I see a lot of chatter about the new trailer for the forthcoming Superman movie, Man of Steel. As Peter Enns noted on Facebook, “I think this will be the most overtly ‘messianic’ of all the Superman films.” If you watch the trailer I think you’ll agree with this observation, which raises a question that has always fascinated me about the Superman franchise: Superman is a messianic figure, so how does that impact our idea of a messiah? How does this relate to Christian depictions of Jesus? Superman appears human, but he is something superior, and he is from another world. Christianity wrestled with whether or not the idea of Jesus’ divinity meant the same for him or if there was a need to emphasize that he was as human as the rest of us. Is Jesus “like” us merely or is Jesus one of us? How one answers this questions says a lot about their Christology.
Francesca Stavrakopoulou was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 live about a variety of things related to the Christmas story: “Hebrew expert: ‘Virgin Birth a Mistranslation’”. One of those things is Matthew 1:23′s use of Isaiah 7:14 to argue that Jesus’ “virgin birth” was foretold by the prophet. She argues that since the Hebrew עלמה means “young woman”, unlike the LXX’s παρθένος, which means “virgin”, that the whole concept is based on a “mistranslation”.
T. Michael Law contest this claim, arguing that παρθένος is used in the LXX of Genesis to describe “young woman”, not necessarily “virgin”, and therefore it is an acceptable translation. You can read his response here: “Was the Virgin Birth a ‘mistranslation’?”
Let me know your thoughts on this video discussing Jesus’ use of Scripture featuring comments from Darrell Bock, Peter Williams, and Michael Licona. What does Jesus’ use of Scripture say about how Christians should read Scripture?
Tverberg, Lois. Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus: How the Jewish Words of Jesus Can Change Your Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012). (Amazon.com)
Lois Tverberg is the author of a recent book titled Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus. She sent me a copy to review (for which I’d like to thank her) since this blog discusses topics related to Second Temple Judaism, Jesus, and early Christianity. It is more of a “user friendly” book than is reviewed here usually, but it is one that I think many of this blog’s readers may find valuable.
Message of the Book
The aim of this book is quite simple: study the culture within which Jesus lived and his words and deeds will be given a new, enlightening nuance. I enjoy reading literature on this topic from a variety of people, whether it be N.T. Wright, E.P. Sanders, Amy-Jill Levine, Craig A. Evans, or a host of other authors who are experts on the historian’s Jesus. I know authors like Rob Bell, Ray Vander Laan, and to a different extent Kenneth E. Bailey have tried to include the discussion of scholars into their more popular literature (or like Wright, writing his own popular versions), but it is not common. Tverberg on the other hand as written one book already titled Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus and this is her second effort to help the “person in the pew” think about Jesus as a first-century Jew (though by no means does she remove the confessional/creedal affirmation about Jesus).
I admit that sometimes I am skeptical of these types of works. In an effort to talk about the historian’s Jesus there is the danger of anachronism, especially when it comes to the use of rabbinic sources, but even scholars can make the mistake of interpreting the historian’s Jesus through later works, so I read this book with a graceful eye knowing that the historian’s Jesus is a difficult character to grasp, especially when you come from a confessional background of one sort or another, and even when you do not come to the study having thought of Jesus in terms like “the second person of the Trinity”.
I should qualify that though this book does aim to revive the Jewishness of Jesus for the reader it is not strictly a work of history. Rather, it does engage in the reception history of rabbinic and Christian traditions, it is devotional, and it does include stories and examples that give contemporary meaning to living as a Christian in our modern world. Personally, I think it is a very useful book for something like a small group study at your local church with people who may never have the opportunity to read much about the historical studies surrounding Jesus of Nazareth.
Summary of the Content
The title of this book is based on a saying from Mishnah, Avot 1:4. Yose ben Yoeser is a second rabbinical figure of the second century BCE who is quoted here as having said that a disciple should “powder yourself with the dust of their feet”, “their” being that of one’s teacher.[1] The idea is that one should sit at the feet of their teacher or follow their teacher so closely that the dust that kick off his feet cover them. If this saying is nearly as old as it is attributed then Jesus’ disciples may have heard something like it and it may have had it in mind as they followed Jesus. This is the picture of discipleship Tverberg aims to present.
The book divides into three sections: I. Hearing Our Rabbi’s Words with New Ears; II. Living Out the Words of Rabbi Jesus; and III. Studying the Word with Rabbi Jesus.
In section I there are four chapters. Chapter 1: Brushing Away the Dust of the Ages is introductory. Tverberg talks a bit about how Gentile Christians have thought of Jesus as a Savior, as have Jewish Christians, but there was a sense among Jewish Christians that Jesus was their “rabbi” or “teacher” as well, something lost on many Gentile Christians.[2] This may be true, in part, when one examines contemporary Christianity, but I don’t know that the Patristic writings would deny the necessity of following the example of Jesus, even if not described in Jewish terminology like halakhah. It is a contemporary evangelical audience to whom Tverberg writes though and what she says about following Jesus’ example is true of many.
Tverberg does Christians a great service by making known to a popular audience some of the ideas circulating since E.P. Sanders’ Jesus and Palestinian Judaism forced scholars to rethink their language about first century Jews as legalistic and superstitious people who Jesus had to enlighten. Rather, Jesus was very much a Jew of his day engaged in the discussions being debated at that time. In many ways Jesus was unique in his teaching, but there is a lot of what Jesus said and did that is far from original with his person. I think this is good for lay audiences to know.
Tverberg presents her sources in this chapter: the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of Josephus, and the Gospels. She clarifies that she doesn’t mean to limit Jesus to the status of a mere rabbi. Instead, she wants to highlight that part of his reality as a teacher who called disciples. She wants to remind Christians that our religion was once called “the Way” or “the Path” based on the Hebraic concept of following a derekh and that Jesus talk his disciples how to “walk” in his way, or halakah.[3]
The remainder of section I examines Jesus’ teaching that the most important commandments in the Law are to (1) love the Lord your God with all your heart…. And (2) the one like it, love your neighbor as yourself (see Mt. 12:28-31). Tverberg admits that she was surprised as a younger Christian to find that Jesus’ words came from the heart of the Law, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, “two books I had read the least.”[4]
In Chapter 2: Shema: Living Out What You Hear she begins to delve into the Jewish Shema beginning with this word meaning something like “to hear with the intent to obey”. She ties this into Jesus’ words, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” Then she discusses the meaning of the word echad, often translated “one” (which has caused much debate between Jews and Christians over doctrines like the incarnation and Trinty), but she advocates the use of “alone” as in this God was Israel’s God “alone”. This frames it as a command to fidelity more than a mere creedal statement for monotheism.
In Chapter 3: Loving God with Everything You’ve Got Tverberg continues to explore the Shema asking how God could command “love”. She argues that “love” is not a mere emotion here, but a covenantal agreement of sorts, like the word hesed, which is discussed in this chapter as well. When this chapter ends the reader will have gone through a fairly extensive word study on the Shema with an aim for understanding how this may have impacted Jesus and his teachings and how it should impact our contemporary discipleship.
In Chapter 4: Meeting Myself Next Door Tverberg moves to the second commandment about loving one’s neighbor. She provides a helpful discussion on how important this teaching was for the early church. Then she moves to studying Leviticus 19:18 and its context which is a reminder that Israel was once slaves in a foreign land, therefore treat foreign guests with kindness. This introduces the debate in Jesus’ day over the meaning of “neighbor”, provides a context for Jesus’ story about the Samaritan, and asks how all of this fits into Jesus’ words in his prayer for God to forgive us and we forgive others.
Section II begins with Chapter 5: Gaining a Good Eye which examines Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:22-23 about the eye being filled with darkness or light. She argues that this saying is idiomatic meaning that having a “good eye” means to look out for others, especially the poor while having a “bad eye” means being selfish.[5] The remainder of the chapter examines Jesus’ teachings on charity and giving.
Chapter 6: The Mystery of the Name attempts to unpack the meaning of a “name” in the ancient world, e.g. when disciples baptized or did exorcisms “in the name of Jesus”. Tverberg introduces readers to the idiomatic expression’s relevance for presenting the authority of another. She discusses the lexical meaning of Jesus’ name, what coming in someone’s name meant, the idiom “in the name of a prophet…”, the “hallowing” of the name of God in the Lord’s Prayer, and what it means to profane a name (e.g., taking the “name” of the Lord in vain).
Chapter 7: How to Have a Kosher Mouth begins with a discussion on the role of the tongue on books like Proverbs and James and then delves into the ethics of speech: avoiding an evil tongue, slander, shaming others, and a variety of topics that include showing other dignity and not abusing them with one’s speech.
Chapter 8: Taking My Thumb Off the Scale includes a very relevant discussion on Jesus’ words about judging, especially when contrasted with Paul’s decision to tell the Corinthians to toss a member from their assembly. What does Jesus mean by “judgment” and how does our modern language around “judging others” skew our reading of the text? Tverberg guides the reader into thinking about this from a Jewish perspective, asking how anger and insults play into Jesus’ words as well as the picture of a scale being used at the local marketplace.
Chapter 9: Praying with Chutzpahargues that Jesus depicts God as appreciating someone with chutzpah or “utter nerve, sheer audacity that borders on obnoxiousness.”[6] She examines the story of the Syrophoenician woman (Mt. 15:21-28; Ml 7:25-30); Jesus’ parable about the unrighteous judge in Luke 18:2-5; the parable about the man who has unexpected guest from out of town in Luke 11:5-8; and Jesus’ words about “good gifts” in Matthew 7:9-11. She grounds this Jewish appreciation for chutzpah in Abraham, the father of the Jews (see Gen 18:23-25), and Moses (see Ex. 5:22-23). The chapter ends with some words on prayer, especially prayer for others.
Tverberg ends section II with Chapter 10: Thinking with Both Hands examines the Jewish tradition of shakla v’tarya, or “give and take”, where one person—like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof examining the tradition of a “match maker”—wrestles with a dilemma arguing internally for both sides. This approach to reality is found everywhere within Scripture—sometimes seen through western eyes as contradictions. One could think of Paul’s words on justification juxtaposed with James’ words on justification. Also, Jesus’ paradoxical words about “first” being “last” and “last” being “first” or losing life gains it and gaining life loses it. What would be contradictions to some are balanced views of the world in Scripture.
Tverberg transitions to a discussion on how some Laws—though all seen as having a divine origin—are seen as weightier than others. In this chapter she does a fine job of snuffing the tradition that Jews were panicky legalist seeking to avoid hell to gain heaven. She writes, “Contrary to our traditional Christian assumption, their discussions about the Law do not arise out of an anxious striving to earn one’s way to heaven. Jewish thought generally assumed that Jews were already saved, because God graciously chose Israel as his people. In their minds, the Law teaches them how to live in a way that pleases a loving God and upholds their covenantal relationship.”[7]
This invitation to “weigh laws” explains Jesus’ debates with the Pharisees over things like Sabbath far better than the old “legalism v. grace” paradigm. I think this may be one of the most valuable chapters for Christians who are used to this sort of approach to the Judaism of Jesus’ day. As much as scholarship has seen a paradigm shift it has taken a while for these ideas to “trickle down” to the church. Tverberg’s book as a more popular work can help bridge the gap.
The final section focuses the last four chapters on reading Scripture. Chapter 11: The Treasure of the Text reminds Christian readers that the Old Testament matters and that it is “floating” right below the surface of the text of the New Testament. Tverberg writes, “As Christians, we long to think the thoughts of Christ. But the stories he knew, the songs he sang, and the prophecies that shaped his earthly mission lie in the Old Testament.”[8]
The familiarity with Scripture reflected in the New Testament is attributed to the importance of reading Torah in the synagogue and the command for Jews to meditate and know the words of Scripture. Tverberg discusses parasha and haftarah readings (almost liturgical) and how this dedication to reading the text changed people.
Chapter 12: The Secret That God Keeps argues that the Jewish tradition has been aware that one can study Scripture their entire life and never know it all, or capture it, or find all the answers. This isn’t the goal of reading. Tverberg discusses God’s secrets in Daniel 12:8-9 and how this shapes the words of Acts 1:6-7 and Mark 13:32. The chapter includes sections on Messiah (Jesus) as interpreter of Torah, the ignorance of Job’s friends, and caution when studying eschatology.
Chapter 13: Our Longing Father challenges Marcionite thinking that denies (whether implicitly or explicitly) that the God of Israel in the Old Testament is the Father of Jesus in the New Testament. Tverberg emphasizes the God shown to us by Jesus as being a God of emotion and feeling, not an unmoved mover, but a real “personal” deity as seen in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. She examines a variety of Old Testament texts that speak of God in the same way, as loving, gracious, patient, caring. She presents the God of Jesus as being one who is not indifferent, or an “unmoved mover”, but a God who loves, actively.
Chapter 14: God’s Image Stamped in Dust is the final chapter of the book. It is a study of the imago Dei concept from Genesis 1:26-27 and how that fits into Jewish thinking and the teachings of Jesus.
At the end of each chapter there are a series of discussion questions under the titled “Wisdom for the Walk”. The book has a forward by Ray Vander Laan and an afterword from Ann Spangler. The book uses endnotes, at the end of the book, not the chapter. Finally, there is a glossary of terms and recommended resources for further reading that include respected authors such as Kenneth E. Bailey, Craig A. Evans, Abraham Heschel, and Brad Young as well as various online resources.
Concluding Thoughts
This book would be a great resource for small group leaders or the Sunday school class of a local church. I think Lois Tverberg has a lot of helpful points to make that evangelicals ought to hear and she puts it in the type of readable format that allows her to gain an audience. It is an enjoyable read. It is applicable. It is pastoral. It is informative. I learned from it and I imagine others will as well.
In my recent entry “Three hermeneutical paradigms to use when studying the doctrine of the virgin birth” I referred to the use of Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:23 as “awkward”. I was questioned about this, and I tried to provide my rational in response, but I think I may have found a more articulate way of saying what I was aiming to say. In Craig A. Evans’ Matthew (NCBC) he represents the view I hold and he frames things quite well. I have decided to reproduce it here.
As Evans completes his commentary on the infancy narrative he writes:
“At this point, we may inquire more closely into the question of historicity. Some commentators have suggested that the various components of the infancy narrative were produced through theological and typological interpretation of the scriptures of Israel. According to this line of thought, early Christian interpreters and apologist combed through the scriptures looking for clarification of the significance pf the life, ministry, and death of Jesus. Various texts, or ‘prophecies,’ were identified, which in turn created narratives. Understood this way, the infancy stories of the miraculous conception (Matt 1:18-25), the birth in Bethlehem and the inquiry of the magi (Matt 2:1-12), the flight to Egypt (Matt 2:13-15), and the murder of the infant (Matt 2:16-18) are not actual events in history but theological and midrashic creations.”
I should pause here to comment that Evans is not denying that the church studied the Scriptures to understand the meaning of Jesus. What he is denying is that in doing this there were a variety of obscure passages plucked from the text for no apparent reasons and applied to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. When it comes to these aspects of the infancy narrative of Matthew it seems quite odd that these passages would be chosen. Evans explains:
“All of this is possible, of course, but the evidence for it and the logic behind it are not as compelling as some think. It is not at all clear that the prophecy of Isa 7:14 would have given rise to a story about a virginal conception. There is no history of interpretation that anticipates either a miraculous conception or a messianic identity of the child in Isaiah 7. Neither was there an expectation that the Messiah was to be born of a virgin. Indeed, had the conception and birth of Jesus been conventional, one wonders why anyone would have introduced a story involving a divine conception. Such a story would have created difficulties, for in Jewish circles it could have been viewed in terms of pagan mythology, in which a god produces a child through intercourse with a mortal woman. It is more likely that Mary’s conception was indeed unexpected and unusual, and given the outcome– the amazing power of Jesus demonstrated in his public ministry and his astounding resurrection following his passion– the claim of his conception bu an act of the Holy Spirit of God becomes plausible.”
In other words, there was a tradition about the uniqueness of Jesus’ birth that informed Matthew’s exegesis of Isaiah rather than the text of Isaiah inspiring Matthew’s tradition about the uniqueness of Jesus’ birth. There is no need for a divine messiah, and even if someone thought messiah to be divine, there is no evidence that anyone thought this was possible through a virgin birth alone. Of course, the more skeptical readers of Matthew will not find this argument convincing, but I admit that it is an argument like this one that has caused me to pause when I hear people speak of Matthew creating a virgin birth story. Even if Matthew was being apologetic in defense of Mary’s reputation wasn’t an appeal to Joseph as Jesus’ legitimate father an easier answer than a virgin birth?
Evans concludes his thoughts with the following:
“It is probably better to see the tradition of Mary’s unusual conception and the belief that it was of God’s Spirit as generating an appeal to Scripture, not the Scripture generating the story of Mary’s immaculate conception. In other words, Isa 7:14 was understood to explain the irregularities surrounding the conception and birth of Jesus. The prophecy of Isaiah not only foreshadows the unusual conception of Jesus but places in into the context of Israel’s history, in which God’s saving work is revealed.” (p. 63)
Yesterday I shared some thoughts on hermeneutics, the language of faith when discussing doctrines like the virgin birth, and the historical-critical approach to studying Jesus in “Three hermeneutical paradigms to use when studying the doctrine of the virgin birth.” Later in the day someone posted a video that Greg Boyd put on YouTube on Sunday where he attempts to answer the question, “How can something as important as faith in Christ depend on the accuracy of information about the historical Jesus, when our evaluation of the veracity of historical information can never rise above the level of the more or less probable?” Since it is relevant to yesterday’s post I thought I’d share it here. Let me know your thoughts!
I have been reading Jonathan T. Pennington‘s marvelous new book Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introductionand it has helped me a lot when it comes to thinking about hermeneutics, particularly the function of the historical-critical/grammatical approach juxtaposed with literary readings and canonical/theological readings. In “Chapter Five: Texts and History: The Testimony of the Fourfold Witness” Pennington examines the historical-critical approach, explains it value, and critiques its weaknesses. For Pennington the danger of putting all our eggs into the historical-critical/grammatical basket is that this is limits our reading of the Gospels, refuses to listen to the Gospels as the Gospels are designed to be heard, and ignores the limitations of the historical-critical/grammatical hermeneutic (as well as recent criticisms from the field of philosophical hermeneutics, exemplified by the likes of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricour to name a couple). The Gospels make claims that presuppose things like the existence of Israel’s God and you cannot appeal to deity when doing critical historical studies. There are some things that can be understood about Jesus through historical-critical study, but one can never reach the theological claims of the church through this approach. This is a danger Pennington thinks we must avoid, but he doesn’t think the answer to the problem of the historical-critical lens is one that abandons the importance of history like a Docetic Christology. He writes:
“If we approach the Gospels only as repositories of grand theological ideas and ideals, divorced from the historical reality of the incarnation and the resurrection, then we lose the history. Yet if we (even as believers) draw near to the Gospels thinking we must abandon all orthodox, creedal, and ecclesial notions and constraints on our reading or, less strictly, at least grow our theological construction in pure historical soil, then we not only fool ourselves in these possibilities, but we also deny the canonical nature of the Gospels.” (Kindle Location 2354)
He concludes that the language of “testimony” as presented by Richard Bauckham is a better avenue upon which one can approach studying the Gospels from a confessional perspective. Testimony honors both the aim of these works as a form of bios claiming to speak about historical events as well as recognizing that the theological claims of the Gospels move into a new frontier making the Gospels a unique subcategory of bioi. Likewise, testimony doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that historiography ancient or modern can ever be anything but interpretive (i.e., never fully objective as some claim). Since all history is interpretation the Gospels as testimony about Jesus care about historical events as interpreted through the apostolic kerygma.
Jonathan T. Pennington
I won’t delve much further into Pennington’s argument against limiting ourselves to the historical-critical approach—because it would be unfair to the author for me to try to condense a very well written, thoughtful chapter into a short blog post—but I will (1) encourage you to read this book; (2) provide a book review on this blog when I finish it; and (3) share the approach Pennington suggest for people who read the Gospels both as testimony of historical events and Scripture.
Pennington advocates reading the Gospels from multiple hermeneutical paradigms. He writes, “…my goal in reading is interwoven with the biblical idea of wisdom more than the modern scientific idea of knowledge, understood narrowly and impersonally.” (Kindle Location 2431) So in “Chapter Six: Reading Holy Scripture Well” he provides “three avenues of reading” that I will share and then use as a way to approach studying the doctrine of the virgin birth so that you can understand where Pennington is trying to take his readers.
First, “Behind the Text” or Historical, which includes redaction, form, and source criticism, social-scientific criticism, historical criticism, grammatical-historical exegesis, and movements like the Quest(s) for the historical (historian’s) Jesus.
Second, “In the Text” or Literary, which focuses on literary criticism, genre analysis, narrative criticism, composition criticism, and intertextuality.
Third, “In Front of the Text” or Canonical/Theological, which includes the history of interpretation, reception, history, Wirkungsgeshichte, biblical theology, redemptive history, theological reading, Regula fidei, figural reading, and intertextuality.
Let’s examine the doctrine of the virgin birth from these angles. First, the “Behind the Text” approach aims to understand not the message of the text itself alone, but the culture within which it was proclaimed. Honestly, if we use traditional historical-critical criteria as found in academic discussion we will not arrive at a virgin birth because solutions that cannot be reached by means of methodological naturalism are disqualified immediately. In other words, when doing history in this context, we cannot say, “Well, yes, it is impossible for this to happen, but God…” This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, if we acknowledge the “language game” in which we chose to partake if we do academic history. If a scholar of Islam happened to be a confessing Muslim we Christians would question his academic biography on the Prophet Muhammad if when s/he reached the tradition about the Prophet’s ascent into heaven s/he begged-the-question by telling readers, “This happened because Allah…” This is not to say that it is impossible in reality that Allah accepted the Prophet into heaven, but rather that there are limitations on doing academic history that attempt to prevent any and every suggestion from having the same value (e.g., the abduction of a famous person is easier explained as having a human protagonist, even if the mystery is never solved as to who did it, than it is an alien from space, even if the alien theory is theoretically possible it is not the most probable).
On the other hand, historical-grammatical readings of the text might have more wiggle-room when it comes to discussing the doctrine of the virgin birth. In fact, I propose that most evangelical scholars who delve into historical research do so from a historical-grammatical angle rather than a historical-critical one. In the words of Gadamer the difference is between approaching a text with the hermeneutical of suspicion over against the hermeneutic of trust. Christians, even when engaging these texts as historians, tend to give the authors to benefit of a doubt in a way that a scholar who is not a Christian is not likely to do. This is not to say that one is better or more objective in my opinion. There are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches. For example, if Jesus did not resurrect from the dead a confessional scholar is not likely to see this because of the presuppositions brought to the study of the proclaimed event. Likewise, a skeptical scholar is not likely to come to affirm the reality of the resurrection, even if it did happen, because of the presuppositions brought to the study of the proclaimed event. I don’t mean to say that it is “all relative”, but it is subjective, always.
The historical-grammatical reading aims to make sense of a proclaimed event by means of studying the historical context in which it was proclaimed (e.g., the resurrection can be understood as a event proclaimed to have happened in first century Judea, near Jerusalem, under Roman governance, and so forth, and honestly, the presuppositions with which one approaches this topic will likely inform how this historical data “functions”, just compare the works of people like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan to others like N.T. Wright or Michael Licona). So when one studies the doctrine of the virgin birth through a historical-grammatical lens it might be one and the same with the historical-critical, or it may be from a confessional standpoint where the virgin birth is understood as something that did happen, and then the study of everything from ancient womanhood, birth practices, first century Bethlehem, and other factors will be considered.
The “In the Text” is not concerned with the historical events within which the doctrine of the virgin birth is proclaimed. Even the Synoptic Problem falls into the first category better, though there are points of contact. This second approach may study things like how the doctrine of the virgin birth is proclaimed in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and how this claims fits into the immediate narrative and how that narrative fits into the larger message of the Gospel. This approach can be used by the atheist scholar who doesn’t find these Gospels to produce much truth as well as the pastor who is preparing a sermon for Sunday and who wants to make sure that s/he proclaims a particular text in such a way that the literary message is received by the audience. One could discuss how the doctrine of the virgin birth fits into the message of the beginning of the Gospel of Luke without ever discussing the archaeology of Bethlehem, the socio-cultural role of “shepherds” in the first century, and other elements that are “Behind the Text”, though very helpful to understanding the text itself.
Finally, we have the approach that is “In Front of the Text”, i.e., an acceptable presupposition that informs how we read a text. For example, if one reads the Gospel of Matthew from approaches one or two it doesn’t matter all that much whether the Old Testament canon ends with Malachi as we find in the Christian tradition or Chronicles as it does in most versions of the Hebrew Bible. In this third paradigm it does matter though because Malachi ends with a proclamation to remember the Law of Moses and a promise to send the prophet Elijah before the “Day of the Lord” (4:4-6) whereas the Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy of “Jesus the Messiah” (1:1), describes his birth of a virgin, the visit of the magi, the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents, and then we have “Elijah”, or John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness. If you use approaches one or two you want to read Luke-Acts together, but if you read it canonically you know that John recreates the contexts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and ends the fourfold Gospel transitioning to Acts which moves through the sequence of three main figures—Jesus to Peter to Paul—which then escorts the reader into Romans, the gateway and interpretive key to the Pauline corpus. Canonically Matthew transitions readers from the Old Testament to the fulfillment of the Old Testament, Jesus. Acts transitions from Jesus to his authoritative apostles, including Paul, and validates the Pauline corpus that comes next (I owe these insights to Brevard Childs).
Is there a way (singular) to approach the Gospels? Pennington will suggest “no” if you are a Christian. I concur. If you are a Christian willing to discuss the “historian’s Jesus” then you must enter that language game knowing what you can and cannot say and prove about Jesus. The goal and aim is to show that some really important things can be said about Jesus, even through the limitations of modern critical historiography, e.g., Jesus was a first century Jew; Jesus was remembered as a miracle worker and an exorcist; Jesus was crucified; Jesus’ followers did not disperse but became convinced for some reason that the eschatological resurrection of the dead has an “already, but not yet” exception in Jesus of Nazareth and they were willing to die for their believe. All of this is fantastically interesting, but you can’t secure the confession that the Spirit has raised Jesus from the dead, or that Jesus has been made Lord and Christ, or that Jesus is the Logos of God, or that Jesus is the second person of the one God as Trinity.
I think the historical-critical method is immensely valuable, as does Pennington, but it does have limitations. It is a matter of epistemology (what can we “know” through the restraints of academic historiography?), rather than objective truth (the dozens upon dozens of historical Jesus models you will find should be sufficient evidence of this). Sometimes the use of the Gospels to get “Behind the Text” to the historical Jesus misleads us into misreading the Gospels themselves. We ignore the message of the evangelists about Jesus for some piece of solid footing upon which we can reconstruct Jesus. Again, this is good and necessary in certain venues, but it doesn’t determine truth.
Likewise, the third approach tells us a bit about how Christians should read Scripture as Christians in the ancient-to-contemporary community of the faithful. If we use the historical critical approach we may conclude that Mark as the earliest Gospel shows no interest in a virgin birth, so he did not know about it or (from a more skeptical view) the myth had not been invented when Mark was composed. Matthew received or invented the tradition somewhere. Luke received it somewhere, maybe from Matthew. John’s Logos Christology doesn’t need a virgin birth as long as you affirm that Jesus is the Son of God come from God the Father in heaven. A canonical/theological reading realizes that Mark doesn’t need the virgin birth if it doesn’t fit the literary message because the Spirit has provided this proclamation in Matthew and Luke, already, and that John’s Logos Christology should be interpreted canonically, meaning, the Logos of God entered this world through the virgin birth—this is the beginning of how Christians discuss Christology in the language of faith.
All three approaches have value. Where we Christians struggle at times is realizing that these different approaches are different language games sometimes intended for a variety of audiences. When we try to use the historical-critical method apologetically to “prove” something like the doctrine of the virgin birth we have gone the wrong direction, not because it didn’t happen in space-time history, but because historical-critical methodology includes the presupposition of methodological naturalism, something that can never “discover” a virgin birth anymore than one may have been able to discover Jesus was born of a virgin if his DNA was studied to examine the genetics of his “father”. We can believe in the doctrine of the virgin birth from a confessional perspective, and we may have decent reasons for believing it happened historically (e.g., Matthews awkward use of Isaiah 7:14 leads me to think Matthew already believed in the doctrine and he sought a passage of Scripture to support it, rather than he happened to read Isaiah 7:14 one day and thought, “This proves Jesus was born of a virgin!”), but we cannot prove it historical-critically, and that is OK. We must recover some comfort with speaking the language of faith and sometimes faith demands that we speak of things catholically, rather than individualistically, as if something can be true if and only if I can verify it through means that make me the final authority, rather than the church and the Scripture of the church.
