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"I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as an historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus is easily the most dominant figure in all history." …H.G. Wells

The Mark on History

Everyone makes their mark on history. Everyone who has ever come into this world leaves some trail behind them — relationships, records, birth certificates, marriage licenses, family trees, memories, personal belongings, so on and so forth. With an array of information, one can paint a portrait of someone. The more information we have the more accurate the picture is likely to be of the real person we are endeavouring to study, or remember. My quest is to ask what kind of evidence exists to give us an understanding of the historical Jesus? In this part of the series, I will examine the evidence that is available to scholars, and all of us…

What can we know about Jesus? One of the harder tasks of the scholar is to sort through the sources we have on Jesus and to see what can be authentically asserted back to him. Many of my Christian friends have asked me "what more do we need to know about Jesus"? This is because they are coming out of the view that all we need to know about Jesus can be found in the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Others have claimed that they can't trust the New Testament accounts in the light of there being other reports to the life of Jesus. Some have even gone so far to say we can know really nothing about the life of Jesus. The first question we might ask then is how historically creditable are the sources?

Rules of Thumb…

In order to make answering this question easier, from my own studies and reading I have brought together a few rules of thumb that might assist:

• Eyewitness testimony is better than hearsay: As I will explain in greater detail below, this rule makes the gospels interesting to work with. While one might presume that the authors used the testimony of eyewitnesses, it is clear that the evangelists themselves were not eyewitnesses (Luke admits this fact in 1:2). The question that follows this one is how did the evangelists get their information?
• Early sources are more credible than late ones: Unlike most liberal scholars, I believe the written accounts of Jesus from the first century are much more important then those from the second century such as the Gospels of Judas, Mary, and Thomas etc. It is clear that these sources contain nothing of historical value and if they do it is only because they sourced it from earlier works. They are chronologically too late to be useful. So, in trusting in the earliest sources, I will be focusing primarily on the Pauline literature and the Synoptic Gospels and to a lesser extent the Gospel of John and the other New Testament texts.
• If the detail/information is embarrassing, it's more likely to be true: One should take special note of details and information within an account which is embarrassing for the writer or reporter. After all, if somebody admits to something embarrassing, it's more believable. This person had every reason not to tell it, but still did. In the case of Jesus, there are "awkward" details reported such as Jesus' relationship with John the Baptist prior to his ministry, the betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter, the abandonment of the Twelve and ultimately the crucifixion.
• The Jesus presented has to be both credible and crucifiable: Any understanding of Jesus extracted from the sources must be presented in a way that "fits" him into the Greco-Roman context as a first century Palestinian Jew. Jesus cannot be so radical and different that the content of his message doesn't make sense in his context. Having said this, the Jesus presented must be able to be killed. What I a mean by this is that Jesus must end up on the cross on historical grounds for reasons that would get him killed.
• The more independent witnesses that report it, the better: If something continually appears in different sources it should be taken note of, whether it is a title, an event, a teaching or a problem. The more it appears across the different sources, the better grounds it has for historical reliability.
• Focus on what we have, not what we don't have: A lot of scholars, both liberal and otherwise, use various 'sources' outside the New Testament. These sources however are just merely theory and theoretical reconstruction, such as the Q source, Luke source or Matthew source. Granted some of these theories are better than others, until these theories can be proven more effectively we need to be cautious in using them as primary or secondary sources.

The Gospel Truth?

One must keep in mind; the gospels are not reports of eyewitnesses. Most historians date the death of Jesus in the early 30's CE but the Gospel of Mark, the first gospel to be written, wasn't written before 50 CE and the latest being the Gospel of John written about 90 CE. Even through titled the Gospels of Mark and John, they, and the other Gospels only had the authorship names attributed to them in the second century. We do not know any of the authors of the gospels, where they came from, how they lived and how they came to learn of Jesus' life.

So are the gospels works of fiction or history, fact or faith?

The gospels themselves are not biographies as we understand them today. They are hardly a blow-by-blow account of what happened, complete with dates and times but rather the gospels, like all history, are products of an interpreted history. While the gospels do contain events that were maybe rooted in history, each of the four authors makes his interpretation on the event and crafts his own theology into the narrative. After all, the author's of the gospels are called the evangelists and the purpose of a gospel is not to purely recount history but rather to evangelize the faith.

It is important to note that the synoptic authors wrote for different audiences and structured their gospels in a way to highlight different theological themes or address particular situations and problems within the early church. Unlike most New Testament critics, I find it inconceivable to see the gospels as simply a collection of fragmented traditions strung together, nor full of material created out of thin air to create some 'home-made recipe' of Christology and theology. One must understand the nature and purpose of the gospel, which is to firstly tell the story of Jesus of Nazareth and secondly address the evangelist's contemporaries. Rudolf Bultmann and his followers have argued for years that the traditions surrounding Jesus were 'informal' and 'uncontrolled', thus allowing the early Christian communities the freedom to change and develop them. I disagree with this notion and side with N.T. Wright, James Dunn and Richard Bauckham in using Kenneth Bailey's theory of "informal but controlled oral tradition".

'Informal Controlled Oral Tradition"

Kenneth Bailey

Bailey argues that by the phrase found in Luke (1:2), "eye-witnesses and minister of the word" refers to accredited witnesses to vital traditions about Jesus. In a synagogue, an official was placed in charge of the scrolls and it appears that early Christianity adapted a similar style, having certain people able to detail the story and tradition of Jesus. This is clear in Paul's writing to the Corinthians as he recounts how the tradition was passed onto him before he passes it onto them. Paul makes it clear that he is not an eyewitness himself, but rather a part of an extended network in which the stories and traditions would be told and retold, under conditions of informal but quite distinct control. As Ian Elmer explained to me (quoting a theologian whose name escapes him and whose name I can source), Paul on this first journey to meet with the Jerusalem Apostles spent fifteen days talking to Peter. I agree with Ian when he claims they weren't discussing the weather. Peter and perhaps the other Apostles, as eye witnesses were sharing the story of Jesus with Paul. Yet it is clear that story of Jesus has not stood still in time as mere biographies, but rather theological biographies. The early church, including Peter, James, John, the rest of the Twelve, and the first Christian communities surrounding the evangelists are constructing a more theological understanding of the Jesus story. In short, Bailey argues that the evangelists, while permitted to shape stories of Jesus to address the needs of the early church, could not alter them in their essentials.

Interesting factors…

To my mind the gospels come across as accurate sources about Jesus' life and do originate with him. I also believe that the theology reflected in the gospels has its roots in the teaching and actions of Jesus. Having said this I would like to breakdown certain factors of the gospel narratives that strike me as particularly interesting and worth taking note of, as they relate to the other questions I wish to answer in this series:

1. How does Jesus fit into Judaism?
2. What were Jesus' aims?
3. Why did Jesus die?
4. How and why did the Early Church begin?

I have broken these factors into different categories, each one relating to the detail for which I find them interesting and worth studying. The first category contains the factors which relate to the "Words of Jesus", this category focuses on Jesus' teaching, ministry and message. The second is the "Deeds of Jesus"; these factors observe the actions taken by Jesus. The names, titles and identities associated with Jesus shall be put in a third, "Titles of Jesus". The fourth, "Details of Jesus", is perhaps the most interesting and note worthy as it focuses on the embarrassing, strange and unique information within Jesus' life.

As well as these factors, William R. Herzog II from studying out of the work of E.P. Sanders on the Historical Jesus has developed a list of what he calls "indisputable facts". Like Sanders, Herzog claims this list to contain factual information that the majority of neither liberal nor conservative dispute:

• Jesus was born about 4BCE, near the time of the death of Herod the Great.
• He was raised in a Galilean village called Nazareth.
• Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.
• He called disciples and spoke of there being Twelve.
• Jesus was a Galilean who preached and healed.
• He preached the Kingdom of God.
• He taught in towns, villages, and countryside of Galilee, but not in cities.
• Jesus confided his ministry to Israel.
• About 30CE he went to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.
• He created a disturbance in the Temple area and/or engaged in controversy about the Temple.
• He shared a final meal with his disciples.
• He was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifically the High Priest.
• He was executed on the orders of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate, and crucified outside Jerusalem.
• Now with these factors and facts in hand, before we can move onto the 'why', we first must ask the 'what'.

The Fine Detail…

What was Jesus really talking about? What are the parables and why did they matter to Jesus' mission? What is the Kingdom of Heaven? How did Jesus feel about the Law of Moses, was he a Law-breaking or a Law-observant Jew? Why is the call of the Twelve so important? Are the miracles merely works of magic? What's the big deal about Jesus socializing with women, lepers, tax collectors, zealots and other so called 'sinners'? Is Jesus a prophet? The messiah? The Son of Man? The Son of God? God? Why were his actions in the temple so conversational? Did Jesus know he was going to be betrayed? Did he know the Twelve were going to abandon him? Did he know he would die? Did he know he would be resurrected? With these questions at hand we must now move to Jesus' context.

If we are to make sense of the message, teaching, actions and of details, we must see them in the context in which Jesus and his followers would have seen them in.

-Next Week-
Part II - "The Call Empire: The Greco-Roman world of Palestine"

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part I
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INTRO | PART I | PART II | PART III | PART IV | PART V | PART VI | PART VII

Bibliography:
Kenneth E. Bailey, Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels. Originally published in Themelios, 1995. www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_tradition_bailey.html
James Dunn, Jesus Remembered: Christology in the Making; v1. London: Eerdmans, 2003.
William R. Herzog II, Prophet and Teacher: An Introduction to the Historical Jesus. Louisville Westminster John Knox Press, 2005.
John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus; v1. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus. London: Penguin, 1996.
N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God. London: SPCK, 2003.
- Early Traditions and the Origins of Christianity. Originally published in Sewanee Theological Review, 1998. www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Early_Traditions.htm

[Index of Commentaries by Daniel Gullotta]