I have been reading Scot McKnight’s recent article for Christianity Today titled “The Jesus We’ll Never Know” (here). I cannot help but notice that he referred to historical Jesus scholarship as essentially writing a “fifth gospel”. The echoes the criticism Richard B. Hays leveled at N.T. Wright’s and other’s historical Jesus programs in his lecture at the recent Wheaton Theology Conference. In essence, the academy is doing exactly what the church did–theologizing about Jesus. This time there is a different approach, but the goal is the same.
Each scholar relies on various forms of so-called historical method that each one finds acceptable using that approach as a “canon” for understanding the “real” Jesus. Each of these scholars–including Wright, J.P. Meier, J.D.G. Dunn, and others more friendly to the church–settle on their historical reconstruction as the basis of their understanding in this Jesus. By default, this rejects the witness of the community of the church who has presented a way to understand Jesus. The evangelist cannot be trusted; the Jesus Seminar with colored beads can.
It is popular amongst Jesus scholars to point to the diversity of views about Jesus in early Christianity. They often mock how long it took for the “Orthodox” party to emerge against other views of Jesus. Yet the academy has come no closer. As McKnight wrote in the aforementioned article, “Albert Schweitzer understood Jesus as an apocalyptic Jesus. In the latest quest, Sanders’s Jesus is an eschatological prophet; Crossan’s Jesus is a Mediterranean peasant cynic full of wit and critical of the Establishment; Borg’s Jesus is a mystical genius; Wright’s Jesus is an end-of-the-exile messianic prophet who believed he was God returning to Zion.”
If historical Jesus studies is such a “scientific” enterprise why are they so bad at reaching any sort of real consensus. They may criticize the church for imperial interference leading to the victory of orthodoxy (which is a misguided reading of church history in my opinion since there were plenty of heretical emperors in Rome-Byzantium), but this ignores their own “emperor” of naturalistic presuppositions and predetermined approaches like “double dissimilarity”. The academy fears challenging this ruler no more than the church, at times, felt threatened challenging an emperor (though if you read the story of Athanasius you may notice the church was often much bolder).
Honestly, if we must compare the historical Jesus to the canonical Jesus give me the canonical Jesus any day. This is not to say that the canonical Jesus is ahistorical. I don’t believe that. What it is to say is we are choosing between two sources of authority, two agendas, two lens through which to interpret the data. If Jesus did say something like what is recorded in Jn. 14.26 and 16.13 that he would send the Holy Spirit to guide his followers, reminding them of his teachings, and leading his people into “all truth” then this is a promise to his people–the church–and not the academy.
I think we should be thankful for some of what has resulted in the First, Second, and Third Quest for the historical Jesus. It helps us read the canonical gospels better at times giving us insight into what this literature would have been in that era and what those stories would have sounded like to first century peoples. Nevertheless, I am with those who say we have the canonical Jesus, let us approach him.
For more: Trevin Wax’s interview with McKnight here.
April 21, 2010 at 8:27 am
While I agree with this post, I think that persons like N T Wright have much to contribute to the field of theology and biblical studies. I do not see his (from the little that I have read) scholarship as creating a “5th gospel”; I think that the Historical Jesus scholarship only become heretical if Jesus’s divinity is ignored. But the NPP from my view tries to understand both Jesus’s humanity and divinity in historical context. NT Wright is not a member of the Jesus seminar, so his view is completely different. He affirms Christ’s divinity; the Jesus Seminar does not. And their beads method is quite arbitrary.
Just a few thoughts. Enjoyed the post.
April 21, 2010 at 11:40 am
One of these things is not like the others: NT Wright. He is using the same tools as the others in order to defend the apostolic witness. Still, I think the observation that “the historical Jesus” is a fifth gospel and is ideological is a good insight. Methodologically it points to the limits of any historical quest, I suppose.
April 22, 2010 at 6:35 am
While I agree that N.T. Wright is different than the others mentioned in that he (1) affirms the deity of Christ; (2) is not heretical; (3) has contributed to Jesus scholarship in a positive sense; (4) is an apologist for Christianity; and (5) should be seen as distinct from the approach of the Jesus Seminar and similar groups, I do think there are rules to the game that he had to adopt to play and that those rules have rightly been criticized by McKnight, Hays, and others.
My problem with the rules is that this becomes a “canon” of sorts. If our canon is the methodology of “historical Jesus” studies we use this as our theological lens for understanding Jesus rather than the voices of the evangelist. While Ehrman criticizes the church for adopting a four-fold Jesus that is a mixture of the views of the evangelists the same can be said of the academy who has in essence created another gospel by deconstructing the canonical gospels in favor of what turns out to be as subjective an approach to studying Jesus as taking Judas, Thomas, or any of those spurious works that the church (rightly) rejected as a lens by which we can understand Jesus.
So I am not saying historical Jesus scholarship has no value. For (1) it can give context to the gospels so that we hear the theological message of those texts in context rather than through modern, or for many, 16th century lens and (2) it can serve as an apologetical bridge to critics showing why the canonical Jesus is a legitimate figure grounded in history. Nevertheless, I think it serves as a weak theological basis for interpreting Jesus which is made evident by the disposal of the Fourth Gospel from most discussions on the matter.
April 23, 2010 at 8:00 am
I think the canonical criticism is warranted to an extent, but it seems like if it’s taken too far it will invalidate any study of the gospels. Any synthetic work is trying to “get behind the text” and synthesize what’s going on, whether it’s historically or theologically. I think Wright’s biggest problem is that he spurns the Church’s tradition in going about much of his research. Some of this is methodological “self-denial,” but some is Protestant “getting back to the original.”
What I think is helpful about his works is that they work to combat Gnostic-like speculation. Like the early Fathers, Wright insists that these events really happened, in real space and in real time. The incarnational significance here is grand! The question is, how does it fit into “the word became flesh.” Maybe it’s up to Wright’s successors to “marry” the Church tradition and the best of the historical work, but I think the history has loads to contribute to our doctrine of incarnation.