are justified.

The problem is admitted very quickly after.

Quote:

This leads to a fundamental observation about all genuine historical Jesus studies: Historical Jesus scholars construct what is in effect a fifth gospel. The reconstructed Jesus is not identical to the canonical Jesus or the orthodox Jesus. He is the reconstructed Jesus, which means he is a "new" Jesus.

The point of the article is that everyone's "Historical Jesus" is who they want him to be. Their own gospel.

This methodology fails the basic scientific method test. Are the results repeatable? Well, no - the article shows the Jesus you end up with is who you want him to be. So it isn't science.

ApostateAbe · 04-09-2010, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

From the article:

Quote:

Most historical Jesus scholars assume that the Gospels are historically unreliable

You don't say...

That can't be right. I keep hearing that those scholars assume the opposite.

Toto · 04-09-2010, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

From the article:

You don't say...

That can't be right. I keep hearing that those scholars assume the opposite.

McKnight is revealing his cultural context. He probably deals with people who want the gospels to be virtual news reports; his unstated assumption is that there is a historical core to the obviously unreliable and contradictory tales in the gospels.

ApostateAbe · 04-09-2010, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

That can't be right. I keep hearing that those scholars assume the opposite.

McKnight is revealing his cultural context. He probably deals with people who want the gospels to be virtual news reports; his unstated assumption is that there is a historical core to the obviously unreliable and contradictory tales in the gospels.

Actually, he very much seems to be writing from the Biblicist Christian perspective. I am half-way through the article.

dogsgod · 04-09-2010, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

From the article:

Quote:

Most historical Jesus scholars assume that the Gospels are historically unreliable

You don't say...

I looked in vain for that quote.

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04-09-2010, 03:29 PM	#2
David Deas Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Atlanta Posts: 96	The mere suggestion of a 'historical Jesus' is simply remythologizing Jesus, same as they did 2000 years ago. Everybody knows that. Everybody understands that. Despite the picture that is often painted regarding these 'historical Jesus' scholars, they are well aware of the speculative nature of their work.

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