The first quest of the Historical Jesus... and Christian models of Jesus

I've been slowly working my way through the audio version of Albert Schweitzer's "The Quest of the Historical Jesus" (1906), which you can get for free from Librivox.org. I'm nearly at the end of it. Its quite long winded, but comprehensive, thorough and fascinating. It is basically an exhaustive (but not exhausting) critical survey of pretty much everything published in the 19th century on the question of the Historical Jesus. In audio form it comes in at over 21 hours of listening, which is about three weeks' worth of commuting for me.

As I've said before (see this post and other posts tagged with 'Historical Jesus'), the quest for the Historical Jesus is an attempt to strip away the layers of faith from the gospel stories to uncover the real, historical character who was the basis of the Christian religion. The quest is based on the somewhat shaky assumption that some of the gospel material is truth and some of it is fiction.

As I've said before, ad nauseum, on this blog, there is no reliable method for testing any passage in the bible to determine whether or not it is true. If there was, this question (and many others) would have been solved long ago. 

What is clear from Schweitzer's survey is that the quest for the Historical Jesus is really all about starting with the assumption that the bits you can't believe in the bible are, necessarily, false, and the rest is probably true. From that, you whittle away at the passages until a figure emerges, who looks and sounds a bit like a possible historical figure, but actually generally represents the best aspirations of the quester himself. In other words, people go looking for Jesus and are surprised to find their own reflection there.

On the basis of this survey, 19th century Christianity was fixated on a few questions that don't seem to be debated in the church these days. These include: (i) Synoptic gospels vs. John - most of the questers seemed to believe that either John or the Synoptics was 'true', but not both equally, so they would pick the one they preferred and interpret the other through this. (ii) Miracles vs. Naturalism - many Christian questers in the 19th century appeared to have issues with the idea of miracles, OK, for some of them the resurrection was probably true, but the other stuff couldn't be. If anything, the 19th century church sounds a lot more 'rational' than the church is today. I can't help but think that 19th century Christianity in general, and the theologians in it in particular, were a much more mixed bag than current Christianity and current theologians. Christians today probably assume that the church in years gone by was either much as it is today (worship styles aside), or was more 'orthodox' in years gone by, whereas there is an assumed liberalisation of the church today. On the basis of this survey through the church a couple of hundred years ago, the opposite would seem to be the case. People seeking Jesus have always been finding a Jesus who mirrors some aspect of their own culture.

While thinking this over, I realised that this is - essentially - what all Christians do, whether or not they are seeking the 'historical' Jesus. Everyone who believes anything about Jesus, consciously or not, prioritises some bible passages over others (I've said this before too). For most believers its not a question of whittling away the false to reveal the true, but it is more a question of emphasising some aspects and diminishing the others, in order to form a 'working model' of Jesus in their minds. This process of diminishing some aspects and emphasising others is necessary to iron out the inconsistencies, conflicts and contradictions that are actually in the bible. It is impossible to create a 'working model' of Jesus taking all statements about him as being equally valid, but if you can emphasise some and diminish others, then a plausible model of Jesus can emerge. Someone you can really believe in. Someone you can persuade yourself originates in the bible and walked the roads of 1st century Palestine. Someone you can ask WWJD? about. 

The more I think about this, the more I see that this is what most Christians I know actually do. This is why there are so many different denominations of Christianity - each one emphasises different aspects from the others, and diminishes different other aspects. This is why the Jesus of Pentecostal Christianity is vastly different to the Jesus of liberal Anglicanism. Each denomination creates a working model of Jesus that emerges from its own preconceived ideas. None of these is actually the 'real' Jesus, the 'biblical' Jesus or the 'historical' Jesus. They are all, at best, flawed models of Jesus. And none of them can accurately show us what the 'real' Jesus, if there ever was one, was or is actually like. 

Science and Religion...

Yet another post inspired by a recent Unbelievable podcast, I really must think for myself some day... 

Anyway, these thoughts spring from the show on "Can the Bible be retold as science?" featuring a discussion between Russell Stannard (Christian and Physicist) and Steve Jones (Atheist and Geneticist). Jones has recently published a book saying that the bible is really an early attempt to explain the world in a kind of semi-scientific manner, and the show discussed this. The fact that most of the bible clearly isn't anything like this at all didn't really come into the conversation.

This was one of the rare shows on Unbelievable where the usually impartial host Justin Brierley clearly picked a side to be on. Obviously, we know he's a Christian, but here he definitely sided with Stannard more than he usually does in such debates.

But anyway, the discussion eventually landed on the 'non-overlapping magisteria' theme. Brierley and Stannard were quite emphatic that there were some questions that science cannot answer, but religion can. Jones appeared to grudgingly agree with them. But they never got into the meat of how this actually happens. The whole discussion was expressed in terms of 'science' does this, and 'religion' does that, without actually asking the important question of how either of them answer anything.

The 'scientific method' is well established and basically goes like this:

1. Propose hypotheses
2. Carry out tests or observations to either confirm or refute hypotheses
3. Discount refuted hypotheses, perhaps modify unrefuted hypotheses
4. Repeat 2 and 3 until hypothesis is confirmed by a reasonable amount of testing and is not refuted.
5. Always be willing to let new evidence refute an 'established' theory...

In this way, science establishes 'facts' and increases our knowledge of the universe.

But what about religion? What is the 'religious method'?

There is a science vs religion flowchart that you've probably seen that caricatures religion is basically being a set of ideas that are unchangable, irrespective of how much contradictory evidence there is. That is simplistic and in many cases outright wrong. But the question remains, how does religion answer the questions of life?

In listening to the Unbelievable podcast, I couldn't help but think that most of the time when the folk were talking about 'religion', what they actually meant was 'theology', but even then that didn't help me in my line of thinking; how does theology answer the questions of life?

On reflection, I think there are three basic methods which 'religion' uses to establish truth:

1. Observation, hypothesis testing, etc. - that is, basically something like the scientific method.
2. Philosophical deduction, often linked with meditation on holy texts or traditional thought.
3. Revelation.

Of course, in religious thinking, revelation trumps philosophical deduction, which in turn trumps the scientific method. In other words, any 'facts' established by revelation are considered to be outwith the realm of scientific enquiry, and no amount of contradictory evidence can ever refute them.

To the scientific mind, of course, this line of reasoning is nonsense. If an established 'fact' can be refuted (beyond reasonable doubt), then we should dispense with it, irrespective of how the fact was established in the first place. Indeed, if the evidence refutes the 'fact', then this leads the scientific mind to question the validity of the method that established it in the first place. So not only is the 'fact' dismissed but the process of revelation is also given less weight, or is dismissed altogether. 

On thinking through these issues I have come to realise that pretty much everything asserted by religion (well, I'm thinking specifically of Christianity here, but presumably this goes for all the other religions that I don't know as much about) eventually can be traced back to some claim of 'revelation' or 'inspiration'. It may be revelation to someone a long time ago, which was then written down, which then became scripture, which was then meditated upon, which was then interpreted, which then became doctrine, and so on, but at the end of the day, if you follow the chain of thought back, somewhere we end up with inspiration or revelation, however implicit this is.

So, once we strip all the layers away, what religion is left with is claims of revelation. Within any given religious group, these may be taken as authoritative, but viewed from the outside, these are almost certain to be taken as worthless, irrespective of whether the outside observer is an atheist or a theist of another flavour. Indeed, even within a religion, say Christianity, large groups of adherents would consider certain claims of revelation or inspiration made by other groups to be worthless.

For example, the church I grew up in was very skeptical of the 'gift of tongues', so any message received by someone through the 'gift of interpretation of tongues' on hearing a 'message' delivered in an unknown language would have been completely dismissed by them. This revelation pathway would not be accepted as valid. Indeed, for the church I grew up in, the only valid revelation pathway is the existing bible. They firmly believed that God has nothing new to say that hasn't already been said in the bible or through Jesus. But other parts of the church don't hold to this kind of belief and the revelation pathway remains open.

But if an 'inspired revelation' today is not possible, then why should a similar revelation 2000 years ago be any more valid? We actually know less about the historical revelation pathway than we do about the modern one. In modern times we can find out about the person 'receiving' the inspiration, we can assess their trustworthiness, etc. Going back to biblical times, in many instances we don't know who the people were or anything about their trustworthiness, and we really don't know how faithful the transmission of the information was from the moment it was first 'received' (or conceived) until it was recorded in written form in the bible. To be honest, there are even questions about the accuracy of the written transmission in some instances.

Basically it boils down to this: how can you validate a revelation? And I think the answer has to be, unless it happens to you, you can't. (And even if it does happen to you there may be room for doubt.)

So what we find is that science has a tried and tested and justifiable method for establishing facts about the universe, while religion doesn't.

The Historical Jesus: Five Views

I've just finished reading this book. My wife thought it looked 'the most boring book ever' but I stuck with it and found it fascinating, for the most part.

The book starts with an essay (by the editors) walking the reader through the history of the 'quest' for the historical Jesus, highlighting all the main players in the debate and all the major schools of thought over the past couple of hundred years. What becomes clear in all of this is that the quest for the historical Jesus is highly dependent on the initial assumptions of the quester, and it is not clear from this essay (or any of the five that follow it) if any set of conclusions about who the 'historical' Jesus might have been are ever anything but an extrapolation from the assumptions, with little or no input from the historical research.

I should explain, just in case you don't know what is meant by the 'Historical Jesus', that this is a quest for the real Jesus - the man who actually lived and walked in Galilee - and the quest is somewhat (possibly entirely) based on the assumption that the Jesus described in the Gospels is not an accurate or unbiased picture of him. Some claim that the gospels present - at best - a view of Jesus as seen through rose tinted spectacles, while others claim that the majority of stories of Jesus in the gospels are purely mythical, with little or no basis in anything historical.

And so we come to the five essays that form the bulk of the book. These cover the range from Robert M. Price (aka 'The Bible Geek'), who presents the opinion that the Gospels are an attempt to ground an entirely mythical character in history, and there never was a real or historical Jesus, through to Darrell L. Bock, who basically takes the modern Evangelical view that the Jesus depicted in the gospels is the real Jesus, these stories are literal and fairly accurate. In between are three essays from established names in theology who - more or less - fill in the middle ground between these two extremes, occasionally agreeing with one another, occasionally disagreeing on fairly important points.

One of the most interesting things in the book is that each of the five contributors is given the opportunity to respond to each of the essays of the others. In general they do by presenting a short rebuttal that points to their own essay for details, but it is fascinating to observe the debate and the reasons each player holds for their position. Once again, it becomes apparent that in most cases, their initial assumptions completely bias their conclusions.

I must say that I found the two most extreme views (the first and last essays) to be the most interesting, while the others in the middle contained some interesting stuff, but also contained a lot of (apparently) groundless assumptions.

So I suppose the most interesting question for you to ask of me at this point is which version of the historical Jesus am I most persuaded by? The problem in this is highlighted in a few of the essays which distinguish the 'Jesus of Faith' and the 'Historical Jesus'. Indeed, some point to a significant disconnect between Jesus in his earthly ministry and the resurrected Lord Jesus. Your view of the latter inevitably colours your view of the former. In other words, if you believe that Jesus is Lord and God now, you will inevitably attribute the same characteristics back onto the historical man. So the Christian is, almost by definition, biased towards the beliefs expressed in the final essay.

And yet, there are things in the other four essays that I found compelling. I must say, less so in the case of the essay by John Dominic Crossan, who presented the historical Jesus as a secular and non miracle-doing political activist.

Of particular interest to me at the moment was the importance of Jesus's non-violent stance, emphasised by the fact that none of Jesus's followers were crucified with him - clearly Rome expected no resistance from Jesus's disciples, clearly non-violence was at the core of his teaching. And yet, this aspect of Jesus's teaching is notable by its absence in much of contemporary Christianity - indeed, many Christians actively support war and soldiers, etc. If such a wide spectrum of theologians are convinced Jesus was all about peace, why is the wider church not preaching this today?

One of the issues I had with a couple of the essays is that they started with the premise that Jesus was a product of his society. Of course, this is in part true, but if Jesus was in any way sent from God to try and change society (whether you believe he was God incarnate, in some way divine, or just a tuned-in holy man) then he was not a product of the society, but an external factor attempting to change it. Assuming that he was a product of society is to assume that God has nothing to do with it.

And this is, of course, where most of the quest for the 'historical' Jesus falls apart - if he was unique, if he did miracles, if he spoke directly from God with authority, then historical searching cannot reveal this. History deals in possibilities and probabilities. A once-in-history event is amazingly improbable and, by today's standards, impossible. History cannot confirm anything miraculous, it can only show that some historical people believed this to be true. And so the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith will always be different. It doesn't mean the latter is not true, it just means that history cannot lead us to him.

So what do I believe? I believe that someone hears prayers and sometimes answers. I believe that the blind can have their sight restored, the lame can be restored to walking, those with leprosy can be cured, the deaf can hear again. I believe there is good news for the poor. I believe the Jesus of history changed lives and restored broken people, and I believe the Jesus of faith still does.

I'm just not sure how much of a disconnect there is between the two.